by Louise Bay
“As certain as I’ll ever be.”
I grabbed his arm and pulled us to a stop. “Can we just . . . stand for a minute? I can’t think straight. Are you . . . angry?” If he’d come to the decision to step down from Astro, what did that mean for us? Could he forgive me for what I’d done?
“No, I’m not angry.” He glanced around at the flat landscape, the green of the trees crisping at the edges, hinting at the onset of autumn. “Being here, in Norfolk, with my parents . . . it’s like hitting a reset button.”
It was as if the web of anxiety that had covered and trapped me since I’d left Nathan’s days ago simply melted away. I snapped back into the world with what felt like a physical jolt. “I should have brought something,” I said. “I don’t even have flowers for your mum.”
“I’m not sure her invitation gave you much time.”
I smiled. “No. And I didn’t want to waste a second getting here.”
“Well, like I said, I accept your apology about your mum, and there’s no apology needed about the article. So . . . we’re all good.” He shrugged in the boyish manner I’d never seen in London, only here, in the Norfolk air. “Audrey told me about you writing her book.” Was he small-talking with me? I wasn’t sure if I was surprised or relieved.
“Yeah. Bernie offered me a permanent spot at the Post, but I said no.”
“Really? Wow.”
I didn’t want to tell him I didn’t like the idea of having the power to destroy people’s jobs or livelihoods. I hated the thought of having to fight my colleagues for work and chase after stories I wasn’t interested in. He didn’t need to hear any of that.
“Shall we head back to the house?” he asked.
I couldn’t let that be it. Perhaps I should call it a win and walk away, but I couldn’t let myself. “There’s just one more thing.”
“Breakfast?” he asked and smiled. God it felt good to see that, like the sun melting the ice between us.
I didn’t let myself smile back. Not yet. Not until I’d told him everything. “Two more things,” I corrected myself.
“Go on.”
“It’s the way I feel about you,” I said, searching his face for a clue to whether or not he felt it too. “I don’t have flowers or balloons or someone writing it in the sky. All I have is me. And it’s not much of a grand gesture, but I need to tell you that I love you.”
Seconds seemed to turn into minutes as I waited for some kind of reaction from him. He rocked back on his heels. “I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands, starting from tomorrow,” he said.
Was he just going to ignore what I said? My cheeks flushed with heat. I should leave. Make my excuses and drive back to London. I’d come here to apologize and I’d done that. “Yes,” I said to the muddy grass. It was the only thing I could manage.
“Perhaps I should spend that time working at being a boyfriend.”
My head snapped up, the question surely shining in my eyes.
“More specifically, your boyfriend,” he said with a shrug.
“Well, I’m not sure if it would take up your entire day, but I like the idea.”
He grabbed my hand and wrapped his fingers around mine. “I’m not sure. I’ve never done it before, so I’m going to need to work at it. But I want to try. I want . . . you.”
Heat radiated from my solar plexus and I stepped forward, leaning toward him. “You want me?” I asked. “Even after everything that . . . Everything I’ve done?”
“Maybe because of it,” he said. He paused as if he was checking himself. “Having had some time and after listening to Jacob, I think I understand now that you saw me more clearly than I saw myself. Wanted more for me than I dared to want. Liked me better than I liked myself.”
My breath caught at his words. “I couldn’t like a person more than I like you.”
“Like?” he asked, a shy smile curling around his lips.
I wanted to say it again but I wanted to hear it from him, too. “More than like,” I replied.
“I knew you were trouble when I invited you to Norfolk. It’s a sacred place. It must have been love even then.”
“You love me?”
“Yes, Madison. I love you. I don’t want to lose you. I want to see me and the world through your eyes. I want to figure out what I do next with your help. I just . . . want you. Full stop.”
I bit down on my lip to stop myself from bursting with relief. “I think I realized I loved you in Norfolk too,” I said.
“Does that mean you’ll let me try?”
“I think I’d best.”
He hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me toward him. “You know I was coming to see you as soon as I’d handed in my resignation,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left it so long. It won’t happen again.”
He smoothed his cheek over mine and then pressed his mouth against my lips. It was as if someone had pushed my on switch; heat coursed through me. I was determined to stay kissing this man for the rest of my life.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” How could he be apologizing? He’d have been justified in never talking to me again. “Whatever happens between us, I don’t think I’ll ever move on from you. It’s like you’re a part of me now. And some part of me . . . it will always be yours.” He was more than a man I loved. He was a man I respected. A man I enjoyed talking with. A man I didn’t ever want to be without. “I feel more myself when I’m with you.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
He sealed the thought with another soulful, earth-rocking kiss. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more in the world than to be with someone who made me more me, or thought I made him more him. We were the best versions of ourselves with each other.
We were more.
Thirty-One
Nathan
I stood one side of Audrey, Madison stood the other, the three of us holding hands as the police car drove off carrying Mark with it. It was just gone four in the morning and about as quiet as it ever got in Lancaster Gate.
