by Amy Andrews
“Good afternoon,” he said. “My—” God, what did he call her? Lover, bonk buddy, tour guide? “Friend over there has been waiting for over ninety minutes and I’m afraid she’s not going to make the four o’clock cutoff. But,” he smiled again as he reached for his wallet, “I was hoping she could slip in next?”
He felt Addie near his shoulder as he removed four fifty-pound notes and pushed them across the counter. She gasped and said, “Nathaniel!”
The woman ignored the money as she looked at him, her gaze unwavering, her expression steely. “You want to jump the line? Ahead of the bald kid who’s been waiting just as long as your—friend?”
Nathaniel looked behind him. The kid was the one having the test? Guilt tore at him as the child chose that moment to pull his beanie off to reveal he was as bald as a badger. The same tube he’d seen on Addie’s fridge picture was in his nose. Big black circles colored the huge hollows occupied by the boy’s eyes and he stared straight ahead like a concentration camp victim.
His mother looked gutted—like someone had punched her in the stomach.
Nathaniel blinked, shocked at the sight, horrified at his actions. The little boy gave him the slightest of smiles through lips that were so pale, Nathaniel could barely differentiate where his mouth started and his face began.
“No…look I’m sorry,” Addie said. She pulled at his arm, taking the money, trying to drag him away, but it barely registered. “I’m so sorry. He’s just worried,” she said again to the woman behind the window. “And spoiled.”
“Uh-huh,” the woman said, her lips pursed, her arms crossed across her ample bosom.
“I’m fine waiting, don’t worry,” Addie said, and he felt her glare all the way to his toes.
He followed as she yanked him down the corridor. “Are you crazy?” Her angry words were so low he hardly heard them above the roar of blood through his ears. “You can’t bribe a nurse, Nathaniel.”
Nathaniel thought he must be crazy. What the hell was he doing?
He’d actually tried to bribe a nurse.
He’d never bribed anyone in his life—he’d always, always played it straight. As the son of Nigel Montgomery, he’d made sure that everything he’d done had been scrupulously above board.
“Hospitals aren’t like the business world you know,” Addie continued, her notebook clutched to her chest like armor. “You can’t come in here with your big boots and act like your father.”
Okay. That he heard. “I didn’t realize it was the kid,” he said, even though his justification sounded as lame to him as it must to her. “I thought it was the mother.”
She snorted. “And that makes a difference how?”
Good question. Of course she was right, what he’d done was unforgivable, inexcusable, deplorable. But there was this tight ball of fear inside him, that picture of Addie pounding at the back of his brain like a jackhammer, and he was terrified for her.
For himself.
He’d been Googling everything he could about leukemia relapse all day and none of it had been encouraging. He wasn’t being his usual rational self, he knew that. But was rationale required in this sort of situation?
“Is everything okay here?”
Nathaniel hadn’t noticed Penny’s arrival.
Addie smiled reassuringly at her friend before turning to him. “Go,” she said. “Just go.”
Nathaniel felt his irrational desperation ratchet up another level. “Look, Addie —I’m sorry, that was stupid—”
“Mr. Montgomery,” Penny said as she put her arm around Addie, “I think you should leave.”
Nathaniel glared at Penny of the Kombi. The woman had been a huge pain in the butt since she’d wielded that damned megaphone at the protest rally. She’d been behind every attempt to derail the St. Agnes project over the last couple of months. But he couldn’t help but notice how heavily Addie was leaning on her, at the implicit care and trust the two women shared. And he noticed something else, too—the same fear lurking in his heart reflected in Penny’s gaze.
He suddenly remembered that she had lost her sister to the same disease that had ravaged Addie and realized that this must be a savage blow to Penny as well.
Strangely, he felt a weird kind of solidarity.
He glanced at Addie. She looked wretched and pale and he castigated himself even more for his insane behavior. He wanted to sweep her up, tear her away from her friend, but he didn’t. Addie needed all the support she could get and he knew with utter certainty that Penny would go into bat for her friend—be with her every step of the way.
Unlike himself, with a million demands on his time. He couldn’t look after her, not the way Penny could.
Maybe this was for the best?
So why did it feel plain wrong?
“Good-bye, Nathaniel,” she said, and he watched as Penny led her back to the seats.
He was dismissed.
…
There were flowers waiting for Addie when she got back to the Ida May an hour later, and she gave them to a harried-looking mother who was trying to drag her toddler away from the dock edge. She couldn’t look at them.
Penny stayed with her for the long, long night and the distraction was good, but when she eventually went to bed, she dreamed twisted dreams about being sick and Nathaniel visiting her at the hospital every day with a different woman on his arm.
Addie was utterly exhausted when she saw the doctor first thing the next day. But it was amazing what difference a few minutes could make because when she told Addie that her blood work was normal and that she did not, in fact, have leukemia again, Addie felt ten-feet tall and bulletproof.
“It’s just a virus,” the doctor confirmed. “Sometimes they can knock your blood counts about, especially with your history.”
She and Penny smiled. Then they laughed. Then they cried and laughed. Then they both hugged the doctor, who was laughing, too.
