by Lucy Hepburn
“That’s good.”
His father pulled a second set of keys from his pocket and held them up. “I’m going to head up there now. I want to take one last look around the place before Nina and Antonio make it their home. You want to come?”
Will looked at his father, and the keys, and then back over at Christy, still talking animatedly with Toni on the dance floor.
“Sure,” he said. “I’d love to come with you. Why not?”
CHRISTY
10:30 p.m.
Seeing Toni walk into the room was like the cherry on the frosting of the cake. Christy rushed over to him, squealing in surprise and delight as he twirled her around. She hadn’t been able to shake off a feeling of anxiety about him—whether he was going to be okay, alone in the city, holed up in a soulless hotel, setting out on the next stage of his modeling career.
“It’s so good to see you!” Christy gasped. She felt like she was grinning from ear to ear. “How did you get here? What’s going on?” She turned and scanned the room. “Mom?”
Her mother had retreated to the sidelines and was standing beside Christy’s Great-Aunt Bessie.
“Mom? Get over here!”
Her mother and Great-Aunt exchanged weary, kids-of-today looks before Laura Davies stalked over to them. “Well, sweetie, what do you think of the surprise guest?” She beamed at Toni and rubbed his arm affectionately.
“I think it’s great! But…isn’t he supposed to be in a hotel downtown?”
Laura leaned in to Toni and, conspiratorially, muttered something in Italian. Toni laughed, and looked fondly at Christy.
“Well, he should have been, but you know what? I got myself a better idea. If we finally get the last of your junk out of your old room.”
“My new place fell through, remember?” Christy interrupted.
Her mother waved her hands dismissively. “We’ll put it in the garage, then, until you find something new. Anyhow, I realized Toni would be good company for me. We can practice our language skills!”
Christy’s eyes were huge. “Toni’s coming to live at our house?”
“Uh-huh! I couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning him in some hotel full of strangers with nobody to talk to. He can have the spare room, or your room, or even Annie’s room now that Carl Thompson has been so wonderfully kind and offered his father’s place—it’s perfect!”
Immediately Christy could see that it was, indeed, perfect. With her mother’s unexpected knowledge of Italian, she’d be a valuable ally for Toni while he got settled into life in the States. And Christy wouldn’t have to worry about him being lonely, not that a lovely man like Toni was ever likely to be lonely for long.
“I’m going to have to learn Italian,” Christy grinned, hugging them both.
She glanced around, looking for Will, but saw no sign of him in the place where they had been talking moments before. But then, in the doorway, she caught sight of another familiar figure.
“Roger!” she called out, breaking free from her mother and Toni and rushing over to where Roger Grace stood, self-consciously surveying the scene. “Over here!”
“Hey there, young Christy, you’ve scrubbed up well!”
“Thank you,” Christy smiled, taking him by the arm and drawing him in toward the center of the room. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet! Mom? Mom, can I borrow you?”
“Hello, Roger,” her mother purred, offering her cheek up to Roger Grace’s kiss. “What a pleasure to see you again.”
Christy thrust her hands on her hips, flummoxed, before realizing. “You two met at the airport—of course! I’ve got so much to catch up on!”
“We did,” Roger smiled. “Laura, the pleasure is all mine.” He turned to Toni and shook his hand, too. “I remember you from this morning, young man. Roger Grace.”
“Toni Benetti,” Toni smiled.
“Well, isn’t this…wonderful!” Laura Davies was beaming with happiness. Christy was watching her out of the corner of her eyes, how she looked at Roger, with that unmistakable flirty glint. And Roger? He was charm itself. And right now, for him, it seemed as though Laura Davies was the only woman in the room.
I don’t believe it! Christy thought to herself, covering her mouth with her hands. Mom did manage to get a date for tonight after all!
11:00 p.m.
It took time for Christy to draw Nina and Antonio across so that she could get the entire family properly acquainted. Explanations, introductions, translations—she couldn’t leave until she was satisfied that everyone knew who everyone else was. She felt responsible, both for Roger and for Toni. But even as she fussed around, filling in details and making sure everyone was involved, each glance over her shoulder to see where Will had gone made her heart sink a little lower. She hadn’t seen him for a while. She wanted to find him. Yet she wouldn’t—or couldn’t—tear herself away. Family duty.
I’m doing it again, she thought desperately. Everyone first, me second…what sort of self-destruct button am I hooked up to, for Pete’s sake…
Eventually, as Laura Davies began ushering people toward the tables for late dinner, Christy broke free and, feeling every inch the tragic heroine in a Disney cartoon, made her way to the spot where she and Will had last spoken. She stood there, turning around in a full circle, cursing her stupid sense of stupid duty and stupid lack of courage.
Will had gone.
Why didn’t I ask him to dance? Flirt a little more?
She looked at her reflection in the huge gilt mirror that hung on the wall beside the stage. And she saw a forlorn figure whose most remarkable feature was the vast expanse of empty space all around her. Sure, the chick in the mirror had super-efficient organizational skills and a nicely burgeoning business to run, but where were these things in the reflection?
