by Jill Mansell
“Why?” Mario braced himself for bad news.
“Why? Because Lottie didn’t know what time you were flying back, did she, so I had to make sure I got here early enough to meet every plane.” Exasperated, Amber said, “Except I didn’t, did I? I fell asleep instead, on a stupid metal bench. You could have walked straight past me without even realizing I was here. I’d have spent all that time waiting for nothing!”
Mario exhaled slowly. “I don’t think I could ever walk straight past you without realizing you were there. It just wouldn’t happen. And you do have to tell me what’s going on, by the way. Because at the moment I’m at a bit of a loss for…”
“Sausage rolls?” Amber raised her eyebrows as he gestured helplessly. “Premium Bonds? Furniture polish?”
“That’s it! Furniture polish.”
“You know exactly what’s going on. I’ll also have you know, it’s all your interfering ex-wife’s fault.” Amber paused. “So, how was your vacation?”
“Terrible.”
She smiled. “In that case I’m glad I didn’t go with you.”
“If you’d gone with me it wouldn’t have been terrible.” Reaching out, Mario pulled her to her feet. “Where’s Quentin?”
“That’s all over. I told Quentin yesterday.”
“I bet he took it well,” said Mario. “Like the thoroughly decent chap he is.”
“He did.” Amber nodded. “And he is a thoroughly decent chap.”
“But?”
“He wasn’t enough. Dammit, he wasn’t you.”
Those were the words he wanted to hear. His heart expanding, Mario said, “Does that mean I’m indecent?”
“Don’t gloat. Oh God.” Amber groaned. “I can’t help wondering if I’m going to regret this.”
He loved her so much. “You won’t. And that’s a promise.”
She fixed him with a warning look. “You’d better keep that promise. Because I’m telling you now, if you ever cheat on me, I swear I’ll—”
“I never have,” Mario forestalled her, because the nightmare one-night stand with Gemma didn’t count, surely—that had happened after Amber had dumped him. “And I never will. And excuse me for mentioning it, but you were the one who played away, sneaking off on vacation with another man. Road-testing him before you decided whether to choose him over me. And to cap it all, his name was Quentin.”
“You’re right. And I’m sorry, I was wrong to do that.” Amber shook her head. “I swear on my life I’ll never do anything like that again.”
Mario touched her face, momentarily unable to speak. If he was honest, she’d been right to do it. Discovering the hard way how it felt to be cheated on and dumped had been the wake-up call of his life. If you wanted to be really icky about it, you could even say the experience had changed him for the better.
But he wasn’t going to tell Amber that. He wasn’t completely stupid. “Come on, let’s go home. I just need to find the parking ticket machine.”
“You’ve got your car?” Amber looked dismayed. “I didn’t realize you’d driven down here. I’ve got my car too.”
Mario took her in his arms and kissed her properly. “Shhh. You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”
“Actually, I think I can guess.” Pink and out of breath, Amber said, “Will you behave yourself? There are nuns over there.”
Mario hadn’t fancied the fifty-mile drive from Bristol back to Hestacombe anyway. “In that case I think we’d better find a hotel. Get a room.”
Chapter 66
“Ow, bugger, fuck,” yelped Lottie as she lost her balance, toppled over sideways, and at a stroke destroyed the festive tableau she’d spent the last twenty minutes painstakingly arranging.
The door opened and Tyler appeared. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, wonderful! Really, couldn’t be better.” Lottie gestured from the floor, surrounded by holly branches, swathes of variegated ivy, and pine cones. “I had the fireplace looking gorgeous, like something out of a magazine, and now it’s all wrecked!”
“Here.” Reaching down, he helped her to her feet—OK, foot—and plonked—plonked!—her back into her wheelchair. Feeling like a belligerent toddler, Lottie pointed to the berries scattered over the carpet. “And this holly’s rubbish. All the berries just bounced off! How can I decorate a fireplace with naked holly? It’s just going to look stupid.” Oh dear, now she was starting to sound like a belligerent toddler. Was it any wonder Tyler was treating her like one?
“Do you want me to go out and cut some more?”
“You won’t know which trees to avoid. I don’t want any more of this useless stuff.”
“Fine.” Tyler abruptly left the room. Cursing herself and her hormones, Lottie hurled a pinecone at the fireplace. It was the Sunday before Christmas, and to say they weren’t getting on well was an understatement. Wheelchair or no wheelchair, she really couldn’t stay on any longer at Hestacombe House.
It was time to go home.
The door swung open again, and Tyler threw her black sweater and cream fake-fur waistcoat at her. “Put these on. It’s cold outside.”
“Is it?” Affecting surprise, Lottie gazed out of the drawing room window at the yard, glittering with frost. “And there was me, thinking I might wear my bikini.”
“Any more of your back talk and you will.”
“And I can’t wear these two things together. The cream fur molts like crazy.”
By this time, pushing her at speed out into the hall, Tyler wordlessly reached over, snatched the offending waistcoat from her grasp, and chucked it onto the floor.
“Thanks a lot! Now it’s all dirty.”
“Will you stop complaining? Do you want more holly or not?”
