Best Friend to Wife and Mother?

by Caroline Anderson

  Under other circumstances, it would have been romantic. Not tonight, when he was sitting here waiting for Amy and wondering how long he could leave it before he went to find her. Because he would have to, he knew that.

  Oh, Amy. What a mess.

  What was she doing? What was she thinking? He shouldn’t have left her like that, but he hadn’t trusted himself to get closer to her, to reach out to her, because if he once let himself touch her, that one touch would never be enough and there was no way—no way—that he was going there. Not with Amy. He was a mess, his life in tatters, the last thing she needed when she was so emotionally fragile. Not even he with his appalling track record could betray her trust to that extent.

  He heard a door creak slightly, the click of a latch, water running, the muffled sound of her bedclothes as she got into bed a few moments later. The doors of her room were open to the terrace, as were his, and he listened for any further sound.

  Nothing. Then a soft, shaky sigh, followed by a dull thump—punching her pillow into shape?

  He put his glass down, got up and crossed the gravel, standing silently in the open doorway. She was lying on her side, facing him. Her eyes were open, watching him, waiting for him to move or speak, to do something, but he couldn’t. He had no idea what to say to her in these circumstances, so he just stood there and ached with regret. He couldn’t bear to lose her friendship, and he was horribly afraid that was the way it was heading.

  ‘What have I ever done to make you ashamed of me?’

  Her voice was soft, barely a whisper, but it shocked him to the core.

  ‘I’m not ashamed of you,’ he said, appalled that that was what she’d been thinking. ‘Amy, no! Don’t ever think that! I’m not ashamed of you, not in the slightest, and I never have been.’

  ‘But—you said...’

  She trailed off, sitting up in the bed, arms wrapped around her knees defensively, and in the good old days he would have thought nothing of climbing on the bed and hugging her. Not now. Not with this demon of desire stalking them both. He rammed his hands through his hair and gave a ragged sigh.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that. Really. Believe me. I’m sorry—I’m really so sorry—if you misunderstood, but it isn’t, and it never has been, and it never will be you that I’m ashamed of. It’s me, the things I’ve done, the people I’ve hurt.’ He sighed wearily. ‘I need to tell you about Lisa, don’t I?’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ she said, her voice stronger now, making his guilt twinge, ‘because I don’t know who you are any more and I can’t help you like this. Not really. Sometimes I think I understand you, but then you say something, and—it just confuses me, Leo. Tell me what it is that’s happened that’s destroying you,’ she pleaded, her eyes dark holes, featureless in the faint light, unreadable. ‘Help me to understand what’s hurting you.’

  He hesitated for a moment, then gave another quiet sigh. ‘OK. But not here, like this. Come outside. Have some wine with me. I picked up a bottle from the kitchen on the way back and I need help drinking it or I’m going to have a killer hangover. I’ll get you a glass.’

  He checked Ella as he passed, fetched another glass from the kitchen and went back out to the terrace and found her waiting for him.

  She was curled into one corner of the bench, her arms wrapped round her legs. He recognised it, that defensive posture, shielding herself from hurt, the wide, wary eyes and wounded mouth making her look like a child again. A hurt and frightened child, but she wasn’t a child. Not any more. And that just made it all the more complicated.

  He sat down at the other end of the bench at a nice, safe distance, put the wine glass down between them next to his and filled them both.

  ‘Here.’

  She reached out and took it from him, her fingers brushing his, and he felt them tremble. ‘So—Lisa,’ she said, retreating back into the corner with her wine glass. ‘What happened between you that’s changed you so much, Leo?’

  ‘It hasn’t changed me.’

  ‘It has. Of course it has. It’s taken the life out of you. Most of the time you’re fine, and then, bang, the shutters come down and you retreat. The only time you really relax is when you’re with Ella, and even then there’s something wrong. I thought at first it was grief, but it isn’t, is it? It’s regret, but why? What happened that you regret so much, that you’re so ashamed of?’

