The soapy plate slipped a couple of inches between his fingers before he managed to regain his grip on it. ‘Adult Monopoly?’ It was perfectly clear what he was thinking. His heavy-lidded eyes were practically undressing her right there, by the kitchen sink. Slowly.
Beth was sure that she was blushing, but that didn’t seem to deter him. At this point in time it wasn’t deterring her much either. ‘Adult Monopoly is where you don’t have to be nice and let the children win. You can be as much of a double-dealing shark of a property developer as you like.’
Light dawned and he nodded. ‘You want to show me how that’s done?’
Beth showed him how it was done all right. After they had stacked the plates away, she laid out her old, battered Monopoly board between them on the coffee table, and counted out the money. Whitechapel and Old Kent Road fell to Matt, and he began to build up a small empire of houses and hotels, but Beth managed to secure Mayfair from right under his nose. Matt spent an inordinately long time cooling his heels in jail, and then staged a late comeback, capturing both Leicester Square and Piccadilly in one circuit.
‘There! That’ll be four hundred and fifty pounds, please.’ He surveyed her diminished stack of money with satisfaction.
‘Of course.’ Beth reached behind her and drew out the money that she had been building up under the sofa cushions.
‘No! That’s cheating!’
‘No, it’s not. I just put a little away for a rainy day. Call it an offshore account for tax purposes.’ She counted the money out onto the board and pushed the dice towards him. Fleet Street and its houses and hotel lay between his counter and Go.
Matt shook the dice and she squealed with delight. ‘Aha! Gotcha! That’ll be…’ She calculated quickly in her head. ‘One thousand five hundred pounds. And no IOUs’
He counted out his stack of money. ‘I’m only a hundred pounds short. You’re not going to foreclose on me for that, are you?’
‘You bet your sweet life I am. Come on, pay up.’
‘Okay, what will you give me for Old Kent Road, with two houses?’
‘Fifty quid. Not a penny more.’
‘I need the full hundred.’ His tactics seemed to have changed and his lips curved in a wolfish, persuasive smile.
‘Sixty. Last offer. Take it or leave it. If you want a hundred you’ll have to throw in something else.’ They were almost nose to nose, bargaining fiercely.
Matt closed the gap between them, his lips brushing hers. ‘A hundred.’
‘You’re going to have to do better than that.’ Beth didn’t back down an inch.
He did a great deal better. His fingers trailed shivery sensations along the line of her jaw. He nipped her lower lip gently with his teeth, and when she opened her mouth to gasp, he caught it in a kiss. ‘The property market can be very volatile. Price can go up at any minute.’
She opened her mouth to speak, but he silenced her. His mouth was on hers, challenging her to give in to him.
‘Two hundred.’ She broke away from him, gasping for air.
His eyes were dark, demanding. ‘Three.’
He was planting kisses on her neck, his fingers twined in her hair. One hand moved down her spine, finding the tiny knots of sensation, sending warmth flowing through her body. ‘You drive a hard bargain.’ She had hardly choked the words out when he drew her closer and she was locked against his chest, her hands free to explore the hard threads of muscle and sinew that ran along his shoulders. ‘Four it is.’
The game no longer existed. It was all for her now. He bent forward, taking her with him, backwards onto the cushions of the sofa. He seemed suddenly to engulf her completely, excruciatingly gentle and yet relentlessly insistent, his fingers exploring and his mouth taking. She wanted him to take more, give her every last drop of the exquisite tenderness that he was lavishing on her.
‘Matt. Matt, wait.’ He was suddenly still and she wriggled out from under him, sitting up. ‘Not here.’ She indicated the curtains, which were three-quarters open to allow the Christmas tree to be seen from outside. There wasn’t room on the sofa for him to stretch his long frame out properly, and there was a perfectly good bed upstairs. He could do everything that he wanted, everything she needed there.
‘Where, then?’
‘Upstairs?’ She hadn’t meant for the word to be a question, it was an invitation. But somewhere deep inside there was still a knot of uncertainty, which even Matt could not unravel.
He hesitated and she saw a spark of doubt in his eyes. It fed her own fears and was, in turn, fed by them. The escalating passion that had roared between them just seconds ago was replaced by spiralling qualms and distrust. She slid away from him, pressing her back against the end of the sofa.
‘Beth…I’m sorry. It’s so soon. Is this a good idea?’
What was he talking about? It had been two years, but somehow it was as if he had let go of Mariska only this afternoon.
If it was too soon now, then the time would never be right.
‘I…I don’t know.’ She wanted him to persuade her that it was okay, do for her what she couldn’t do for herself and break through the barriers that she had erected around her heart. Couldn’t he do that?
It seemed not. The Pandora’s box of all her doubts and misgivings was open now, and try as she might she could not stuff them back inside and clamp down the lid.
‘Then it’s not.’ He was gentle, but the certainty of tone was back. There wasn’t any going back now, no retrieving what had been lost.
He got to his feet. ‘Perhaps I should go. I need to get some things done at home.’ He shrugged. ‘Christmas…you know.’
She knew. There was no point in talking about it—that would only draw out the agony. She’d failed the test—her heart wasn’t strong enough to trust even him. And Matt was not going to come to her rescue this time. He obviously had issues of his own to struggle with.
