‘Oh, Isobel.’ He smiled at me. ‘Still the same, even though you’re different.’
‘Shut up,’ I said peevishly.
‘Pilar and I are not going to be married,’ he told me.
I stared at him. ‘Not on my account,’ I said. ‘Please, Nico.’
‘If I loved Pilar and was going to marry her, then I wouldn’t abandon her for you or for anyone else,’ he told me sharply.
I blushed.
‘But I don’t love her and we’re not going to be married.’
Christ, I thought. Not another cancelled wedding. The hotel staff would do their combined nuts!
‘But you’re still here together,’ I commented.
‘We are both in this hotel. We have separate rooms.’
I didn’t know what to say about that.
‘We are colleagues, querida, not lovers.’
I looked at him, startled.
‘Yes. Colleagues,’ he repeated. ‘We are here for the conference on drugs to treat HIV. It’s being held in the Blue Skies complex.’
The Blue Skies was an impressively huge hotel and conference centre about a mile down the road.
‘There was a problem with our booking at the hotel, so Pilar and I were accommodated here,’ Nico told me. ‘Room 607 and Room 109.’
‘But she was in your room,’ I told him.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Just before we went to the evening introduction session. She called to see if I was ready. She’s never stayed in my room at night.’
My damn heart was thumping in my chest again.
‘There is nobody in my life, Isobel. There hasn’t been since you left it.’
‘Barbara,’ I said flatly.
‘Oh, come on.’ He looked at me complicitly. ‘You remember how it was. She asked me out. I agreed. I wanted to make you jealous.’
‘You succeeded,’ I said.
‘Not jealous enough,’ he said. ‘You still went home to get married.’
I ran my fingers through my tangled, sea-matted hair.
‘I love you, Isobel,’ said Nico. ‘From the moment I first went out with you to the day I blazed out of your apartment and every day in between. From the times we argued about everything and nothing. From the day you left Spain to now, I have always loved you.’
I think my jaw dropped.
‘You didn’t try to get in touch with me,’ I said eventually.
‘I wanted you to come to me.’
‘Bloomin’ heck, Nico, you’d have been waiting a long time.’ I fiddled with the ties of my bikini top. ‘I couldn’t come looking for you. I told you, I made a new life.’
‘I’m glad you made a new life,’ said Nico calmly. ‘But I would like it if you made another new life. With me.’
The energy between us, the chemistry, whatever it was, was absolutely crackling. I could feel Nico even though he wasn’t touching me. I knew that he could feel me too.
‘This is too weird,’ I said slowly. ‘We’re here, so unexpectedly. It’s all . . . unreal.’
He nodded.
‘And I’m going home tomorrow.’
‘Home to Spain?’
‘Yes.’
‘So I will find you there,’ he said. ‘In Alicante.’
‘Nico . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t want to make a mistake,’ I said.
‘Isabella querida,’ he said.
And then he kissed me. And I knew that it would never be a mistake with him.
Afterwards, when I’d finally come down off cloud nine and started to think like a normal person again, I wondered at the coincidence of meeting him in such a setting at such a time. I called Gabriella when I got back to Alicante and told her that she’d clearly been under the influence of some higher force when she’d given me the tickets and made me go on holiday. I wittered on for ages about fate and karma and how true love really does find a way.
‘Either that,’ she agreed easily, ‘or the fact that we have landed Nico’s company as one of our clients in Madrid.’
‘Gabriella!’ I was shocked. ‘Did you know he’d be there? Did you – did you plan it?’
She laughed but didn’t answer the question.
‘You shall be my matron of honour,’ I told her grandly when I could speak again.
She chuckled. ‘Only if you promise to go through with it this time.’
I smiled. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t stop me,’ I said as I looked at the magnificent engagement ring on the finger that had been bare for so long. ‘Nothing on earth can stop me. This time Isobel really is going to have a wedding.’