  How had he thought she looked like a child? She was looking at him now with the eyes of a sage, coaxing him to unburden himself, and once he started, he found he couldn’t stop.

  ‘I didn’t love her,’ he began. ‘It was just a casual fling. She was part of the team on the last TV series. I’d never spoken to her, but she must have decided she’d like a piece of me as a trophy so she engineered an invitation to the party to celebrate finishing the filming, cosied up to me and—well, she got pregnant. I thought I’d taken care of that, but she told me much later she’d sabotaged it, and she didn’t show a shred of remorse. And at the time she didn’t seem shocked or upset by the surprise pregnancy. Far from it. Not until the whole situation became much more of a reality, and then she just went into meltdown.’

  ‘So you didn’t love her? You married her just because she was pregnant?’

  He gave her a wintry smile. ‘Just because?’

  Amy found herself smiling back, but she wanted to cry for him, for what she’d heard in his voice. ‘You could have said no to her instead of doing the decent thing.’

  ‘Except that it was my fault. She’d had too much to drink, I shouldn’t have done it.’

  ‘Was she very drunk?’ she probed.

  ‘I thought so, but she might have been acting. But then, to be fair, I wasn’t exactly sober so it’s hard to tell. It was quite a party, and I suspect my drink was being well and truly spiked by her. And that was only the first time. She stayed all weekend—’

  ‘You took her back to yours?’ To his flat over the restaurant? The place they’d sat and talked long into the night, over and over again? She knew it was ridiculous, knew he must have taken countless women there, but still she felt betrayed.

  ‘The party was at the London restaurant. I lived above it. Where else would I take her?’

  ‘Anywhere in the world?’ she suggested, and he gave a rueful laugh.

  ‘Yeah. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing. But after the weekend I told her I wasn’t interested in a relationship. I had the new restaurant opening coming up in Yoxburgh in a few months, so much to do to prepare for that, and I was trying to consolidate the business so I could afford to abandon it for a while to get the new restaurant up and running smoothly before the next TV series kicked off, and a relationship was the last thing I needed.’

  ‘So—she left you alone?’

  ‘Yes, she left me alone, sort of, for a few weeks, anyway. And then she turned up at the restaurant late one night and said she needed to speak to me, and she told me she was pregnant. I didn’t believe her at first, but she had a scan six weeks later and the dates fitted, and she was adamant it was mine. And she was delighted. Of course.’

  ‘What did your family say?’

  He snorted softly. ‘Have you never met my grandmother?’ he asked unnecessarily, and Amy smiled wryly.

  ‘Nonna told you to marry her?’

  ‘She didn’t need to. She listened to my side of the story, told me I’d been a fool to let it happen, but that I owed my child the right to have its father in its life. And she was right, of course. I already knew that. I also knew that the business didn’t need the media circus that would follow if I walked away from a pregnant woman, and I knew she wouldn’t keep it quiet. So we had a quiet wedding and moved up to Suffolk, into a rented house, so I could concentrate on the new restaurant.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. She didn’t like it?’

  ‘She didn’t like it one bit. She
’d thought we’d have a glamorous life in London, and she didn’t take kindly to being imprisoned in a tinpot little backwater like Yoxburgh. Her words, not mine. And then Ella was born, and she was even more trapped, and she started drinking.’

  ‘Drinking? As in—?’

  ‘Heavy drinking. Getting utterly bat-faced. Night after night. I told her to stop, promised her a new house, said we could go back to London, split our time between the two, but that wasn’t enough. To be honest, I think the reality of the whole thing—the pregnancy and birth, the move, the amount of time I was giving to the restaurant—it was all too much. It would have been too much for anyone, but she was so far out of her comfort zone that it was just impossible. And then...’

  He broke off, the words choking him, and Amy shifted, moving the glasses out of the way and snuggling up against his side, one hand lying lightly over his heart. He wondered if she could feel it pounding as he relived that hideous night.

