Solo

by Jill Mansell

  Max, moving toward them, didn’t even glance in Holly’s direction. After nodding briefly at Adam, he turned to Tessa, the expression in his dark-brown eyes quite unreadable. Then he paused, because although he had been planning what to say for the last twenty-four hours, now that he was here he didn’t know how to start.

  Tessa, however, filled the gap. Furious with herself for thinking that he could have been Ross, and forcing the sense of crushing disappointment angrily aside, she resorted to flippancy. “What’s this, the gunfight at the OK Corral? If you’re going to shoot, Max, maybe we should do it outside.”

  “Thanks,” said Max to Adam, who had silently handed him a drink. Since he still hadn’t even looked at Holly, whose face was as white as the marble-topped bar, Adam refilled her glass as well for good measure. She looked as if she needed it.

  “Don’t be flippant,” Max continued, drawing a deep breath and silently daring Tessa to interrupt him now. “I know why you left, but you should have given Ross a chance to explain. He didn’t have any other choice that night—if he hadn’t stayed with Antonia she might have died. And now he’s impossible to live with because he loves and misses you so much that he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s not interested in anyone else, Tess. He wants you. And I’ve flown over here because I want you…to really think about what you want. And to come back home, today.”

  This time the silence lengthened. All eyes were on Tessa. A single tear rolled unnoticed down Holly’s cheek, because she hadn’t known that Max was even capable of making such a poignant speech. God, she loved him so much… Why had he never been able to say something like that to her…?

  But Tessa had been hurt before and she proceeded with caution. Fixing Max with her most penetrating emerald-green gaze, she said, “What I don’t want is to be one-third of some bizarre love triangle. I don’t want to make any more of a fool of myself than I already have. And I certainly don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what Antonia Seymour-Smith is going to say—or do, or destroy—next. Max, you probably don’t even realize what it’s been like. Ever since Ross and I first met, she’s been there to—”

  “She’s gone to Florida,” Max cut in. “She knows there’s nothing left for her in Bath. She won’t be back.”

  Tessa pushed her hair away from her face. “And if Ross is missing me so much,” she continued, with a note of accusation in her voice, “why hasn’t he flown out here himself? Why has he sent you on this mercy mission? Or is he just too busy with his bloody hotel?”

  She was running out of arguments, thought Max. Tessa might look outwardly calm, but he was able to see the way her tanned legs were pressed against the legs of the barstool, so tightly that the surrounding skin had turned white. Every muscle was taut. And he’d bet the proceeds of his next book that beneath that baggy black T-shirt her heart was pounding like a jackhammer.

  “Ross doesn’t know you’re here,” he said evenly. “He doesn’t even know that I’m here. It was Grace’s idea, actually.” He paused, a glimmer of a smile playing on his lips. “We just couldn’t think what else to get him for Christmas.”

  Now there were tears glistening in Tessa’s eyes. She knew she would go. She’d tried to be strong, but it hadn’t worked. Sometimes life just wasn’t that simple. Loving Ross Monahan was something out of her control; no matter how hard she had tried, she’d never been able to stop loving him for even a moment.

  “So I’m the cheap, last-minute Christmas present?” she said, tilting her head to one side and failing to hide her own smile.

  “Hardly bloody cheap!” With mock exasperation, Max glanced at his watch. “Have you any idea, Tessa Duvall, how much it costs to charter a plane and keep it sitting on the tarmac at Faro Airport while you sit here arguing about money and letting all these ludicrously expensive minutes tick by? For God’s sake, woman, we have a schedule to keep! Now, will you get off that stool and start packing, or do I have to do that for you as well?”

  • • •

  While Tessa was upstairs throwing belongings into an assortment of bags, Ana and Jose moved into the kitchen and began washing up the last of the plates and glasses. Adam had disappeared outside with Luisa and Olivia, leaving Holly alone in the restaurant with Max. She felt like the last, dilapidated sponge left on the cake stall at the end of the church fete, which was a huge boost to her morale.

