He held her close, earnest but gentle, as he deepened the kiss. Abby simply melted against him. She hadn’t expected this to happen. After Dirk, she’d promised herself that it wouldn’t ever happen again. But Matt had found his way past the barriers. Being held by him this way, feeling the warmth of him there beside her, Abby realized she was beginning to fall in love with him. More than just beginning to, in fact.
Abby hadn’t seen Matt since their kiss in his living room two days earlier. She’d missed him, but she didn’t want to seem desperate. When an order came through at the nursery for Sainsbury House, Abby jumped at the opportunity to make the delivery.
She didn’t find Larry in the gardener’s shed. She decided to slip inside the house and say hi to Matt. Abby was glad she’d worn her favorite pair of work jeans instead of the ratty ones she’d had on the last time she’d come to Sainsbury House. Her blue t-shirt was in decent shape too. She’d spent the day at the counter and not among the plants, so she was still clean. Not a bad day to drop in on the guy who’d somehow managed to lay claim to her heart.
Abby smoothed her hair as she stepped onto the porch and into the entryway. She hadn’t been to Matt’s office many times, but she remembered exactly where it was. His voice floated out his open office door. That accent had turned her off when she first met him. He’d seemed stuffy and arrogant. Now she loved the sound of it, loved the way her name sounded like poetry when he said it.
“We can, of course, accommodate you in that,” he was saying to someone inside. “At Sainsbury House we pride ourselves on making our clients’ experiences as close to perfect as we can possibly manage.”
Abby leaned against the wall beside the door, listening.
“And you can guarantee the staff will remain out of sight and unobtrusive throughout the night?” Whoever was in there with them seemed adamant on that point. “We don’t want the help getting in the way.”
The ones doing all the work have to stay out of sight. Some people are so arrogant.
“I will make note of that,” Matt answered.
She leaned around the doorframe, not stepping fully into the threshold. Matt sat at his desk, wearing a suit and tie, hair perfect like a model in a magazine. A couple sat across the desk from him—pearls, cufflinks, polished shoes, snotty expressions. Abby knew in a glance that they were exactly the sort of people Dirk had tried to make her fit in with, the ones who always sighed in dismissive annoyance at her appearance and her clumsiness and her plainness.
She must have made some kind of noise. All three people looked toward her. The same familiar discomfort she’d known every minute she’d spent with Dirk in public came rushing back. When it was just the two of them, things were fine. Not great, but fine. But as soon as someone else was around, she wasn’t good enough.
Matt was up and out of his chair in an instant, moving to where she stood. “Abby. What you are you doing here?”
He didn’t seem at all happy to see her. “Larry ordered some plants and things from the nursery,” she said. “I’m delivering them.”
Her eyes darted to the couple. They were watching her, their faces pulled in expressions of disapproval.
Matt slipped a hand under her elbow, moving her toward his office door with obvious determination. “Larry is probably in the shed. You should look for him there.”
“I was just there,” Abby said. “He was gone, so I came to see you.”
Matt glanced back at his office before returning his gaze to her. “He may have returned by now.”
“Maybe.”
Matt was still lightly pushing her back toward the entryway. He didn’t want her going in his office? “I’m interrupting, aren’t I? I can just wait out here”
He shook his head no.
He doesn’t even want me to wait?
He lowered his voice. “This is a very particular client. They can be very picky about things.”
“About things or about people?” The question slid unbidden from her lips.
“Both,” he said. “They have very particular... standards.”
She didn’t like that word choice at all.
“Let me put it this way—they are not the sort of people to know what a gardening shed is, let alone go inside one.”
There was no mistaking that. She didn’t belong here among his important, highbrow clients. She couldn’t have been more out of place in her jeans and t-shirt, the smell of potting soil clinging to her the way the aroma of money hung off the couple seated by Matt’s desk. He didn’t want them to see him with the “garden shed girl.”