“At least I don’t have to lie next to him anymore,” Audrey said. “I didn’t get any sleep last night at all. I just lay there until he fell asleep and then I got up and went into my study. That reminds me . . .” She pulled out a USB stick from her jeans pocket. “I found this. I started stress cleaning about half past two and when I was doing the skirtings and moved the curtains, they knocked against the wood. Someone—I suppose it was Mark—had picked a hole in the seam of the curtains and hidden this in there.”
“Wow,” Madison said.
“That could be the evidence the police need,” I said. “He obviously didn’t want it found.”
“You know what gets me? He hid it in my study. He has a study. Why not hide it there? Or in the sitting room or somewhere. But a place that’s completely mine? It’s almost as if he was using me as a cover.”
Audrey was going to need time to heal from Mark’s betrayals. It wouldn’t happen overnight. And I wasn’t going to say anything, but it was likely to get worse before it got better. The next thing to deal with would be the press.
“I think you’re going to have to brace yourself for the next few weeks,” Madison said, sharing my thoughts as usual. “It sounds like an obvious thing to say, but he’s not the man you thought he was, which means a lot is going to come out that you weren’t expecting.”
Madison was right. God knew what would be revealed in the coming weeks. And if it went to trial, it would be even worse.
“I hate to say it,” I said, “but the way that went down, I don’t think he’s going to plead guilty.” Mark had come out of the house calm and smiling. It had only been when he’d seen the three of us lined up on the pavement that he’d lost it. But he didn’t shout his innocence or plead for help. He’d been venomous and insulting. As if what was happening was our fault—mine and Audrey’s. As if we were responsible for his arrest. I supposed that summed up his character in a nutshell. He never took responsibility for anythi
ng.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have come,” Madison said. “He clearly didn’t like us being here.”
“I particularly liked the bit where he told me I was an ungrateful whore,” Audrey said.
“Well, I beat you. I got called a jealous, small-dicked prick,” I said, faintly amused.
“As if you’d ever be jealous of him,” Madison said.
“You’re a thousand times the man he is,” Audrey said. “I hope they don’t grant him bail.”
“No way,” I said. “He’s too much of a flight risk. I know they’ve frozen all the accounts but the police don’t know what they don’t know.”
“You two should go,” Audrey said. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“No way,” Madison said before I could.
Audrey glanced toward the door where one of her lawyers was speaking to a policeman. I counted twelve police officers and five lawyers file in when they brought Mark out. They were going to tear the place to shreds.
“First, we need you to pack a bag,” I said. “I get you want your privacy and need to be able to shed your tears in private, although my shoulder is available any time you need it. But you don’t need to stay here. Not while the police are going through things, and not when the story becomes public.” Journalists would be camping out here by ten this morning. “You’re welcome to stay at mine but I’ve booked you in at the Savoy. You can stay there for as long as you need to.”
“Nathan,” Audrey said. “You can’t do that—”
“I can and I have. And I don’t want to hear you protest. Anything you need, I’m here for you.”
“And so am I,” Madison said. “I might not be able to stretch to the Savoy, but I booked us all a table at Duck and Waffle. I thought we might all need a drink.”
“Can I stay drunk for the next twelve months?” Audrey asked.
“That’s a no from me,” Madison said. “We have a book to write. But today? Your husband’s been arrested and your house is being ripped apart by police—today we can drink.”
“Thank God,” Audrey replied. “By the way, did I tell you my agent says we’ve had four offers on the book already?”
“Are you serious?” Madison said.
“That’s great, right?” I replied. I could almost hear Madison’s eye roll.
“That’s better than great. It’s amazing. And remember, if they insist on another writer, that’s completely fine.”
“It’s not completely fine,” Audrey said. “You wrote the proposal, so the book is yours to write too. It will give me a focus. And a chance to tell my side of the story.” She squeezed our hands. “What would I do without you two?”
“You never need to find out,” I replied.
“I packed a case, because with the search and everything, I knew I couldn’t stay here,” Audrey said. “I’ll just go and get it. I hadn’t thought beyond hiding the case in my study. I didn’t think about where I was going to go. You’re a good man, Nathan.”
“You want me to come?” I asked.
Audrey shook her head. “No. I need to give the USB to my lawyer and . . . I just need to say a goodbye. Even if I come back, it won’t ever be the same. I need to close this chapter on my own.”
I nodded. She released our hands and headed inside.
“She looks tired,” Madison said.
“Like she hasn’t slept for months. He better bloody plead guilty and not put his wife through a trial. But knowing that selfish wanker, he’ll probably try to hold out to the end.”
“It’s good of you to look after her.” Madison slipped her hand into mine and rested her head against my arm.
“It’s the least I can do. Do you want to go home and I can take Audrey out?”
Madison shook her head. “I’m fine. It’s not like either of us have to get up for work in the morning. And you’ve still not told me what the chairman said when you handed in your resignation.”
