Best Friend to Wife and Mother?

by Caroline Anderson

  He nodded to his father, who nodded back, pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket to set the ball rolling with their catering team, and with a brief nod to the vicar, Leo strode swiftly down the aisle and out of the church after Amy.

  The sun warmed him, the gentle rays bringing the life back into his limbs, and he realised he’d been stone cold at the prospect of watching her make a disastrous mistake. He flexed his fingers as he walked over to the vintage Bentley and peered inside.

  She was in there, perched on the seat in a billowing cloud of tulle and lace, surrounded by her mother and bridesmaids all clucking like mother hens, and the villagers gathered around the gate were agog. As well they might be.

  He ducked his head inside the car.

  ‘Amy?’ he murmured, and she stared blankly up at him. She looked lost, shocked and confused and just a little crazy, and he could read the desperate appeal in her eyes.

  ‘Take her home, I’ll follow,’ he instructed the driver tersely, and as the car whisked her away one of the crowd at the gate yelled, ‘What’s going on, Leo?’

  He didn’t answer. They could see what was going on, they just didn’t know why, and he had better things to do than stand around and tittle-tattle. He turned to scan the throng of puzzled guests spilling out of the church, milling aimlessly around, unsure of what to do next, and in the midst of them he found his parents heading towards him.

  ‘Is she all right?’ his mother asked worriedly, and he nodded.

  ‘I think so. She will be. Let’s get out of here. We’ve got things to do.’

  * * *

  She’d done it.

  Stopped the train and run away—from Nick, from the certainty of her carefully planned and mapped-out future, from everything that made up her life, and she felt lost. Cast adrift, swamped by a million conflicting emotions, unsure of what to do or think or feel.

  Actually, she couldn’t feel anything much. Just numbness, a sort of strange hollowness deep in her chest as if there was nothing there any more.

  Better than the ice-cold dread of doing the wrong thing, but not much.

  She tugged off her veil, handing it to her bridesmaids. If she could she would have taken the dress off, too, there and then. She couldn’t get out of it fast enough. Couldn’t get out of all of it fast enough, the church, the dress, the car—the country?

  She almost laughed, but the hysteria bubbling in her throat threatened to turn to tears so she clamped her teeth shut and crushed it ruthlessly down. Not now. Not yet.

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’ Her mother’s face was troubled but calm, and Amy heaved a shaky sigh of relief. At least she wasn’t going off the deep end. Not that her mother was a deep-end kind of person, but you never knew. And her daughter hadn’t ever jilted anyone at the altar before, so the situation wasn’t exactly tried and tested.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m really sorry, Mum.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s the first sensible thing you’ve done for months.’

  Amy stared at her, astonished. ‘I thought you liked him?’

  ‘I do like him! He’s lovely. I just don’t think he’s right for you. You don’t have that spark.’

  Not her, too, joining in with her alter ego and reminding her she’d been about to do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons and should have pulled out much, much earlier.

  Or he should. Both of them, for everyone’s sake. Oh, what a mess!

  The car door opened, and she realised they’d come to rest on the drive. Gathering up her skirts, she climbed awkwardly out and headed for the front door. Her mother unlocked it and pushed it open and Amy was swept inside on the tide of her redundant bridesmaids, into the hallway of the house she’d left such a short time before as a bride on the brink of a nice, safe, sensible marriage. Now she was—she didn’t know what she was.

  A runaway bride?

  Such a cliché. She gave a smothered laugh and shook her head.

  ‘I need to get out of this dress,’ she muttered, kicking off her shoes and heading for the stairs and the sanctuary of her bedroom.

  ‘I’ll come,’ her mother said, and they all fell in behind her, threatening to suffocate her with kindness.

  She paused on the third stair and turned back. ‘No, Mum. Actually, none of you. I think I’d like to be alone for a moment.’

  They ground to a halt, three pairs of worried eyes studying her. Checking to see if she’d lost her marbles, probably. Wrong. She’d just found them, at the absolutely last minute. Oh, Nick, I’m sorry...

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ her mother asked, her face creased with concern.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, more firmly this time. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Sure about everything except what her future held. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything stupid.’ Or at least, nothing as stupid as marrying the wrong man would have been. Not that she knew who the right one was, or how she’d recognise him. She seemed to have a gift for getting it wrong.

  They were all still standing there as if they didn’t know what to do now their carefully planned schedule had been thrown out the window, but it was no good asking her. She didn’t have a clue. She turned back to the stairs, putting one foot in front of the other, skirts bunched in her quivering hands.

  ‘Shall I bring you up a cup of tea?’ her mother asked, breaking the silence.

  Tea. Of course. The universal panacea. And it would give her mother something to do. ‘That would be lovely, Mum. Whenever you’re ready. Don’t rush.’

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Her mother disappeared into the kitchen, the bridesmaids trailing in her wake as one after the other they came out of their trances, and she made it to the safety of her bedroom and shut the door before the bubble burst and the first tears fell.

  Odd, that she was crying when she felt so little. It was just a release of tension, but without the tension there was nothing, just a yawning chasm opening up in front of her, and she thought she was going to fall apart. Pressing her hand to her mouth to stifle the sobs, she slid down the door, crumpling to the floor in a billowing cloud of lace and petticoats, and let the floodgates open.

