What She Wants (55 page)

‘Of course, the upshot could be that with a new manager, Nicole gets a better deal somewhere else and walks off leaving us with egg on our faces,’ Karen warned.

Sam steepled her fingers and gazed up at Karen with a seraphic look on her face. ‘If that happens, we’ll have to live with it,’ she said calmly. ‘Worse things could happen.’

‘Not much worse if Steve Parris gets to hear of it,’ Karen pointed out.

The seraphic look vanished and Sam felt the familiar ache in her intestines, the ache she’d done her best to eradicate. The fibroids might be gone but the nervous tension was still there. Shit, Karen was right. If Steve Parris discovered that Sam’s new-found sense of generosity meant the company had lost a prospective hit act, he’d have her belongings in a bin bag and have her escorted out of the building by security in ten minutes flat.

Oh God, had she made a huge fatal error? Would she be out on her ear if he found out? Was the Pope a Catholic?

When Karen had gone, Sam sat in her office and reflected

on how impossible it was to live her new, caring life and still do her job properly. How could her stress levels decrease and her spirit grow if she had to be the corporate raider every day of her life? It just wasn’t possible. No matter how many cups of camomile tea she drank, she still had to make tough decisions that affected other people’s lives, people who would no doubt wish all sorts of bad luck on her.

She left the office at seven and, as she walked to the underground, took out her mobile to phone Hope but there was no answer. In the days since Hope’s strange late night phone call, Sam had done everything to find out what was wrong, but Hope now insisted that she was merely depressed over Matt being away.

‘I’m fine,’ she’d snapped the last time Sam had brought it up. ‘Honestly, Sam, haven’t you ever had a bad evening and wanted to moan to somebody?’ Hope had demanded, too ashamed to say what was really wrong.

‘Fine,’ said Sam. ‘Pardon me for being interested.’

But she was still worried about her sister.

She made it home by half seven to find a handwritten note stuck in the door for her: Want to join me for an organic pizza?

It was from Morgan. Since the night they’d gone to the movies together, he’d taken her out five times: once to the library for a talk on holistic lifestyles, three times for dinner and once to a juice bar where Sam had felt like spitting out the wheatgrass concoction that was supposed to do wonders for the system.

‘The only wonder is that they don’t give you a free roll of loo paper when you get one of these, because it goes straight through you,’ Morgan had said, grimacing at the taste.

‘You’re just bringing me to these places to tease me,’ she accused him, ‘so you can laugh at my attempts to be healthy.’

‘Not at all,’ he said, desperately trying to be serious. ‘Just because you’ve gone all holistic doesn’t mean I can’t help. I love New Age therapies. Imagine it, we could be like those

Hollywood stars and fall out over our guru! When stars split up, they don’t just fight over the house and the alimony, they fight about their guru too.’ ‘I don’t have a guru,’ she said, slapping him. ‘You have me,’ he said. ‘I’m doing my best. My mantra is “enjoy life”. Or is it my mission statement?’ ‘It’s definitely your mission statement all right,’ Sam remarked. ‘I never met a man who tried to enjoy himself more.’ Tonight, she grinned at the thought of an organic pizza date. Up to now, her plans for the evening had involved doing her yoga practice and hand washing a basket full of delicate bits and pieces. Going out with Morgan was a distinct improvement on both of those options. So, Morgan didn’t look at her the way he probably looked at the twenty-something lovelies he fancied. But he was good company and they got on well. They were friends. Sam needed friends right now. She phoned him. ‘Organic pizza, Mr Benson. Is that the best you can do?’ She knew he was smiling now. ‘The supermarket has run out of those yummy tofu burgers so I thought we’d have pizza instead. My place in half an hour?’ ‘We’re not going out?’ ‘I can’t face another health food restaurant,’ Morgan admitted. ‘But the topping is goat’s cheese and wild mushrooms …’ ‘Sounds wonderful,’ she sighed. ‘I had a big lunch, though.’ ‘You’ve got to put a few pounds on,’ he reproved. ‘Don’t want you falling down the cracks in the pavement. If you get any thinner, next thing we know, someone will have signed you up as a catwalk model and have you marching down the ramp in two square inches of lycra.’ ‘Dream on,’ she retorted. ‘I’ll see you in half an hour.’ She was smiling as she raced around the apartment. There was no need to change out of her work clothes: her lovely John Rocha dress would be perfect.

She was still smiling when she skipped downstairs twenty five minutes later.

Seeing Morgan was always such a relief after a day at the office.