  ‘Go on,’ she said softly, and he let his arm curl round her shoulders and draw her closer against him, her warmth reassuring.

  ‘She came to the restaurant. She’d left Ella at home, six weeks old, and she’d driven down to the restaurant to tell me she was leaving me. It was a filthy night, sheeting down with rain, the waves crashing over the prom, and she’d been drinking. I took the car keys off her and told her to go home and wait for me, but she started swearing and screaming in front of the customers. I called her a taxi, told her to wait, but she walked out of the restaurant into the lashing rain and straight into the path of a car. The driver didn’t stand a chance, and nor did she. She died later that night in hospital, and all I felt was relief.’

  Amy’s arms tightened round his waist, hugging him gently, and he turned his head and rested his cheek against her hair. ‘I didn’t love her, Amy, but I didn’t want her to die. I just wanted the whole situation to go away, but not like that.’

  ‘Is that why you’re ashamed? Because you wanted her gone, and when she was you were secretly relieved? Do you think you’re to blame in some crazy way?’

  ‘I am to blame,’ he told her emphatically, pulling away slightly. ‘I should have made it clearer to her what our life was going to be like, but I knew she’d got pregnant deliberately, knew that she’d set a trap for me that weekend, so I suppose I felt she’d got what she deserved. But she didn’t deserve to die, and I didn’t deserve to have to go through all that, and Ella certainly had done nothing to deserve anything that either of us had done. Nor had my family, and the media had a field day with it. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that because I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Oh, Leo. I read things, of course I did, and I was worried about you. I tried to call you several times, but you weren’t taking any calls, and your parents were really protective so I couldn’t get through to you and I gave up. I shouldn’t have done. I should have come and seen you.’

  Her voice was soft, filled with anguish for him, and she turned her head and lifted her face to his, touching her lips gently to his cheek. ‘I’m so sorry. It must have been dreadful for all of you.’

  Her lips were inches away. Less. All he had to do was turn his head a fraction, and they’d be there, against his mouth. He fought it for seconds, then with a shuddering sigh he turned his head and moved away from danger. Not far. Just enough that he could still rest his head against hers but with his lips firmly out of the way of trouble.

  ‘Leo?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to seduce you earlier,’ she said, her voice a fractured whisper. ‘I really wasn’t. I was just concerned about you.’

  He sighed, his breath ruffling her hair, and his arm tightened around her. ‘I know. But things are changing between us, and I don’t want them to. I love you, Amy. I love you to bits, but I’m not going to have an affair with you, no matter how tempted either of us might be—’

  She pushed away, tilting her head to stare up at him, her eyes wide with something that could have been indignation. Or desperation? ‘When have I asked you to do that? Ever? When have I ever suggested that we—?’

  ‘You haven’t. Not in so many words. But it’s there in your eyes, and it’s in my head, and I’m not doing it, I’m not going to be drawn in by it, no matter how tempting it is to turn to each other for comfort. Because that’s all it is, Amy. Comfort. And it would change everything. We’ve been friends for ever, and I don’t want to change that. I need it, I treasure it, and I can’t bear to think I could do something stupid one day to screw it up, because I will. I’ll let you down—’

  She moved abruptly, shifting so she was facing him, holding his face in her hands and staring intently into his eyes.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ she said slowly and clearly. ‘You’ve never let me down, Leo. I’ve let myself down, plenty of times, and I expect you’ve done the same, but you’ll never let me down. You’ve just stopped me making the biggest mistake of my life—’

  ‘Yes, I have, and I’m not going to let you—or either of us—make another one when your emotions are in chaos and you’re clutching at the familiar because your life’s suddenly going to be so different from what you’d planned.’

  He took her hands in his, easing them away from his face and closing his fingers over them, pressing them to his lips before he let them go. He tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear and gave her a rueful smile. ‘You just need time, Amy. Time to let the dust settle and work out what you want from life. And it isn’t me. It really isn’t. I’m no good for you—not in that way. You don’t really want me, you just want what I represent—the familiar, the safe, but I’m not safe, and I can’t replace what you’ve lost by not marrying Nick. I know what you want, what you’ve lost, but I’m not it.’

