A Will, A Wish...A Proposal (Contemporary Romance)

by Jessica Gilmore

  Max’s whole body was rigid, and when she peeped over she saw a muscle beating in his cheek. His fingers gripped hers tightly, almost painful in their intensity.

  ‘When Mum told me she was moving to Spain with Bill, selling the house, Simon came to the rescue; my knight in shining armour. He asked why didn’t I move in, and I couldn’t think of a single reason not to.’

  She laced her fingers through Max’s.

  ‘It all happened so slowly. First he suggested I give up my job so that I could study. But then he found a hundred reasons for me to delay starting a course and I agreed. Because, you see, I thought he was protecting me.’

  She swallowed again.

  ‘I don’t know when it dawned on me that I didn’t have a single thing to call my own. Not for a long time. I forgot that it wasn’t normal to be terrified in case you said the wrong thing, in case the house wasn’t neat enough, the dishes tidied away, the bed made perfectly, my hair and clothes perfect. I didn’t realise for a long time that I could barely breathe, that I was terrified of his displeasure, that just one frown could crush me.

  ‘Because the worst thing of all,’ her voice was low now, as she admitted the part that shamed her most. ‘The worst thing of all is that when he smiled, when I got it right, I was elated. So that’s what I strived for. I looked right, said the right things. When he was happy I was happy. I thought I was so very happy.’

  She blinked, almost shocked to feel the wetness on her eyelashes.

  ‘I don’t know when I first realised that living in fear wasn’t normal. Never relaxing, always worrying, never knowing what would set him off. He told me time and time again how worthless I was, how lucky I was to have him, and after a while I believed him.’

  Because how could a girl with nothing be worth anything? Even her own mother had discarded her like an unwanted toy.

  ‘When he wanted to he could be the sweetest, most tender person in the world. And I craved it. I thought it must be my fault that he was angry so often. He told me it was my fault.’

  Max swallowed, his voice thick as he spoke. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘It wasn’t one argument or one incident. It just crept up on me that I was desperately unhappy, and that every time someone mentioned the wedding I felt as if I was being bricked up alive. And as I got more and more scared he got more and more controlling. He wanted to know where I was every hour, would be angry if he phoned home and I didn’t answer. He went through my receipts, looking for goodness knows what. One day I realised that I was afraid. I think it was the first time I’d allowed myself to think like that. But once I had it was as if a door had opened and I couldn’t shut it again. So I just left. Jumped on a train to Cornwall. For six months I looked over my shoulder all the time, dreading seeing him there—and yet hoping he loved me enough to track me down. To find me.’

  It was out. Every last sordid detail.

  Would Max judge her? He couldn’t judge her any more than she’d judged herself.

  Ellie turned apprehensive eyes to him, dreading the judgement she expected to see in his face. His hands tightened on hers as he looked down at her, his mouth set, his eyes hard. But not with anger directed at her, no. Compassion softened the grim lines of his face.

  ‘Look at you now, Ellie. Just look what you’ve become. You didn’t let the jerk stop you. Delay you, maybe, but not stop you. You’re strong, independent, successful, compassionate. You should be so proud of yourself.’

  Proud? Not ashamed? Strong? Not weak? Was that really, truly what he saw?

  Ellie didn’t move for one long moment but then she fell against him with a gulp, tears spilling down her face, her chest heaving with the sobs she had held back for far too long.

  Slipping an arm around her, Max pulled her in close, let her lean on him, let his shirt absorb her tears, his shoulders absorb her pain. He held her close, rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head as the car continued to drive through the gloom and Ellie cried it all out.

  * * *

  Her head ached, her throat ached, her eyes ached. In fact there wasn’t a part of her that didn’t hurt in one way or another. Not in the languorous way she had ached yesterday morning, with that sated, sensual feeling, but a much more painful sensation, as if she had been ripped apart and clumsily glued back together, cracks and dents and all.

  Max’s hand was still on hers, tethering her to the here and now, keeping her grounded. When had she ever cried like that before? She didn’t think she ever had. At first she had been too numb and then? Then she had had to keep it together. One of them had to.

  ‘Are you angry with her?’ Max’s voice stirred the silence.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your mother.’ He shook his head. ‘I mean, I’m pretty furious with my mother, for being so greedy and stubborn, and I am absolutely filled with rage against my dad for—well, for pretty much everything. But none of it is about me. I could walk away tomorrow, I guess, and leave them to it. Heck, maybe I should. Difference is I’m an adult. But you? You were just a kid. She made you be the grown-up, and then when you needed her she wasn’t there.’

  Ellie opened her mouth, ready to defend her mother—and herself. But the words wouldn’t come. ‘I...’

  ‘It’s okay, you know. You’re allowed to be angry. It doesn’t make you bad. It just makes you human.’

  Anger? Was that what she felt? That tightening in her chest, the way her fingernails bit into her palms whenever she got a breezy, brief email from her mother?

  Brief, breezy. The bare minimum of contact.

  And when Ellie had fled, needing somewhere to hide out and recover, her mother hadn’t been there for her. Hadn’t wanted her. Hadn’t known or cared that her daughter was trapped in a vicious relationship. What kind of woman left her eighteen-year-old daughter alone with a much older man she hardly knew?