Dirk’s words echoed in her mind, but in Matt’s voice: Everyone has their level.
Once again, she’d given her heart over to a guy who looked down on her. He was ashamed to be seen with her in front of his snobby clients.
Abby wasn’t about to go through that again. If he was embarrassed by her, hiding her away from the fancy, important people in his life, then so be it. But she wouldn’t hang around, enduring the humiliation of it all.
She nodded then turned and walked away. If she kept her shoulders and head up, he might not realize her heart was breaking.
Chapter Eight
Abby wasn’t answering her phone. She came by to help Barney in his garden, but only when Matt was at work. She didn’t come to the market on Sundays or join him and his friends for their weekly football matches. He hadn’t seen her or talked to her in two weeks.
What had he done wrong? He’d talked through it with Barney and Mum and even his sisters, but no one had any idea what had happened. Mum finally told him, in a tone that brooked no argument, that if he couldn’t ask Abby why she’d suddenly decided to toss him off, he needed to ask Abby’s sister.
Caroline and her fiancé were scheduled to meet with him that week to finalize all the wedding details. He intended to get the business part of it all taken care of quickly so he could ask her what he’d done to make her sister run off.
Caroline’s intended, Gregory, wasn’t at all like Matt had imagined him. Where she was fussy and, honestly, a little high strung, Gregory was laid back. Looking at him, no one would guess he was only a few days from getting married.
They quickly wrapped up the wedding checklist. Matt closed the lid on his laptop and looked at Caroline, hoping she could see the earnest sincerity in his expression. “May I ask a nonbusiness question?”
She and Gregory exchanged quick, knowing glances. “About Abby?” She sounded very sure about the topic.
Matt nodded. “I don’t know what I did, but I can tell she’s mad at me, or doesn’t like me anymore.” He had broken the “no contractions” rule three times in one sentence, a clear sign Abby’s defection was getting to him. “I can’t get her to return my calls. I don’t know what happened.”
“Oh, I can tell you what happened,” Caroline said. “Dirk the Jerk is what happened.”
Though she spoke with conviction, the explanation didn’t help at all. Matt looked to Gregory, hoping for a guy-friendly translation.
“Up until about a year ago,” Gregory said. “Abby was dating this guy named Dirk. He was a total plague.”
“Then why was she dating him?” Another question came to mind immediately. “And what does that have to do with me?” He wasn’t a jerk, a bully, or a plague. He didn’t think so, at least.
“Abby didn’t see him the way we all did,” Caroline explained. “Not at first, anyway. When it was just the two of them, or around our family, he was okay. He treated her decent. But around his friends and family, or the public in general, she was never good enough.”
Matt didn’t like that sound of that at all.
“Dirk comes from money, if you know what I mean. His family’s very connected and rich and fancy.” Caroline was growing noticeably angrier as she spoke. “All dressed up like them, Abby looks like a million bucks. Dirk approved of her, kind of, when she was like that, but he looked down on who she really is. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone where she worked or w
here she grew up. For the most part, she wasn’t supposed to talk at all when they were out together, just smile and look pretty.”
“I actually heard him tell her to shut up once,” Gregory said. “I almost belted the guy.”
A simmering anger began in the pit of Matt’s stomach. How dare anyone treat Abby that way?
“She finally admitted that Dirk was, in fact, a complete jerk and found the guts to dump him,” Caroline said. “But that kind of thing leaves scars. She still wonders if she’s good enough, if she’s too poor or ordinary or plain.”
“How could she even think that?” It didn’t make sense at all. “Abby is amazing.”
Caroline smiled. “We think so too.”
“So why did you toss her out the other day?” Gregory asked.
“I never tossed her out.” What was he talking about?
They both looked instantly confused. Obviously Matt was missing something.
“She came by here,” Caroline said. “And, apparently, you were pretty insistent she make herself scarce.”
