Recipe for Love (43 page)

Zoe could do this. She’d hear him out. She was getting used to being with him again and her sense of humour was coming back. ‘That’s true and she did see it happen.’

‘She seemed positively encouraging!’

‘I know! She’s such a romantic.’ Zoe shook her head. ‘She just let me be carried away like a Sabine woman.’

He paused as if remembering. ‘I’m not sure it was quite like that. According to
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
the Sabine Women were carried off in bulk.’

‘Well, you know what I mean.’

He stopped and looked down at her, his eyes narrowed as if trying to read the small print of her mind. ‘What I can’t quite work out is whether or not there was any sort of willingness on your part when I abducted you.’

Zoe caught her breath, hoping he didn’t realise that
despite
her resolve, she was as utterly and hopelessly in love with him as she had always been – and she was his for the taking, if only he were free. She mustn’t let him know that. Somehow she must prevent him from touching her. But there was a diffidence about him that made her hope. She wasn’t even sure what she hoped for: that he’d leave her alone for ever? Or that he’d somehow stopped being married – in love – with his childhood sweetheart?

‘I don’t know what to say.’ She didn’t know what to think or how she felt either, and she certainly didn’t want to admit to anything.

‘Things are in rather a muddle,’ he said.

‘That’s one way of saying you’re married,’ she murmured.

They’d reached the bench and although in some ways Zoe would have liked to go on walking her shoes were getting muddy and it was too late to tell him she didn’t care about them.

‘Let’s sit down,’ he said, pulling her gently down next to him.

They both gazed at the river. It was so wide and shallow it could almost be forded without wellies. Swallows skimmed the surface catching flies and wagtails went about their business reminding Zoe of a poem she’d learnt in childhood. From deeper in the woodland a bird sang. Zoe would have loved being here if she weren’t so full of confusion and anxiety. He had come to find her, but why? Even if he told her he loved her it would do no good.

‘I was married, but I am about to be single,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘My divorce comes through next month.’

Zoe sighed deeply in reply. The couple she had seen at the wrap party didn’t look on the verge of divorce. They had looked like a couple who still loved each other.

‘I knew you’d find it hard to believe,’ he went on. ‘Because, as you threw at me before storming off, it’s what every married man cheating on his wife says: “We’re married in name only,” or “She doesn’t understand me.”’ He paused. ‘But it’s true. You rushed off without giving me any time to explain.’

Zoe felt a tiny flicker of hope. Did he really mean it? He sounded sincere but sophisticated, but wasn’t this what sexy men always did when they were trying to paint themselves in a good light and get what they wanted? She shifted a little further away from him. It was agony sitting so close.

‘Zoe, what’s the matter? You seem terribly nervous.’

‘I am!’

‘Why? Are you frightened of me?’ He sounded horrified.

‘Of course not! Not of you exactly …’

‘Of what then?’ It was a whisper. The concern and tenderness in his voice almost made her cry.

She shut her eyes and tipped her head back, trying to focus on the birdsong. ‘I’ve spent every second of every minute of every day since we last saw each other trying to forget you.’

‘But I don’t want you to. I want us to be together.’

Zoe turned on him in frustration. ‘But you’re
married
, and despite what you say about your divorce you looked on very good terms with your wife!’

‘We are on good terms. She’s a very tactile person—’ He stopped, realising that he was probably making things worse. ‘What I’m trying to say – in a very clumsy way, I know – is that we’ve always had a very easy relationship but there is absolutely nothing between us now, hasn’t been for ages. She’s been living in the States for years now. What can I say to make you believe me?’

‘Why did she come over to see you?’ Zoe said.

‘She wanted me to go to America to front a cookery competition. She’s a TV producer over there. Remember when I went to New York in the middle of the competition? That was to talk things through with her and the team over there. She came over here to see if—’

Zoe broke in before he could finish. ‘So why didn’t you go?’

He bit his lip. ‘I wanted to see if there was a job for you as well. There wasn’t. It took a little while to find that out. I tried really hard. But if you couldn’t go I didn’t want to either. Rosalind came back to try and persuade me to go anyway. She said I was throwing away the chance of a lifetime, but I just couldn’t leave you.’

‘Oh.’ Zoe closed her eyes, trying to will back the tears threatening to seep through her eyelids and down her cheeks.

‘You might not have wanted to go anyway but I had to know.’

Zoe still didn’t dare look at him. Everything he was saying was giving her more and more hope but she had to be sure. ‘Why didn’t you get divorced before now? I mean when you realised you weren’t happy in your marriage?’

Gideon sighed. ‘I need to tell you everything really. We were very young. We met at university – in fact we were almost the first people we met when we got there. We fell into it really. It was companionship and lust and at the time it felt like love.’

‘Isn’t that what love is?’

Gideon looked at her intently. ‘I don’t think so. Love is when you can’t contemplate life without that person, when you think about them obsessively, when you’d happily, without even thinking too hard about it, cut off your arm
if
it would benefit them in any way.’ He made a sound, half laughter, half desperation. ‘Pretty much how I feel about you really.’ He picked up her hand and kissed her wrist as if he didn’t know he was doing it. She didn’t pull it away.