They were both studiedly polite, but the spell was broken. She thanked him for fixing her roof and he thanked her for the meal. He pulled on his jacket and then he was gone, the lights of his car moving slowly down the lane and turning out onto the main road.
Beth carefully collected up the Monopoly board, sorting the money and the cards into order and placing them back into the box. Crying about it wasn’t going to help.
She flopped down onto the sofa. She would have given almost anything for just one more touch of his lips on hers, but it was too late now. It had always been too late, even before they had first set eyes on each other. Dammit! Tears rolled down her cheeks and she snuffled into the plump cushions, unable to stem the memories of how good it had felt to be in his arms and how suddenly being alone had morphed into being lonely. Somehow the sight of her Christmas tree, standing in the window, just seemed to make things worse. Perhaps crying would help after all.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT HAD been five full days since Matt had seen Beth but he had given up counting, in the sure knowledge that the raw sense of loss wasn’t going to be measured by just days. Months maybe. Years perhaps. At the moment he could see himself still thinking of the life he could have had with her when he reached his last breath.
His week had been busy, the last two days particularly so, as the run-up to Christmas and the cold weather took its toll. He’d got through it, though, and so had his patients. The middle-aged man who had required a coronary angioplasty was responding well, and with the insertion of stents into the collapsing artery he could look forward to a full recovery. It was still early days for the woman who had needed emergency bypass surgery, but he was cautiously optimistic.
His phone sat on his desk and when he thumbed it open he saw the expected message. Returning his mother’s call, his weariness lifted a little as she told him about Jack’s day. Then he sat up straight in his chair, heart pounding. Beth had phoned, saying only that Matt could call her back any time. He passed it off as nothing, a simple message from a friend, and said that he would catch up with her. Then
he went to take a shower and change out of his hospital scrubs.
There wasn’t much point in pretending to himself that he had seriously thought about what he was about to do next, or that an alternative course of action would have been possible. Matt stood on Beth’s doorstep and pressed his finger on the bell, hearing it sound inside the house. He heard a few muffled thumps and then the sound of heels clattering on the bare floorboards of the hallway. The door flew open and he was about to tell her that she should look through the glazed panel before she opened the front door after dark, but she shocked him into silence.
She was dressed in dark-coloured trousers and a jewel-green silky blouse that complemented her colouring. A little lipstick, her hair newly brushed, she was obviously on her way out. But as usual it was her eyes that drew his gaze. Luminous, like pools of silver, beckoning him home.
‘Matt!’ She seemed surprised to see him.
‘I’ve come at a bad time—I’ll catch up with you again.’ He had already half turned to walk back down the front path when she stopped him.
‘No. Don’t go. I was only going to go out for a quick drink with Marcie, and I can cancel. Come in.’
He went to protest, say that she should meet up with Marcie and that he would go home, but he couldn’t. Although she didn’t move, her eyes drew him in, practically dragging him over the threshold. He was tired. He shouldn’t be doing this, he should be going home, getting a good night’s sleep and then coming back in the morning when he was rested. But Matt knew that he couldn’t sleep until he had heard what she had to say.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ She was drawing her phone from her handbag and flipping it open with her thumb.
‘Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.’ He let her motion him into the sitting room and sat down on one of the easy chairs. Not the sofa, that held too many memories. Things that only the determined focus that his work required could drive from his head and which came back to taunt him at every other moment of the day and night. Disappointment, regret and tantalising, heady thoughts of her body under his.
She reappeared with a tray and put the coffee pot and the mugs onto the table. Her phone beeped, and she pulled it out of her pocket and scrutinised it. ‘Good. Marcie hasn’t left yet. We’ll meet up some other time.’
Whatever it was she wanted to say, it had to be important. She had been all dressed up to go out, and now she was sitting on the sofa, rolling up the legs of her trousers to unzip her boots and pull them off.
‘All set for Christmas, then?’ He thought he would set the ball rolling with something innocuous.
‘Just about.’ Her face was unenthusiastic. ‘What about you? Have you got Jack sorted?’
He nodded. ‘I hope so. I took him to the shop you told me about, down by the library, and we both painted mugs for the family. They said they’d have them glazed and ready to pick up at the weekend.’ He shrugged. ‘Mine weren’t very good, but…’
‘They’ll love them!’ Her smile morphed from pasted on to something much nicer.
‘For his present, I was going to get him that toy with the fish that all the kids are mad for this year, and I actually had one in my grasp and then put it down again. I’ve got him a real fish tank instead.’ He turned the edges of his mouth down. ‘I’m still not sure if that was the right thing to do.’
She clapped her hands together, infectious excitement breaking through the guardedness of her manner. ‘I think that’s just perfect. Something that you can both take an interest in and do together. Does he get to choose his own fish?’
‘Oh, yes.’ For a moment, Matt almost forgot what he was here for. ‘If he wants to fill the tank with minnows and tadpoles then that’s up to him. I’ll take him to the shop where I got the tank and show him the fancy tropical fish, but he can have whatever he wants.’