  * * *

  He had to get to her.

  He could only imagine what state she was in, but that look in her eyes when she’d glanced up in the car—

  He pulled up on the driveway of his family home, and after checking that the baby was all right and the catering was under control he headed through the gate in the fence into Amy’s garden and tapped on the kitchen door.

  Amy’s mother let him in, her face troubled. ‘Oh, Leo, I’m so glad you’re here,’ she said, and hugged him briefly, her composure wobbling for a second.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. She’s gone upstairs. She wouldn’t let us go—said she needed to be alone. I’ve made her a cup of tea, I was just about to take it up.’

  ‘Give it to me. I’ll go and talk to her. This is my fault.’

  ‘Your fault?’

  He gave her a wry smile. ‘I asked her if she was sure.’

  Jill smiled back at him and kissed his cheek. ‘Well, thank God you did, Leo. I haven’t had the guts. Here, take it. And get her out of here, can you? She doesn’t need all this hoopla.’

  He nodded, took the tea and headed for the stairs. Her bedroom was over the kitchen, with a perfect view of the marquee on his parents’ lawn and the steady stream of guests who were arriving for the wedding reception that wasn’t.

  Damn.

  He crossed the landing and tapped on her bedroom door.

  * * *

  Someone was knocking.

  Her mother, probably. She dropped her head back against the door and sucked in a breath. She wasn’t ready to face her. Wasn’t ready to face anyone—

 
‘Amy? Can I come in?’

  Leo. Her mother must have sent him up. She heard the knob turn, could feel the door gently pushing her in the back, but she couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. She wanted to stay there for ever, hiding from everyone, until she’d worked out what had happened and what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

  His voice came through the door again, low and gentle. ‘Amy? Let me in, sweetheart. I’ve got a cup of tea for you.’

  It was the tea that made her move. That, and the reassuring normality of his voice. She shuffled over, hauling her voluminous skirts with her, and he pushed the door gently inwards until he could squeeze past it and shut it behind him.

  She sniffed hard, and she heard him tutting softly. He crouched down, his face coming into view, his eyes scanning the mess her face must be. She scrubbed her cheeks with her hands and he held out a wad of tissues.

  He’d even come prepared, she thought, and the tears began again.

  She heard the soft click of his tongue as he tutted again, the gentle touch of his hand on her hair. ‘Oh, Amy.’

  He put the tea down, sat on the floor next to her and hauled her into his arms. ‘Come here, you silly thing. You’ll be OK. It’ll all work out in the end.’

  ‘Will it? How? What am I going to do?’ she mumbled into his shoulder, busily shredding the sodden tissues in her lap. ‘I’ve given up my job, I’d already given up my flat—we were about to move out of his flat and buy a family house and have babies, and I was going to try going freelance with my photography, and now...I don’t have a life any more, Leo. It’s all gone, every part of it. I just walked away from it and I feel as if I’ve stepped off a cliff. I must be mad!’

  Leo’s heart contracted.

  Poor Amy. She sounded utterly lost, and it tugged at something deep inside him, some part of him that had spent years protecting her from the fallout of her impulsive nature. He hugged her closer, rocking her gently against his chest. ‘I don’t think you’re mad. I think it’s the first sensible thing you’ve done in ages,’ he told her gently, echoing her mother’s words.

  She shifted so she could see his face. ‘How come everybody else knew this except me?’ she said plaintively. ‘Why am I so stupid?’

  ‘You aren’t stupid. He’s a nice guy. He’s just not the right man for you. If he was, you wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment, and nor would he. And it didn’t seem to me as if you’d broken his heart. Quite the opposite.’

  ‘No.’ There’d been nothing heartbroken, she thought, about the flash of relief in his eyes in that fleeting moment. Sadness, yes, but no heartbreak. ‘I suppose he was just doing the decent thing.’

  Leo’s eyes clouded and he turned away. ‘Yeah. Trust me, it doesn’t work.’

  ‘Was that what you did?’ she asked him, momentarily distracted from her own self-induced catastrophe. ‘The decent thing? When you married the wrong person for the wrong reasons?’

  A muscle bunched in his jaw. ‘Something like that. Are you going to drink this tea or not?’

  She took the mug that he was holding out to her, cradled it in both hands and sighed shakily.

  ‘You OK now?’

  She nodded. She was, she realised. Just about, so long as she didn’t have to make any more decisions, because clearly she was unqualified in that department. She sipped her tea, lifted her head and rested it back against the wall with another shaky little sigh. ‘I will be. I don’t know; I just feel—I can’t explain—as if I can’t trust myself any more. I don’t know who I am, and I thought I knew. Does that make sense, Leo?’

  ‘Absolutely. Been there, done that, worn out the T-shirt.’

  She turned to him, searching his face and finding only kindness and concern. No reproach. No disappointment in her. Just Leo, doing what he always did, getting her out of the mess she’d got herself into.

  Again.

  ‘Leo, will you get me out of here?’ she asked unevenly. ‘I can’t stay here, not with all this...’

