“OK, OK.” Carey nudged her. “I don’t hang around, I know that.”
“You were right not to hang around with him,” said Anna Irwin. “I’d snap him up in an instant myself given half the chance.”
“Is that a warning?” asked Carey.
“Could be, girl,” said Anna. “Could be.”
Then Ben walked over to her and asked to be introduced to her friends. Carey was astonished at the amount of eyelash fluttering that went on among them, particularly in the case of Gina, who was engaged to Steve, and Finola, who’d been living with her boyfriend for the past two years.
“So it’s true,” said Ben. “You guys are all in the airline industry?”
“Carey and I are both controllers.” Finola flicked her jet-black hair from her forehead and tucked it behind her ears, showing off dangling amber earrings which emphasized her long, slender neck. “Helping to keep the skies safe and all that sort of thing. Gina works in admin.”
“I do things like buy them new computer equipment,” said Gina. “When they complain that the state-of-the-art stuff they already have isn’t good enough.” She tucked her arm in Ben’s and smiled at him. “Doesn’t it do your heart good to know that whenever you’re in a plane you’ve got a gang like us looking after your best interests?”
“Is air traffic control totally run by women?” he asked.
“No.” Carey sighed. “Naturally we will take over one day, but at the moment we’re probably outnumbered five to one.”
“Any George Kennedys?” asked Ben.
“Pardon?” Finola looked at him in puzzlement and he explained his movie-generated knowledge of anything to do with airlines.
Finola laughed. “I think George was always the plane’s engineer, wasn’t he? And surely you’ll concede that Carey, Gina, and I are a bit better-looking than him in a crisis?”
“That wouldn’t be hard,” said Ben, amid chuckles from the assembled group. “What about the rest of you, what do you do?”
Anna and Bernice were both stewardesses with Aer Lingus. They regaled him with stories of passengers from hell which had him vowing to be on his best behavior any time he flew in the future. Both girls promised to look out for him on their flights since both of them covered the New York route.
“Ellie might be disappointed she hitched herself to Bill before she met you,” suggested Anna mischievously as she caught her friend looking over at them.
“I don’t think so,” said Ben. “He was telling me how much he was worth. I’m afraid that I pale in comparison with him.”
“Not from where I’m standing,” murmured Finola.
Carey looked at her friend in astonishment and annoyance. She couldn’t believe that Finola was coming on so heavy to Ben. But Finola was a terrible flirt if her own boyfriend wasn’t around. Even, sometimes, when he was.
“Pity Dennis couldn’t come along tonight,” she said to Finola. “Or will he make it later?”
“No.” Finola shook her head. “He’s in Bermuda.” She turned to Ben. “He’s a pilot too. Works for one of the American airlines.”
“Finola’s been living with him for two years,” said Carey.
“Must be difficult for you if he spends a lot of time in places like Bermuda,” said Ben.
“Not really,” said Finola. “It works for us. And he always comes home to me so I guess we’re doing something right.”
“Gina’s engaged,” said Carey.
Ben looked at her and smiled. Then he turned to Gina. “When’s the wedding?”
“God knows,” she told him. “Now that I’ve met you…”
He laughed. “Don’t break up with your boyfriend on my account,” he told her. “I’m a serial womanizer.”
“All to the good.” Gina chuckled. “We can have a great time and nobody will worry about it.” Then she turned to Carey and put her arm round her while Ben took the opportunity to have his wine glass refilled. “Don’t look like that, Browne, I’m only pulling your leg.”
“Looks to me like you were trying to pull more than that,” muttered Carey.
“Sorry.” Gina looked contrite. “We were teasing, honestly. It’s just that you took us by surprise. We set out for a celebratory girls’ peek at Ellie’s place and you turn up with the Incredible Hunk. How d’you always manage to do things like this?”
“I don’t,” Carey protested. “And what about my last so-called Hunk? Married with a kid!”
“Don’t get upset,” said Finola. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t realize you actually cared about this bloke.”
“I don’t care,” said Carey. “How could I care? I’ve only just met him. And it’s a one-night kind of thing. But it’d be nice to know that you guys weren’t circling like vultures.”
Anna and Bernice laughed.
“Those two might not be vultures but we could be,” said Anna. “Let us know if it lasts longer than a night, Carey. If not, he’s fair game.”
“Who’s fair game?” Ben turned back to them.
“You are,” said Carey. She smiled at him. “Come on, let’s look around a little more.”
“Are you really?”
Ben returned Carey’s gaze in puzzlement as she asked him the question. She’d led him through the apartment and they were now standing on the huge balcony which overlooked Central Park while the lights of the Manhattan buildings checkered the darkness.
“Really what?” he asked.
“A serial womanizer,” she said. “You told Gina that’s what you were.”
He laughed and his breath clouded in the cold night air.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve done the long relationships and the shorter ones. But your friends were terrorizing me and I thought it might be a good idea to let them know that I wouldn’t be a decent prospect in the going-out stakes.”
