by Jill Mansell
“Because if you were thinking about it,” persisted Charlotte doggedly, “Toby and I want you to know that we really do like him. Just in case you were wondering.”
* * *
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here,” Poppy said when she opened the front door and saw him standing there on the step, his dark curls plastered to his head and his beige leather jacket darkened by the rain.
Mac hesitated, trying to place her.
“We met—fleetingly—at the Easter Ball in Gloucestershire,” she explained kindly. “And at Vampires once too. You’re absolutely drenched.”
“My car broke down. I couldna get a cab. It’s raining.” His Scottish accent was enhanced by nerves. “I suppose she is here?”
“In body if not in spirit,” said Poppy briskly, attempting to usher him inside, “but we’re relying on you to change all that. You aren’t going to be beastly to her now, are you?”
“Me?” said Mac, eyebrows arching in astonishment. “Beastly?”
“Oh, come in. Stop prevaricating. Fancy me being able to say that incredibly complicated word! Must be the champagne…” She paused, lost in self-admiration.
Mac blinked the rain out of his eyes. “I’d rather wait here. Could you find her and tell her—”
“Right away,” intercepted Poppy happily. “How gloriously romantic. I’ll send her out with an umbrella. Hang on just two secs…”
When Loulou appeared, still dressed in the yellow tank top and white leggings she had worn on the show, she said shyly, “We’re having a party. Why don’t you come in?”
“Not yet.” Mac gazed at her, his hands clenching inside the pockets of his jacket, his stomach muscles tensing at the sight of the woman he had never been able to stop loving. “I don’t have anything to celebrate. Yet.”
“Poppy’s given me her umbrella. Look, it’s got Popeye and Olive Oyl on it.” Babbling out of sheer panic, Loulou struggled to open it and almost took her eye out on one of the spokes as it burst suddenly to life. “I didn’t even realize it was raining…”
“Come for a walk,” said Mac, taking it from her before she maimed either of them for life. “Calm down; stop blathering. I want to talk to you.”
The streets were black and glistening with rain. Puddles reflected the orange glow of the streetlamps, and only the occasional swoosh of car tires broke the silence as they passed by. The sycamore trees, ragged black outlines against the heavy sky, dripped heavier raindrops onto the stretched dome of Poppy’s umbrella. Loulou, wanting to be as wet as Mac, took it back from him and carefully closed it, hooking the handle over her bare arm and lifting her face to the rain.
“We’ll always argue,” he said, wondering whether to take her free arm, “but as long as we both know that it doesn’t really matter, I think we could be OK.”
“OK?” she said in a low voice, as a man with a rather smart scarlet-and-white umbrella splashed past them. “What do you mean, OK?”
“I mean,” he said with a sigh, “that I don’t think we can be happy without each other. I love you, and I can’t seem to love anyone else. It’s over now between Cecilia and me.”
They were still walking side by side, not touching and not looking at each other. Finally, he stopped and turned, taking Loulou’s cold hands in his colder ones. “What I mean,” he said, speaking each word with desperate care, “is will you marry me? I love you. I will love Lili. I want the three of us to be—”
“Mac, wait.” Her tone serious now, Loulou forestalled him. “This is important. How do you really feel about Lili?”
He shook his dark head, dismissing her fears. “I know I was jealous, but I came to terms with that a long time ago. Lou, she might not be mine, but she’s a gorgeous little girl. It would be impossible not to love her…after all,” he added, taking her hand and kissing it, “she’s your daughter. And she’s every bit as irresistible as you are.”
“Oh, Mac, do you really mean that?” Loulou sighed, and this time he nodded, his eyes never leaving her face.
“I do. And I promise you that this time we’ll make it work. So now, you heartless woman, will you please agree to marry me so that we can at last get out of this bloody rain?”
The Popeye umbrella tilted at a crazy angle as she flung her arms around Mac’s neck. “Yes, yes, YES!”
