Freya rarely closed the curtains. There was nothing between her little cottage and the water, and the sight of the bridges always had her in awe. They were miles away, of course, but it looked as if fairy lights had been expertly strung in the sky, and the new Queensferry Crossing was magnificent.
Tomorrow she was catching up with a few friends, and then there was a huge Sunday dinner at her parents’ house to look forward to.
And then she thought about Alison and what she’d said about ‘temporary’ not usually suiting her. Perhaps now it did.
She took out her phone and read again the text he had sent.
Freya liked Richard.
A lot.
From the moment she had first seen him he had captivated her.
Yet she wanted to keep things breezy and light.
Or rather, she had to.
And not just because Richard Lewis had told her that it was the only way they could be. It was also because this place was home. Not London.
Freya had made up her mind now—she would not be selling her home.
* * *
He’d noticed her lack of response to his text.
Of course he had.
Richard had been moving through Security at Heathrow when he’d fired it off, and had regretted the simple message the second after he’d hit ‘send’.
He did not report in to anyone—certainly not about things like interviews—and, furthermore, he loathed the cascade of texts that all too often came when he was seeing someone.
When he’d collected his phone on the other side of Security he’d seen that she hadn’t responded.
Good, he’d told himself. A mistake had been made, but a lesson had been learnt, he’d decided as he had boarded the plane.
‘Phones to be turned off now, please,’ the steward said, but Richard had checked his again before he did so.
Four hours later, as he stood at Moscow airport, even though the very reason for his trip was to get away from the constant buzz of pagers and phones, he found himself turning it on.
No, she had not replied.
Freya could not have known the effect on him.
It made him want her more.
And that did not sit well with Richard.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘HOW WAS MOSCOW?’
This time it was Freya who put her tray down at his table in the canteen. It was morning—just after seven—and he was eating cereal.
Unlike her, though, he was starting his day rather than at the tail-end of a shift.
They hadn’t really spoken since she had got back. Freya was just finishing a two-week stint on nights and their rosters hadn’t crossed.
‘Beautiful,’ Richard said. ‘But far from relaxing. All the signs are in Russian.’
‘I wonder why!’
‘Still, it was nice to get away. How was Scotland?’
‘I had a great time. It flew by, though.’
‘Have you finished on nights?’ He frowned, because it was odd to see her down here at this time of the morning.
‘Officially I have.’ Freya nodded. ‘But there’s a twin pregnancy to deliver soon.’
Freya was lacking in experience there, as the birthing centre at home didn’t accept multiple pregnancies. So she was more than happy to stay back—especially as through the night she had got to know Jeanette and her partner.
‘Stella just came on, and she suggested I go and get something to eat. Then she and Dr Mina are going to hold my hand, so to speak.’
Neither mentioned catching up with each other again. Some things were best left, Richard had decided.
He liked her a lot—perhaps because he couldn’t quite read her. She was private, and he liked that. And her eyes could be sullen at times, but then she punched out a smile...
All Richard knew was that he liked her a whole lot more than he was comfortable with.
‘Your interview went well?’ Freya checked, alluding to the text she hadn’t responded to.
‘It was just lunch.’
He offered no more, for he had already told her more than he should. Yet deep down he knew she wouldn’t have told anyone his potential news. He’d never have shared it with her otherwise.
Richard hadn’t expected to be as impressed as he was by the private hospital set-up. The hours were far fewer, though he could take on more if he chose, and he would have considerably more annual leave.
‘It would be a step up—a big one.’
‘A step back too,’ Freya said. ‘From the pace here.’
It wasn’t a criticism. She looked at him and could see his exhaustion, and then she looked down at the pile of cereal with which he fuelled his day.
She looked up again, at the closed look on his face, and knew she should not have come over. It wasn’t just their rosters that had kept them apart. He was politely avoiding her.
Thankfully, this time around it was her pager that interrupted them. ‘Woohoo!’ Freya said as she glanced down and read the message it was time for her to go back up to Maternity. ‘Wish me luck.’
She didn’t wait around to hear him do so. Instead, she made her speedy way along the yellow line to Maternity and pushed the gorgeous Richard Lewis out of her mind.
Having washed her hands, she headed into D4.
‘You’ve been busy,’ Freya said to Jeanette as she tied on a plastic gown. ‘Well done, you.’
The next hour was sheer hard work for Jeanette and she did it brilliantly. Freya made sure there was no trace of tiredness in her own reactions.
The room started to fill up. Guy Masters and his registrar came—one for each baby—as well as Stella and Kelly.
‘Listen to Freya,’ Dr Mina said as Jeanette started to panic.
‘You’re almost there,’ Freya encouraged. ‘A big one now...’
She had never delivered twins before, but with so much experience in the room she didn’t feel at all scared. And as Twin One was delivered onto Jeanette’s stomach there was a sense of elation.
Yet there was more work still to do.