They’d screeched to a halt on the polished parquet. Lottie fought her way into the black lambswool sweater, dragging it on over her cropped T-shirt. As her head popped out through the hole she said irritably, “Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s go.”
The sun was yet to melt last night’s heavy frost. As the wheelchair jiggled over the path leading down to the lake, Lottie’s breath formed opaque puffs that hung in the air before being whisked behind her. Tempted though she was to complain about the jiggling, she didn’t want to be turfed out of the chair and left on the stony ground to die of hypothermia.
“Not those. That’s where the last lot came from.” Dismissing the inferior specimens on their left, she pointed instead to a holly tree closer to the water’s edge. “We’ll try that one.”
Wordlessly, Tyler steered her down to the beach. The swans glided across the water toward them, then figured out that they hadn’t brought anything edible and promptly lost interest.
Rather like Tyler with me, thought Lottie as he reached up for the first branch.
Hmm, was that a pair of pruning shears in his pocket or was he just pleased to see her?
No, it was a pair of pruning shears. She watched him clip through the branch and give it a shake to check that the berries were hanging on by more than just their fingernails before handing it to Lottie.
Lottie looked at the holly, glossy-leaved and still sparkling with frost. “Actually, don’t bother. I’d rather go home.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Don’t be such a wimp; we’ll be done in five minutes.”
“I mean there’s no point in me decorating that room. I want to go back to my house.”
And exhale. There, she’d said it. At last.
Tyler surveyed her levelly. “Why?”
“Because we’ve imposed on you long enough. It’s almost Christmas. After putting up with Nat and Ruby for the last fortnight you must be desperate for some peace and quiet.”
“Is that the real reason?”
No, Lottie wanted to shout at him, Of course it isn’t. But I’m hardly going to tell you the real reason
, am I?
Am I?
Oh God, am I?
Tyler’s gaze was still upon her. To her absolute horror Lottie heard herself saying, “Actually, I’m just a bit confused. The thing is, I don’t know if you even remember this, but back in the summer you seemed really keen on me and things between us were getting quite, well, you know. Until Nat and Ruby made things impossible and we agreed that we couldn’t see each other anymore.”
“Go on,” said Tyler.
Go on? Good grief, hadn’t she already said enough? Oh no, and there was more, bubbling up and out of her mouth as uncontrollably as if someone had slipped her a truth drug.
“So that was fine, we were adults, we knew we had no other choice,” Lottie babbled on. “Then I met someone else and not long after that Liana turned up, but deep down I was still crazy about you, and call me stupid, but I suppose I hoped that deep down you were still crazy about me.”
Tyler raised an inquiring eyebrow. “And?”
“And?” Her voice spiraling, Lottie said in exasperation, “But they’re out of the picture now, both of them, and you even managed to change the way Nat and Ruby felt about you, which has to be some kind of miracle, but what it means is that there are now precisely no reasons why we…why we shouldn’t…um…”
“Shouldn’t what?”
He sounded mildly interested. This was awful, worse than awful. Flushed with embarrassment, Lottie blurted out, “Look, all I’m saying is that if you’ve stopped liking someone it’s only polite to tell them, then they can stop wasting their time wondering if you still like them or not.”
Tyler nodded, absorbing this pronouncement. At last he said, “You’re right, that makes sense. OK, I’ll do that.”
Lottie waited, her fingers gripping the wheelchair’s armrests.
And waited.
Finally, light-headed with waiting—and forgetting to breathe—she managed to get out, “You aren’t saying it.”
“I know.” Tyler shrugged, and at long last Lottie thought she detected a glimmer of a smile around his mouth. “That’s probably because I haven’t stopped liking you.”
It was a jolly good job she was sitting down. “So you still…?”
“Oh yes.” Tyler nodded again, this time with undisguised amusement. “I definitely still…” He waited. “Go on then, your turn. Do you still…too?”
“You bastard!” Lottie flung aside the branch of holly that had been lying across her lap. “You absolute bastard. You know I do!”
“I thought you might. I hoped you did. But I didn’t know for sure,” Tyler pointed out. “You haven’t been giving me any clues.”
“That’s because you haven’t said anything!” Out of her chair now, hopping furiously on her good leg, Lottie yelled, “You didn’t give me any clues. I thought you weren’t interested in me anymore, so why would I want to make a complete fool of myself?” As she said this she lost her balance in the sand, wavered wildly on one foot for a couple seconds, and almost went crashing to the ground. Again.
Tyler caught her in the nick of time. As, deep down, Lottie had kind of hoped he would.
“Heaven forbid,” he drawled, “that you should ever make a complete fool of yourself.”
He smelled wonderful, just as she remembered. The heat from his body was drawing her toward him like a magnet, but there were still questions to be asked.
“So were you ever planning to do anything?” Lottie’s eyes blazed with a mixture of indignation and lust. “I mean, if I hadn’t said all this today, would we have just carried on the way we’ve been carrying on for the last fortnight?”
“No.” Tyler shook his head thoughtfully. “Of course I would have said something eventually. I just didn’t want to jump the gun.”
Jump the gun?
