by Fiona Harper
‘Not only do I think we can make it work, but I can give you financial security, Grace. You won’t have to worry about a house. You could even go back to college or we’d look at investing in a shop, if you wanted. I always liked the idea of opening a shop myself. Of course I always thought it would be a book shop but, hey, I can be flexible. I like cake as much as the next guy.’
She bit her lip.
‘And Daisy’s college fees would be taken care of. No worries.’
‘Noah, I can’t—’
‘I know it sounds like I’m trying to buy you, but I’m not. Honestly. I need things from you too.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Such as?’
‘Well, there’s all the travelling all over the world, staying at nice hotels—Paris, Rome, Sydney—’
Grace sat up straighter. ‘Sydney? Do you ever get to visit San Francisco?’
‘We could, if you wanted. The other part of the deal is promising to protect me from the scary women with autograph books. Scary women in general, really.’
That was supposed to be a joke. She was supposed to laugh.
‘And, of course, there’s the all-important bonus…’
She folded her arms. ‘Which is?’
He grinned at her. ‘Nice teeth,’ he said, holding the pose. ‘Don’t forget the teeth.’
Despite herself, Grace let out a little laugh. ‘You’re as crazy as a box of frogs.’
‘I know,’ he said, suddenly sobering. ‘This does seem mad—or at least it would if it didn’t seem like the sanest idea I’ve had in a long time.’
Grace’s thumbnail made its way to her mouth. The weird thing was he was right. It did sound sane, logical even. Noah was offering her everything she’d ever dreamed of. And she didn’t feel guilty about wanting to take it. The situation she was in now wasn’t down to lack of hard work, it was merely fate pulling the rug out from under her feet. And, while she would never want to be accused of marrying for money, she had to admit that not having to struggle any more, to be able to enjoy the finer things in life was a real pull.
Oh, what was she going to do?
Noah pushed his plate away. ‘If you’d said yes to my original proposal, I’d have expected a longer engagement, time to get used to each other, but if you need somewhere to stay, you can move in with me. Of if you don’t like the idea of living together, we’ll get married sooner. Whatever works for you, Grace. Just let me know.’
He was being so sweet. And she was on the verge of agreeing with him. She liked Noah. Really liked him. She could maybe even love him—in a growing-old-and-wrinkly-together kind of way. Was that going to be enough?
She’d been paying lip service to the idea of growing up, moving on. Now was her chance to make a mature decision about the rest of her life. Was she going to run away like a frightened child, or was she going to reach out and seize the day?
She exhaled long and hard and looked Noah in the eye.
‘I need to talk to Daisy. It wouldn’t be fair to make a decision without at least asking her how she feels about the changes this is going to make to her life.’
With a heart rate of at least a hundred and seventy five, Grace dialled Daisy’s mobile number. They’d mainly stuck to emails while she’d been away because of the cost of the calls, but this was one thing that couldn’t be typed out and sent with the click of a button.
Her stomach went cold and crampy when the dialling tone disappeared and she heard it ringing. A few seconds later a surprisingly crackle-free voice said, ‘Mum?’
All at once, Grace began to cry. She missed her girl so much. If only Daisy were here and they could sit round the kitchen table with a pot of tea and a stack of bacon sandwiches and they could hammer this all out.
‘Mum! What’s happened?’
Grace swallowed the lump in her throat and wiped the tears away with a flat palm. ‘Nothing’s happened. Well, not nothing—but I mean it’s not an emergency—nobody died or anything. I’m just so happy to hear your voice.’
‘Oh, Mum, me too!’
And then they were both in tears.
Grace pulled herself together first. There was more purpose to this call than just making her phone wet.
‘I’ve got some news…some good news, I think.’
Daisy sniffed and her voice was sunny through the tears. ‘Oh, yes?’
Grace nodded. Stupid, because Daisy couldn’t see her. ‘You know that man you set me up with…on the blind-date?’
‘I thought you weren’t dating him.’