What was most enjoyable about their relationship was that Morgan was so easy to get on with. Not that they had a relationship as such, she corrected herself. But the difference between him and most of the other men she knew was that Morgan was fun to be with. Undemanding. Laid back in the best possible way. She never felt she had to watch what she said with him or exhaust herself trying to look good when she wasn’t in the mood to dress up. Morgan seemed as happy to be with her when she was wearing her scabby old jogging pants as he did when she was all glammed up in work clothes. He just accepted her exactly as she was. She’d never had that sort of friendship with any man before. Karl, who’d been her last big love affair, had required careful handling of the ego-boosting type. Karl liked being told how clever he was and how the company would be lost without him. He took great pride in that.

With Morgan, there was none of that ‘how was your day, dear?’ stuff before she could launch into what her day had been like. Perhaps it was different when you were actually going out with the person, she considered. Maybe Morgan wanted his girlfriends to mollycoddle him, to boost his ego and to tell him he was wonderful. Sam’s favourite trick was to tell him he was making a hash out of the renovations. Being friends was definitely much better.

He answered the door in his usual uniform of paint and dust-splattered jeans and sweatshirt. His dark hair was dusted with white like an eighteenth century French aristocrat’s and so was his face. Sam peered at the grimy Cape Cod sweatshirt he was wearing.

‘You’ve been wearing that for three days on the trot,’ she remarked as he let her in. ‘I thought you’d plumbed in the washing machine.’

‘I did but we’re ripping up the ensuite bathroom and it’s

an awful mess, so I thought I’d keep wearing this until we were finished.’

‘You’re an environmental health hazard,’ Sam pointed out. ‘The council will be round any minute to fumigate you and I cannot have dinner with you if you insist on wearing that.’

Morgan leaned wearily against the front door. ‘Don’t nag,’ he begged. ‘I’m worn out.’

She regarded him sternly. ‘Go up and take a shower. That’s an order. And by the time you come down, I’ll have dinner ready. Right?’

‘Yes sir!’ he barked, saluting.

‘And throw down that disgusting sweatshirt, when you get it off,’ she added as he started to climb the stairs. ‘I’ll put on a wash for you.’

‘You’re sure you weren’t in the army in a previous life?’ Morgan muttered, pulling the sweatshirt over his head.

Sam waited at the bottom of the stairs for the sweatshirt. Morgan threw it down and then ripped off his t-shirt, revealing lean muscles that rippled as he pulled it up and over his head. Sam felt as if she should look away. This was so intimate and private. And disturbing. Morgan’s half naked body sent a little excited shiver down her spine. He looked so damn good, from the powerful shoulders to the narrow hips. And he was so utterly unselfconscious as he stripped off, completely at home with his body. She wondered how many bench presses he’d needed to do to develop a physique like that and then realized that Morgan wasn’t the sort of guy to sculpt himself in the gym. Laying patio slabs and breaking down dividing walls with a sledge hammer would be his preferred ways to keep in shape.

He threw down the T-shirt and carried on upstairs. Sam picked up the clothes, still warm from his body. They smelled of a male, musky scent, and of paint thinners, she realized. Eau de white spirit. He was out of sight when the jeans fell to the ground floor. He’d stripped them off when she couldn’t see him. Damn.

His dirty clothes were boil washing when Morgan came down, clad in a pair of fresh jeans and a clean sweatshirt almost identical to the last one. ‘Dressing for dinner?’ she inquired with a grin. ‘You wouldn’t recognize me if I was in a suit,’ Morgan pointed out, pulling up a chair. ‘Oh yeah, and you’ve got a wardrobe full of suits,’ Sam teased. Morgan gave her a wry look. ‘You’d be surprised if you saw me in a suit,’ he said. ‘I’d die of shock,’ she remarked tartly. ‘Now are you going to open a bottle of wine or do you expect me to bring my own?’ They talked so much over dinner that the last bit of Sam’s pizza was cold by the time she got round to eating it. She loved spending time with Morgan, she thought happily, as he boiled the kettle for coffee. The only fly in the ointment was the fact that he still treated her like a good, but platonic friend, when Sam longed for more. Even tonight, when he’d been so charming, there was still something missing. Was he afraid to take that big step and ask her out? Or was he simply not interested? Sam didn’t know if she could face the humiliation of asking. Far better to let their relationship continue the way it was. Good friends made the best lovers, didn’t they? It was just a matter of waiting.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Farranfore airport was manic when Hope and the children went to pick Matt up. He was going to be home for three weeks, three weeks which Hope simply didn’t know how she’d face. If consummated affairs didn’t ruin some marriages, how could an unconsummated one ruin hers? She wished the three weeks were up and that Matt was safely back in Bath, but he’d be home for good soon and how would she deal with life then?