  ‘I am angry. So angry.’ The words were almost a whisper. ‘That she left me to deal with it all. That she made me be the grown-up when I wasn’t ready. That she let me give up university for her. That she just left me...’ Her voice was rising in volume and intensity and she stopped, shocked by the shaking fury in it.

  His hand tightened on hers. ‘How did you feel then?’

  Ellie tried never to think about that particular time, that last betrayal. No wonder, when dragging it all up cut deeply all over again. ‘Lost,’ she admitted. ‘I think, I wonder if she hadn’t gone just then, if things might have been different. If I might have gone to university, not got engaged.’

  She stopped.

  ‘But I was an adult by then,’ she said instead. ‘I made my choices just as she made hers. I can’t blame her. I can’t blame anyone but myself.’

  ‘No, you were still a child. You have nothing to regret, Ellie. Nothing at all.’

  Neither of them spoke then, but Max continued to hold her hand, his thumb caressing the back of her hand with sure movements as the car took them through increasingly familiar countryside, finally entering the outskirts of the town where Ellie had been born.

  She was finding it increasingly hard to get her breath, and her stomach was clenching as they entered the hospital car park.

  ‘Hey.’ Max gave her a reassuring smile. ‘It’s fine. You’re not alone. Not this time.’

  Ellie tried to smile back but she couldn’t make her muscles obey. Right now she wasn’t alone—but next week he would be gone, and she would be back to square one. On her own.

  Somehow Max Loveday had slipped through all her defences and shown her just what a sham her life was. Safe? Sure. Protected? Absolutely. Hardworking and honest? Maybe. But true? No. Hiding away, not having fun, trusting no one... That wasn’t true to the legacy of love and happiness her father and brother had left her, that Demelza Loveday had bequeathed to her.

  Max or no Max, Ellie had to find a way to
start living again.

  If she could only work out where to start.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE CORRIDORS WERE the same off-white, the floor the same hard-wearing highly polished tiles, the smell the same: antiseptic crossed with boiled vegetables. She might be fourteen again, hurrying down the corridor, following in her mother’s frantic footsteps.

  But this time Max’s hand was on her arm: a quiet, tacit support. Five days ago she hadn’t been able to wait to see the back of Max Loveday. Today she was grateful he was here at all.

  It was as if her godmother was still looking out for her, even after her death.

  ‘Here we are. Ward Six.’

  Max would have walked straight in, but Ellie came to an abrupt halt.

  ‘I just need a moment.’

  ‘Sure. Take as long as you need.’ He was wearing jeans with the tuxedo shirt from the night before: an incongruous mix that he somehow managed to carry off. Maybe the early-morning stubble and ruffled hair helped. Or maybe it was his innate confidence.

  Or it could be the surroundings. These corridors must have seen people turn up in everything from pyjamas to ballgowns. Last time she had pulled on grey tracksuit bottoms and an old football shirt of her brother’s. She could see it as if it were yesterday, feel the smooth nylon of the shirt, hear the slopping of the flip-flops she had grabbed, forgetting about the snow outside.

  Ellie inhaled, a long, slow breath, filling her chest with air, with oxygen, with courage. And then she pushed open the door and walked into the ward’s waiting room.

  Again memories assailed her. Could they be the same industrial padded chairs? The same leaflets on the noticeboard? The same water-cooler with no cups anywhere to be seen? The same tired potted plant?

  Only the people were different.

  She half recognised Bill’s family from the pitifully few occasions when they had met; his daughter, a few years older than Ellie, now cradling a baby. His brother, as tall and thickset as Bill, his sister, red-eyed and staring into space.

  And pacing up and down like a caged wild animal, just as she had the last time, was her mother. A little older, her skin far more tanned, her hair blonder, a little plumper, but still recognisably, indisputably Marissa Scott.

  She turned as Ellie pushed the door open and Ellie stood still for a moment, wary, as if they were strangers. She had to speak, to break the silence.

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  It wasn’t enough, and yet it was all she had. But as her mother broke into a trot and ran across the room to enfold her in her arms Ellie realised that maybe, just maybe, it was enough after all.

  * * *

  ‘What a day.’ Max sat back in the uncomfortable cafeteria chair and looked down at the plate of pale fried food in front of him. He poked suspiciously at the peas, soggy and a nasty yellowish green. ‘Do you think there is actually any nutritional value in this?’

  ‘Not an iota.’ Ellie had wisely eschewed the fish and chips and gone for a salad. ‘Hospital food is like school food: something to be endured.’

  Max tried not to think too longingly of the food at his expensive private school. ‘We should have gone out.’

  ‘Maybe I should have insisted you leave earlier. You didn’t have to stay all day. Did you get any work done?’

  ‘Some,’ Max admitted.

  He knew Ellie had had an agonising day, waiting with her overwrought mother for Bill to come out of surgery, and that his day couldn’t compare—but it had been no walk in the park. He had spent the day delving deeply into DL Media’s accounts and his excavations hadn’t uncovered any gold. All he had found was a big pit that was getting deeper by the day.

