by Liz Fielding
*
‘Darius? Can you talk?’
‘If you’re quick.’
Tash frowned. Nothing had seemed quite the same between them since the open day. Okay, she’d been busy, he had to be somewhere else, but he’d left without saying goodbye and something was missing. The sex—snatched in brief moments when he wasn’t working—was still stunningly hot, but the perfect focus that made her believe that she was the only woman in the world had gone. And those fun ‘dates’ had been forgotten. It was as if the shutters had come down and she was afraid that the reality of the sale had cut deeper than he’d anticipated. In which case he wasn’t going to want to hear this.
Or he was ready to move on. In which case he would.
‘I’m working,’ he prompted impatiently.
‘Yes… Sorry… I just wanted you to know that I’ve got two firm offers for the house on the table.’
‘Two? Are we going to have a bidding war?’ He sounded bored rather than excited by the prospect.
‘Behave yourself. One is from an overseas buyer who’s looking for a small country house to complement his London apartment. He’s offering the guide price.’
‘Take it.’
‘The second offer is lower. I’ve negotiated them up from their opening bid but it’s still half a million below the guide price.’
‘So why are we talking about it?’
‘Because it’s a better package.’
‘Can you keep this short? They’re waiting to weld the heart in place.’
‘Really? You’re that close?’
‘Natasha, please…’
‘Sorry. The second offer is from the IT company across the river. They’re expanding and need more space but there are planning restrictions on their own site. The thing is, most of the staff live locally and their children go to the village school so they don’t want to move.’
‘Then maybe they should up their offer.’
‘It’s lower, but it’s actually worth more. I’ve managed to exclude the estate cottages, which means you won’t have to rehouse the tenants and you’ll have more disposable income from the sale. Sitting tenants will also affect the resale value of the properties so it will help reduce the inheritance tax bill. Repairs and maintenance can be offset against tax and the cottages will be realisable assets in the future. Finally—’
‘There’s more?’
‘Finally,’ she said, ‘they know Gary; he’s done jobs for them in the past and they will keep him on as caretaker and odd job man with a salary and company benefits that he could never have hoped to achieve from your grandfather’s estate.’
She could have simply presented Darius with the easy offer, job done. They both had what they wanted. House sold, reputation restored and she’d always known that there was no future in this relationship. It wasn’t his fault that she’d got four-letter-word involved and she wasn’t about to drag it out to the bitter end. Better let go while they were still friends.
But when the first bid had come in from the IT company she’d immediately seen the possibilities—the value to the village, to the people Darius felt responsible for—and she’d hammered out the best deal she’d ever put together. One she would always be proud of. Not only did it ensure that Hadley continued to thrive, but it would keep a link for Darius with the village that bore his name.
‘Their surveyor has just left,’ she said. ‘Say yes and the money will be in the bank by the end of the month.’ She waited. ‘Hello? Am I talking to myself here?’
‘No…’ He sounded bemused. ‘I’m simply speechless. You are an extraordinary woman, Natasha Gordon. Nothing left to prove. To anyone.’
‘Thanks…’ Her voice caught in her throat. ‘I’ll, um, let Ramsey have the details, then, shall I?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Darius? Is this what you want? Only if you’ve changed your mind about selling, tell me now.’
‘Why would I do that? Hadley Chase is the last place on earth I’d ever live.’
‘I don’t know. It’s just that you seem a little scratchy.’
‘Do I? Why don’t you come over and smooth me out?’
Smoothing him out was something she’d taken great pleasure in doing on numerous occasions while he’d been working twelve-hour days, but there was something decidedly off in that invitation. As if he wanted her, but hated himself for it. Or maybe he wanted her to hate him. Whatever it was, all the pleasure drained out of her day.
‘I thought you were working,’ she said. An alternative to the flat no that she knew was the right response. That she couldn’t quite bring herself to say.
‘You’ve got me,’ he said. And that had sounded like relief.
‘I’ll call Ramsey now,’ she said. ‘Get things underway.’ He didn’t answer. ‘Darius? Is this it?’
‘Yes,’ he said. Abrupt. To the point. ‘Job done. Time to think about your fee.’
‘The bronze…’
Tash swallowed. No. He’d said it. Job done. And they both knew that they weren’t talking about the sale of a house but, after all they’d been through, shared, there was no way she could sit for him like a model being paid by the hour.
‘You’ve done enough. Your interview with Kevin Rose was above and beyond. Do you need any help clearing the house?’ she asked. ‘There are some lovely pieces of furniture here.’ She was sitting at his grandmother’s desk and if she could have afforded it she’d have made an offer.
‘No. There’s nothing there I want. Ramsey will deal with it.’
Nothing? Really? She sat back. Where had the photograph of his mother come from? It could only have been his grandmother. She stroked her hands across the lovely desk. She’d seen one very like it on an antiques programme on the television. That one had had a secret drawer.
*
Darius stared at the phone for a long time before he hit end call. He’d lied about working. The horse was finished, delivered to the man who’d commissioned it and awaiting positioning in the place where it would forever be leaping over an unseen fence.