Read on for an exclusive preview of Sheila O’Flanagan’s sensational new novel, Better Together, available in hardback and ebook from 5th July 2012.
Better Together
Prologue
Sheridan Gray knew that the piece she had written, full of tragedy, drama and long-kept secrets, was one of the strongest she’d ever done. It was a compelling story and she’d got the balance just right. She’d been sympathetic where sympathy would be expected, and critical where it was important to criticise. It was everything she’d been asked for and more. It would change the lives of the people concerned for ever.
And it would change hers too. At least that was what she hoped. That was why she’d written it. To change everything. Back to the way it was before. Back to when she’d had everything she’d ever wanted.
Well, almost.
She stared unblinkingly at the computer. Was it ever possible to go back? And would she ever be able to forget the people about whom she’d just written? People who had become part of her life.
She had to. Because that was the only way to be a winner. She’d always wanted to be a winner, and with this story, she was.
The only problem, she realised, as she saved the document and closed her laptop, was that she didn’t know if the prize was worth it. Or even if it was the prize she truly wanted any more.
Chapter 1
Sheridan was so engrossed in the newspaper report she was writing that she dismissed the notification about a new email in her inbox without even thinking. Her fingers continued to fly over the keyboard as she described the carnival atmosphere in Dublin the previous night, where an unprecedented crowd had turned up to watch the Brazil women’s national soccer team play a friendly match in the city. It had been a fun evening, full of colour and good humour, helped by the unexpectedly balmy weather which, as Sheridan now wrote, the Brazilian women had brought with them – along with their footballing skills, cheerful personalities and undoubted good looks. A large portion of the sizeable crowd had been teenage boys following the footballers’ every move, and every time the glamorous striker got the ball, the stadium had been illuminated by thousands of flashlights as they took yet another photo of her. After the match the ladies had posed for more photos on the pitch, much to the delight of the supporters.
From Sheridan’s point of view it had been a lovely assignment, in sharp contrast to the times when she was sent to the back of beyond to watch dour men’s matches in torrential rain. She wanted the readers of the City Scope – Dublin’s biggest newspaper – to absorb the atmosphere too and, she admitted to herself, she wanted to present women excelling in what was generally seen as a men’s sport in the most positive light she could.
So she was taking special care about the piece, making sure she got the balance exactly right. It wasn’t until Martyn Powell, the sports editor, pushed a pile of papers out of the way and sat on the edge of her desk that she glanced up from the screen in front of her.
‘Looks like D-Day.’ Martyn’s naturally long face was even gloomier than usual, his drooping moustache adding to his hangdog expression. ‘It’s from the top.’
Sheridan felt her heart beat faster as she opened the email, which was headed ‘The Future of the City Scope’, and scanned its contents.
Rumours about the paper where she’d worked for the past five years had been circulating for weeks. The staff had liste
ned to every one of them and come up with some ideas of their own too, but nobody really knew what the fate of the thirty-year-old newspaper would be. Changes would have to be made, they all acknowledged that. The newspaper industry was in a precarious state and the City Scope had been haemorrhaging money over the past year. Everyone knew that something had to give sooner or later. The reporters had been gossiping for weeks. Now it looked like the time had come.
‘What d’you think?’ asked Martyn.
‘I haven’t a clue.’ Sheridan pulled her flame-red curls back from her face and secured them with a lurid green bobble, which she took from her desk drawer. ‘I suppose they can try some more cutbacks.’
The paper had introduced a raft of cost-cutting initiatives a few months earlier, most of which had irritated the journalists without delivering the required savings.
‘I hope it’s only cutbacks,’ said Martyn. ‘And not anything worse.’
‘Well yes. So do I.’ Sheridan tightened the bobble. ‘But we’re an institution, Marty, they have to come up with something.’
‘Huh. So far all they’ve come up with is reducing expenses. Ours, not theirs, of course.’
Sheridan grinned. Martyn was a man who liked to take full advantage of his expense account.