  ‘Of course I will. That’s what I’m here for.’

  ‘To rescue me? Poor you. I bet you thought you were done with all that at last.’

  ‘What, me? Change the habits of a lifetime?’ he teased, and she had to laugh, even though it wasn’t really remotely funny.

  She glanced down at herself, then at him. He’d abandoned the tailcoat, loosened the rose-pink cravat which showed off his olive skin to perfection, and turned back the cuffs on his immaculate white shirt to reveal strong wrists above hands criss-crossed with fine white scars. Chef’s hands, he called them, but the scars didn’t detract from his appeal, not in any way. He’d been fighting girls off with a stick since he’d hit puberty, and the scars hadn’t put them off at all.

  She managed a small smile. ‘We might have to change first, before we go.’

  His lips quirked. ‘You think? I thought I looked rather good like this.’

  So did she, but then she thought he looked good in anything.

  ‘You do, but if the press catch a glimpse of us, they’ll think the nation’s favourite celebrity chef’s secretly tied the knot again,’ she said, her mouth on autopilot, and his face clouded.

  ‘Yeah, well, it’ll be a cold day in hell before that ever happens,’ he said tightly, and she could have kicked herself for blundering all over such a sensitive area. She closed her eyes and let out an anguished sigh.

  ‘Oh, God, Leo, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I said that—’

  ‘It’s OK, it doesn’t matter, and you’re quite right. I don’t need that sort of publicity, and neither do you.’ He smiled fleetingly, then looked away again. ‘So, anywhere in particular you want to go?’

  ‘I don’t know. Got any ideas?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not really. My house is still crawling with builders, and I have to fly to Tuscany tomorrow on business.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her heart sank at the thought of him going, and she felt her smile slip. ‘I don’t suppose you want to smuggle me out there in your luggage?’ she joked weakly, and propped up her wavering smile. ‘I promise not to be a nuisance.’

  ‘How many times have I heard you say that?’ he murmured drily, and she felt a wash of guilt flood over her.

  He was right—she was always imposing on him, getting him to extract her from one mess or another. Or she had done, back in the days when they really had been best friends. And that was years ago.

  She forced herself to ease away from him, to stop leaning on him, both metaphorically and physically. Time to get out her big girl pants and put their friendship on a more equal and adult footing.

  She scraped up the last smile in the bottom of the bucket and plastered it on her face.

  ‘I’m sorry, I was only joking. I know you can’t. Don’t worry about me, Leo, I’ll be all right. It’s my mess, I’ll clear it up.’

  Somehow...

  CHAPTER TWO

  HE COULDN’T DO IT.

  He couldn’t desert her when her life had just turned upside down—and anyway, it might well be the perfect solution for both of them.

  He’d been worrying about leaving tomorrow and abandoning her with the repercussions of all this, worrying about how he was going to juggle his tiny daughter and business meetings, and here was the answer, on a plate. Unless...

  He studied her thoughtfully, searching her face for clues. ‘Were you joking about coming with me? Because if not, it could be a great idea. Not the smuggling, obviously, but if you did it could solve both our problems.’

  A tiny frown appeared. ‘You’ve got a problem?’

  He nodded. ‘Sort of. I’ve got meetings to go to, and business and babies don’t mix. Normally I’d leave Ella behind with my parents, but this is going to be for several days and it’s not fair on them at their age, especially on top of the wedding—and don�
�t say it,’ he added, pressing a finger lightly on her lips to stifle the apology he knew was coming.

  She took hold of his hand and moved it away. ‘Why not, since it’s true? It is my fault, and they’ve gone to so much trouble—’

  He pulled his hand back and placed it firmly over her mouth to silence her before she got back onto that again.

  ‘I don’t want to argue, Amy. Hear me out. Please?’

  She nodded, and he lowered his hand and carried on. ‘I like to be there for Ella every day, even if it’s only for part of it, even if it means dragging her around with me. It’s the only way I’ve been able to look after her and my business, and it’s a precarious balance that so far seems to be working. I don’t want to upset that balance, abandon her for days and nights on end—and anyway, shortly after I get back I start filming the next TV series for eight weeks or so, and I’m going to need my parents’ goodwill for that. If you would come to Italy with us and look after her just while I’m in the meetings, it would be amazingly helpful.’

  Amy eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Really? You mean it? I was only joking, really. I didn’t expect you to say yes. I was just trying to—I don’t know. Make light of it, really. I don’t want to be a burden to you.’

  ‘Absolutely I mean it, and you wouldn’t be a burden. Not at all. You’d be a real help. I’m trying to set up a contract with a family there to supply our restaurants. I tasted some of their products at a trade fair, and I was really impressed. I want to see how they operate, taste the whole range, negotiate the price and see if we can strike a deal. And doing all that with Ella on my hip really won’t work.’

  She laughed a little wryly. ‘No, I can see that. Not exactly professional, and not really fair on her, either.’

  ‘No, it isn’t, and she’s my top priority. If necessary, I’d cut the trip short rather than compromise my relationship with her, but I don’t want to have to do that, because this is a really great business opportunity and it could be important for her future as well as mine.