When she did eventually confide in him, by no means did he feel as though he had been given the green light to proceed; it was more of an amber, but still with some big flashing red warning lights. An indication that maybe, just maybe, if he was careful and took things slowly, something might come of this.
Grace and Mark had been together forever, he knew, and never before had Tom stepped in where there was another man on the scene, but you couldn’t help who you fell in love with, could you? And he was convinced that it was love. He couldn’t get her out of his head. Of course lust played a major part too, but for now, Tom was happy just to be her friend, to wait for her, if there was a chance that one day she might be his. She had a lot to sort out, and he didn’t want to complicate matters. At the moment he was probably a complication that Grace could do without, until she had worked out what was going on at home, but he was here, and he certainly wasn’t going anywhere.
The first occasion when he had spent any significant amount of time in Grace’s company, other than on a work level, had been at Alex’s dinner party. It was fate that they’d been seated next to each other; he’d found out more about her in those few short and very precious hours than he had in all the time they’d worked together. And the chemistry, wow, the chemistry. Even under the watchful eye of her fiancé, he could feel the electricity coming from her, as though she was plugged in at the mains and hot-wired to respond to him. This was dangerous territory he was entering into, he knew that, and the angel and demon on his opposing shoulders were doing battle.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind being stuck with me for the evening, Grace?’ he’d asked her. ‘Isn’t it bad enough that you have to put up with me all week, then you come out for a lovely evening, only to get stuck with me at the table? I won’t be offended if you don’t speak to me all night, honest.’ Brave words, when Grace could quite easily have chosen that very moment to keep life simple, sensing danger ahead, deciding that her loyalties lay with Mark, and turning away to talk to Graham on her other side.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Grace said, smiling coyly. ‘It’s lovely to see you away from work.’ He noticed the flush spreading up from her chest to her cheeks. Champagne. Always blame the champagne, but he liked to flatter himself by believing she would have behaved in the same way if she’d been drinking lemonade. It was at that moment that the die was cast. He knew right there and then that this woman would become something in his life, no matter the consequences. He’d never been so bravado about a relationship before. And it wasn’t even a relationship – yet. He looked Grace in the eye and plunged straight in with both feet.
‘You look rather lovely tonight, Grace,’ he ventured bravely, leaning in closer. Totally out of character for him, and he almost hoped in a devil-may-care way that Mark heard what he said. ‘Really hot,’ he added more quietly, then reeled back with his own shock, as well as hers, not quite believing that he could come out with something so bold. Mark should pay a bit more attention to this fiancée of his, or he stood to lose her. Pistols at dawn, I’ll fight you for her, he thought. Now that really was the champagne talking.
‘Lovely top, reminds me of that meeting…’ Really, Tom, why can’t you stop? He reprimanded himself. Honestly, this is another man’s woman, and here you are, chatting her up, right under his nose. What kind of man are you? She’s your colleague for goodness sake. Behave. Knowing that he would have to face her at work next week, however much of a fool he made of himself tonight, didn’t seem to stop him.
Her knee brushed against his – whether accidentally or on purpose, he had no idea – and he thought he would explode.
Grace started off on her story of how she and Mark met, how she had speared his foot with her high heel when she was running for a train. He thought he would boil over with jealousy. If it had been his foot she had speared, he’d have offered her the other foot – anything to keep her there, and not let her run away from him at the station.
‘Mark and I are soul mates,’ Grace said when the story was over. Was it his imagination, or could he hear uncertainty in her voice? Or was it just wishful thinking on his part? He thought the look she gave him showed that she had doubts in her convictions.
‘The only love story we haven’t heard yet is yours, Tom,’ James probed later on in the conversation. How insensitive of him, Tom thought, given his acrimonious split from Sophie, all of which was public knowledge amongst his friends. Typical of James to land his mate in the mud. Subtle as a brick, as usual.
‘But I haven’t found the love of my life yet, so it doesn’t count. When I do, I’ll regale you all with stories of how it was.’
Tom had actually just started seeing someone, and they’d only been on a couple of dates, but the timing was atrocious, given his current feelings towards Grace. She might be unobtainable – for the moment, at least – but now she was in his head it was impossible to get her out. He would speak to Alicia tomorrow, tell her it was over, before it had really begun. It wasn’t right to string someone along if he knew already that his heart wasn’t in it. He knew it was for the best, but it was a crying shame nonetheless, as she was a lovely person and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. At any other time in his life he would have been more than happy to call her his girlfriend. Still, better to be alone than with the wrong person, and much kinder on Alicia to break things off now, before they got too involved.
Tom had never kissed, nor even barely touched, this beautiful woman sitting beside him, so why, when he spoke of finding the love of his life, should she feel so significant? He crossed his fingers under the table, making a silent wish for the future, and hoping he wasn’t being too presumptuous.
He hoped it wasn’t just his imagination, or the effects of too much alcohol, but he was sure he saw signs of recognition in Grace’s eyes. Recognition of the fact that this was just the beginning of something momentous.
