‘Oh Bruno, I wanted you back so badly it hurt,’ Nina said softly. ‘I dreamed of this happening; it was practically the only thing that kept me alive ...’
‘And now I am back.’ Bruno stroked the inside of her thin wrist.
‘If only you’d changed your mind sooner.’ Nina spoke with genuine distress. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him. ‘Oh dear, I don’t quite know how to tell you this ... but I’ve met someone else. I’m happy with him. We’re going to be married in April; nothing flashy, just a small wedding, not even a proper honeymoon.’
‘Married?’ echoed Bruno, his eyes widening with horror. He stared at her, aghast. ‘Who the hell to?’
She flinched. ‘Um ... Wayne.’
‘You are joking!’ he shouted, unable to believe what he was hearing. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Nina! You can’t do that!’
Nina stuck to her guns. She loved Wayne and he loved her. She knew that.
‘But we are doing it,’ she said nervously. ‘It’s all arranged. April the twentieth.’
This was like a truly terrible dream. Bruno, not even realizing that his fingernails were digging into her wrist, howled, ‘For Christ’s sake, cancel it! He’s only marrying you for your money.’
‘No he isn’t.’ Nina pulled free and rubbed her arm. Poor Bruno, he may as well hear all the news in one go. Straightening her shoulders, her face glowing with pride, she said, ‘He’s marrying me because I’m pregnant.’
Chapter 58
It wasn’t much, thought Guy ruefully, but it was all he had. Maxine’s throwaway remark last night, when she had teased Josh about his new eight-year-old girlfriend — ‘Goodness me, you’ve gone almost as pink as Janey does whenever I mention your father!’ — wasn’t a great deal to go on, but it was the most promising sign so far that she might actually feel more for him than she’d been admitting.
It had been enough to persuade him that the moment had arrived to do something, to find out for himself. Not knowing was beginning to get to him, Guy decided. The time had come to act. And if Maxine had been wrong, he thought, he could always strangle her with his bare hands...
Two dozen pink roses. Janey winced as one of the thorns ripped into the tender skin between finger and thumb. He’d had to order not one, but two dozen long-stemmed pink roses.
Jealousy, pure and simple, surged within her as she tried to imagine whom Guy was so eager to impress. And how tempting it was to choose less-than-perfect blooms, the ones whose petals were beginning to loosen so that within a day or two they would drop off But pride compelled her to select the finest, just-flowering buds instead, flawless shell-pink tinged with apricot. If whoever-it-was took the trouble to look after them, they would last a good fortnight.
Bitchily, Janey wondered if Guy’s interest in whoever-it-was would exceed the life of the exquisite roses.
It was sheer pride too, that sent her up to the flat to brush her hair and change into a clean olive-green shirt and white jeans before setting off with the delivery. If the girl — presumably yet another svelte model — was going to be there when she arrived at Trezale House, Janey didn’t want to feel any more inferior by comparison than she already did. Knowing that you had a crush on someone was bad enough. Having to face his infinitely more glamorous size-eight girlfriends was downright intimidating.
Stop it, thought Janey wearily, rubbing off the lipstick she had just applied and staring at the little pot of bronze eyeshadow which had somehow found its way into her hand. Now she was being really stupid, she told herself, flinging the eyeshadow back into the drawer of her dressing table and gazing at her reflection in the mirror. As if a bit of make-up was going to help.
Guy opened the front door as she was lifting the flowers out of the van. It would have suited Janey to hand them over to him then and there but all he did was step aside, enabling her to carry the bouquet into the house.
There didn’t appear to be anyone else at home, certainly no stunning, semi-naked brunette draped across the kitchen table. In an effort to sound normal, Janey said casually, ‘No Maxine?’
‘No Maxine, no kids.’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘She’s taken them to some birthday party in Truro. They won’t be back for hours.’
‘And there ‘I was, thinking the roses were for her.’ Janey placed them on the table, suddenly remembering that she hadn’t seen Guy since the day he had come to the shop with the invitation to the charity ball. Praying he wouldn’t mention it, realizing to her despair that her cheeks were hot, she turned her attention to the ribbons on the bouquet, fiddling with the curly bits and tweaking them into shape.
‘Actually’ — Guy’s voice came from behind her — ‘they’re for you. And why did you make up that story about Paula having flu, by the way? Was the prospect of spending an entire evening in my company really that awful, or is there another explanation? And don’t expect me to count to ten whilst you think of one,’ he continued, his tone even, ‘because you’ve had eight weeks already.’
This time Janey blushed with a vengeance. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t know what to say either.
‘Look,’ she said finally, and with at least semi-truthfulness, ‘I just thought you’d enjoy yourself more if you took somebody else.’
‘Janey, if I had thought I would have enjoyed myself more with somebody else, I would have asked them to be my partner in the first place.’ His tone registered both amusement and impatience. ‘And you aren’t admiring your flowers. You’re supposed to say 'How lovely, you shouldn’t have'.’
‘Well, you know what I mean.’ Aware that she was gabbling, she took a step back. ‘There were those photos in the paper of you and Valentina, and that’s the kind of partner people expect you to turn up with. They’d wonder what on earth you were doing--’
‘They might even think I was coming to my senses at last.’ Guy, a million times more nervous than he was letting on, said quietly, ‘Janey, did you hear what I said just now?’
‘Of course I heard you.’ Flustered, hopelessly confused, Janey shook her head. ‘I just don’t know why you’re saying it. You phoned me up and ordered these flowers. You can’t give them back to me ...’
‘Why on earth not?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ve paid for them. I gave you my Access card number over the phone.’
‘But this is stupid.’
