‘Well, you can think again. We’ll have breakfast—’
‘Thought you didn’t eat breakfast.’ He grinned at her.
‘Well, it’s not an inflexible rule,’ she replied. ‘I can have breakfast if I want it. We’ll have breakfast and then we’ll see. David said last night that he was getting Mel in to cover for you at the clinic, so you’re not needed.’
He pursed his lips. ‘Harsh. Very harsh.’
‘But true. You’re only irreplaceable when you’re in one piece.’ She slid towards the edge of the bed and flapped her hand to shoo him away. ‘Now, go and do nothing for ten minutes while I get a shower...’
* * *
Monday morning with no work to do wasn’t as daunting as she’d thought it might be. A leisurely breakfast and then they divided the Sunday paper between them. Argued over the crossword, Sam filling in the answers while Euan reclined on the sofa.
‘What are you doing there?’
She hardly knew. It had been years since she’d made one of these. ‘You fold the paper like this, and it makes one petal.’ She held the results of her labours up for him to see. ‘Then you put the petals together to make a flower, and the flowers together to make a ball. It doesn’t work so well with newspaper.’
‘Better with the supplement.’ He slid the magazine out from the cushions beside him, and handed it to her.
‘Oh, yes, it will be. Got any glue?’
‘In the kitchen drawer.’
He watched lazily while she cut and folded the paper, gluing it to make the first of her paper flowers. ‘See...’ She held the flower up.
‘That’s nice. How many do you need to make for a ball?’
‘Twelve.’ She laid the flower down on the carpet beside her, staring at it. ‘We used to make these all the time when we were kids. Sally and I.’
He didn’t ask, but he was waiting. Somewhere, in the warmth of the silence between them, there were still so many questions waiting to be answered.
‘We used to hang them up on the ceiling. Sal’s father brought us some fluorescent paper and they used to glow in the dark, like weird planets.’
He chuckled quietly. ‘Sounds like fun. That’s a good memory to have.’
It was. Sam hadn’t brought it out and enjoyed it for a long time now. Suddenly it was too much to bear, and she brought her palm down on the flower, flattening it.
He flinched, as if she had driven her fist into his wound. ‘Right now, the good memories can’t break through the bad. That won’t always be the case.’
‘You mean time heals everything?’ She knew that wasn’t true, and she was daring him to say it was.
‘No. It brings a sense of balance.’
‘If there was any balance to any of it, then I would have been the one who died.’ She could hear the resignation in her own voice.
He shook his head. ‘You don’t really believe that?’
‘No. I can’t wish away my life. But Sal had a lot more people to mourn for her than I do. I don’t know that my mother would ever have known or cared, I haven’t seen her for so long.’
‘I think that I would have cared.’
‘You wouldn’t have known me. I wouldn’t even be here now if...’ Maybe in some strange twist of fate it would have been Sally, sitting here on his lounge floor, making paper flowers.
‘You would be. I’d get a glimpse of you from time to time out of the corner of my eye.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense.’ She twisted round to look at him, suddenly glad that she was here. If Sally couldn’t be, then she would take the moment for herself. ‘You can’t see all the million things that might have happened if things had been a bit different in the past.’ She stopped to think for a moment, trying to compute the odds. ‘Trillions, probably. In fact, it’s almost certainly an infinite number...’
‘Stop being so literal. Can’t you take a compliment when it’s offered?’
So that’s what it was. ‘Well, in that case...’ Sam tried to pretend that the world wasn’t suddenly warm, full of promise. ‘Thank you for thinking that you might have known me if I hadn’t existed.’
He chuckled. ‘Missed. Not known.’
Suddenly something slotted into place. The great gap in her heart that had always been there always made her feel that she had something more to prove. Someone would have missed her. The thought almost made her choke.
‘We should call David.’ She couldn’t think about this any more. Not until she’d had some time to process it. ‘He said he’d come round at lunchtime.’
He nodded, easing himself up to a sitting position. ‘Yeah. I was thinking we could go to the office. Just to show willing...’
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea. You’ll get there, and find something that you need to do, and then decide to just pop down to the clinic. Before I know it, I’ll be sitting in A and E with you again, trying to explain to the doctor why I didn’t make you do as he said.’
He gave her a look that was half-defiance, all humour. ‘Okay. Suppose I promise to take it easy. We’ll walk down there, and I’ll find a comfortable chair in David’s office and watch you both getting on with your work.’
‘And you won’t move.’ There wasn’t a lot of point in trying to be firm with him, he must know that he could get away with almost anything he liked when he gave her that look. She wasn’t going to let him think she was that much of a walkover, though. ‘Not a muscle.’
‘I might drink a cup of tea, if someone’s good enough to offer it. Tender the odd helpful comment here and there. If that’s allowed.’
She grinned at him. ‘Tea’s okay. I think I can do without the helpful comments.’ Right now, almost everything about Euan seemed indispensable.
‘Nah.’ He got slowly to his feet. ‘You have no idea how helpful I can be when I try.’