Behind her, people were coupling up and streaming toward the dining room. Toni had been claimed by Great-Aunt Bessie, and he looked around slightly anxiously before gallantly allowing himself to be led away.
But Christy’s head was full of Will.
He could have stayed, if he’d wanted to. He could have asked me to dance, if he’d wanted to. He could have asked me out, if he’d wanted to…
A tear, which had been threatening for a long while, finally escaped and trickled down her cheek. Clearly she hadn’t made much of an impression on him, apart from as a sounding board for his business plans.
He didn’t want me.
She lifted her head and surreptitiously wiped the tear away. Then she fixed a smile to her face and walked, as confidently as she could, to find Nina. Surely there would be something about the seating plan, or the menu, that would need her help.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
CHRISTY
2:00 a.m.
Faraday, Christy’s goldfish, was fourteen years old. He lived in a bowl on her mother’s kitchen worktop, never seeming to hold it against Christy that she had moved out and left him, two years previously.
“Mom’s been overfeeding you, boy,” Christy chided, nursing a glass of milk, knowing that any attempt to go upstairs and get some sleep would be futile.
What a night. Christy, Annie, her mother, Antonio, and Toni had bundled themselves into the outsized taxi a little after one o’clock and returned in a giggling mass to Christy’s mom’s. Roger Grace left moments before, in happy possession of Laura’s phone number and a promise of a dinner date for the very next night.
Annie and Antonio had gone upstairs, still entwined around each other. Annie couldn’t stop gushing about how it had been the most perfect night of her life, as her husband-to-be gazed lovingly at her.
Toni was settled in the spare room, where, exhausted from his first day in New York, loud snores could be heard within minutes.
Christy was alone, with only her fish and her iPhone for company. Her arms ached from carrying an oversized rug all day, but still she’d scrolled through pretty much every applicatio
n, reading the news, playing a couple of memory games, and checking and reordering her schedule for the next week. There was nothing else to do tonight, apart from go to bed. In a few hours’ time, she’d be heading off to the apartment block auction and torturing herself by witnessing the sale of her dream apartment to someone with more money than she could dream of.
She looked at the empty stool beside her and imagined Will sitting there, cradling a mug of warm milk, talking through the day. She could see his smile, the way his eyes crinkled, the sensuous mouth. But again, her brain would not allow her to form a full image of the face of the man she would never see again.
Miserably she stared at Faraday. “Ever wondered what it would be like to have a boyfriend?” she asked. “Or a girlfriend, given that I don’t know either your gender or your sexual orientation? Well, let me tell you, you’re better off out of that whole game. Trust me.”
“Talking to yourself?” Annie had appeared at the foot of the stairs, snuggled up in warm pink-checked pajamas and brown sheepskin slippers. “That way madness lies, kiddo.”
“I was talking to Faraday,” Christy replied dully.
“Then there is officially no hope for you.”
Christy gave her big sister a look that was laden with meaning. “Shouldn’t you be…upstairs?”
Annie rolled her eyes. “Antonio passed out without even getting undressed. Jet lag, poor baby.”
“Oh.”
“And I’m way too wired to sleep. I don’t think I’ll ever close my eyes again—what a night!”
Christy nodded, averting her face from her sister. “It was wonderful. I’m so happy for you—for both of you. Antonio is perfect.”
“He is, isn’t he?” Annie agreed dreamily. “Want some herbal tea? Might help you sleep?”
Christy pondered. “Um, yes, please. Actually, no, thanks. No, wait, go on, then. Yes.”
“Make up your mind!”
“Do you know what I’d really like?” Christy turned to look at Annie.
“You want to make it yourself because I’ve no idea?”
Christy hit her sister with her best withering look, then continued. “I’d really like a monster Annie Davies super-special fry-up.”
“You would?” Annie squeaked. “Really? I haven’t cooked one of those for years!”
“But I guess at two in the morning…”
“Two in the morning is the best time for the monster Annie Davies super-special! Two eggs or three?”
“Two, please, sunny-side up.”
Annie reached for the spatula and pointed it threateningly. “Christy, don’t wreck the moment. I know it’s sunny-side up.”
“Sorry. I’m done.”
Christy watched as Annie skipped around the kitchen, pulling bacon, eggs, and tomatoes from the refrigerator. She was about to remind her to include mushrooms, but something stopped her at the last minute. Annie was enjoying cooking for her. This was her thing. So she kept quiet.
“I screwed up a little today, sis,” Annie said as the first rasher of bacon hit the pan with a mouthwatering sizzle.
“Oh?”
“Shorey.”
“Ah.”
“He spoke to you, didn’t he?” Annie was avoiding her eyes, halving tomatoes.
Christy nodded. “Duncan’s a good person. He…he asked to get back together…”
“…and you turned him down.”
Christy spread her palms helplessly.
“It’s okay,” Annie went on, “but I owe you an apology. I kind of encouraged him this afternoon, when I was up fixing stuff for the party. I was so caught up in myself, about the wonderfulness of being part of a couple, and Duncan was being so great, and I kind of put two and two together and made five and thought you two should have what Antonio and I have, so I told him to go for it.”