When Matt appeared from amid the throngs of tourists weighed down with bulging suitcases, Millie and Toby launched themselves at him, shrieking ‘Daddy, Daddy!’

He scooped a child up in each arm and somehow managed to shove the trolley along in front of him with his lean, jean-clad hips until he was beside Hope.

Still holding the children, he leaned forward and kissed his wife, who burned with guilt and wondered if he’d be able to tell that the last person she’d kissed on the lips hadn’t been him.

‘I’ve missed you,’ Matt sighed. ‘So much.’

‘Us too,’ said Hope brightly. Being ultra-bright was her only hope.

‘Let’s get Daddy into the car and you can tell him all the things you’ve been doing while he was away,’ she said, still brightly.

The children needed no more encouragement and were soon trying to out shout each other with stories of glittery pictures successfully glued and how Millie had made a pie out of mud and even got mud on her knickers in the process.

‘Mud on your knickers,’ said Matt. ‘That’s amazing, how ever did you manage it?’ The children prattled excitedly and Matt listened happily as he drove, chattering back to them and occasionally patting Hope fondly on the thigh, giving her a quick smile. She managed to smile back. Things might be all right after all, she thought. If she kept her mouth shut and her upper lip suitably stiff, they might get through this. In Redlion, Matt suggested having lunch in the Widow’s as a treat. ‘You deserve a break from cooking,’ he said to Hope. The Widows was busy for a Friday with plenty of tourists taking advantage of the balmy early May weather by touring the county. They found a table and agreed on sausage and chips for the kids, with fish pie (the Friday special) for themselves. As Matt stood at the bar ordering, Hope watched him miserably, asking herself why she’d even been tempted by Christy. Okay, so Christy was good looking and that winsome puppy dog look could be charming, but there was no question that Matt was the more handsome. There was simply no comparison between Christy’s saturnine face and Matt’s lean, strong-featured one, no comparison between hot, sultry eyes and passionate, loving, caring ones. Matt was like a noble, proud lion to Christy’s edgy, self-serving bobcat. Both beautiful creatures but with no similarities otherwise. ‘Look who’s here,’ said Matt, smiling as he led Delphine over to say hello. ‘Hi there,’ said Delphine gaily, hugging Hope and dropping kisses on the foreheads of the delighted children. ‘Eugene has a day off, so I took one too. We’re being lazy and not bothering to cook lunch. Can we sit with you?’ Eugene ambled over, a cuddly bear of a man with a rumpled face to go with his rumpled clothes. No matter how carefully Delphine ironed his shirts, after one minute on Eugene’s back, they looked as if they’d been dragged straight from the laundry basket by a herd of buffaloes.

‘Pull up chairs,’ said Matt. They were soon all squashed into a table made for four, chatting about how lovely the weather had become and how the village was jam packed with visitors. Even Mrs Egan’s de luxe B & B hadn’t a room to spare, which was a miracle, they all agreed, given how unfriendly she was. The hotel was full too, Delphine said, and she’d had to call in all sorts of favours to get her day off. ‘They work you too hard,’ said Eugene, a man not given to making idle statements. ‘She hasn’t had an extra day off since Christmas, you know,’ he told Matt and Hope. ‘That manager tries to run the place with a rod of iron.’

Hope started nervously at the mention of Christy. Delphine grinned ruefully. ‘It’s not that bad,’ she said. ‘Mr I-Love-Myself De Lacy isn’t a total despot. He might be a bit of a tyrant but I’m not going to be working there forever. I want to set up my own beauty salon.’ ‘Do you?’ said Hope, keen to change the subject. ‘Yes but you don’t want to be burned out working for the Manoir,’ Eugene insisted. ‘I don’t like that man,’ he added. ‘He’s a shark and he uses people.’ Delphine laughed and patted Eugene’s arm affectionately. ‘Isn’t it funny, Hope,’ she said, ‘how none of the men I know like Christy and practically all the women love him. Una up in the accounts office thinks the sun shines out of his rear end and Mary-Kate’s raging that she’s never met him.’ ‘Have you met him, Hope?’ inquired Matt. ‘Yes,’ she said faintly. ‘And?’ ‘And he’s always been very nice to Hope,’ said Delphine wickedly. ‘I think he fancies her.’ Hope sat frozen while Matt and Delphine went off into peals of laughter. ‘What a chancer,’ said Matt, smiling at his wife. ‘Should I challenge him to a duel?’ Eugene didn’t laugh. ‘That’s what I don’t like about that