‘How’s the piece going?’ Martyn nodded at the open document on her computer screen.
‘Nearly finished.’ She glanced at it herself. ‘It was good fun and nice to see the ladies on the pitch for a change.’
‘There were some real crackers there all right.’ Martyn had been looking at the photos earlier.
‘Skilful athletes,’ Sheridan reminded him, and he nodded even though she knew he only paid lip service to women’s sporting abilities. ‘And not a diva among them.’
‘I wonder will we all still be here to report on the European Cup qualifiers?’ asked Martyn, who enjoyed talking football with the paper’s only female sports reporter.
‘I hope so.’ Sheridan looked worried. ‘Ireland has a great chance this time. I want to get the Scope totally behind the team.’
‘You’re supposed to be impartial.’
‘Get lost, Powell.’ She roared with laughter. ‘When was the City Scope ever impartial about football?’
Martyn’s smile still wasn’t enough to rid him of his gloomy expression, but the conversation had temporarily taken their minds off the contents of the email. Which had said that there would be a meeting of all staff in the boardroom at noon. Everyone was expected to attend.
The boardroom of the City Scope wasn’t really big enough to accommodate all of the newspaper’s staff, so they stood shoulder to shoulder in the limited space as they waited for the arrival of the management team. There was a buzz of chatter as people speculated on the news that Ernie Johnson, the managing director, might bring. But Sheridan wasn’t talking. She was considering all the possible outcomes and not liking any of them.
The worst, of course, was that the newspaper might close down. But that was utterly unthinkable. The City Scope, with its extensive sports coverage, had been in existence all of her life. Even before she’d joined the paper, reading it had been a major part of her week. When she’d finally landed a job there, she hadn’t quite been able to believe it. And it had turned out to be the best job in the world. Even though she’d originally studied journalism to get away from sport. Even though she’d wanted to carve a very different career for herself.
Sheridan Gray had grown up in a sports-mad family. Sitting down in front of Match of the Day, Sportsnight and Grandstand was practically mandatory in the Gray household (as had been the daily purchase of the City Scope, widely regarded as the paper with the most authoritative sports section in the country). Sheridan’s father and her two older brothers played both soccer and Gaelic football, and her mum was a PE teacher. But Sheridan wasn’t obsessed in the same way as her parents and her brothers, and (being perfectly honest about it, although she wouldn’t dream of saying so out loud) she disliked competing against other people. This was in contrast to everyone else in the family, who didn’t believe that it was the taking part and not the winning that counted; as far as they were concerned, winning was the most important thing of all.
Sheridan didn’t know why the competitive gene that ran so strongly through her parents and her brothers had passed her by, but the truth was that her favourite sporting activity was simply running by herself, not trying to beat anyone, not even the clock. She enjoyed jogging, which she found relaxing, and she needed relaxation because the Gray household, caught up as it always was with matches that the others were involved in, was rarely a relaxing place to be.
For most of her childhood it had been a given that she would spend weekends with her mother, Alice, on the sidelines of a pitch, wrapped up in a quilted anorak, warm gloves and knitted hat against the biting cold, while shouting encouragement at the men in her family. Afterwards there would be endless, sometimes heated, discussions about the match. The coach’s selections were analysed, as was the team’s performance, the opposition’s tactics and even the level of support that both teams received. Sheridan would listen to the conversation without taking part. As far as she was concerned she’d done her bit by screaming until her throat was sore.
Matt and Con, her brothers, were picked to play for the Dublin Gaelic football team when they were old enough, which was the pinnacle of success as far as everyone in the family was concerned. They threw a huge party the day the announcement was made and Alice (not normally known for her baking skills) produced an enormous rectangular cake, which she’d decorated to look like a football pitch. Plastic figures wearing green shirts were placed in each goal mouth to represent Matt and Con, while a referee in the middle took the place of their father, Pat.