  She nodded, shifting away a little, turning her head to stare out over the valley. After a moment she gave a shaky sigh.

  ‘I know that—and I know I’m not ready for another relationship, especially not with you. I mean, how would that work?’ she said, her voice lightly teasing now, but he could still hear the hurt and confusion underlying it. ‘I wouldn’t have my sounding board any more, would I? How would I know it wasn’t another awful mistake? I made the last mistake because I didn’t talk to you. I don’t want to do that again.’

  She turned back to him, throwing him a sweet, wry smile. ‘Thank you for telling me about Lisa. And don’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘It was. I should have driven her home instead of calling a taxi—handed the restaurant over to the team and left, taken care of her, but I didn’t, I didn’t realise she was that fragile, that unstable, and because of that she died.’

  ‘No, Leo. She died because she got drunk and did something reckless, with far-reaching consequences. Everything else stemmed from that. You were her husband, not her keeper. She was an adult woman, and she made bad decisions. And on the last occasion it killed her. End of.’

  ‘Except it’s not the end, is it? I’ve got a motherless child and a career I’ve neglected for the past nine months—more, really. And there’s nothing I can do about it. What’s done is done. All any of us have to do is take care of the future, and I have no idea how. All I can do is survive from day to day and hope it gets better.’

  ‘It will.’

  ‘Will it? I hope so, because I can’t go on like this.’

  He stood up, tugging her to her feet and wrapping her in his arms and holding her tight, his face pressed into her hair. ‘Thanks for listening to me. And thanks for being you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  ‘You aren’t without me. You won’t be without me.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise. Just keep talking to me.’

  He nodded, then eased away. ‘I will. Now go to bed. You need some sleep and so do I. I’ll be up at the crack of dawn with Ella.’

  ‘Well, good l
uck with that,’ she said ruefully. ‘Look at the sky.’

  They stared out across the network of fields and hills, still leached of colour by the moon, but on the horizon there was the faintest streak of light appearing in the sky.

  ‘It’s a new day, Leo. It will get better.’

  He looked down at her, her eyes shining with sincerity, the one person he could truly trust with all his hopes and fears. He bent his head, touched his lips to her cheek and then, as he breathed in and drew the scent of her into his body, he felt his resolve disintegrate.

  He let his breath out on a shuddering sigh and turned his head, as she turned hers, and their lips touched.

  They clung, held, and with a ragged sigh of defeat he pulled her closer, feeling her taut limbs, the softness of her breasts, the warmth of her mouth opening like a flower under his, and he was lost.

  He couldn’t get enough of her. One hand slid round and found her breast through the slippery silk of that tormenting gown, and he felt her nipple peak hard against his hand.

  She moaned softly, arching against him, her tongue duelling with his as he delved and tasted, savouring her, learning her, aching for her.

  Her hands were on him, learning him, too, their movements desperate as she clung to his arms, his back, cradling his head as he was cradling hers, her fingers spearing through his hair and pulling him down to her.

  He groaned, rocking his hips against hers, needing her for so much more than this, and she whimpered as his hands slid down and cupped her bottom, lifting her against him.

  Amy...

  Amy! No, no, no, no!

  He had to stop. She had to stop. One of them had to stop. He uncurled his fingers and slid his hands up her back, but he didn’t let go. He couldn’t. He needed her. Wanted her. He had to...

  His hands cradled her face, the kiss gentling as he fought with his warring emotions. And then she eased away and took a step back, out of reach, and he felt bereft.

  Their eyes met and locked, and after an agonising second he dragged a hand down over his face and tried to step back, to put more space between them while he still could, but his feet were rooted to the spot, his chest heaving with the need that still screamed through him, and he tilted his head back and stared blindly at the pale streak of sky that promised a new tomorrow.