After coming back from Norfolk, I’d gone straight to Astro’s office. I’d wanted to rip the plaster off and get it over with. “He just said that he was sorry to see me go but he understood and wished me well. I think he was relieved. And then he said if I ever needed anything, I should call him.
Madison looked up at me and grinned. “Well, that’s nice.”
“Yeah. It was. I’ve told Christine that I need help, so if she wants to stay on at Astro that’s fine, but if she wants to leave and come and work for me while I figure out the next thing, I’d be happy to have her.”
“You’re a good man,” she said. The way she looked up at me, the deep red of her hair lit up by the street lights, made it easy to believe her. “And if you take me back to your place after we take Audrey to the Savoy, I might show you how much I appreciate you.”
I sighed at the thought of Madison’s hot, warm body against mine. “You shouldn’t say things like that to me. Scratch that. You should say things like that to me a lot. Just not right now.”
She laughed and slid her hand around my waist. A picture flashed across my mind of us at ninety. I’d have lost all my hair and Madison’s red locks will have turned white, but there we were, together, holding hands like no time had passed at all.
“We have plenty of time,” she said. She was right. We had forever.
Epilogue
Six weeks later
Madison
I reached up to get the large dinner plates from the cupboard in Nathan’s kitchen as he came in.
“Did you order?” he asked.
“Yeah. I was hungry. Do you mind?”
“Nope. I would have been more shocked if you said you didn’t fancy dinner tonight.”
“How’s the research going?” I asked. Nathan might have resigned from a paid position but he worked every day, ten hours a day. He was researching his next move.
“Good. I set up some meetings today. Luckily for me, I have a lot of indirect contacts in healthcare.”
“I like the idea of merging your skills,” I said. Nathan had decided he could provide access to healthcare in emerging economies through health insurance, some of which could be funded through philanthropy. It sounded complicated. He assured me it would be. But he was passionate when he talked about it, and that was all that mattered to me. It was like a part of him I’d never seen before had lit up since he started working on his ideas.
“I don’t know if it will work. There are other people trying to do similar things but . . .”
“But they’re not you,” I said, grabbing his shirt and stealing a kiss. I could spend my life kissing Nathan. We had to have rules on when we got out of bed in the morning because it was too easy to stay naked and happy under the covers all day.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Shall I open some wine?” he asked, already heading to the wine fridge.
He’d pulled out a bottle before I’d had a chance to answer. “That looks fancy,” I said.
“Champagne. Goes with anything.” He set about getting glasses and opening the bottle while I got napkins and cutlery.
“It feels like we’re on perpetual holiday at the moment,” I said. I’d declined the full-time position at the Post, but Bernie said he’d be interested in anything I wrote freelance. That would keep me going until we were ready with the book. When I finally decided what I wanted, everything seemed to slot into place: work, passion, love. “At some point I have to go back to Hampstead.” I’d not spent a night there since I’d made the trip to Norfolk. Nathan and I had been inseparable and so far, everything just worked so easily between us.
“Who says?”
“Who says what?” I asked.
“That you have to go back to Hampstead.”
I straightened our forks and looked up. “I live there, silly.”
“Technically. But you don’t have to go back,” he said as he began to pour the champagne. “Why don’t you move in here?”
Nathan Cove was already the best boyfriend a girl could wish for. He didn’t have anything left to prove. �
��It’s been six weeks, Nathan.”
“I don’t care. How I feel isn’t going to change. What’s the point in waiting? You’re living here in all practical senses anyway.”
It was conversations like this that made me realize why Nathan made such a great businessman. He just saw things very clearly. If something was broken, he saw the fix. If there was an opportunity, he grabbed it. But he moved at warp speed. That might be an asset in business but it sometimes gave me whiplash.
I picked up his laptop to move it down the table and the screen lit up. “What’s that?” I said, nodding at the image of a house on the screen.
“It’s a house in Norfolk. I thought we should go and look at it this weekend.”
“What sort of a house?”
“What sort of house do you think? One you live in.”
“Are you thinking of buying it?” He nodded without explaining further. “For your parents?”
The doorbell rang and Nathan disappeared to answer it, giving me time to click through some photographs of the house. It was beautiful—huge, on the water, with a garden full of weeping willows and sweeping lawns.
Nathan appeared with our supper and put it on the counter. “What do you think?” He came up behind me, wrapped his hands around my waist, and rested his chin on my shoulder as we both stared at the screen.
“I think it’s beautiful.”
“Six bedrooms, so there’d be plenty of space for kids.”
“Well, there are five of you, so you need the space,” I replied, snuggling into his warmth. “I wouldn’t have thought your parents would want to move. They seem happy in their house.”
He kissed me on the cheek and then released me, grabbing the takeaway and bringing it to the table. “It’s not for my parents. It’s for us.”
I felt like one of those cartoon characters, taking an audible gulp. “Us?” I asked. “And when you said there’d be room for children, you meant . . .”
He glanced up at me as he unpacked the containers. “I’m not saying we should try next week, but you’ve said you want children. And so do I. I’m just thinking ahead.”