August 2015
‘Sophie, um, hello. How are you?’ She was the last person in the world he’d expected to hear from. Ever again. He knew his tone of voice conveyed that.
Sophie had walked out of his apartment, oh, how many years ago was it? A long, long time ago now. So much had happened since then. It had been a pretty acrimonious split, and she had left him broken-hearted. But fate had a reason for everything, and he thanked his lucky stars now that she had, or he’d never have got together with Grace. Bad things happen so that other good things can follow. Everyone has different coping mechanisms, and that was his.
A friend, Johnny, had reported seeing Sophie with another man, having a cosy dinner in a restaurant not far from the flat they shared. Poor Johnny, finding himself in such an awkward position, had battled for days with the consequences of either telling or not telling his friend. But his loyalty to Tom had won through against the thought that what he was about to tell him would blow his world apart. Tom had the right to know that his girlfriend’s body language gave every indication that the other man she was with, was significantly more than a friend. A lover, even. Time after time Johnny had gone over in his own mind the implications of those heads close together across the table, fingers run through hair, coy smiles, gentle touches of a hand. It wasn’t too difficult to interpret the signs.
Tom was horrified at first, refusing to believe what Johnny told him, turning on his friend and accusing him of being jealous of him and Sophie, just because he was single at the moment. It was cruel, and not what Johnny deserved. But before she came home that evening, he had time to analyse the signs he had been trying to ignore over the past few weeks; the so-called works do’s and business dinners cropping up more than ever before, her slight chilliness towards him, those headaches she would always develop when they started to become intimate. It was all so stereotypical that he thought it couldn’t possibly be happening to him – he was no textbook cuckold, surely? He wouldn’t lower himself to checking through her bags and pockets for incriminating evidence; let her tell him herself when she came home. He would confront her, forc
e a confession.
It didn’t take long for Sophie to confess, but what he really struggled with was the fact that the two of them had recently talked about settling down properly – marriage even. How could anyone who supposedly loved him, talk of planning a life with him whilst she was seeing someone else? It was the extent of her deception that he found so hard, and his failure to understand what would motivate someone to do that. His transformation from the kind of man who liked to see the best in everyone, to a very cynical person, was instant, and it was only recently that he felt he was emerging from that bitter state of mind. Johnny had welcomed his friend back with open arms, bearing no grudge for the hurtful things he had said in the heat of the moment, and had been a true friend to him during the low period in his life which followed the split.
‘Tom, I need to see you.’ The voice on the other end of the phone was insistent, snapping him back into the present.
‘Why, Sophie, what do you want? I mean, after all this time, what can you possibly want with me right now?’ He was furious with her for calling him. Once she’d left his flat with the clothes and few personal possessions she had deigned to leave there, which weren’t much to mark the best part of a year together, they’d had no further contact. Hate was a strong word, that he didn’t like using, but hate her he did. She had hurt him more than anyone ever before, and other than the few desperate days when he thought he had lost Grace back to Mark, he had never been so low in all his life.
‘Well, I thought it would be nice to catch up.’ Ha ha. Did she really think he was going to fall for that one? And weren’t ‘needing to see him’ and ‘being nice to catch up’ poles apart? Which one was the true reason in that warped mind of hers?
‘So, let me get this right. You seem to think that after, oh, what must be at least six years of no contact, you can just call me up one day and casually suggest that we meet for coffee, because that would be nice? What planet are you on exactly?’
‘Oh, come on, Tom, don’t be like that. We always got on so well, didn’t we?’ He could imagine her twisting her hair round her fingers, childlike, as she so often used to do when she wanted to get her own way. ‘We were good together, you and me.’
‘Yeah, right up until the moment when you decided to screw someone else. While you were still living with me. Remember that? Now listen, I don’t have time for this, so whatever it is you want, forget it, right, and just piss off and leave me alone. Goodbye Sophie.’
Tom could have done with one of those big, old fashioned phones to slam back down onto its cradle. Instead he had to make do with pressing a little red button to hang up the call, which didn’t make any sound at all and just wasn’t an angry enough action in the slightest, even if you put a strong arm into it.
The complete and utter bitch, what right did she have to invade this peaceful morning of his? What right did she have to re-invade his life, full stop?
The mood was dead, there would be no more photos today. He shoved his camera in his bag and marched back towards the chateau.
Grace could see something was up as soon as Tom appeared from the woods. His face was puce and he was stomping. Clearly what had upset him was bigger than just not managing to get some good shots. He hadn’t been gone that long, but you could practically see the smoke coming from his ears.
The downside to being on holiday with friends was the lack of privacy at moments like this when you most needed it, Grace thought. She signalled to Tom that she’d meet him up in their room, asked Imogen if she’d mind watching the twins for a moment, and slipped away from the poolside.
‘Love, whatever’s the matter?’ she asked, when they were safely inside the room.
‘That bloody woman called me. Sophie. Haven’t heard from her in years and then a call today, of all things. Said she wanted to see me.’