In her heart Zoe recognised every word as true. That is how it is! That is exactly how I feel about you! she wanted to say. But she couldn’t afford to let him know how she felt until she’d heard everything. He still hadn’t explained why they’d stayed married for so long. ‘But why did you get married if you didn’t feel … weren’t truly in love?’

He shook his head. ‘We talked about this recently, and decided it was a combination of family pressure, the fact that we got on so well, and that we were both very ambitious. She had the offer of an amazing job. We knew we couldn’t go to America together unless we were married. Let’s just say it seemed like a good idea at the time.’ He paused. ‘And then time passed and we went our separate ways. But we stayed friends, and we sort of forgot about getting a divorce. It never mattered before. In fact – and I am being honest here although it doesn’t reflect well on me at all – it was sometimes useful to be able to say I was married.’

Zoe shuddered to think how many hearts had been dashed on the rocks of his indifference.

‘But now …’ Gideon paused.

‘But now what?’

‘Now it matters because I’ve met you. So when I went to America I told Rosalind I wanted to start divorce proceedings. And that was one of the other things she came over to tell me: that we’d both soon be single.’

Zoe’s heart had begun to sing, but then it jolted again. ‘Someone I met – Sylvie, you probably don’t remember
her
– Sylvie said she thought you were really in love with someone else, someone in your past.’

‘I do remember Sylvie. I’m not that much of a Casanova. But she was wrong about the lost-love thing. I was just always looking for the one.’ He looked at her, and Zoe noticed that uncharacteristic hint of diffidence again. ‘Does that make me sound like a teenage girl?’

Zoe smiled, biting her lip. ‘It does a bit.’

‘Sorry. Not good for my image.’

‘Your image is fine.’

‘Well, that’s something. But I want everything else to be fine too. In particular, I want you to trust me again.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘And if you still fancy me – well, we can go from there.’

Zoe found she was smiling too and the smile went from a twitch at the corner of her mouth to a full beam in seconds. She flung herself into his arms and a second later they were hugging and kissing and laughing. And then he gripped her so tightly she couldn’t breathe.

‘I’ve missed you so much! I would have found you much earlier if I hadn’t felt I had to get everything settled between Rosalind and me before I looked for you.’

‘Where would you have looked?’ she said to his shirt, which now had a couple of buttons undone.

‘I’d already tried Somerby, your house—’

‘I made them promise not to tell you where I was.’

‘And they didn’t! Your mother was really sweet.’

‘You charmed her?’ she said accusingly.

‘I did but she still wouldn’t tell me. Took her out to lunch and everything.’ He paused, laughing at her sideways. ‘I checked her out. If you end up looking like she does you’re a good long-term prospect.’

‘Oh, am I? And have you a father I should check out?’

‘I certainly have! And he’s got almost all his hair so you’re on to a good thing.’

She nestled into his chest and sighed happily.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked her after a few moments.

‘I’m wondering if I’d still love you if you were bald,’ she said.

‘Monkey! Of course you would!’

It took them a little while to settle the argument but as they walked back to the car, arms entwined, he said, ‘Oh, and I got some other little bit of unfinished business sorted out.’

‘Oh? What?’

‘Cher and the photographs.’

Zoe felt a flutter of anxiety. Those wretched photographs, she’d hoped to never hear them mentioned again.

‘I can’t imagine she gave them up easily. I’ve been worrying about them, on and off.’ She didn’t want to say, even now, that her thoughts had been so full of him that Cher’s attempts at blackmail seemed almost unimportant.

‘It was quite easy actually. I took her for a drink. She was very happy to accept the invitation. And then I put it to her if she did anything with the photos the television show wouldn’t be aired and her big break would be lost for ever.’

‘So did she delete the photos there and then?’

‘Yup. And from her laptop too.’

‘But she might have backed them up?’

‘I’m afraid I was very underhand. I found out that she isn’t remotely techie. So it’s possible, but unlikely. And even if she has, I think the threat of not starring on a primetime cookery show will keep her quiet.’

‘Thank God. I do regret throwing the competition but
at
the time it felt as though I didn’t have any choice – for both our sakes.’

‘I know you were thinking about my career – that was one of the things I was angry about. But, actually, the show has been shown to a few select people and you come across very well. I’m sure someone will back you to open a deli if that’s what you still want.’

‘It is. I’ve had such fun with Astrid. And talking of which, I must go back.’

He kissed the top of her head. ‘And I’ll go back and bring my friend to the launch. He edits a very upmarket food magazine and will be a good contact for Astrid. And then I’m going to book the most luxurious hotel bedroom in the Cotswolds to take you to after the launch. And there I will tell you and show you exactly how much I love you …’

‘And let me count the ways?’ She giggled.

‘You’re shocking! Do you think of nothing but sex?’

‘But that was poetry! And sometimes I think about cooking.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. And I’m happy to attest that you’re very good at
both
.’

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Published by Century in 2012

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Copyright © Katie Fforde Ltd 2012

Katie Fforde has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

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