* * *
Leo watched her go, wondering if the tremble of his limbs was some kind of delayed shock. The last time she’d walked away from him, he hadn’t seen her for another ten years. He had no doubt that this time would be different, but he still couldn’t help feeling that he wanted to call after her.
But running after Alex was a very bad idea. She was committed and clever, and the amount she’d achieved in the last ten years was nothing short of extraordinary. When she smiled at him the warmth in her eyes was mesmerising, reflecting all the possibilities that he no longer had it in his heart to believe in. Ten years ago, he’d been as much in love with her as it was possible to be after only one night together, but now love wasn’t on his agenda.
The memory of the night they’d met, the dizzy rush of blood to his head, the tingle as all his senses went into overdrive, almost overwhelmed him. But all that was in the past. He just couldn’t contemplate a relationship, that bond that required his full commitment, his full attention.
He looked at his watch and signalled to the waiter for the bill. He’d have to leave now, if he wasn’t going to be late for his next appointment.
Leo stood, stretching his limbs. There really was no choice about this. If he pulled out, then 2KZ had no other suitable applicants who could respond at such short notice. If she pulled out, then Together Our Way would lose a golden opportunity to increase public awareness about their work. And if his association with Alex didn’t look as if it was going to be all plain sailing, then he’d deal with that as it happened.
CHAPTER THREE
LEO KEPT HIS PROMISES. A letter, confirming what they’d discussed, arrived at her office the next morning. When the negotiations over the outside broadcast had stalled, he had called and spoken to Alex about it, then gone away and sorted the whole thing out within ten minutes. He was perceptive, intelligent and he made things happen.
She listened to his radio show without fail, telling herself that the sound of Leo’s voice was an incidental pleasure and that preparing herself for what was to come was the real object. The on-air version of Leo was slightly different from the one she’d met, still astute and probing but not so confrontational, his gentle charm putting people at ease and encouraging them to talk.
Afraid to trust in either the public face or the private one, she left most of the liaison to Rhona, picking up her normal duties in return. Two weeks, a week—and then there was no avoiding it. Everything was arranged, and the following Monday saw the first of her guest appearances on the Dr Leo Cross medical phone-in show.
Alex had arrived at the radio station at six, two hours before the show was due to start. Half an hour had been taken up with a short induction from one of the production assistants, and then she’d been taken to an empty studio to have a look around. Leo was due to arrive at seven, but Alex was reliably informed that he was always late.
‘What are you reading?’ She’d given up looking at her watch and was sitting alone in the restroom, trying to read, when she heard Leo’s voice.
‘Oh... It’s the latest thing apparently, for teenagers.’ She tilted the cover towards him and he nodded. ‘I like to keep up. It’s actually pretty good.’
He smiled, and suddenly warmth zinged in the air between them. He was dressed in jeans and a dark blue sweater that looked far too soft to be anything other than cashmere. However hard Alex tried to look at him dispassionately, he still took her breath away.
He slung a leather jacket down onto a chair and sat down. ‘How are you feeling? Nervous?’
Sick with nerves. That must be probably pretty obvious. ‘A little...’
‘You’ll be fine. Once we get started, the hour will go too fast and you’ll be wanting more time.’ He was leaning towards her, his elbows on his knees. This was clearly Leo’s pep talk for beginners and, strangely, it seemed to be working. Now that the dreaded time had come, and he was here, she felt better about everything.
‘So... What are we going to say?’
Leo shrugged. ‘No idea. I’ll introduce you, we’ll take a few calls and we’ll talk. That’s the thing about phone-in radio—there’s no script.’
‘You like that? The uncertainty?’
He grinned. ‘Yeah. Keeps me on my toes. You’ll be just great, trust me. And if you’re not, then I’ll just interrupt and steer things back on course.’
‘Right. Thanks.’ She’d rather be just great, and not need Leo to save the day. But then that might be a bit too much to ask on her first time.
The door burst open and Alex jumped as the production assistant who’d showed her around popped her head around the door. ‘Leo... Fifteen minutes.’
‘Okay, thanks. We’re ready.’ He turned to Alex as the door closed again. ‘Just relax. It’s a conversation between you and me. Concentrate on that, and the one person out there who’s listening.’
‘One person?’
‘Yeah. Just visualise someone you know, and talk to them. You’ll be surprised how well that works.’
‘I’ll try.’ Alex wondered who Leo visualised. Maybe he’d been doing this long enough not to need anyone. ‘Was it this nerve-racking for you? Your first time?’
He shook his head. ‘Nah. I didn’t have any nerves left to be racked. I was so numb with fear that you could have knocked me over the head with a brick and I probably wouldn’t have noticed. And I wasn’t tipped in at the deep end, like you. I’d been volunteering on a student helpline for years, and done some spots on local radio in connection with that.’
‘That must have been pretty tough. Manning a helpline at the same time as you were studying and working at the hospital.’ Leo hadn’t said anything about a helpline ten years ago, and Alex had thought they’d talked about almost everything in their lives.