It was unfortunate, Sheridan thought, that her brothers’ time with the Dublin team had also coincided with a slump in its fortunes, otherwise there would have been even bigger and better parties to celebrate more success. However, the Gray boys, as they were known, were always given high praise by the media for their unstinting efforts on behalf of their county, and indeed for their local club too, which regularly won the league, more often than not due to a spectacular shot from one or other of the boys.
It was when these reports (always from the City Scope) were being solemnly read out that Sheridan felt both proud of and yet disconnected from the rest of her family. She couldn’t understand why being beaten totally devastated Matt and Con, and left them stomping around the house, slamming doors and impossible to talk to. Both Alice and Pat seemed to think that this was perfectly normal behaviour, but Sheridan asked herself why on earth they didn’t just get over it. She was used to hearing people say ‘it’s only a game’, but as far as the Grays were concerned, it seemed to be so much more than that.
As she grew older, she became impatient with their obsessions. She wished that she lived in a house where she didn’t fall over football boots as soon as she walked in the door, and wasn’t greeted by a forest of drying sports shirts in the kitchen every day. She longed to have discussions on hair and make-up from time to time (something she knew woefully little about) instead of listening to constant arguments about disallowed penalties and professional fouls. But there was nobody to have these discussions with. Alice wasn’t the sort of person who devoted much time to hair and beauty. She was a tall, trim woman who kept her greying hair short and whose main beauty product was an industrial-sized jar of Pond’s moisturiser which she kept on the bathroom shelf, between the cans of Lynx and tubs of Brylcreem. And the truth was that Sheridan couldn’t categorise herself as the kind of girl who knew a lot about beauty either. Despite her weekly jogs, she didn’t have the lean, wiry build of a runner. She was as sturdy as her brothers, broad shouldered and statuesque rather than thin and elegant, and infinitely more comfortable in jeans and jumpers than dresses and high heels. From time to time she went on a blitz of fashion shopping with some of her friends, but more often than not the micro miniskirts or tight boots t
hat had seemed like a good idea at the time ended up unworn in the back of her wardrobe, a testament to the fact that her thighs were the body feature she disliked the most.
Her relationship with the opposite sex was, in many ways, as comfortable as the clothes she preferred to wear. Unlike many of her female friends, she didn’t get tongue-tied in the presence of a boy she’d never met before, because she was accustomed to a constant stream of beefy soccer and GAA players traipsing in and out of the house, and she was perfectly at ease talking to any of them – especially as their conversation was generally about their matches, and she’d been to most of them. She knew that men weren’t mysterious creatures who would magically change your life. She knew that they could get anxious and worried just like girls – although, in fairness, usually about different things. Matt and Con were rarely anxious about their dates; they were more concerned about their matches. Nevertheless, when Con was stressing about where to bring the lovely Bevanne Dickinson the first time they were going out together, Sheridan was the one to suggest that taking her to see Jerry Maguire in the warmth of the cinema would probably be better fun for her than standing on the terraces in the rain watching a League of Ireland match; and when Matt was at a loss to know what to get for his girlfriend’s eighteenth birthday, she told him firmly that Melissa would prefer a dainty watch to the bulky thing with multiple functions and two different timers he was considering. The boys were always surprised when she came up with girlie tips but always grateful for what was generally the right advice. In turn, they steered her away from men they regarded as messers and not good enough for her (even though she didn’t always agree with them and didn’t solely judge prospective boyfriends on their footballing prowess).
In the end, most of the guys she eventually dated were people she’d met at one sporting fixture or another. They generally knew her parents and her brothers, and seemed to regard her as more of a friend than a girlfriend. They usually brought her to rugby matches (which she enjoyed) or to dark and gloomy bars (which she didn’t quite as much – she preferred the trend for bright, modern gastro-pubs that was beginning to hit the country). Most of them, at some point or another, would tell her that it was great to go out with someone like her, a decent sort who liked a laugh, could talk soccer, rugby and GAA and could get ready for a date in less than ten minutes.
From The Heart Page 11