beside her laptop…
Adoption.
It had been a website about adoption. And suddenly everything fell into place.
‘…it’ll be fine,’ he finished.
The email she’d been waiting for came the next day. Daisy Porter had registered with the agency and had been informed that a family member was looking for her. If she wanted to send a letter they would forward it…
Belle wrote a dozen letters. Long. Short. Every length in between. Finally she summoned a courier-she couldn’t wait an extra day for the post-and sent one that contained the bare essentials. No excuses. No apologies. Asking her to write or ring. Giving her address. Her phone number. Her mobile phone number. And, at the last moment, she clipped one of the photographs from the strip she had taken at the photo booth and enclosed that too.
And, because the waiting was unbearable, because she had to do something, she stripped the wallpaper from the living room walls.
By the weekend she wasn’t stripping the walls, she was climbing them, so she bought a stepladder and started painting the ceiling. She was working on a fiddly bit of the cornice that decorated her high ceiling when the phone rang, shatteringly loud in a room stripped of curtains and carpet.
She grabbed the handle at the top of the ladder and steadied herself.
She’d expected an instant response from Daisy but, after days of rushing to answer every call, she forced herself to ignore it. Racing up and down a stepladder was just asking for trouble.
It was more likely to be someone from the media who’d finally tracked her down, she told herself, still doing her best to appease the Fates.
So far the studio had managed to keep a lid on the fact that she wasn’t renewing her contract. That two weeks from now-unless they could persuade her to change her mind-there would be a new face to go with the cornflakes. And the newspapers and gossip magazines, totally obsessed with her new look-her face ached with smiling at photo sessions-had somehow missed the really big story, that she’d moved out of the marital home. That the smile was not the real thing, but something she had to coax her muscles to do. That it had taken all the make-up artist’s skill to cover the dark hollows under her eyes. That her mascara had to be waterproof.
It couldn’t last and when the story broke the phone would be her enemy, not her friend.
She should have just given Daisy her cellphone number. Bought a special phone with a number that only she would know. Too late…
The machine picked up, the message played. She’d left the pre-recorded response until she’d heard that Daisy had registered to look for her. Once she’d given her the number, she’d recorded a message in her own voice. Probably a mistake. If it was some gossip columnist hoping to confirm a suspicion, he’d just done it.
She glanced out of the curtainless window, but there were no photographers with long lenses pointed in her direction. No, well-easing her aching shoulder while the message played, hoping against hope that it would be the one call she was waiting for-she still didn’t really believe it herself.
The caller hung up without leaving a message.
She dipped her brush into the paint. Her nails, her fingers, were coated in the stuff. More work for her manicurist who had taken to joking that she was going to finance a Christmas holiday in the Caribbean with all the extra money she was making.
The phone began to ring again. She dropped the brush, slid down the stepladder, grabbed the phone before the machine could pick up.
‘Yes?’ she gasped breathlessly. ‘I’m here.’ There was the briefest silence. Then once again the caller hung up.
Fingers shaking, she punched in 1471. Listened to the recording telling her that ‘…we do not have the caller’s number…’
She rubbed briskly at her arms, stippled with gooseflesh. Of course she was cold. She’d opened the windows…What she needed was a warm drink, a hot mug to wrap her fingers around.
She’d just reached the kettle when the phone rang again. She grabbed the receiver fastened to the kitchen wall and said, ‘Please don’t hang up!’
‘Belle?’
Ivo.
‘Oh…’
‘Not who you were expecting, evidently.’
‘No…Yes…’ She shook her head, which was pretty pointless since he couldn’t see.
She should have guessed he’d ring.
He’d called at the flat earlier: she’d looked out of the window and seen his car-not the work day Rolls with Paul at the wheel, but the big BMW he drove himself-and had resolutely ignored the doorbell.
This was hard enough without these constant reminders of everything she was missing. Not just the scent of him that nothing seemed to eradicate, but the way he loosened his tie, undid the top button of his shirt, without even realising what he was doing. The way his hair slid across his forehead, evoking memories of it damp, tousled from the shower…
‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes. Sorry. I’m waiting for someone to ring,’ she said helplessly.
‘I got that bit.’ He didn’t wait for her to reply but said, ‘You sound as if you’ve just run a marathon.’
‘Nothing that easy,’ she said. Then, a touch desperately, ‘Can this wait?’
‘It’s okay, I won’t stop you working. If you’ll just buzz me up…’
Buzz him up? She looked at the phone, then put it back to her ear. ‘Where exactly are you?’
‘Right this minute? Standing on your doorstep.’
She crossed to the tall French windows, standing open to the small balcony to let out the smell of paint, and looked down. There was no BMW parked at the kerb behind her own smart little convertible. Only a van.
Clearly he’d guessed she was lying doggo earlier so this time he’d stopped further down the street and used his cellphone to establish that they both knew she was in before he revealed his presence. Smart.
‘I’m really busy,’ she said. ‘Can’t you just push the post through the letterbox?’
‘The stuff I’ve got here won’t go through the slot.’
Which was why he’d had to come back. Now she just felt bad and, out of excuses, she buzzed him up, but, having left the flat door open, she abandoned all thoughts of making a hot drink and retired to the top of the stepladder, ensuring a safe distance between them. If he saw she was working, he’d get the message and wouldn’t linger.
She heard him walking across the bare boards in the hall. ‘Just dump it there,’ she called, hoping he’d take the hint.
‘One more load.’
What?
She frowned, turned, too late. She could hear him taking the stairs two at a time.
One more load of what?
Had he got tired of waiting for her to pick up her belongings and decided to bring them over?
She swallowed down the painful lump in her throat. This was her decision. She should be grateful, she thought, jabbing at the cornice with her paintbrush. He was saving her a job.
She heard him put something down. ‘That’s it.’
‘Could you leave it in the hall?’ she said, aware that he was watching her but resolute in her determination not to get drawn into conversation. To even look at him.
‘It won’t be much use there.’
And he had her. Curiosity…
Ivo had a weekend wardrobe to go with his weekend car. Expensive casuals, cashmere sweaters. He might carry on working at the weekend, but he didn’t consider it necessary to wear a suit when he was at home. Mostly.
Today he was wearing stuff she’d never seen before.
Really old form-hugging jeans that clung to his thighs and sent a whisper of heat whiffling down her spine. And, under a rubbed to the nap leather bomber jacket, a T-shirt that had once been black but was now so faded that even the logo promoting some eighties’ rock group was barely discernible.