  Desperately on edge, unable to bear the awkwardness of the silence that had abruptly descended around them, she cleared her throat, tried and failed to think of something to say, and cleared her throat again.

  “What’s the matter? Have you got a cold?” asked Max.

  That was a great help too.

  She hung her head. “No.”

  “Hmmm.” Pulling up a stool, he sat down and lit a cigarette. For almost the first time, it seemed, his dark eyes flickered in her direction.

  Holly wished fervently that she’d put on some makeup earlier, or even just a squish of perfume. She felt naked and undesirable and so miserable that she wanted to curl up and die.

  “So.” Max tried again. He didn’t know whether she was being deliberately unhelpful, but she certainly wasn’t making it any easier for him to say what he knew he had to say. “Well, how are you anyway? Enjoying life on the Algarve?”

  “Yes,” mumbled Holly unhappily.

  “Right. Good.” He crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and reached for another. “Nice climate. Is the restaurant doing well?”

  This was awful. Max couldn’t even speak to her anymore. He was reduced to making stilted small talk as if she were a stranger.

  She nodded. “Yes, very well.”

  “And how about you and Adam?” he persisted, his tone deceptively calm. “Is that going ‘very well’ too?”

  Holly’s head jerked up. “We aren’t together,” she said, not knowing whether to be relieved or angry that Max should have thought they were. Relief won; at least he didn’t know that he had been her sole reason for leaving The Grange. Desperate enough to grasp at the flimsiest of straws, she realized that at least she hadn’t humiliated herself totally. It was a small consolation, but better than none.

  “You aren’t together,” he echoed thoughtfully, pausing to draw on his cigarette. A lazy plume of smoke spiraled toward the ceiling. “In that case, why did you come out here?”

  “I…I just wanted to.” She felt the heat rise in her cheeks and knew she was going pink. “Like you said, it’s a nice climate… There’s the sea, sunbathing, lying on the beach…” She faltered, unable to go on. Max was too clever and he knew her too well. Holly bowed her head once more, floored by the knowledge that she had, as she had feared, humiliated herself. Totally.

  The time had come, Max decided, for the second of the two speeches he had come here to deliver. Spontaneous declarations not being his forte, he had needed to plan the words with great care, going over them again and again in his mind—this time without Grace’s assistance—until he was sure they were right. It wasn’t as if he was declaring his undying love and asking Holly to marry him, after all. He didn’t want her to turn around in six months’ time and sue him for breach of promise.

  “Right,” he said brusquely, stubbing out the second cigarette and realizing that his hand wasn’t entirely steady. “Well, this isn’t easy for me to say, but now that Tessa’s coming back to Bath I don’t know how you feel about staying on here. If you do want to stay, then fine, that’s perfectly all right. But I just thought that maybe you might be thinking of coming back as… Well…you see, after you left, something happened to make me realize that my feelings for you weren’t quite as… Although of course you know how I feel about long-term relationships… I’m not talking about marriage here, because you know my views on that too…but, on the other hand, just being with someone that you know and like… Well, more than like, really, although that doesn’t mean you automatically need to be
married to them…but being with someone like that isn’t such an awful fate as I suppose I’d always imagined, so I thought that maybe if you were thinking of coming back, we could…well, you know…just try it.”

  Perspiration trickled down the back of his neck. He couldn’t even recall lighting the third cigarette, now burning merrily away between his fingers. Once, years ago, he’d been called upon to speak without any prior warning whatsoever to a symposium of seven hundred people in the publishing trade. Compared with this, it had been a walk in the park.

  But now it was done; at last he had said—clearly and concisely—what he had come here to say. The rest was up to Holly, his unnervingly silent audience of one.

  She blinked. Finally, she spoke. “What?”

  “Goddamn it, Holly! Weren’t you even listening?”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “Of course I was listening. It didn’t make any sense, that’s all. Maybe if you try again, more slowly this time…”

  His heart sank. She really wasn’t joking.