It had never felt so damn good to be alive, and Addie left the office with a spring in her step and a renewed vigor to get her life back on track.
It lasted for a whole minute until her phone rang.
“Nathaniel?” Penny asked.
Addie nodded. There were several missed calls from him last night and this morning.
“I have a feeling he’s just going to keep ringing,” Penny said. “Put the man out of his misery. Then put him out of your mind.”
Addie nodded. Sage advice. She answered the phone.
“Well?”
Addie raised an eyebrow. Good morning to you, too. “I’m clear. Tests are normal. It’s just a virus.”
There was silence for a moment or two and she felt as if every cell in her body had paused, waiting for his next words.
“Oh…good…”
His brevity was typical, but the relief in his voice was obvious. She felt the sting of tears and blinked them back—what had she expected? She’d just had exceptionally good news—that was all she needed. The universe didn’t owe her anything else.
Certainly not an effusive Nathaniel Montgomery.
“Can I come over tonight?”
Addie shut her eyes against the request that sounded husky, unsure. She wanted him so badly, but the last month had been a roller coaster of emotions with Nathaniel. After the scare she’d just endured, she knew she couldn’t go back to that.
Being with Nathaniel was making her sick.
And she needed to be healthy.
“No, Nate. I can’t be with you.”
“Of course you can,” came his quick response. “You can do anything you want, Addie.”
She gripped the phone as his voice became smoky. “No, Nate, I can’t. I’ve fallen in love with you and—”
“What?”
Addie was glad they were on the phone. She had a feeling he would just have spluttered saliva all over her face.
“That’s preposterous. We’ve only known each other for a handful of weeks!”
Addie felt a lump in her throat. She
supposed to a man who set goals sixteen years in advance, something as messy and as instant as love would seem preposterous.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she assured him, her voice thick. “I can’t be with you. Everything I’ve done in my life to get healthy and stay healthy has gone by the wayside. Everything I’ve held dear these last few years, I’ve let slip since I’ve known you. I’m eating meat, I’m drinking, I haven’t meditated in weeks.”
“I haven’t asked you to do any of that.”
She continued, ignoring him. She had to get it all out. “I’m losing sight of myself. Right from the start you’ve forced me out of my peaceful, healthy lifestyle by making me take up a protest flag to help with the garden—”
“I did not make you—”
“Yes, you did, Nate. The minute you announced it was coming down, you did. And I can’t stand by and watch you destroy it. I know if I stay with you, the stress of your corporate high end life, your money, money, money lifestyle would eventually infect me and I’d be back to who I was before I got sick. I don’t want to be that person again. She was just going through the motions. She wasn’t happy with her life and I think it contributed to her getting sick. You’re a negative influence on my health, and after this scare, I can’t be complacent about that.”
Addie took a breath from the words that just kept tumbling out. Was he listening? Did he understand?
“And you shouldn’t be either,” she continued, unnerved by his silence. “You might not be able to see what it’s doing to you, but I can. I know.”
“I’m perfectly fit, Addie. I can deal with a bit of pressure.”
Addie shook her head at the bluster in his voice. He didn’t get it. He just didn’t get it. And she wasn’t going to waste years of her life trying to make him. Like his mother had done with his father.
She shook her head. “Good-bye, Nate.” And she hit the end button.
…
Nathaniel was in a foul temper all week and by Friday, everyone around him was looking forward to the approaching two-day respite. Margaret buzzed through to him mid-afternoon.
“Your mother is on line one,” she announced.
Nathaniel was staring out the window, pen in hand. “I don’t want to talk to her.”
“Yes, sir, I know.”
“So tell her I’m busy.”
“No, sir.”
Nathaniel threw his pen down on the desk. “Damn it, Margaret!”
“Sir, if you do not talk to your mother right now, I will ask both her and your grandmother to come to London to sort you out. You are being an unbearable oaf. You will talk to your mother this minute or my resignation will be on your desk by close of business.”
Nathaniel gritted his teeth. As much as his PA drove him nuts, he couldn’t do what he did without her. “Not if I fire you first,” he snapped.
“Yes sir, line one.”
He glared at the blinking light for a moment, then snatched the receiver up. “Mother, I am busy.”
“Goodness,” Delphine said. “Margaret’s right. You are being snippy.”
Nathaniel raked his hands through his hair. “Margaret needs to mind her own damn business.”
“Is it Addie?”
Nathaniel turned back to the window. He was thirty-four years old—his private life was none of his mother’s business.
“She’s a great girl, Nate. Don’t let her go.”
Nate felt a well of irrationality rise in him. Was it too much to ask his mother to be on his side? “She said I was a negative influence.”
“Oh, dear.” His mother tutted. “And why would she say that, darling?”
He shut his eyes as the thing that was weighing on his conscience the most needled at him. “I tried to bribe a nurse.”
It wasn’t why she’d said he was a negative influence, he knew that, but along with a million other thoughts of Addie this week, it had been the one he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.