“I couldn’t believe them,” said Carey. “I mean, Gina and Finola are both seriously, seriously attached! Admittedly Anna and Bernice are a different kettle of fish, but…”
“Actually, I’m not,” said Ben.
“Not?”
“Come on, Carey. I don’t want to be a serial womanizer — not really. I want what everyone wants. To meet the right person, to marry them, to live happily ever after.”
“And you think that it’s possible?” she asked.
“You have to hope, don’t you?”
She shivered in the sudden gust of wind that blew across them. Ben put his arm round her shoulder. She leaned closer to him and then, before she realized it, they were kissing each other, inhaling each other’s scent, twining together in the freezing air. She could feel her body trembling and she didn’t know whether it was because of the cold or because she was in his arms and because it felt so perfect.
She broke away from him, but he kept his arms linked behind her back. His blue eyes looked darker in the subdued lighting of the balcony.
“My God,” he breathed slowly. “I never realized it could be like this.”
“What?” Her own voice was shaky.
“A kiss.”
She smiled slightly. “I’m sure you’ve had much better kisses.”
“No,” he said. “I’ve had longer kisses. And kisses with girls I’ve known for ages. But I’ve never kissed anyone like you before.”
She didn’t want him to say things like this. Things he couldn’t possibly mean. She didn’t want her one-night stand to be infused with a whole heap of sentiment that wouldn’t mean anything in the cold light of day.
He held her tightly. “Do you believe in love at first sight?” he asked.
“No,” said Carey firmly. “But I believe in lust at first sight.”
He laughed. “And dare I hope you feel any lust for me right now?”
“Oh yes.” She leaned forward until her head was resting on his shoulder. “I absolutely do.”
“Would you like to leave this party?”
He felt her nod her head, but it was a couple of minutes before either of them moved. Then
they left the party together, much to the disappointment of her friends, who’d wanted to talk to him again.
As a one-night stand it was phenomenal. Carey felt a thrill of illicit pleasure when they took a cab back to his hotel and hurried up to the room. The pleasure was heightened as he slid her chiffon dress from her shoulders, slowly peeling the fabric from her body, his hands sliding along the silkiness of her skin, bringing her to an intensity of desire that she hadn’t realized she could ever feel. And then the pleasure was shared as he made love to her slowly and easily as though they had made love together a thousand times before but with all of the passion that the first time together brings. She felt as though she was part of him and he was part of her. She felt as though she never wanted to let him go.
Afterwards, as they lay side by side in the darkness, he whispered, “Marry me,” and she turned towards him and gazed into his eyes. And she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the only answer she could give was “yes.”
She hadn’t, of course, initially realized that he meant get married that week, nor even that he was 100 percent serious. But when she woke up beside him, her hair a tumbled mess of wayward curls and her eyes panda-smudged with mascara, he was already on the phone to a travel agent and booking tickets to Las Vegas.
“We might have to get it notarized or something when we go back to Ireland,” he told her, “but I’ve booked us into the Chapel of Everlasting Love for four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”
She stared at him wordlessly.
“Unless,” he added, “you think that this is too sudden.” He laughed, but his expression was troubled. “It is too sudden, isn’t it? I know it is. I’m being incredibly stupid to assume…I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve never, ever felt like this before. Last night — last night was perfection. I can’t allow perfection to escape, I just can’t. I didn’t think it would happen. I wasn’t expecting it to happen. But it did. You felt it too. I know you did.” He ran his fingers through his hair so that it stood up in corn-colored spikes. “I don’t want to let you out of my sight. And I don’t want anyone else to have you. I knew it from the moment I saw you last night. I knew it even before that — maybe I even knew it on the plane. But at the party I was talking to loads of people and all I could think of was being alone with you. Your friends were chatting me up and I could only think of you. I wanted to make love to you right there, on the balcony of someone else’s apartment. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, Carey. I don’t want to lose the feeling. I don’t want to lose you.”
“I’ve never felt this way before either,” she told him. “I want to marry you too, Ben.”
“But do you want to marry me tomorrow?” He looked at her ruefully. “You probably want to go home and get engaged and have a big do back in Dublin like any normal girl dreams of. Like your friends. You don’t want to get married in some awful clapboard chapel on Las Vegas Boulevard with nobody you know to see it and with hundreds of other couples queuing up behind! I’m being thoughtless and selfish. I’m sorry.”
“No,” she said. “You’re not being thoughtless and selfish. You’re being perfect. I want to marry you in the Chapel of Everlasting Love, despite the incredibly tacky name, and I want to marry you tomorrow. I never dreamed of the big do back in Dublin that you’re talking about. I hate all that sort of thing, always have. I want something that’s just for us.” She shrugged. “And why wait? I know that you’re exactly the right person for me. I knew it the moment you put your arm round me in the plane. I love you and I want us to be married for the rest of our lives.”
He kissed her. She kissed him. And she knew that even if she was rushing in, this time it was right to rush.
“Good news, ladies and gentlemen,” said the captain. “We’ve been given permission to start our engines and we should be on our way very shortly.”
There was a murmur of exhausted approval from the passengers. Ben turned to Carey, who’d sat up at the announcement.