  Max pushed his damp, dark hair away from his forehead with a gesture borne of deep despair. This was like Russian roulette with only two shots to go.

  “Look, I’m not asking you to marry me, I’m just saying I’d like to give it another go. A proper go. Holly, I think I love you.”

  More silence.

  “Well?” he demanded. His white shirt was sticking to his back, and there was only one cigarette left in the packet. “Say something, for God’s sake.”

  Swaying on her stool, Holly clung on to the edge of the bar. “I’m not absolutely sure,” she murmured, “but I think I’m going to faint.”

  • • •

  “You aren’t supposed to be crying,” Adam observed mildly. Through Holly’s bedroom window he could see Max outside, loading Olivia and Tessa’s belongings into the waiting taxi.

  Holly, who had been frantically stuffing her own things into an assortment of suitcases, had stopped and stared at Adam when he’d appeared in her doorway, and promptly burst into noisy sobs.

  “This is what you’ve always wanted,” he reminded her. “You should be happy.”

  “I am h-h-happy.” Holly gulped. “This is the happiest d-day of my life… Oh, Adam, you’ve been so kind to me, and I’ve treated you so badly… You must hate me…”

  As she stood helplessly in the center of the little room with her arms full of clothes, Adam moved toward her.

  “You daft creature,” he said with genuine affection. “Of course I don’t hate you. And you haven’t treated me badly, either. You just weren’t able to fall in love with me.”

  “I did try,” sniffed Holly, wiping her eyes with a crumpled white silk shirt. “I wish I could have done. Everyone kept telling me how wonderful you were, but…”

  “These things are born, not made,” supplied Adam. Then, with a grin, he added, “Although it certainly took Max long enough to realize how he felt.”

  “You are wonderful.” The tears were gathering speed once more. Tossing the silk shirt aside, Holly said, “Maybe it’s just as well it didn’t work out between us. You’re far too nice for me.”

  And then she was in his arms, sobbing great heaving sobs against his chest and wailing, “We’ll still be friends, won’t we? We won’t lose touch… I want us always to be friends.”

  “We always have been friends.” Adam kissed the top of her head, then pried her away from him so that he could look at her. Having realized some time ago that Holly’s feelings for him would never match his own, he had come to terms with that fact with customary good humor and stoicism. “Whatever you do, sweetheart, don’t waste time worrying about me. If it’s not too much of a blow to your ego, I’m not intending to spend the rest of my life in an emotional decline.”

  “You’ll meet somebody, I know you will,” said Holly fervently. “And you’ll be the most marvelous husband in the world.”

  “Of course I will,” agreed Adam with customary modesty. Smiling down at her, he added, “And if I should ever need to produce a reference to underline that fact, you’ll be the one I come running to, I promise.”

  “I shall give you glowing references,” Holly declared expansively.

  “Great.” He gave her one last kiss on her wet cheek. Over her shoulder, he could see Max and Tessa outside waiting beside the taxi. “Er…could you write it in Portuguese?”

  Holly gasped, then laughed aloud. “You sneaky animal! Luisa?”

  Assuming an expression of injured innocence, Adam said, “Well, however did you think we’d been spending our nights for the past week or so? Playing bilingual Scrabble?”

  Chapter 65

  “This place is a bloody madhouse,” said Ross irritably as the master of the local hunt led a noisy, disreputable conga line through reception, demolishing Christmas trees in its wake. “And where the bloody hell is Max? I thought you told me he’d gone out to pick up some presents.”

  It was nine thirty. Grace, who had been rushed off her feet all day, put down the phone and swiftly retrieved her tumbler of orange juice from his grasp. “He’ll be back soon. And please don’t drink my drink—it could be hours before I get another one.”

  Having tasted it, Ross grimaced. “Ugh, no vodka. I thought I was the one who was supposed to be lacking in Christmas spirit.”