  ‘There are some difficult decisions to make when I get back.’

  His last four words seemed to hang in the air.

  ‘I do appreciate you taking so much time out of your schedule for me. I know you were hoping to spend more time in London.’ Ellie’s head was bent and she was poking unenthusiastically at her salad.

  ‘Ellie, it’s nothing. And it’s not as if I’m not in contact with the London office every day.’ For once Max didn’t want to talk about work—or dwell on how little time he had left in the UK. ‘How’s Bill?’

  ‘Out of surgery. And the doctors seem pleased.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Surprisingly okay.’ Her cheeks flushed. ‘Well enough to ask who you are.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘What did you tell her?’

  Her eyes lowered. ‘That we work together.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He speared a soggy chip and then laid his fork down. He wasn’t hungry after all. He looked around. The room was half full: a few patients well enough to get up and walk about, harassed-looking staff shovelling food in as quickly and efficiently as engines refuelling. And friends and relatives, many with shell-shocked faces.

  He really didn’t want to spend much more time here, and neither should Ellie. Her eyes were deeply shadowed, her face white with tiredness.

  ‘What do you want to do? Are you planning to stay with your mother for a few days?’

  He was surprised at how much he wanted her to say no. If she didn’t return to Trengarth with him today would he see her again this trip?

  Or at all.

  She shook her head and unexpected relief flooded through him.

  ‘Part of me feels like I should, but there’s nowhere for me to stay and Bill’s family are looking after Mum. If there was any suggestion he was still in danger of course I would... No, I need to get back to the shop. There’s no reason for me to hang around. Thanks for bringing me. Max.’ Her eyes met his. ‘For everything.’

  ‘Any time.’ He meant it too. There had been no thought in the early morning of walking away, of putting her into a car and returning to his own world. ‘Do you want to find a hotel for the night or get straight off? I could get us a car in an hour, although we wouldn’t get back to Cornwall until the early morning.’

  She chewed her lip, her eyes flickering as she thought. ‘Is it bad that I just want to go home?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s been a long day. I’ll get one ordered. We can sleep in the car if we need to. Although...’ He looked at his untouched plate and then at hers. ‘We may want to stop for some real food first.’

  ‘That sounds good. I’ll go and sit with Mum for a bit longer.’

  ‘I’ll fetch you when the car gets here.’

  She didn’t move straight away. She just sat, looking as if there was something she wanted to say. Max waited, but she didn’t speak, just gave him a tremulous smile as she pushed her chair back and walked slowly out of the cafeteria.

  * * *

  The car rolled smoothly through the night-dark moor. Clouds blocked the stars, and as Max stared out of the window all he could see was his own reflection. Unsmiling, contemplative. Angry.

  Max Loveday wasn’t a violent man. His battles were in the boardroom, in sales figures and profits. But tonight his blood ran hot. All he could think about was asking the driver to turn back to Oakwood, so that he could find Ellie’s ex and make him wish he had never set eyes on her.

  And he’d ask her mother just exactly what she had been thinking when she had allowed her teenage daughter to become the adult. When she had left that daughter alone with nowhere to turn except to an emotionally abusive and controlling man.

  Only Ellie didn’t want or need him to fight her battles, even though all he wanted was to ride into the lists for her, to pull on a helmet and grab a sword and rush into battle for her honour.

  And to teach that scoundrel a lesson.

  His lips tightened. He hadn’t felt this out of control, this primal, in years. His instincts were screaming at him to protect, to avenge.

  This was exactly what he wanted to avoid. T
his kind of messy, hot-headed emotion, pulling and pushing him away from his goals, from his plans. Love—violent, needy love—was to blame for it all. Grieving love, causing Ellie’s mother’s breakdown. Twisted love, creating a hellish trap for Ellie.

  His hands curled into fists. It wasn’t love affecting his judgement right now. It was lust and liking, respect and admiration. But it was still dangerous.

  Thank goodness he would be on his way home in just a few days.

  Just a few days...

  It wasn’t long enough.

  It was far too long. A dangerously long time.

  He glanced over at Ellie. She was curled up on the seat next to him, sleeping as the car wound its way through the tiny lanes that would take them back to Trengarth. Visibly yawning as they’d finished their excellent pub dinner, Ellie hadn’t taken long to fall asleep once they’d returned to the car. Max wasn’t surprised; she’d exorcised all her ghosts in one day. There was bound to be a price, both physically and mentally. Better she sleep it off.

  What about him? Would he be able to exorcise his own ghosts?

  Max shifted in his seat, wishing he could get comfortable. He supposed the question was did he even want to? After all, hadn’t they kept him safe? But he had to admit his careful planning, his definition of a suitable partner, didn’t fill him with the same quiet satisfaction it had used to.

  He sighed, changing position once again. The whole point of getting a driver to take them all the way back to Trengarth had been so they could rest, but Max was unable to switch off. He envied the slow, even sound of Ellie’s breath.

  It would have been better for him to have driven himself, forced to concentrate on the road ahead rather than sit here in the dark with the same thoughts running through his mind over and over on a loop.

  ‘Where now, sir?’

  The driver was turning down the coastal road that led directly to the village.