She laughed, and Matt wondered whether that was the last time he would hear that melodic, irresistible sound. Apart from in his head. It was over too soon, and her face darkened. ‘You look tired.’
‘Yeah. That flu virus that’s been going round has knocked us for six. And Christmas is always a busy time for us. Stress, rich food, too much to drink.’ Matt could identify with the stress part. Christmas loomed ahead of him like a steep cliff in an endless range of stony crags.
‘So I hear. Are you still on call?’
Matt shook his head. ‘No, I get the weekend off. I wasn’t expecting it, but someone’s holiday plans fell through and he stepped in.’
‘That was good of him. Means you can spend some time with Jack and get sorted before Monday.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m not keeping you from seeing him before bedtime, am I?’
‘No, that’s okay. He’s at my parents’ tonight and I’ve already called him. He tells me he’s got a few secret things left to do tomorrow, so I’m picking him up after tea.’
She nodded silently. It seemed that she had run out of things to say, apart from the thing that she had called him around here for.
‘You phoned me.’
She seemed thrown by the shortness of his remark. But he wanted to get this over with and go home to bed. Nothing that she said would have the power to change anything. It was he that needed to change, and if he was unable to, he was damn sure that no one else could do it for him.
‘Yes, I did. I’ve been doing some thinking and…well, we left a lot of things unsaid and I just wanted to tell you something.’ He nodded her on. Tie up the loose ends, why not? Be cool, dispassionate. It was only his heart after all. Nothing of any value.
‘I care about you, Matt.’ Tears glistened in her eyes and the weight on his chest grew heavier. ‘I know that it can’t work between us, but I couldn’t bear to let you go without telling you.’ She seemed to rally herself, wiping the back of her hand across her eye. ‘I hope that what’s happened won’t stop the work that we started from continuing.’
So this really was the end between them. He had expected it, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less. He reached for the coffee pot that stood unheeded between them and then changed his mind. He’d be home soon, he would have coffee there.
‘I’d like that, too. Sandra Allen’s as enthusiastic about the project as I am and she’s got more time to devote to it.’ He’d make sure Sandra got all the time she needed, so that he could take a back seat.
She nodded. ‘Yes, I’d like that. I guess it would be a bit awkward the way it was, with just you and me…’ She trailed off, reddening, and Matt’s heart banged against his ribs. She was having just as much difficulty dealing with this as he was.
‘Allie and the others won’t suffer either. I was serious when I offered them my help.’
‘I never doubted that.’ Her eyes seemed to soften a little. ‘I was going to say that I hope in the future some time we might still be friends. I…I’ve become very fond of Jack and it would break my heart to think that I might not see him again.’
A feeble warmth threaded softly through his veins. ‘We’ll always be friends, Beth. And you and Jack can see each other whenever you want.’ A thought struck him. ‘He’s getting a mobile phone from his grandparents—why don’t I give him your number so he can text or call you?’
She brightened visibly. ‘I’d love that. Thank you. Will you give him my number?’
‘I’ll put it into his contacts list. Or just let him do it, he seems a lot more proficient with these things than I am.’
She choked on her reply and another tear rolled down her cheek. This time she reached for the coffee pot to cover her discomfiture, tilting it towards his cup.
Matt shook his head. ‘I should go. I’m dead tired and I need to get home.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
It wasn’t much of a parting, but at least they had been adults about it. No one was going to get caught in the fallout and they were still managing to be civil with each other. It was better like this.
She followed him into the hallway, and he let himself out, closing the door gently behind him. H
e could go home now, get some sleep and settle back into his well-ordered life. As he thumbed the remote, unlocking his car doors, he saw the curtains in the sitting room twitch closed, obscuring the lights of the Christmas tree inside.
Despite herself, Beth had run upstairs, hoping irrationally for a last glimpse of him as he drove away. But he hadn’t. He’d been sitting out there in his car for fifteen minutes, and now he was striding back up her front path.
The doorbell rang. And rang. She tried to ignore it, but the feedback from her hearing aid was pinging through her head insistently. He only took his thumb off the bell when she marched downstairs and flung the door open.
‘I thought that we were going to be adults about this.’ She was quivering with rage, her cheeks tight from half-dried tears.
‘Let’s not.’
Something sparked, deep down inside her. She was still angry, but there was another emotion driving her now.
Something savage and sweet that didn’t back off from her desperate need for him. It had taken every last piece of courage she had to offer him the easy way out. If he didn’t want to take it then so be it.
‘Fine. That’s just fine with me.’ She moved back from the front door, waving him inside and almost slamming it behind him.
‘I know that you won’t be like Mariska—’ He tried to reason with her but she interrupted him.
‘I think that’s pretty much established, Matt. No, I’ll never be like Mariska. I’m a deaf woman. My father’s deaf, my brother’s deaf and if I were ever to have children then they could well be deaf, too. But you know what? I’m happy with that and anyone who doesn’t like it can go and take a running jump.’
‘You’re missing the point, Beth. Whoever said there was anything wrong with you, or your children or any of your family? And whoever said that being like Mariska was supposed to be a good thing?’
‘Well, you’ll have to help me out here, Matt, because I don’t understand. What exactly do you expect from me?’
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