Chapter Sixty
Marty didn’t need to say a word. Nico took one look at the appalled expression on his face and realized that he had to move fast. Grabbing Marty’s small, clammy hand, he led him swiftly out of the room and up the stairs.
Glancing around the room, Camilla wondered where Nico was. Charlotte was teaching Zoë the mechanics of belly dancing. Poppy and her husband were deep in conversation with Sebastian and Roz, and Toby had been adopted by a rowdy, rumbustious group from Vampires who were teaching him card tricks. Marguerite was nose to nose with Laszlo de Lazzari, and Natalie, in a shady corner of the room, was bewitching a pair of raffish young City brokers who could scarcely drag their eyes from her bare navel.
Camilla prayed that Loulou and Mac weren’t outside having another fight.
And where was Marty? Realizing that he was nowhere to be seen, she slid quietly out of the noisy, smoky sitting room and tried the kitchen, but apart from a couple wrapped in an intimate embrace in front of the freezer and a remarkably guilty-looking Rocky with mayonnaise around his mouth, the room was empty. She was only halfway up the staircase when she heard Nico’s voice, low and comforting, and for a moment thought that he was with one of the girls from Vampires. The white-hot stab of jealousy she experienced sent shivers down her spine. I have no right to be jealous, she thought, taking a deep breath and pausing near the top of the stairs. And I’m not spying on him either. I’m looking for Marty, that’s all.
The bathroom door was wide open. Having moved silently along the thickly carpeted landing, Camilla watched unnoticed as Marty’s small shoulders quivered and he retched once more into the lavatory bowl. Nico, one arm around his waist, murmured encouragement and mopped the boy’s sweating forehead with a damp washcloth. Camilla’s heart went out to Marty as he gasped and sobbed and clutched at Nico’s hand for reassurance.
“There you are. Good boy. All finished now?” said Nico gently, rubbing Marty’s back and wiping his tearstained cheeks with the washcloth.
Marty nodded and staggered to his feet, holding out his arms for a comforting embrace.
Without a moment’s hesitation Nico hugged him, and Camilla heard Marty say brokenly, “I love you.”
“And I love you,” said Nico, smiling and rumpling the boy’s short, spiky dark hair. “But I’ll love you a lot more when we’ve cleaned your teeth. Which is your toothbrush?”
“The green one,” said Camilla, stepping out of the shadows and realizing how very, very much she loved Nico. The jolt of jealousy, followed by the incredibly touching scene she had just witnessed, had forced that knowledge back into the forefront of her mind, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry because no one understood better than she did how appalling it felt to love someone who no longer returned that love.
Avoiding Nico’s eyes, she reached past him for the toothbrush and said, “It was very kind of you to look after him. Whoever would have thought you’d be so good at dealing with this kind of thing?”
The words came out sounding far more offhand than she had intended, and almost deliberately insulting. Nico threw her an icy look.
“Me of all people,” he said shortly, mocking her. “Incredible, isn’t it?”
Flustered, Camilla turned her attention to Marty, who was spitting toothpaste foam into the gray-marbled basin. “Are you OK now, sweetheart?”
He nodded, pale but proud. “Puke!”
“He ate about a gallon of strawberries downstairs. He’ll be fine now.” Nico, still guarded, watched Camilla’s reflection in the mirror. Damn it, why the hell couldn’t he say what he wa
nted to say!
“Well, don’t have anything else to eat,” admonished Camilla, smoothing Marty’s hair away from his forehead.
He shook his head vigorously, then grinned his wide, heartwarming grin. “I love Nico.”
“Nice to know I’m appreciated,” Nico said lightly when Marty had left. Camilla, desperate to keep him there a little longer, examined her own reflection in the mirror and pretended to fiddle with a strand of hair at her temple. “I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic just now,” she said hesitantly. “And I am grateful to you for looking after him. Sometimes I say things and they come out wrong.”