Christy laughed. She couldn’t help herself.
“What?”
“Poor Duncan! I mean, he has changed and taken control of his life and made a success of it, but it still took a Davies girl to set him off on a course of action!”
“That’s mean.”
“I know!”
“But kinda true.”
Christy was giddy with jumbled emotions. “Maybe I’m feeling a bit mean tonight! I had this great guy, Annie…”
Annie stopped pushing the bacon around the pan and looked at her.
“You mean Will, don’t you?”
“Yes, I…oh, Annie!”
Before she could stop herself, Christy dissolved into tears. Great, gulping sobs coursed from her body, and she was powerless to stop them. Annie rushed over and threw her arms around her shoulders.
“Honey! What happened? Will was at the party, wasn’t he?”
“Oh yeah!” Christy gulped. “He was there, okay, and we talked, and he told me just what a good day this had been for his business plans…”
“Shh, oh, come on, what else?”
“That’s it!” Christy grabbed a tissue from the box beside Faraday’s bowl and blew her nose noisily. “Nothing else!”
Annie straightened up. “Come on. Never mind what he said or didn’t say—what was it like, between you two?”
Christy thought about the question. It was a good one; Annie had hit the nail on the head. Because if she spent the rest of her days deconstructing what she and Will had actually spoken about, it wouldn’t have come close to covering the things that were going on in the atmosphere around them. That she hadn’t imagined. That had been real.
“It was special,” Christy admitted. “Only I didn’t see it at the time.”
“O-kay,” Annie nodded and returned to the frying pan. “Oh—mushrooms! You want mushrooms in butter?”
“Of course,” Christy smiled.
“Anything else?”
She sighed. “Just some advice, please.”
Annie eyed her wryly. “You’re asking me for advice?”
“I reckon I need it.”
“Well,” Annie grinned as she cracked eggs into the hot pan, “I think that may well be a family first, but go ahead.”
“I really like the guy, Annie. But I played it cool, kept it strictly business—heck, I even gave him a hard time about how he runs his life…what?”
Annie was stifling a giggle. “I am so sorry, but there’s nothing new there! Go on, please!”
“Well, what I mean is, the time I should have been just letting things roll, I guess I was trying really hard, you know, to analyze everything, make sense of every situation.”
“But that’s what you do!”
“And I’m a klutz! It’s no way to make a guy interested in me!”
Abruptly Annie pointed the spatula threateningly at her for a second time. “Now you just listen here, missy! It sounds to me like you behaved exactly as you normally would—you’re cute, you’re organized, you’re sensible, and you’re the sexiest thing to hit the entire state since…well, since me! You shouldn’t have to say sorry for who you are! Any guy would be lucky to have you, Christy Davies, so just forget all this nonsense and stop overanalyzing all this overanalyzing stuff!”
Christy was astounded. Was this her sister talking? Christy couldn’t ever remember a time when she’d paused to take advice from her sister—the idea seemed unfeasible!
“You say you really like him, right?” Annie demanded.
“I do,” she mumbled.
“And he likes you?”
“I think so. I thought so.”
“And you had a connection?”
“Yes. A thousand times, yes, Annie.”
“Well…”
“But I blew it. I’m telling you, sis, the signs were all there, but I blew it.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
CHRISTY
<
br /> 9:00 a.m.
10:00 a.m. Mr. Simpson’s auction – What’s the point?
The first thing Christy did that morning was call Mrs. Ledger to see how she was doing after her surgery. Mrs. Ledger was fine; all she wanted to talk about was Toni!
The second thing Christy did was dress with particular care. Later she would be going in to the auction of Mr. Simpson’s apartment block in Brooklyn, and given the disheveled chaos of the day before, she was determined to prove to him, as well as to herself, that she could at least put on a show of being a successful businesswoman.
Her tight blue suit was perfect. The tulip-shaped skirt stopped a fraction above her knees, and the jacket, sharply tailored, hugged every curve and seemed to make her waist look tiny.
Showered and with her hair pulled back into a loose side bun she’d copied from a Scarlett Johansson movie, she allowed herself a smile of satisfaction as she picked up her fake crocodile briefcase and slipped on her new patent pumps.
“Business as usual,” she smiled at the girl in the mirror, before tilting her head to one side. “Doorman dot com, how, indeed, may I be of service today? And let me assure you, nothing, nothing will go wrong!”
Her iPhone, fully charged, winked at her from its special pocket inside her bag. A text. Christy smiled. Despite her gnawing sense of loss about how badly she’d screwed everything up with Will, somehow her phone’s bleeping reminder that life went on brought a sense of comfort. She’d get through this if she just threw herself into what she did best—her work. Right now, though, her work wasn’t providing much comfort. She’d wanted to throw herself at someone else.
The text was from Aaron: Christy, when can u start? I need u! Or at least, I need doorman.com!! And how does this sound for remuneration?
Christy had to read the number several times, her eyes growing wider and wider as the text went on to detail the figures he was prepared to offer. It felt as though a firework display was going off in her head.