He tossed the phone on the sofa where Natasha had sat on the day she’d come to see him, promising him a whole lot more than the sale of his house when she’d looked at him with those big blue eyes and invited him to try her cake.
Senseless. Except that he hadn’t lost his senses. He’d found them. Found something he’d never truly known as a boy. Found whatever it was his father had found, because family history suggested that the ‘perfect marriage’ had been his grandfather’s idea. His way of controlling the future.
It was something he’d been running away from as a man, afraid that, like his father, he’d lose himself to something he couldn’t control. But he’d been so wrong. You didn’t lose yourself; you found yourself in love. Became whole.
He walked across to the clay sculpture that he’d begun the day he drove back from Hadley Chase, knowing that it was over. He’d worked in the foundry in the day, worked on this at night, capturing for ever that moment when she’d reached out to him in her sleep.
He hadn’t needed the drawing. His hands had worked the clay, formed the well-known curves, her shoulders, the bend of her knee, her hair tumbled against the pillow.
His fingers curled around the hand extended towards him, that he couldn’t see for the tears blinding him.
*
‘Darius…’
‘Natasha?’
‘I need to see you. Can you spare me half an hour?’
‘I’m at the studio. Come over.’
Tash ended the brief call. One last time, she promised herself. One last time.
It was late by the time she arrived at the studio. The studio door stood open and she looked through but the sun was low and the interior was dim. ‘Darius?’
He was taking down the photographs of the horse, clearing the decks and, as she hesitated in the doorway, he half turned and it was all still there and more. The heart-leap, the joy, only a hundred times more powerful, underscored by ev
ery touch, every kiss, every memory they had made together.
‘No cake?’ he asked.
‘No time,’ she said. ‘I’ve been rushed off my feet with work. It’s dark in here.’
He flicked a light switch and illuminated the area by his desk, sofa, and she walked across, put down the thick envelope she was carrying.
‘More paperwork?’ he asked.
‘No. I…’ This was going to be the last time she saw him and she didn’t want it to be like this… ‘I was looking at your grandmother’s desk and it occurred to me that I’d seen one very like it on an antiques programme. On the television.’
‘You’re here to tell me that it’s worth a fortune?’
‘No. I’m here to tell you that it had a secret drawer.’
He became very still. ‘That was in it?’
‘No, it was empty, but it’s what got me looking through the rest of the house. I knew there had to be more than that one photograph. I found this in the attic.’
She opened the envelope, tipped out the contents. Photographs, letters that had come from his parents’ flat in Paris. The report of the car accident where they’d died, fleeing across the border with her family. Their death certificates. A letter his father had left for him in case anything went wrong. He’d known the danger…
‘I’ll leave you to look at them.’
‘No!’ His hand gripped her arm, holding her there beside him, and he picked up a photograph of his mother holding him in her arms, his father standing beside him with such a look of love on his face that it had brought tears to her eyes when she’d seen it.
And suddenly the stiffness, the self-protective armour melted and she was in his arms, holding him, wiping the tears from his cheeks, murmuring hush sounds as he thanked her.
‘Did you ever see your grandfather again?’ Tash asked a long time later, after he’d read the letter, looked at the photographs. ‘After your grandmother’s funeral?’
‘That was when Ramsey realised how sick he was. He wouldn’t have it, of course, and it was only after a fall and a stay in hospital that we were able to move him into a nursing home for his own safety. I used to go and visit him. Mostly he had no idea who I was; occasionally he thought I was my father and asked me how Christabel was. How long before the baby was due.’
‘It’s a terrible thing, Alzheimer’s,’ she said. ‘It robs you of the chance to end things properly. Tell people that you love them.’
‘Say the words while you can?’
‘I…’ How could she say yes and not tell him that she loved him? How could she load him with that emotional burden? ‘It’s complicated.’
‘That’s what I thought, but I’m going to make it simple.’
He stood up, took her hand and led her across the studio and switched on the floodlights above his work plinth, lighting up a sculpted figure, a scene that was imprinted on her heart.
She took a step closer, looked at herself as Darius had seen her. The figure lying semi-prone amongst a tangle of sheets was sensuous, beautiful, and he hadn’t had to reveal her ribs or her organs to show her inner depths. Every thought, every feeling was exposed. Anyone who looked at it would know that this was a woman in love.
The detail was astonishing. In the modelling of the hands, the tiny creases behind the knee, the dimples above her buttocks. They hadn’t been in the drawing. He’d done this from memory.
When she turned he was there, watching her.
‘She’s beautiful, Darius,’ she said a little shakily, ‘but she’s going to be a bit of a tight fit on the mantelpiece.’
‘She won’t leave here. She’s not for display in a gallery window. This was personal, Natasha, for me, an attempt to hold on to something rare, something special. But once it was done I realised that only the real flesh-and-blood woman will do. Tomorrow it will be nothing but a lump of clay.’
‘You’re going to destroy this?’