‘It was something that meant a lot to me. You make time for the things that are important.’ His face seemed to harden a little, as if the memory was difficult.
‘And you’ve stayed here. Even though you’re on TV now.’ It seemed a little odd that he should hang on to this, when he obviously had other opportunities. Leo didn’t seem the type for sentimentality.
‘Yeah. I like talking to people.’ He shook his head, as if to clear it, and then grinned. ‘You’ll see.’
He ushered her through to the studio, giving her time to get settled. The producer hurried in, putting a few sheets of paper in front of him, and then the call for silence and the ‘On-Air’ light glowed red.
She hardly heard the music that heralded the start of the show, hardly saw what was going on around her. Then she felt Leo’s fingers brush the back of her hand. His gaze caught hers and he smiled, then started the introduction.
‘And tonight I have Alex Jackson with me. She’s the founder of Together Our Way, a charity which helps young people with all kinds of disabilities participate in sport...’ He glanced down at the paper the producer had put in front of him and frowned suddenly. ‘Alex is going to be on the line with me here, and so if you’ve got any questions for her then you know the number to call...’
The jingle for the phone number started to play and Leo took the opportunity to scrunch up the paper in front of him, tossing it towards the control room. It bounced off the glass and dropped to the floor and then suddenly, seamlessly, Leo was talking again.
‘To start us all off, I’m going to ask Alex a few questions about Together Our Way. And, just in case anyone accuses me of monopolising her time here, she will be right here with me every Monday for the next four weeks, as part of our Charity Partnership Project...’
Suddenly his gaze was on her. The smile on his lips, the look in his eyes, said that he was talking just to her. ‘Alex, how long since you founded your charity...?’
He’d given her an easy one to start with. ‘Five years.’
‘And in that time you’ve made yours
elves felt. How many sports fixtures are you planning next month?’
‘We have eight. But our own sports meetings are just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve been working with schools and clubs, advising them on how their sport can be fully inclusive, and we’ve developed a training day for group leaders. Mostly, though, we work with the young people themselves, to help...’
Suddenly, her mind went blank.
‘I imagine that there’s a bit of confidence-building to be done.’ Leo’s eyes were suddenly warm and soothing, dark as a blue Mediterranean sea.
‘Yes, that’s right. Many of our young people need assistance with special equipment or training, but it’s also a matter of showing everyone what’s possible.’
‘So you’re out to capture hearts and minds?’ Somehow, he made it seem as if it was his heart and his mind that were the ones in question and that they were just waiting to be captured.
‘Yes. I think that’s the aim of any charity, isn’t it? Money’s vital to us, of course, because we couldn’t do what we do without it. But hearts and minds are just as important.’
‘And I see that the charity’s run on a shoestring, so all the donations you receive go straight into your work.’
He was feeding her lines, bringing up all the points that Alex wanted to highlight. She smiled a thank you. ‘Yes, that’s right...’
* * *
Alex felt as if she’d run a marathon. It had only been an hour, but she was exhausted, her heart thumping in her chest. All the same, Leo had been right. She was eager for more, and had been disappointed when he’d announced that this was all they had time for tonight and handed over to the next presenter.
‘Did we speak to everyone?’ Leo had said that there were callers waiting but Alex had been unable to gauge how many, or whether they’d been able to speak to them all.
‘There are always people who don’t get through. Some of them try again.’ Now that they were off-air, Leo seemed suddenly more guarded.
‘But... They may be in trouble. They might need someone to talk to...’
‘Yeah, a lot of them do. We have procedures to deal with that. You needn’t worry about that side of things.’
She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let him give her the brush-off like this. ‘I’m... I’m sorry Leo, but that’s not the answer I’d hoped for.’
Alex was expecting some kind of reaction; Leo clearly wasn’t used to being challenged by anyone around here. But she hadn’t expected a smile.
‘What answer were you hoping for, then?’
She took a deep breath. ‘That there’s some way that I could get back to the people who didn’t get through.’
He leaned forward, flipping a switch on the console in front of him. Alex’s headphones went dead and she realised that, even though the sound engineer in the control room seemed to be paying no attention to it, their conversation could be overheard. She slipped the headset off and laid it down.
‘The call-handlers take names and numbers from everyone, and they always ask what the caller wants to say.’
‘And they make a note of that?’
‘Yes, they do. And they pass the list on to me.’ That seemed to be the end of it as far as Leo was concerned. He was the trustworthy one, the one who got things done, and he was ready to steamroller over anyone who questioned him.
Maybe she’d deserved it. Maybe he had called her all those years ago, and he still remembered that she hadn’t called him back.
‘Look, Leo. I think there’s something... We need to clear something up.’
‘What would that be?’
He gave so little. It was questions all the way with Leo, and she was starting to wonder whether he wasn’t hiding behind them.
‘Did you call me after the party?’ Alex wondered how he’d like a taste of his own medicine, and answered his question with one of her own.
He seemed surprised. ‘I’m not sure I remember.’