“What?” That was ridiculous. He remembered her visit. The Carlisles were there, working out details of some stuffy dinner party they wanted to hold, and he’d been doing his best not tell them how idiotic they were. The owners of Sainsbury House valued the Carlisles’ business and connections and had been quite clear that he was not to do anything to jeopardize that. He’d managed to hold his tongue throughout the meeting, but not without effort.
“She said you kept trying to keep her out of sight of your clients,” Gregory added.
“Actually that part’s true.” He spoke the realization as he had it. “But because of Abby, not because of them. The Carlisles are cold and cruel. They have no qualms about insulting or belittling people they think are beneath them. I couldn’t guarantee they would be civil to her.” He had, in fact, been very much afraid they would be terrible to her. “There was no way on earth I was going to let her be mistreated. The only way to avoid that was to keep her from having to interact with them.”
Both Caroline and Gregory looked surprised, and maybe even a little relieved.
“Then it wasn’t that you were embarrassed to be seen with her in front of important people?” Caroline asked.
“The Carlisles are not important people, At least, not to me. And certainly not as important as Abby.”
Caroline leaned a little closer to his desk, lowering her voice. “Does she know that?”
Does she? “Considering how quickly she decided I was ashamed of her, I’d guess she doesn’t.”
“Show her,” Caroline added.
Show her. He meant to. He simply had to figure out how.
Caroline’s wedding was everything any hopeless romantic could wish for. The bridesmaids all wore their 1910s-inspired dresses and only complained about them when the bride wasn’t nearby. The men looked, to coin Caroline’s phrase, “quite dapper” in their fancy suits and slicked-back hair. The venue was perfect. The weather was perfect. Everything was nauseatingly perfect.
Abby was in a bad mood but couldn’t seem to shake it. She was happy for her sister; she really was. But watching Matt—she couldn’t bring herself to think of him as Matthew, wanting to remember the version of him she liked best—hover on the edges of every moment of that day only drove the knife of disappointment deeper into her heart. She did her best to look the other way when he came in her line of vision. As the event coordinator, he was everywhere. He was also too busy to talk to her. For that, she was grateful.
She sat at the wedding party’s table through the unending dinner, pretending to enjoy the food and faking a smile. She didn’t hear half of what was said during the toasts. She raised her glass when everyone else did, laughed when the guests laughed. But her heart wasn’t in any of it.
You’ll kick yourself for this later, wishing you’d pulled yourself together for Caroline’s wedding. But all of the well-meaning pep talks in the world didn’t seem capable of pulling her out of her funk.
If Matt hadn’t seemed so great, so close to exactly what she was looking for in a man, she wouldn’t have been so disappointed. He was kind and thoughtful. He got along with his mother, which she thought was a good sign. He wasn’t obsessive about plants like she was, but he liked gardening with her and Barney. He didn’t blow off her passion for flowers and plants and gardens the way so many people did. He’d seemed so... so right.
Maybe you’re blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Maybe you should have answered when he called.
She clapped mechanically as Caroline and Gregory began their first dance, but her mind was miles away. Matt was likely in the kitchen checking on the staff or outside overseeing the pavilion takedown. What she wouldn't have given to have been on Barney's balcony instead, letting the sweet old man cheer her up once more.
Despite her heavy heart, Abby could almost smile thinking of Barney and his stories. She’d never heard anyone talk with as much love and adoration as he did about his late wife. Maybe that was what had made her idealize Matt so much. She’d started thinking of him as her Barney, a man who loved her, quirks and all.
The dancing became more general. With fewer eyes focused on the front table, Abby finally felt like she could escape for a moment. She skirted around the room, making her way to the open double doors. The entry hall beyond wasn’t exactly empty, but it felt far less suffocating. She needed someplace quiet, somewhere she could be alone even if for a moment.
“Abby!”
She spun at the sound of her name spoken in an achingly familiar British accent. “Hey, Matt.” Her voice wasn’t entirely steady.