  “Oh, cheer up,” said Grace with a sympathetic smile. The call just now had been from Max, ringing on his mobile to tell her that they’d just come off the M4 and that they would be home within ten minutes. “It’s a great party. And it’s Christmas Eve, Ross. You ought to try to enjoy yourself. Couldn’t you at least pretend to be having fun?”

  “Ho, ho, ho,” he said sardonically, bracing himself to reenter the ballroom. “Thanks a lot; you’re a great help.”

  “That’s all right,” said Grace, risking another surreptitious glance at her watch. “This is what daughters are for.”

  “I’m nervous,” said Tessa as they pulled up at the top of the graveled driveway. “Really nervous. My God, what if this is all a horrible mistake?”

  “Well, in that case,” drawled Max, “I suppose I’d have to turn around and throw you straight back onto that plane.”

  “Don’t make fun of me!” Tessa wailed. “This is scary. Look, there are hundreds of cars here—that means there’s another party. And you know perfectly well that every time I come to a party at this hotel something hideous happens.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” chanted Holly. “What about the first time? That wasn’t hideous.”

  “You mean when I woke up the following morning to find myself alone in Ross’s bed? He left me fifty pounds and a note telling me to see myself out, but he couldn’t address the note to me because he didn’t even know my name.” She had twisted the facts slightly, but in doing so had at least managed to prove her point. She almost laughed at the expression on Holly’s face. “You see?” she concluded with wistful reproach. “I told you it was hideous.”

  “I do not believe this!” shrieked Holly. “You didn’t tell me about that.”

  Tessa shrugged. “Would you?” Then, from her position in the backseat, she glimpsed the quick exchange of glances between Holly and Max.

  “I suppose not,” said Holly with a grin, thinking back—as they both were—to the night when she had passed out in Max’s bed. In an undertone she whispered, “You didn’t leave me fifty pounds.”

  “Sweetheart, you didn’t do anything to deserve it,” he replied, winking at her as he unfastened his seat belt. “You don’t get something for nothing from a Monahan, you know. When it comes to doing deals we’re ruthless ba—”

  “Will you shut up and help us out of this damn car?” demanded Tessa, still nerve-racked but, at the same time, suddenly bursting with impatience. Now that they were actually here she just wanted to get on with it. If Ross was going to tell her that he didn’t want her back—an
d despite what Max had said, she still regarded it as a possibility—the sooner it was said, the better.

  “Hmmm,” said Max, his expert gaze sweeping her slender body as he opened the rear door for her.

  Tessa, holding Olivia, gave him a suspicious look in return. “Hmmm what?”

  “Hmmm fifty pounds,” said Max, grinning down at her. “That’s a lot of money for a cab. All I can say is that it must have been an interesting evening.”

  • • •

  Ross was standing at the far end of the ballroom when he caught sight of Max. At bloody last, he thought. At least now the group of Max’s friends who had been pestering him for the last two hours would leave him alone.

  Then he saw Holly, and he froze with his drink halfway to his mouth, the numbing, mindless lethargy that had gripped him for the past few weeks abruptly swept away. What was she doing here…? How and why had she come here…? And did it mean that Tessa was also back in Bath?

  Hope surged as he scanned the crowd around Holly and Max, but there was no sign of Tessa. Without turning around—determined not to take his eyes off them for a second—he put his drink down on the table behind him. For a split second it teetered on the edge of the table before another hand, diving to the rescue, brushed against his and caught the falling glass in midflight.

  “Thanks,” murmured Ross absently, his thoughts elsewhere. Then, as the owner of the hand moved from behind him, something registered on the very periphery of his vision. A fleeting glimpse of long, golden-blond hair, a slender brown arm reaching up with a gesture of aching familiarity to push the hair back from her face…

  “That’s OK,” said Tessa, striving desperately to sound casual. “It would have been a shame to waste it.”

  Ross couldn’t believe that she was really there. Unable to speak, he simply stared at her.