‘Why don’t you try?’ If this issue was getting in the way of the work she was committed to now, she wanted an answer.
‘I said I would.’ His slight shrug seemed designed to imply that it really didn’t matter all that much to him. ‘But that’s the way it works. It’s a lady’s privilege not to call back.’
He flashed her his most charming, roguish smile. That alone probably made the chances of any woman not calling him back extremely slim. Or maybe it was just Leo’s way of changing the subject.
‘Since you won’t give me a straight answer, I’ll assume that you did call. And I’ve been wanting to tell you that I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you, but I really couldn’t. Something happened on the way home and...it was impossible.’
She had his full attention now. Leo couldn’t hide the surprise in his eyes. ‘What happened?’
‘I...’ Alex gulped. It was all such a long time ago now and it ought to be irrelevant, but it wasn’t. A rap sounded on the glass that separated them from the control room and she jumped.
‘I’m sorry.’ Leo snapped suddenly into professional mode. ‘The producer’s here, and I need to have a word with him. Would you mind waiting?’
Alex nodded and he swung to his feet, striding to the door and closing it behind him. He reappeared on the other side of the glass, where a man was waiting for him.
Leo’s back was turned to her but the man was glancing at her, even though Leo was obviously talking to him. Curiosity got the better of Alex and she reached for her headphones, flipping the switch that she now knew controlled the sound between the control room and the studio.
‘It’s not acceptable, Justin.’ Leo’s voice rang in her ears.
‘I really don’t see what the problem is...’ Alex saw Justin spread his hands in a gesture of puzzlement.
‘Well, there isn’t any problem because I’m not going to do it. I won’t introduce Alex Jackson as a disabled person. She has a disability, and she’s open about that, but I’m not going to read out an introduction that makes it seem as if it’s the most important thing about her. She’s here to talk about her charity, which, by the way, is all about encouraging young people to see past their disabilities. And educating others to do that too.’
Alex’s gaze moved to the screwed up ball of paper on the floor, which Leo had tossed at the glass. He’d moved past it so smoothly that she’d hardly realised he had a problem with it.
‘Okay...okay.’ Justin’s tone was conciliatory. ‘It was an error of emphasis, I’ll grant you that. No harm done, though...’
‘Only because I didn’t read the introduction out. I want to hear all the trailers for the show, because I don’t want Alex or her charity misrepresented.’
This was almost too much. Leo was fighting her corner without being asked, but just knowing how she’d feel. A thrill of warmth for him clutched at her heart and Alex wondered whether she should go and retrieve the paper, to see what had been written. But then she’d have to take the headphones off, and she wanted to hear this.
‘We’ll email the sound files through to you. Anything else?’
‘No. I’m grateful you’re addressing the issue with your customary effectiveness.’ Leo’s tone had relaxed into lazy charm. ‘Actually, there is one more thing. Thanks for all you did to help make this evening happen. It’s been a good night.’
Justin seemed to heave a sigh of relief. ‘Yep. Nice chemistry in there, Leo. And the caller rate went through the roof...’ Justin’s gaze flipped towards Alex and Leo turned. When he saw her, his lip curled imperceptibly.
She reddened and took off the headphones, putting them back onto the console. Perhaps he’d think she was just trying them on.
Leo had followed Justin out of the control room and when he appeared at the door of the studio again he was holding a manila envelope.
‘Your car’s waiting.’
<
br /> And he thought he was going to slip away now? ‘No, Leo. I’m not going anywhere until we finish...what we were talking about.’
‘I thought I’d catch a lift with you. The car’s a lot more private.’ He walked across to the console and, too late, Alex realised that she’d forgotten to cut the sound in between the control room and the studio, and that voices were whispering out of the headphones.
He reached out, switching the sound off again. Then he turned, leaving Alex to grab her coat and handbag and follow him out of the studio.
* * *
Leo wondered whether letting sleeping dogs lie was the best option. It probably was, but he knew that wasn’t what he was going to do. Not many people questioned his decisions and, while it came as no surprise that Alex bucked that trend, it was unexpectedly like a breath of fresh air.
She settled herself on the wide leather seat in the back of the car, and Leo got in beside her. The driver confirmed the address with her and the car slid smoothly out onto the road.
‘This is nice.’ She stretched her legs out in front of her, smiling. Clearly she was attempting to disarm him before she started on the next onslaught. He wondered briefly if she knew how much damage her smile could do to a man.
The lights from the street outside were sliding across her face, giving it an almost ethereal quality and it was an effort to stop himself from staring at her. Alex was even more perfect than when he’d first met her. Or maybe he’d just become more of a connoisseur of perfection and learned how to appreciate it better.
He pressed the control button and the glass partition behind the driver’s seat slid upwards. Not that the driver probably cared two hoots about their conversation, but the gesture wasn’t lost on Alex and her cheeks reddened.
‘What happened?’ It was probably something stupid—she’d lost her phone or met an old boyfriend on the bus. But Leo had learned the hard way that hoping for the best didn’t always mean that the best was going to happen. He had to be sure.
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