‘Why would I keep it? Every time I looked at it I’d know what kind of fool I was for sitting back and making a sketch instead of responding to that invitation and getting back into bed with you. For not saying the words. A statue won’t laugh with me, cry with me, knock itself out making the world right for me.’
‘No.’ It could never do that. ‘But it will always be perfect. Never grow old. Never demand anything of you—’
‘Never give anything back,’ he said. ‘Never…’
‘Never?’ she prompted.
‘Never love me back.’
He’d said the words as if he was tearing lumps off his flesh.
Not just hot, gorgeous sex but something bigger, something deeper. The one thing that in his privileged youth he’d never known. The one thing that in his successful career he’d never allowed himself.
‘Love?’
‘The biggest four-letter word in the dictionary,’ he said. ‘You’re right; you should say the words rather than live with regret. I love you, Natasha Gordon, with all my heart. That’s it. No claim, no expectation and absolutely no regret.’
Now she was the one with tears stinging her eyes. ‘I told myself I didn’t want you to feel guilt, Darius, that I wanted you to remember me with pleasure, but I was afraid to put myself on the line… Your courage shames me, you deserve more but I love you, Darius Hadley. With all my heart.’ His expression was so intense that for a moment she couldn’t speak. Then, never taking her eyes from his, she made a gesture in the direction of the sculpture. ‘It’s there, on display, for all the world to see.’
For a moment neither of them moved, breathed, and then he kissed her so tenderly, holding her as if she were made of glass. It was a shatteringly beautiful moment, nothing to do with sex, but a promise…
When he drew back, resting his forehead against hers, he said, ‘There are a couple of other things I have to say. I need a plus one at the unveiling of the horse next week. The Queen is doing the honours so you’ll need a hat.’
She blinked back the stupid tears and began to smile. ‘A hat? Right.’
‘I’ve looked up dancing classes but I need a partner. And how do you fancy seeing the new James Bond movie?’
‘That’s three things.’
‘Is that too demanding? Only the thing is, Natasha, I’m looking for more than high-octane no-commitment sex. I’m looking for a grown-up full-time relationship with a woman who knows what she wants—a woman who will have time for me and a family as well as a career. So I’m asking—is that something you can fit around your new job?’
‘New job?’
‘Didn’t hell just freeze over?’ he asked. ‘I overheard Morgan offer you a partnership.’
And suddenly everything fell into place. ‘Is that why you’ve gone all moody on me?’ she asked.
‘Moody?’
‘Moody, shuttered, closed-up, just like you were when we first met.’
‘It’s what you wanted.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘So why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Maybe because you got all moody, shuttered, closed up,’ she said, turning to him on legs that were shaking as she realised how close she’d come to losing this. ‘No time for anything but a quickie. Running away. If you’d been talking to me I’d have told you all about it. And that I turned him down.’
‘But…’ His frown was total confusion. ‘You weren’t even tempted?’
‘I told you, Darius, I could never trust a man who treated me the way Miles did, but it wasn’t just that. I like being my own boss. Tailoring my sales pitch to meet individual needs. Looking for the right house for a client who appreciates good service. I like doing things my own way.’
‘I like doing things your way, too,’ he replied as she began slipping her buttons one by one.
*
‘I have to get up,’ Tash protested, making an effort to wriggle out of Darius’s warm embrace. ‘I’ve got an appointment at eleven.’
‘Where are you going?’ he asked, his hand on her belly spooning her against him as he
nuzzled the tender spot behind her ear.
‘Sussex. I’ve found the perfect house for a client and she’s flying in from Hong Kong to see it.’ She bit her lip as his hand moved lower.
‘Is this the one you’ve been raving about?’
‘Mmmm… Can I tempt you to a day out in the country?’ she asked in an attempt to distract him. Distract herself. She really, really had to get going… ‘Once the viewing is over we could take a walk on the Downs, have lunch at a country pub. Can you spare the time?’
‘No,’ he said, moving so that she flopped over onto her back and was looking up at him. ‘Can you?’
No! The answer was definitely, almost certainly, maybe nooooo, but his lips were teasing hers, his hand was much lower and the word never made it beyond a thought.
*
Damn it, he always did that! She woke in plenty of time to get where she had to be and then he ambushed her. She grinned as her little van pulled out of the mews and she headed south towards the Sussex Downs. It was just as well that she’d started putting the alarm forward half an hour or she’d be permanently late.
As it was, she needn’t have worried. She picked up the keys from the selling agent in good time but when she pulled up outside the gates there was no sign of her client, only a voicemail message on her phone saying that she’d been held up, but would she go ahead and take photographs for her of the garden and especially of the grotto.
Terrific. She just hoped it wasn’t a wind-up. Over the last few months there had been a few of those—wasted journeys to see non-existent clients, non-existent houses. Rivals who resented the splash of publicity following her sale of Hadley Chase. The feature on her new consultancy in the Country Chronicle. She’d got smarter about checking before she wasted time or money on them, but this one had checked out.