And then he was telling his mother everything. About that incident and the health scare and his unease over the garden, especially now that Addie had put a human face to the whole conundrum.
“Do you think I’m turning into Dad?” he asked.
“No, darling. Dad would have had no guilt over the rose garden or throwing a bit of money around to get his way.”
It was hard to hear. He’d always admired his father’s guts and determination and glossed over the shady bits, but as much as he tried to ignore them, they were a matter of public record.
“What happened with you two? I always just assumed that you’d fallen out of love.”
“I loved your father even when I divorced him. But he was too busy making money to put me first in his life, and after a while, that wasn’t good enough.”
Nathaniel was starting to think his father wasn’t as smart as he’d always thought. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Just don’t make the same mistakes he did. You’re only thirty-four—you have all your life to fulfill your promise to your dad. Don’t sacrifice ambition for love like he did, Nate. Promise me you won’t do that, darling.”
Nathan felt that unease again. “I won’t,” he said briskly.
“Really, darling? Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
Nathan opened his mouth to deny it. He was not in love with Addie. She drove him nuts. She believed in repaying the universe and crystals and meditation. She had no goals other than stopping to smell the roses. And she was like Jiminy bloody Cricket—humanizing something that should be straightforward.
Apart from being compatible in bed, there wasn’t one single thing they had in common.
Then he remembered the absolute dread and fear that had gripped him during Addie’s health scare. How he’d done something so absolutely out of character because he’d been out of his mind with worry. How physically ill he’d felt when she’d told him good-bye.
How he’d been plotting all week to get her back without even realizing it.
He sat forward in his chair. “Oh my God, I’m in love with her.”
“Yes, darling. Now what are you going to do about it?”
…
Addie answered the phone a week later to Penny’s incoherent blabbering. Eventually, she figured out her friend wanted her to turn on the television to channel four.
She found the remote and flicked it on to a press conference. Nathaniel filled the screen standing on a raised podium as he had that day they’d first met. His suit and black sunglasses and Bluetooth were just as impressive. As was the way he wore them.
Her gaze devoured him.
Margaret stood behind him with her Mona Lisa smile, and a gaggle of reporters stood in front of them shouting questions. He raised his hand and they fell silent.
“I’m here today to make an announcement. After revising our strategies for the St. Agnes project and taking the community’s concerns into account, I have decided to preserve the walled rose garden and donate it back to the city for use as a green space by the citizens of London.”
A small crowd had gathered and there was clapping, but Addie didn’t hear anything else as Penny babbled in one ear and she scrabbled around for her scarf and jacket.
“I’ve got to go,” she told her friend. “I’m going to the garden.”
Addie’s heart rate was off the scale as she texted Nathaniel with shaking fingers.
I’m coming to the garden. Stay there.
She wasn’t crazy enough to think this was about her, but she had to see him, to thank him. Whatever his reasons for saving the garden, they all owed him a debt of gratitude. She knew what it meant financially for him, mentally and emotionally, too. Now he wouldn’t be able to reach that goal he’d been working toward, and that probably meant the most to her.
She was out of breath when she finally rounded the corner just outside the garden thirty minutes later. She had no idea if he’d still be there, but her heart hammered in anticipation as she ran up the street.
Marga
ret was leaning against the hood of a sleek black limo. She grinned as Addie dashed past. “He’s expecting you.”
“Nate?” she called once she was inside the walls. He didn’t answer. She ran through the rows to the center where they’d picnicked not that long ago. Winter had well and truly killed the blooms off, but there was something comforting about the dark green leaves all around her.
“Nate?” she called again as she turned into the row she’d been seeking.
And there he was, looking magnificent and male with his wicked Lucifer lips and blue-black hair. She even detected a hint of overnight growth peppering his jaw line.
He had one hand in his pocket and one behind his back. He smiled at her and Addie’s insides melted.
Must not do evil tycoon in garden.
She pulled up short a couple of meters away from him, her chest heaving from exertion. “You saved the garden,” she panted, her warm breath fogging in the frosty air.
He grinned. “Yes, I did.”
Addie couldn’t allow herself to smile back. He was doing strange things to her equilibrium and she was in danger of forgetting why the two of them together were a bad idea. “But why?”
He shrugged taking his hand out of his pocket. “To get into your pants.”
Okay, she smiled at that. She’d missed him so much.
“Seriously,” she said because he was looking at her like he had X-ray vision and she wasn’t wearing any underwear. Even though she was. And one of them had to be serious.
“Because I love you and I’ve been a fool.”
Addie felt each quietly delivered word slam into her like amplified rock music. “What did you say?”
“I said I love you.”
Her pulse leapt but she kept her feet firmly planted on the ground. It couldn’t be so, could it?
“And because I’m not my father. He was an idiot choosing the company over my mother, and I don’t want to do the same.”
He took a step toward her as she absorbed the open criticism of his father.
“Because you scared the living daylights out of me last week and I realized how much you meant to me.”
He took another step and Addie could feel the warmth radiating off his body.
“Because I don’t want to live in a world that’s all work, work, work when I could be making love to you.”