* * *
David growled threateningly at Euan when they arrived at the office, and then gave in to the inevitable. Sam went upstairs to change out of the borrowed T-shirt and put her own bloodstained blouse into the washing machine.
‘I’ve got something for you.’ David was grinning, like a magician who had just whipped a rabbit out of a hat, when she entered his office. ‘I was talking at an online conference the other day about some of the work you’d done here with us. One of the other delegates, from a small drugs charity up in London, asked for your details and I gave her your number.’
‘Thank you. That’s kind of you.’ Maybe this was where it started. One client made it easier to get a second. A second almost guaranteed a third. Excitement began to trickle down Sam’s spine. She wondered if it would be in order to ask the name of the charity, but decided not to sound too eager.
‘The CEO called me this morning. Said he’d tried to get in touch with you but he couldn’t get through, and he wanted to check he had the right number.’
‘My phone!’ The last time she’d had her phone had been last night, when she’d checked her emails. ‘It must be...’ The words dried in her throat. She’d checked her emails and then laid her phone down on the bed beside her. Her phone must still be there, in Euan’s bed.
‘I think I saw it in the kitchen.’ His slow, amused drawl came to her rescue.
‘Ah. Yes. By the toaster.’ Did he even have a toaster? He must have as she’d made toast that morning.
‘That’s right.’
Sam turned and shot him a grateful smile, aware that her ears were beginning to burn. ‘I’ll...um...phone them back from here, if that’s okay.’
‘Of course. He left a message. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the charity, it’s called The Centre.’ David looked around on his desk and located a slip of paper. ‘They’re talking to some other software providers on Thursday, and they’d like to see you as well if you can make it.’
‘This week?’ Disappointment began to claw at her, but Sam knew what she had to do. She couldn’t break a promise to one client in order to try and land another. ‘That’s much too short notice. I’m afraid I’ll have to give that one a miss.’
‘Sam...’ Euan’s voice again, behind her back. She ignored him.
‘I have plenty to do here. One thing at a time.’
‘Sam, don’t be an idiot.’ Euan wasn’t going to let this drop. ‘You need to go and see them this week.’
‘I’ve committed myself here for the whole of this week. If they can see me next week, that’ll be wonderful. But I won’t go back on the commitments I’ve made here. It’s not the way I work.’
Euan’s gaze was making her tremble. Warm, sexy and currently uncompromising. ‘Tell her, David.’
‘What? Tell me what?’ There was obviously a silent understanding between the two men.
‘I’m busy on Thursday. I won’t have any time to spend with you.’ David was grinning.
‘And I’ll be resting. I’m under doctor’s orders, you know.’
‘Quite. And if you’re driving up to see them on Thursday, perhaps Euan can go with you if he’s up to it.’ David was brooking no arguments now. ‘This charity has a programme dedicated to steroid abuse. When I said that we were looking at setting something up ourselves, they offered to share their experience.’
‘Looks as if it’s all sorted, then.’ Euan was leaning back in his chair, chuckling. Sam turned to David, who nodded, clearly enormously pleased with himself.
‘I...suppose I don’t have much choice, then.’
Euan nodded. ‘Looks like it. And, of course, if we’re using the same database as they are, I imagine it would be so much easier to share information.’ He gave her an innocent look, and the three of them burst into spontaneous laughter.
The afternoon was as relaxed and easygoing as the morning had been. Euan and David disappeared for a belated Monday morning meeting, and Sam tackled their website. At five on the dot David shooed them both downstairs and into his car, and the evening was spent at his house. Then back to the tiny flat above the charity’s offices, dropping Euan at home on the way.
It was still early, but Sam had hit a brick wall of exhaustion. All she wanted to do was sleep, and at first she hardly noticed the bright package propped up on the stairs, tied with raffia and bearing a label from one of the shops on the trendier side of town. There was no note, but she knew who it was from. Japanese paper, brightly coloured and beautifully patterned. The kind you used for origami flowers.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EUAN WAS CONTENT to sit and watch her. In fact, there was nothing else in this world that he’d rather do.
They’d driven up to London early that morning, Sam insisting that she take the wheel of his car and Euan giving in gracefully, even though he was feeling much better. Her flat was comfortable, unprepossessing and, considering the amount of cash that the sale of her company must have netted, understated. Sam had disappeared for half an hour to get ready for her interview, leaving him with coffee and the paper.
Considering the transformation that she’d wrought, half an hour was miraculously fast. Her hair was in a shining knot at the back of her head. Her make-up perfect. Designer suit, this time in a shade of blue that made her eyes look like mother-of-pearl.
‘You look great.’ He decided to go for understatement.
‘Thank you.’ Even the smile was different. Cool, professional, but with a flash of the woman that he now knew beneath it. The effect was intoxicating.
He watched as she carefully slid her laptop into her leather bag. Everything in order. Pausing to check she hadn’t forgotten anything. Euan had seen the results of this careful preparation, and he didn’t need to wonder whether she’d wrap today’s interview up with the same efficiency as the one at Driftwood.
‘I’m a bit nervous.’