‘Is she okay?’ Jeanette kept asking over her baby’s cries.
‘She’s wonderful,’ Kelly said. ‘Dad, do you want to cut the cord?’
With Twin One in Kelly’s extremely capable hands Freya prepared to deliver Twin Two. The baby was in a good position, and Freya looked up and saw that Jeanette was starting to push.
‘Well done,’ Freya said. ‘Jeanette, you are doing so well...’ Being a midwife was such a privilege, she thought. ‘Okay, I need another big push.’
And then Twin Two was there, a little stunned and straight off to Stella, and soon there was the delicious sound of two babies crying.
‘Well done,’ Dr Mina said quietly to Freya.
‘Thank you.’
There was still the single placenta to come, and when it did both Freya and Dr Mina carefully examined it and checked the membranes.
Soon the room was clear. The paediatric team were happy, and Stella and Kelly had dashed off. Everything was under control here.
They were utterly adorable, Freya thought as she helped Jeanette feed her twins one by one. Once Jeanette was on the ward and wasn’t feeling so shaky she would be helped to feed them both at the same time, but for now they lay in their mother’s arms one at a time.
‘You were completely wonderful.’ Freya smiled.
‘So were you,’ said Jeanette.
Freya was feeling a little shaky herself after her first twin birth. She wrote up her notes and filled in all the paperwork, but the words blurred a little on the page.
Because of tears.
She was tired, that was all, Freya told herself as she pressed her fingers into her eyes. She was tired and over-emotional. And now that the birth was over she could take her thoughts back to the canteen, and to the ending of her and Richard.
Oh, but she’d been warned. Not just by Stella but by the man himself.
‘Home?’ Stella gently asked.
‘Yes.’
‘How did it go?’
‘It was brilliant.’ She smiled deliberately.
‘Have a well-earned sleep, now.’
‘Thanks.’
And that was it, Freya thought as she closed the door. They were back to niceties on passing in the corridor and no more.
She peeled off her baggy top as she started to change so she could finally go home. But then came a knock on the door.
‘Freya...?’
She lifted her top to cover herself, and then didn’t know why she needed to bother, given it was him.
He wanted to apologise—to tell her the problem was him, not her—but they didn’t get there.
Richard never brought any personal awkwardness to work. He had his pickings, but he never allowed things to get awkward here.
Yet suddenly they were kissing.
Deep, frantic kisses.
She found out that his rough unshaven jaw was possibly her preference over the clean-shaven version. And then he was thumbing her nipples through her bra.
‘Not here...’ he said, even as he pressed into her.
He had moved from her mouth and was kissing her neck, and his hand was creeping into the back of her navy trousers.
The scent of him was potent and she found his mouth again and...
Oh, God, she was nearly coming.
‘Not here,’ he said again, and sort of shoved her off him.
It was probably just as well, or they’d have been on the floor of the changing room, where anybody could walk in.
They both breathed through it and waited for it pass, but it was a couple of minutes before Richard was ready to head back out there.
‘I’ll text you about tonight,’ Richard said.
Freya noted that he didn’t sound happy or flirty or teasing. He sounded frustrated. As if it was her fault for the situation they were in, when it had been Richard who had followed her in here.
‘And answer my text this time, Freya.’
CHAPTER NINE
BOTH OF THEM kept waiting for the bubble to burst.
Yet it didn’t.
They tended to end up at his place, but one morning two months into them, and three months after Freya had moved to London, Freya stirred on her lumpy bed with Richard spooned in behind her.
It should be over with by now, she knew. Freya was waiting for Richard to discard her with the practised ease he was known for.
And, oh, it would hurt.
It would hurt like hell.
London would be lonely without him. Friends had proved very hard to come by, and the pace of the work still completely floored her. She missed being more involved with the mothers, and found she craved the community that had felt too small.
Freya was homesick.
For home, for family and friends.
Apart from during her time with Richard—which was wonderful, of course—Freya ached for home.
She was starting to do what he’d told her not to.
She was starting to rely on him.
And while Freya waited to be summarily dumped, Richard waited, as Freya had once said, for the very curl of her hair to irk him.
For the gloss to fade.
For the joy to wear off.
But it hadn’t. It didn’t.
If anything, it had intensified.
He lifted her hair and in the darkness could see her pale skin. He pushed down the sheet.
It was a cold mid-October morning and she shivered, both from the chill of the air and also the heat as he ran a finger down her spine.
And then he brought his tongue to her neck.
He slipped a hand under her so he could play with her breast, and she groaned as he toyed with her nipple.
‘Wake up,’ he whispered.
‘I don’t want to,’ Freya whispered back. ‘I’m having a lovely dream.’
She could feel him hard against her thighs, so she parted them a little and he slipped between their warmth.
He really should reach for a condom. But this was so nice...
He probed between her thighs, teasing, rubbing, caressing the edges of her intimate space without pushing in.