Nico leaned back against the basin and watched her twirl the strand of hair around her index finger. “Sometimes I don’t say things because I’m not sure whether I’ll like the replies,” he said, breathing in the mingled scents of Camilla’s perfume and Marty’s toothpaste, swirled around in the fresh breeze from the bathroom’s open window. “Maybe we should all be more like Marty, just say what we think and to hell with everything else.”
“Maybe we should,” Camilla agreed cautiously, her heart thumping against her ribs. Gaining in confidence, Nico adjusted his stance so that he was once more addressing her through the mirror. Winking at her, he said, “Go on then, you first.”
“I-I can’t,” she stammered, aching with loneliness. Nico was standing only inches away from her, and it might just as well have been miles.
“But you must,” he explained, frowning slightly and moving fractionally closer. “It’s important, you see.”
“Why?” she countered, panicking and afraid that he was playing some awful game with her.
“Oh, bloody hell, Camilla!” Grabbing her arms, Nico shook her. “It’s important because once, years ago now, you deliberately seduced me. And ever since then you’ve been running away, finding excuses to back off whenever anything remotely interesting threatens to happen.” His green eyes darkened as he glared at her. “And I’m telling you now that I’m just about bloody sick of it.”
Joy mingled with outrage as she realized what he was saying. He wanted her, he really did still want her…and he was placing her entirely to blame for everything.
“That’s not fair!” she gasped, her sequined dress ricocheting rainbow dots of light as she struggled to wrench her arms free. “I was married, you were married…you got married first! I didn’t force you into that—”
“Oh yes, you bloody did. You turned me down flat… What the hell was I supposed to do, join a monastery?”
“You were supposed to make me change my mind!” exclaimed Camilla breathlessly.
Nico’s dark eyebrows arched in amazement. “After you’d told me what a disaster I was in bed? Jesus, I spent the next two years proving to every woman I could lay my hands on that I wasn’t. Talk about hitting below the belt… Tell me the truth now,” he demanded, his fingers gripping her arms even more tightly. “Was I really so terrible? Was I?”
She stopped struggling. Telling Nico that had been the single biggest mistake of her life. Deliberate, destructive…it had been an act of revenge, tragically misaimed and one that she had never stopped regretting.
“Of course you weren’t,” she said in a low voice, her eyes betraying her longing and regret. “You were perfect. And I am sorry.”
“So if I’m that perfect,” said Nico more gently now, “why do you still turn me down? If I’m so damn perfect, how can you possibly resist me?”
This truth game, thought Camilla with trepidation, was getting scary. Having hidden her true feelings for so very long, she didn’t know if she could handle all this blatant honesty now.
In the silence that followed, she listened to the raucous noise of the party downstairs and wondered if Loulou had returned yet with Mac.
“I’m waiting,” Nico reminded her.
Stiffening her shoulders, she met his gaze. “You’re a rock star. I’m a divorced, widowed mother of two, almost three children, and I have scars on my face and body that will never completely disappear. Why should I go to bed with you again just so you can prove how irresistible you are?”
Exasperated beyond belief, Nico pulled her into his arms and kissed her, hard. He kissed her cheeks, her nose, her chin, and her neck, and avoided her mouth entirely.
“Don’t make excuses,” he whispered in her ear, before kissing that too. “You know damn well that I want to marry you.”
Shakily, her entire body yearning for the final kiss he had so shrewdly withheld, Camilla said, “But you are married. You aren’t divorced yet.”
“Yes I am,” he white-lied. The decree nisi was due to come through in the next three or four days, but Camilla could be so damn stubborn sometimes, and she wasn’t going to wriggle away now after all this effort. “My divorce was finalized yesterday. Caroline’s happy with the settlement. I’m just glad it’s all over, and poor old Paddy doesn’t know quite what’s hit him yet. To his amazement, he’s grown rather fond of her, and that’s not his style at all.”
“Oh,” said Camilla in a small voice. If Nico didn’t kiss her now she was liable to do something drastic.
“Oh,” he mimicked, teasing her. At last, at last, he was in control. “Well, any more excuses or have they finally run out?”