He stood outside the closed door of his office, looking earth-shatteringly handsome in a dark suit. She'd tried to avoid noticing that all day. But those green eyes. They got to her every time.
“I thought you would be… coordinating… something.” The pounding of her heart in her throat made words difficult to come by.
“Actually, I’ve been waiting for you.”
He was waiting for her? Why? That didn’t make sense, not when he had clients and important things to see to. Hadn't he made her place on his totem pole painfully clear? “I don’t understand.”
“There hasn't been a chance to talk to you all day, and I didn't want to risk causing a scene during your sister's wedding,” he said. “But I can't let the entire night get away without seeing you. So I’ve been waiting here, hoping you’d step out.”
The few guests wandering the entryway gave her and Matt curious glances. Abby could feel her face heat with the attention.
“Can we talk in here?” Matt asked, motioning toward his office. “I’ll only take a minute, I promise.”
She was halfway to his door before the realization hit her that if she really thought he was a complete jerk, she wouldn’t have agreed to talk with him without so much as a hesitation. Besides, he was being her Matt again, not stuffy Matthew. She could at least find out what made the difference, where the change came from.
She stepped inside, pushing from her mind the memory of the snooty couple who’d sat there the last time she’d been at Sainsbury House. Nothing much had changed in his office. Her eyes settled on a potted plant at the corner of Matt’s desk. It hadn’t been there before. And she knew exactly what variety it was.
“A fuchsia,” she said, gently running her fingers along the petals of one flower.
The same plant Barney gave Francis every year for their anniversary, for her birthdays, as an “I love you” and an “I’m sorry” and everything in between.
“It’s a Swingtime Fuchsia,” Matt said. “The variety you like best.”
This was her Matt, remembering every little thing.
“I brought it for you,” he said. “Though I haven’t figured out how to give it to you yet.”
“For me?” She looked up, her heart already beginning to hope. It would shatter if this didn’t turn out well. She cautiously asked, “Why?”
She had never in her life se
en a man beg, but the look on Matt’s face in that moment came very close. “I miss you, Abby. I miss sitting on the balcony with you. I spend all day Sunday at the farmer’s market watching for you. Every time my phone rings, I hope it’s going to be you calling.” He’d moved to her side but didn’t touch her. His eyes studied her face, the pleading in them not lessening at all. “I want a chance to try again. A chance to make things right between us.”
A bubble of hope began deep inside. Abby tried to push it down, not ready to open herself up to the possibility of being hurt again.
Matt slowly, deliberately took her hand, clearly expecting her to pull away. She didn’t. She couldn’t. His touch filled an empty part of her. She’d missed him too. She’d needed him nearby.
“I was something of an idiot about things,” Matt said, holding her gaze with his. “When you were here before, I wasn’t trying to hide you away. I wasn’t embarrassed to have you here or ashamed of you. Nothing like that.” His words took on an earnest edge she couldn’t doubt was sincere. “The people who were here are quite possibly the biggest snobs on the face of the earth. And they are often cruel. I have no choice but to interact with them—it’s one of the more unpleasant parts of my job—but I didn’t want you to have to. I was afraid they would be unkind. I didn’t want you enduring that. And if they’d been cruel to you, I couldn’t have held my tongue. I was trying to avoid all that.”
“Really?” She wanted to believe him. She wanted to badly.
“Honestly and truly.” He took her other hand. “I should have been clearer about that. I should have explained and let you decide what you wanted to do.”
“I would have been very out of place with fancy and sophisticated people.”
He lightly laughed. “My mum keeps saying I need to tell you that I’m just a regular bloke from Stanmore.”
Abby had no idea what that meant, but he said it so earnestly, she knew it was significant.
“I’ve never been rich and probably never will be. I’m just an average guy who’s, honestly, kind of surprised you let me spend as much time with you as you did.”
A Timeless Romance Anthology: Summer Wedding Collection Page 29