Freya knew she should halt things. Yes, she was on the Pill, but that wasn’t the point. They had made no promises to each other—just sex for as long as they both wanted it.
But then there were the dinners and the breakfasts. and the talking into the small hours at times.
Though there was little talking now...
But, ever the sensible playboy, he did not slip into her inviting warmth. He pulled away from between her thighs and Freya lay with her eyes screwed closed in frustration as he sheathed himself.
She was losing her head—Freya knew that. And she dared not check her heart.
He came back to his previous position and groaned, ‘God, Freya,’ as he slipped in.
She was so ready and tight, and pre-dawn sex had never felt better. He filled her and stretched her, and his body wrapped around hers felt like a blissful vice. He toyed with her breast in the way she had come to adore.
They moved in delicious unison, their bodies tuned to each other, pressing together until they found their climax.
They lay on their backs on her lumpy mattress, both sated and breathless, but when the near-miss with the condom came to her mind Freya gave him a scolding.
‘We have to be more careful.’
But he hadn’t wanted to be careful, and, Richard knew, neither had she.
‘We’ll talk about it.’
‘No,’ Freya said, ‘we already have.’
She was not sleeping with someone who had told her never to rely on him without a condom.
And yet Richard was starting to rely on her in a way he had never considered he might.
Life felt a whole lot better with Freya in it.
Yes, work was crazy, but there was a counter-balance to it now, and he needed far fewer trips overseas to get away from the pressure.
Instead, he looked forward to the end of a work-day and to nights spent with her.
He didn’t like coming here so much, mind... He didn’t like her poky flat. But last night he hadn’t finished until midnight, and he had hardly been able to ask her to hop on the Tube and come to his place. Or give her a key and tell her to come to his at the end of her shift and let herself in.
Surely it was way too soon for that? And, anyway, he’d sworn never to get so involved.
Yet more and more he found he was.
It was Richard who broke the silence. ‘Marcus is pushing me for an answer on the new job.’
‘And have you decided what you want to do?
‘Not yet. It would mean starting in the New Year.’
‘That’s ages away.’
‘It will be November in a couple of weeks,’ he pointed out. ‘And I’d have to give a month’s notice—more if possible. So if I want some time off between jobs then I need to give him an answer soon.’
‘Which way are you leaning?’
‘I’m still not sure,’ Richard admitted. ‘The private work would be at a slower pace, and seriously more money...’
‘But you love what you do.’
‘I know that, but...’ He ground down on his jaw.
He wanted her take on things, but whenever he broached it with Freya she asked only what he wanted to do. And, while he liked it that Freya never put any kind of pressure on him, he kind of needed her view on this.
Because it might affect her.
God, he thought. He was staring up at the ceiling and wanting someone else’s input into his future because he was starting to think, to hope, that the ‘someone else’ might be involved in it.
He thought it better not to say anything just yet, though. He really needed to think this through, and he needed to get the hell out of here before he went and said something stupid.
He had always been incredib
ly focused where work was concerned, and independent in his choices too. This way of thinking was a huge shift for him, and lying in the warmth of her bed it would be all too easy to offer her his keys, to move her in, because he did not want her here in this horrible flat.
He wanted her at his home.
‘I’m going to go,’ Richard said.
‘There’s still an hour before you have to leave.’
‘Yes, but I want to have a shower...’
‘Have one here.’ Freya frowned.
‘I don’t like your shower, Freya,’ Richard said, and climbed from the bed.
Ooh, what was that all about? Freya pondered as Richard dressed. He was in an odd mood, and as he went to leave he gave her only a brief kiss on the cheek—more like a family member might at a gathering, rather than a lover who had just left her bed.
Freya could not let it go. ‘Thanks, Uncle Richard.’
‘What?’ He frowned.
‘That’s the sort of kiss my uncle gives me,’ she said, and looked at him with accusing eyes.
He smiled, because he couldn’t help but smile when she was around, and because she was such a snarky thing that he was tempted to dress her, pack a case and haul her back to his place.
For good.
‘We’ll talk tonight,’ Richard said. ‘You’re on a late?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I finish at six, but I’ll stay back and then we can go to mine.’
He walked out of her flat and Freya heard the slam of the door. She lay there, not quite so brave now.
Richard wanted to talk.
To Freya that could only spell one thing.
They were done.
She had known the winds would change eventually, and that one day he’d tire and Rita the domestic would be reaching under a bed with a broom for her soon to be discarded heart.
She had been duly warned.
Freya had sworn to herself that when the time came she would be ready for it and fully prepared to deal with it. Except she hadn’t factored in how deeply feelings could be etched. Never had she felt such kinship with someone. And as she got up and pulled back the curtains a world without Richard in it suddenly looked a lot less friendly than even a cold grey day in London.
She showered and told herself she was overreacting. Of course Richard wanted to go home to shower—because hers was horrible, with dark green tiles, and the water ran cold for ages before you could get in. And the shower curtain needed to be replaced.
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