“Are you mad?” Lottie blurted out. “I’ve been waiting so hard for you to jump the gun that I’ve been ready to burst.”
“Maybe, but this isn’t only about you, is it?” He gave her that maddening look again.
“Isn’t it?” Her stomach gave a lurch of alarm. “So who else is it about then?” If he told her Liana was on her way back over here…
“There are other people to consider. Like…two fairly important people?”
Oh phew. “Ruby and Nat? But they love you now!”
“They’ve loved me for nine days. Possibly nine and a half.” Tyler shrugged. “Before that they hated me with a passion. Who’s to say they won’t change their minds again tomorrow?”
“They won’t. You’ve won them around completely.” Joyfully Lottie exclaimed, “We can be together!”
“I hope so. But I still think it’s better to ask them how they’d feel about it, rather than just presenting them with a fait accompli.”
“That’s so thoughtful. And you’re right. We’ll ask them as soon as they get back.” Nat and Ruby had been taken Christmas shopping in Cheltenham by Mario and Amber. Checking her watch, Lottie said, “They won’t be home for a few hours yet.” She frowned. “Gosh, I wonder what we could possibly do to pass the time?”
“Stop that. Not until we know.” Tyler removed her wandering hands from the front of his shirt before she had time to undo even one button.
Spoilsport.
“They’re my children,” Lottie protested. “Trust me, they’ll be fine about it.”
“All the same.” Taking his phone out of his jacket pocket, Tyler said, “Just give Mario a call.”
“Mario?”
“Say, have you asked them yet?”
“You mean you…?”
“Just do it,” prompted Tyler.
Flabbergasted, Lottie keyed in Mario’s number. When he answered she said, “Tyler’s asked me to ask you if you’ve asked them yet.”
Moments later she said, “OK, thanks,” and switched off the phone.
“Well?”
“He asked them. They said it’s cool.”
A slow smile spread from Tyler’s mouth to his eyes. “Cool. Well, that’s a relief. Cool is more than I dared hope for.”
“See? I knew they’d be OK about it.” Triumphantly Lottie wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I’m always right.”
Tyler kissed her in return, until she was tingling all over. “All that trouble, solved by one little word,” he drawled. Then, as Lottie launched herself away from him and began hopping backward: “What are you doing now?”
“You’re taking me back to the house.” Lowering herself into the wheelchair Lottie said, “It’s way too cold out here for what I have in mind.”
“Really? Oh well, in that case.” Tyler swung the chair in a homeward direction. “Cool.”
Order Jill Mansell's next book
Falling for You
On sale August 2015
Read on for an excerpt from
Jill Mansell’s next book
Falling
for You
Available August 2015 from
Sourcebooks Landmark
Chapter 1
If she jumped high enough into the air, Maddy Harvey could see the party carrying on without her, blissfully unaware of her absence. Well, she could see in a blurry, abstract kind of way—the lights in the house, the trees surrounding it and the outlines of other party-goers either drifting from room to room or dancing manically along to Kylie Minogue (truly a girl for all age groups).
I bet this never happens to Kylie.
It was an inescapable law of nature that sometimes you went along to a party, everything went right and you had the best time ever. The flip side of the coin, needless to say, was that sometimes you didn’t. Everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong.
Like tonight.
Maddy heaved a sigh and considered her current predicament. She blamed Bean for launching herself joyfully at the backs of her legs just as she’d been po
ised to put her left contact lens in. The little dog had caught her by surprise. The lens had flown off her fingertip and, in good old contact lens fashion, had promptly disappeared. It could have fallen into the sink and slipped down the drain. It could have landed anywhere in the bathroom. Bean could have stepped on it, eaten it. Not for the first time, a tiny transparent sliver of plastic had simply vanished into thin air.
Since wearing only one lens was no use at all, she had been forced to wear her glasses instead. But only to be able to drive herself the few miles from Ashcombe into Bath. Not to wear to the party itself. Oh no, good grief, she was far too vain to actually wear her glasses at a party, which was why they were currently stowed away in the glove compartment of her car.
So that had been mistake number one. Mistake number two had come about when, desperate for a bathroom and discovering that there was a major line, she had slipped outside in search of somewhere discreet and al fresco. And since there wasn’t anywhere discreet in the backyard, she had climbed over a five-foot wall into next door’s, where a weeping cherry tree promised absolute privacy.
If she hadn’t been too vain to wear her glasses, she’d have spotted the nail sticking out of the wall, encouraging a clematis to entwine itself around it, and her trousers wouldn’t have got disastrously ripped.
Mistake number three had been climbing over a five-foot wall with the help of a sawn-off tree trunk without pausing to wonder if the drop might be greater on the other side, and whether there would be another handily positioned tree trunk to enable her to get back.
And I’m not even drunk, Maddy thought, exasperated. At this rate she could be stuck out here for the rest of the night.
Never had the sound of a door clicking open been more welcome. Realizing that this could be her big—OK, only—chance, Maddy started bobbing up and down again like Zebedee, waving her arms in the air to attract attention. Spotting the outline of a figure and feeling completely idiotic, she called out, “Um, hello? Excuse me?”