‘I’m not…well, not really…but we’ve become very close.’ She took a deep breath and the words tumbled out when she released it. ‘He’s asked me to marry him.’
If Grace thought her heart rate was bad before, it was fit to leap out of her chest now. Not so much the high jump, but hurdling.
‘Daisy? Are you still there?’
Silence.
‘I’m still here. Flipping hell, Mum. You work fast!’
‘It’s a long story…’
And Grace filled Daisy in on all the details of The Coffee Bean, who Noah was and how quickly things were likely to happen. When, at last, she’d run out of things to say, she waited.
‘I don’t care who he is or what he does for a living. Although I have to say I’ve read a couple of his books and they’re really rather good…Anyway, that’s beside the point. What really matters is: do you love him?’
Grace dragged her top teeth across her bottom lip. Not yet, but almost…
‘Not the same way I loved your dad, but I’m older now. I’m looking for something different this time around.’
‘And you think you can be happy with him?’
Grace stood still and shut her eyes, trying to picture a future—a long one—with Noah in it.
‘Yes. Yes, I think I can.’
She could almost imagine the determined expression on Daisy’s face as she said, ‘Then I think you should go for it.’
Noah had insisted he pay for Daisy to fly home from Greece for a week and then fly back out again to join her friends. In the days before the wedding they sorted through the flat, packing some things, donating other things to charity shops, just falling about laughing at some of their possessions.
Whose idea had it been to buy the light-up Santa that whistled a tune and dropped his trousers to display a bare bottom when you pushed a button? Grace swore it hadn’t been hers. As did Daisy.
It was nice to be back into their old home together, laughing, eating stacks of bacon sandwiches as they worked, but sad too. This truly was goodbye to her old life, the old Grace. Still, she packed a couple of pairs of fishnets, just in case.
Daisy looked up from the box she was packing. ‘Mum?’
‘Yes, sweetheart?’
‘I’ve also got some news.’
She grabbed her daughter by the shoulders. ‘Dear Lord, Daisy! Please tell me you’re not getting married or are pregnant!’
Daisy did an eye-roll thing that was totally her. ‘Mu-um! Don’t be so melodramatic! It’s nothing like that. It’s big…but it’s not bad—at least I don’t think it is.’
Grace’s heart was pumping. ‘Well, get on with it before your poor mother has a heart attack!’
Daisy looked at the floor. ‘Being away from home has given me time to think about what I want from life. I’ve decided I don’t want to study history at Durham uni any more.’
‘But you’re going to do it in London somewhere? That’s what you’re saying. That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it?’
She shook her head. ‘Sorry, Mum. It’s just…not my passion, you know.’ She looked up, very earnest, and Grace was reminded of a seven-year-old Daisy who had announced, very seriously, that she would run away if she was made to go to any more of the ballet lessons that Grandma had booked and paid for.
Grace’s voice came out soft. ‘Then…what is your passion?’
Please don’t let her say pole-dancing. Please don’t let it be that.
&nb
sp; ‘I missed the café, Mum. I missed the cooking and the smells. I know it’s gone now, but I realised I want to learn to cook like you do—to make things, beautiful things that make people happy, even if only for a few minutes.’ She looked hopefully at Grace. ‘I want to go to catering college like you did.’
Grace’s face crumpled into a watery smile. ‘Come here, you daft girl!’
Daisy ran into her arms and hugged tight. Grace had resisted the urge to sniff her head, as she’d done when Daisy had been a baby, but now she allowed herself the luxury.
‘If that’s what you want to do, then it’s fine by me. Honest! And if I end up going back to college too, we could end up studying together!’
Daisy stepped back and cocked her head to one side.
‘Okay, okay. I get it. You don’t want Mum cramping your style at college…But think! One day we could open our own little patisserie together. If you want that, that is.’
Daisy grinned. ‘I was hoping you’d say that!’
Grace grinned back at her. ‘It’s a plan.’