You wouldn’t have thought it to look at her, but there was a slight tremor in her voice. ‘This means a lot to you, doesn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘And it’s tough going in there on your own.’ Euan hadn’t realised how alone she must have felt at their interview. She’d seemed so assured, so in charge.
She pressed her lips together. ‘Does it show?’
‘No. You impressed the life out of David and me when you interviewed with us. These guys...’ he snapped his fingers. ‘No problem.’
‘My secret’s safe with you, then?’
Safe, and treasured. ‘Yeah. Always.’
‘Just until this afternoon will be fine.’ She looked around, as if checking that she had everything, and hesitated. Euan wondered if there was a final pre-interview ritual that she’d rather do alone.
‘I’ll wait for you in the car, shall I?’
She shook her head slowly. ‘No need. I already have my good luck charm.’ She reached inside the neck of her silky blouse, pulling out a little gold locket. ‘Sally’s parents bought us one each when we started out together. We used to wear them for luck at interviews.’
‘Well, you look great. And you’ve got a great product. You’ve everything to be confident about.’
‘Yeah, you can’t feel bad in silk knickers.’ She bit her lip. ‘Sorry. Something Sally and I used to say to each other.’
‘It’s a good thought.’ It was a great thought. One that he couldn’t stop framing in his head into a beautiful, sensual image. One that was going to shatter all their plans for the day if he didn’t move. Now. He looked at his watch, blind to the time, and still gripped by the idea that Sam would feel just great in silk knickers. ‘I guess we’d better be on our way.’
He picked up the car keys, handing them to her without daring to even look at her face.
* * *
She was shining. Sitting behind the steering-wheel of his car, happiness radiating from her, as Euan emerged from The Centre’s day clinic. He hurried across the pavement and slid into the passenger seat.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’
‘No problem. How did it go?’ All he could see was her mouth, a red, sensual curve of pleasure. His pleasure, and hers, filled his head.
‘Really interesting. They gave me plenty to think about when we implement the new groups at Driftwood.’
She nodded. Waited for him to ask, but he didn’t need to. Euan snapped his seat belt closed and leaned across to look into the rear-view mirror. She wrinkled her nose at him, muttering something about back-seat drivers, and navigated out into the stream of traffic.
They drove in silence.
‘Okay, ask!’ The car swung around a corner and she accelerated from the crawl of the main road.
‘I already know how it went. It was a foregone conclusion,’ he protested.
‘I want you to ask!’ The car came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the road.
‘We’re blocking the road.’
She leaned around to face him. ‘We’re not going anywhere until you ask.’
This was beyond all endurance. Her skirt had ridden up as she drove, just by an inch but it was an inch of sheer delight. The seat belt crushed the almost translucent fabric of her blouse against her breasts.
‘Okay. In the interests of traffic control, how did you do?’
A smile spread across her face and desire clenched its delicious fingers around his heart. ‘It was great. Really good. I answered all the questions they asked me, they loved the look of the program. They’re not concerned that I don’t have much of a track record, they say that David gave me a glowing reference...’
‘That was never going to be a problem.’
‘Yes, but it made all the difference.’ Her hands fluttered tremulously in her lap. ‘I think they’re going to take it.’
He couldn
’t hold out much longer. He had to kiss her. They both jumped as the insistent sound of a horn blared behind them.
‘Drive.’ All that Euan could think about was getting her alone. Out of the car. Into her flat. After that... Goodness only knew.
She laughed, signalled an apology to the driver behind her, and drove.
* * *
The first two items on Euan’s list had been accomplished with almost no effort on his part at all. She almost danced out of the car and up the stairs to her front door, and swept into the neat, pale blue and white kitchen.
‘Perhaps we should have ice cream.’ She was grinning from ear to ear.
‘Ice cream? Is that some kind of after-interview tradition?’
She raised one eyebrow in a query and Euan laughed. ‘When I went out for lunch, after you interviewed with David and me, I saw you eating ice cream.’
Her eyes opened wide, as if she’d been caught in a guilty secret. Then she smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. Sal and I used to celebrate with ice cream and all the trimmings when things went well. I’ve got chocolate sauce, and wafers. Or caramel sauce if you prefer. Or both...’
She opened one of the drawers, pulling out a pair of long-handled spoons and a stainless-steel implement. ‘And I have a proper scoop. That’s essential.’
She was holding the scoop up in front of her, and he took it out of her hand and put it on the counter. Moved closer, until his aching body almost touched hers. ‘Don’t think I’m not mindful of the honour of being asked to share the ice-cream tradition but there’s something I want to talk to you about...’
The fragile, unspoken agreement that had held between them while Euan was recovering from his wound had finally broken. Small intimacies, delicious fantasies, had been okay when anything else had been out of the question, but now he was strong again. If going forward was hazardous, then going back was just as unthinkable.
‘Talk?’ She closed the gap between them, wrapping her arms around his waist. ‘You want to talk?’
‘Actually, no.’ Talking was about the last thing on his mind at the moment. ‘But I think we should.’
A Doctor to Heal Her Heart Page 13