“Are you worried?” he asked.
“No,” she said as she looked at her watch. “We’ll get there with a bit of time to spare.”
“I don’t mean about getting to work on time,” he said. “I mean about going home. About telling everyone what we’ve done.”
She looked at her thin gold wedding band and smiled at him. “I’m not in the slightest bit worried about it,” she said. “Why should I be?”
He shrugged. “I know you said that you wanted to marry me straight away, and I know we had a great time in Vegas — but do you regret it?”
She laughed. “We’ve been married less than a week and you’re asking me if I regret it already? Give me a break!” Her eyes sparkled. “Though I suppose if I did we could pop back to Reno and get a quickie divorce.”
“It’s just — I rushed you into it, Carey. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”
“You didn’t rush me into anything,” she assured him. “Except my dress at the hotel.”
“We only had the Chapel of Everlasting Love for thirty minutes,” Ben reminded her. “Our time was ticking on. I was afraid you were stalling.”
“I wasn’t stalling.” She giggled. “My zip got stuck, if you recall.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a photograph. It was of the two of them, standing outside the white wooden chapel, rice in their hair as they emerged into the scorching sun. Carey had bought a short white dress and had pulled her curls up high onto her head, securing them with a mother-of-pearl comb. She’d exchanged her glasses for contacts and her brown eyes looked warm and happy. Ben was wearing a rented tux, a red carnation in his lapel. He was grinning widely at the camera.
“You clean up well,” she told him as they looked at the photograph together. “In fact, you look good enough to eat.”
“You looked mighty fine yourself,” he said.
She kissed him. The plane began to taxi to the runway. They were still kissing as it took off on its journey to Dublin and still kissing by the time they’d reached their cruising altitude. And neither of them wanted to break free, even though Carey murmured that she really had to get some sleep.
She slept for most of the journey. She had never felt so secure before, so right with one person. It was as though her entire life had suddenly clicked into place, as though she’d found a new meaning in everything she did. She hadn’t expected to feel like this. She hadn’t known what true love really meant. She’d thought she’d experienced it before — with Ray and with Seamus, with Frank and with James and even, at first, with the traitorous Peter Furness. She’d been convinced that it was the real thing with Peter. But it wasn’t. It was nothing like the real thing. Nothing like the contentment she’d unexpectedly found with a man she hadn’t even known existed a week earlier. And although the sex was unbelievably good, it was the feeling of contentment that was the most important thing. The feeling that she’d found someone who already knew what she was thinking and who already knew what she was going to say. The person who loved her just as much when she was shapelessly wrapped up in her navy-blue coat, blue scarf, and blue hat as when she was lying naked on his bed wearing nothing more than her pearl earrings. (And who loved her naked because she really wasn’t sure that, with her body, being naked was the best way for her to turn on a prospective lover anyway.)
Despite the fact that all of her friends used to tease her for losing her heart so quickly, Carey knew that this was different. This was forever. And love at first sight really happened.
Chapter Three
ROSEMARY
An invigorating herb which promotes mental stimulation and helps muscle fatigue
By the time the return flight to Dublin finally landed and they retrieved their luggage, it was eleven o’clock. Ben pushed the trolley through the baggage hall and into the arrivals area and then stopped.
“What now?” he asked.
“I guess I’ll go home,” said Carey. “Have a shower, change, and then come back for my shift.”
&nbs
p; “Home being the house you share in Swords?”
“At this point, yes.” She squeezed his arm. “Home will change but not until after my shift.”
“I understand.” He began to push the trolley again. “Will you have time to pack all your stuff before going to work?”
“I doubt it,” she said cheerfully. “I’m a hoarder, unfortunately. I hope you have plenty of space. I’ll do my best though.”
“My house is small.” Ben looked worried. “How much have you got?”
“Don’t panic,” said Carey. “I’ll do some pruning. It’s time I got rid of some stuff anyway.” She walked quickly to keep up with him.
“You don’t have to throw out things you want just because of me,” said Ben.
“I won’t do anything just because of you!” She grinned at him. “Though it’s so weird, isn’t it? When I left here last week everything was normal. Now it’s changed. I can’t quite get my head round it.”
“Can’t you?” He looked at her anxiously. “You’re still OK about all this, aren’t you?”
“Sure,” she said confidently. “It’s just — well, I hadn’t given much thought to the practicalities, that’s all. Packing my stuff. Moving out.” She made a face. “Moving to the southside. I’m a northsider, Ben — we don’t cross the river.”
“Well, I’m a southsider and neither do we.” He grinned at her.“And since I actually own my house — or at least since I’m the one with the mortgage — and you’re only renting, it does make sense for us to live in Portobello.”
“I know that,” said Carey. “It’s just that moving southside is like — like emigrating.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” But he smiled. “It’s not such a big deal.”
“I know it’s silly,” she said. “But I can’t help it.” Then she glanced at her watch. “Anyway we don’t have time to argue about it right now. Come on, let’s grab a couple of taxis and get on with it.”
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