This was wonderful. Perhaps Noah’s plan for the future was going to turn out even better than expected. For the first time in weeks, Grace felt hope surge within her.
Grace finished packing her belongings from the flat the night before the wedding. The last thing to go into the last box was the photo of Rob and Daisy that sat in the hallway, keeping guard all these years. Daisy walked up to her mother and hugged her from behind.
Grace’s eyes stung. She couldn’t quite bring herself to put the frame into the box, so she and Daisy just stared at it for a few wordless minutes.
‘It’s okay,’ Daisy whispered into Grace’s ear. ‘Dad would have wanted this for you.’
Grace looked down at the photo, at Rob’s smiling eyes. They seem to be looking straight at her, connecting with her soul. There wasn’t a hint of anger, jealousy or betrayal in them. She knew Daisy was right. But part of her ached for what she’d had with him, that wonderful mix of friendship and passion, completeness and freedom. It felt as if, by marrying Noah, she was saying goodbye to the hope of that in her future, even if, deep down, she hadn’t really believed it was possible.
Daisy took the picture from her and laid it in the box. ‘It’ll be okay, Mum. I promise you. I see the two of you together, and Noah’s right for you. Besides…I’ve told him that if he ever hurts you, I met a couple of interesting characters in Sicily who would “deal” with him if I asked them.’
Grace burst out laughing and turned to squeeze her daughter to her. ‘I love you, Crazy Daisy. And I’ll miss you when you go back to Greece and join your friends.’
‘But I’m here now, and everything is perfect.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Grace said and then she folded the flaps of the last box and taped them into place.
The wedding was an uncomplicated affair. Grace and Noah arranged a civil ceremony in the local town hall before a small group of friends and family. Nobody noticed the colour drain from the bride’s face as she joined hands with the groom and prepared to say her vows or, if they did, they just put it down to normal wedding jitters.
No one could have known that, at the exact moment of no return, Grace had a premonition so real, so strong, that it left her feeling cold for hours afterwards.
Noah kissed his bride and didn’t spot the hint of wariness in her eyes. But Noah wasn’t very good at looking below the surface of other people’s emotions. And heaven forbid he ever open the trapdoor to the cellar of his own.
The crowd of well-wishers sighed collectively when the groom announced a surprise honeymoon in Paris and whisked an unusually mute Grace away to the station so they could catch Eurostar. By early evening they were in the centre of Paris, the city of lights. The city of love.
Although there were far more expensive hotels on the north side of the river, in the Louvre and Marais arrondisements, Noah told Grace he really liked the atmosphere of St Germain, close to the vibrant Latin quarter and full of cafés where philosophers, politicians and great writers of the last few centuries had come to clash minds and share ideas.
‘I can’t believe I’m really here,’ Grace said as they wandered down the Boulevard St Germain, hand in hand. ‘All these quaint little cafés with their wicker chairs and awnings and waiters in long white aprons. It’s exactly how I imagined it would be.’
Noah just smiled and ushered her down a cobbled side street, round a couple of corners and then into a rather unique-looking restaurant. ‘Everyone has to eat at Le Procope at least once,’ he explained as the waiter showed them to a table. ‘Even if the guidebooks say it’s a tourist trap these days. The food is still spectacular.’
Grace stared around the room, one of many which seem to be arranged over several floors in the tall Parisian house. Old paintings of men in dusty wigs covered the walls and ornate glass display cases held china and champagne flutes, giving the impression they were dining in somebody’s best parlour.
The food was spectacular, from the marinated leek salad to the famous coq au vin, dished up in its very own miniature copper pot. But, after half of her main course, Grace suddenly lost her appetite.
It wasn’t long before Noah put down his cutlery and looked at her. In the month since she’d accepted his proposal, she’d come to see this same expression in his eyes over and over again, as if he could reach into her mind and pluck out her thoughts. It was a little unnerving. Extremely unnerving, considering her current train of thought.