‘Well, maybe she does just want to catch up?’ Grace said, wincing at the weakness of that particular argument, but trying to believe that all people have a nice part to them, deep down. In Sophie’s case she thought it was probably unlikely. Grace knew enough about her to recognise that she was the kind of woman who would only do something if she had an ulterior motive. She had met her only the once, but even then thought there was a side to her that no one really saw, something not quite right under the surface. Scratch off the beautiful face and reveal the evil witch inside. She should stop those thoughts now, such negativity wasn’t helpful to Tom at all. But what could Sophie possibly want with him after all this time?
Tom had been well and truly over Sophie when he and Grace got together, but she was still a subject that they had discussed at length in the early days of their relationship. But then Grace had talked a lot about Mark, too. Both of them had been in big, serious relationships, with people that they thought were going to be their life partners, so it was obvious there would be issues to talk about. The fact that Tom had spent only a year with Sophie, whereas her time with Mark was considerably longer, didn’t matter. They’d both suffered from the breakups and had different issues to deal with, had been through experiences that made them the people they were today, plus the fact that each wanted to know everything about the other, no matter how painful the details. There were no secrets between the pair of them, and goodness knows life was too short to try and deal with issues like this on your own. It was a cliché but both of them thought, hand on heart, that a problem shared was a problem halved.
‘She’s trouble. I could tell by the tone of her voice. She wants something from me, but I’m damned if I know what. I mean, what can she possibly want after all this time?’
Tom paced the room, gradually slowing down as his blood pressure returned to normal.
Grace felt like she should be the voice of reason, even if there was no reason to be had.
‘You never know, give her the benefit of the doubt. It could all be perfectly innocent.’
‘Innocent? With Sophie? No, I don’t think so. I gave her short shrift, anyway, so hopefully she won’t call again and I’ll never get to find out. Not that I’ll be missing out on much. I can live without that.’
Tom’s phone beeped with a text. Sophie again. Damn it, he should have blocked her number. He’d do that now and then this would all be over before it even started.
But then he caught sight of the message.
‘Tom. Have to speak to you urgently. Your son is ill.’
Eleven - Alex
August 2015
It took a full three weeks before Mark’s mother found the strength to go back to London and face her husband. He had phoned every day – usually more than once – to speak to her, professing his profound regret, his deepest undying love, his wish that he could turn back time, and so the list went on. In the early days Alex had to hear all this, as Margaret refused to talk to him. Being exposed to her in-laws’ dirty laundry at such close proximity was no fun.
‘You will tell her, won’t you, Alex dear?’ he had pleaded on the phone. ‘Tell her I called, tell her I love her and that I’m sorry.’ Alex had always known Bruce as a very staid and formal man, so to hear this much emotion in his voice, and his expressions of love towards his wife, had been quite a shock. She had to relay all this to Margaret, and was highly uncomfortable with her role as messenger. Even though this was all taking place in her own home, she still didn’t feel it was her business, but in a situation such as this, intervention seemed like the only option. She wanted Margaret to go home at some point, so that life for their family could return to normal, and the only way to achieve that was to keep passing on the messages, until Margaret eventually thawed enough to speak to Bruce herself.
Then there had been the letters. Almost every day one arrived, and Mark and Alex could only imagine that these bore the same content as the telephone calls. As with the calls, to start with Margaret had refused to entertain them. She screwed up the letters and threw them in the kitchen bin. She never tore them up though, and gradually, as her hardened emotions started to thaw, Alex knew that her moth
er-in-law was going back and retrieving them when she thought no one was looking. Finally it seemed that the old lady was coming round to the idea of reconciliation, and maybe they wouldn’t be stuck with her forever.
Funnily enough it was Grace that got Alex through this tricky patch with their house guest. They’d spoken a lot over the past couple of weeks, even with Grace now away in France.
‘Lucky you, wheedling out of getting her as a mother-in-law,’ Alex joked with her friend.
‘She never liked me, anyway,’ Grace replied. ‘I bet you, if I had actually got as far as walking down the aisle with Mark – which, for your sake, I’m glad I didn’t – she’d have been the one to jump up when the vicar asks if anyone present knows of any lawful impediment to this marriage, and shout out that I wasn’t good enough for her son, that I was a harridan and a wastrel, something like that. At least she loves you, you know, and I reckon the moment she set eyes on you, which must have been at one of our parties or something, she’d earmarked you as better potential daughter-in-law material than me. Terrible really, she never gave me a chance, and then me running off with someone else, well, that just confirmed to her that her instincts about me were right. I am a harridan and a wastrel.’
Alex laughed. Her friend was an absolute tonic. Sometimes she felt it should be stranger than it was that she was married to Grace’s ex-fiancée, but most of the time, it simply wasn’t. Whilst neither would ever divulge the deepest and most personal parts of their relationships with Mark to the other, they had shared experiences, and Mark’s mother and her funny ways was just one of those experiences.
‘I miss you, out there. How is France? Are you all having a fab time?’
Hand On Heart: Sequel to Head Over Heels Page 13