“You could have anybody…” she said, gesturing despairingly at the door. This was ludicrous; here they were in the bathroom of all unromantic places, discussing marriage.
“That is the most pathetic excuse I’ve ever heard,” he declared, “and certainly the last. Camilla, if you don’t start agreeing with me this minute, I’m walking out of here. You’ll never see me again. Is that what you’d prefer?”
In silence, she crossed the bathroom, closing and calmly locking the door.
In silence, she turned back to face him.
In silence, she undid the buttons of his white shirt, sliding it away from his tanned body and dropping it to the floor behind him.
“You aren’t seducing me again, are you?” he said as she started to undo his trousers. “Because I don’t want you to think I’m just an easy lay.”
“Stop complaining,” said Camilla evenly, her mouth only inches from his. With tantalizing slowness, she brushed her lips against his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his perfect mouth. Her hand, sliding inside his trousers, found him thrillingly ready for her.
Nico was breathing deeply, trying to force himself not to join in with the seduction. “Promise me you’ll still respect me in the morning,” he murmured, unable to prevent himself from reaching out to touch her honey-blond hair. Moments later, the combs holding it up joined his shirt on the carpet beside them.
“How amazing,” remarked Nico as her hair brushed against his bare chest, sparking a million nerve endings. “Here we are sharing an intimate moment together, and you have all your clothes on for once.”
Smiling, Camilla unzipped her dress and allowed it to slither to the floor in a glistening heap. Wearing only silk underwear and sheer dark stockings, she looked so feminine and so utterly desirable that Nico could barely control himself.
“Well, almost, anyway,” he said huskily, in an effort to divert his mind.
Except that any diversion now was impossible. Neither of them took any notice at all of the timid knocking at the bathroom door.
“I think you’re only interested in my body,” said Nico, kicking off his shoes as the footsteps outside receded and waiting for Camilla to approach him once more. He exhaled slowly as she came toward him and placed her hands upon his hips. Their bodies were so nearly touching now… They had both waited so long for this…
“I’m extremely interested in your body,” Camilla promised him, trailing her fingers lightly down his thighs. “You did want me to be honest with you,” she added as Nico opened his mouth to protest. “And now I’m going to be. I do want to marry you, more than anything else in the world. I love you. I can’t belie
ve you’ll ever understand how much I love you. And now I want to make love to you. Do you think you’d mind awfully if I did?”
“Honesty is the best policy,” said Nico, reaching for her and smiling with sheer, delirious relief. “I think I can cope with that, and if it gets too terrible to bear, I suppose I could always just lie back and think of Italy…”
Read on for an excerpt from Jill Mansell’s next Sourcebooks Landmark release, Maybe This Time
So this was it then, the countryside. Well, there had been a few previous rural encounters over the years, but to a lesser degree. Whereas this definitely ranked as up close and personal.
Feeling intrepid, Mimi stepped down from the train and breathed in the mingled green scents of spring grass, new leaves, damp earth, and the smallest hint of cow poo, presumably drifting across from the field visible through the lattice of trees on the other side of the track. A couple of black-and-white cows lazily lifted their heads to observe the train as it departed before swishing their tails and returning their attention to the serious business of tearing up clumps of grass.
It had to be the world’s tiniest station, very cute indeed, comprising a single track dotted with wild flowers and weeds and a small stone shelter. It would probably faint if it ever saw the gigantic edifice that was Paddington. Making her way toward the rickety metal gate, Mimi realized she’d made a fundamental error in having assumed there’d be a friendly local taxi driver waiting outside to be of service.
The only other passenger to have disembarked, a sixty-something woman in a brown tartan skirt and brutally sensible lace-up shoes, said “Excuse me” in a pained way, probably because Mimi was hesitating in front of the gate.
“Oh, sorry! It’s just…I thought there’d be a taxi rank.”
The woman’s eyebrows lifted. “Seriously?”
“I’ve just come down from London,” Mimi explained. “I mean, I knew this station would be small, but I didn’t realize it wouldn’t have…anything here at all.”