‘I know this all happened a lot quicker than either of us anticipated, Grace.’
Oh, heck. He knew. She flushed a deep red.
‘Tonight…I know it’s traditionally our…wedding night, but if you’re not ready, if you want to wait a while, that’s no problem. We’ve got the rest of our lives. There’s no rush.’
He was being so sweet that Grace wanted to cry. But she didn’t think the ever-so-suave French waiters would be impressed if she dissolved into tears and blew her nose on one of the starched white napkins afterwards.
‘Thank you, Noah.’
Her heart swelled and, for the first time in the surreal event that had been her second wedding day, she realised with startling clarity that she really was lucky to have found him.
‘The truth is…I just don’t know how I feel at the moment. It’s all been so…’
He reached over the table and took her hand, stroking the ridge of her knuckles with the pad of his thumb. ‘I know. Don’t worry. We’ll both work out how we feel as we go along.’
It was late by the time they got back to the hotel. Grace got dressed for bed in the bathroom, silently cursing the filmy, strappy white thing that Daisy had egged her into buying. After washing her face and brushing her teeth twice, she put the lid on the toilet seat down and sat on it. Her left leg jiggled all on its own.
Deep breathing. That was it. This was no big deal. It was just—
Who was she kidding? She was terrified, the nerves even worse than her actual first time. What was wrong with her? Noah was gorgeous and seriously sexy. Didn’t she want to sleep with him?
Hell, yeah! her ageing hormones chorused.
But still her left leg jiggled.
She pressed down on it with both hands until it stopped, then stood up. When she emerged into the bedroom, Noah was standing, dressed only in dark pyjama bottoms, staring out of one of the long elegant windows.
He turned slowly and she couldn’t help noticing the darkening of his pupils, a little frisson of electricity that passed between them. He walked over to her, ran a hand across her cheek, down her neck and along her collarbone. Grace stopped breathing. And then he kissed her, long and slow. A perfect kiss. The kind of kiss that certainly should be a prelude to something.
But Grace seemed to be standing outside of herself, watching herself, second-guessing what she should do with her hands, where to touch him.
Noah broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered
.
He shook his head and made a soothing noise.
‘Really, I am. It’s been a long time since it’s been my…you know…first time with someone. I’m being stupid, aren’t I? It’s no big deal. I should…we should…just do it. You know, like ripping the plaster off—’
Noah said nothing, but pressed a finger to her lips. Grace just stared at him. He was doing that thing again—looking inside her. She wanted to screw her eyes up, but she didn’t.
He led her to the bed and pulled her down onto it so she was facing away from him and then spooned in behind her.
‘Go to sleep, Grace,’ he said and pulled her to him with a strong arm.
‘But—’
‘Go to sleep, Grace.’
Now it seemed her nerves were for nothing, part of her screamed out in frustration. The other part gave a huge sigh of relief. Even though, in their short engagement, they’d spent plenty of time kissing, touching, it still felt a little artificial, a forced situation. And Noah had been travelling some of that time while Grace had needed to stay behind and help wind things up at The Coffee Bean. They really hadn’t had a chance to relax with each other, physically or emotionally.
She did it now, letting the tension seep out of her muscles, enjoying the solid feel of him behind her. And, bless him, tucked in as close together as they were, she could tell he was ready for action, even if she wasn’t. She pulled his hand into hers and kissed his knuckles, tears in her eyes.
‘Night, Noah,’ she said in a croaky whisper.
Grace woke in the morning to find Noah still wrapped around her. She twisted so she could look at him. She’d never seen him sleep before. He looked younger, almost boyish—even with the deep creases at the edges of his eyes and the tiny speckling of grey hairs near his temples.
As if he sensed she was watching him, he shifted then opened his eyes. She smiled.
‘What’s so funny?’ he said and pulled a hand from underneath her to rub his eyelids with his fingertips.
‘You always look so in control, so self-contained. I kind of like it when you’re all groggy and confused.’