‘My part two consisted of me going down on one knee and asking you to marry me. When I failed part one-’
‘This isn’t an exam,’ she said, quickly, cutting him off. She was still sure that it was too soon. He hadn’t failed, but she was certain that he needed time to think about this. Or maybe she was the one fooling herself. Maybe she was the one who needed time…‘There are no right or wrong answers.’
‘I know. It’s all in the interpretation, but it’s pretty clear that you think I’m work obsessed. That I put the restaurant before everything else.’
‘I don’t care about everything else. My problem is that you put the restaurant before me. You always have.’
On the point of denying it, he nodded. ‘You’re right. I should have called you last night.’
‘No. You should have been there. Last night was important to me. Important for us. I think that scared you.’
‘No!’ Then, ‘Maybe, just a bit, but there was a crisis. I didn’t spend time considering options, I just did what needed to be done. You know how it gets.’
She knew. And, despite everything, she did understand. But she wasn’t letting him off the hook on this one. He needed to understand her point of view.
‘That was the manager’s job. You shouldn’t have even been there, Max. Your role is to look at the bigger picture now. You have to trust your staff to deal with the day to day problems.’ She shook her head. ‘Failing that, you take time to make a call. Look, I know how it is. I’ve waited tables at functions when staff haven’t turned in for a PR do but my mother taught me to use a phone when I was very small. To call home when I was going to be late. To call someone when you can’t make a date.’
‘I’m from a broken home,’ he said.
‘That’s it, Max.’ They’d got to the heart of the problem. Finally. ‘You want the whole-heart relationship, but you’re afraid of the commitment. Afraid of being hurt.’
‘You’re right.’ He closed his eyes. ‘You think I never put you before work, but let me tell you that I’ve spent all day thinking about us. Thinking about me. How I am. I won’t ever do that to you again. I promise.’
‘Promises and pie crusts,’ she said. ‘Made to be broken.’
‘Not this time. You have my word.’ Then, ‘You do believe me?’
‘I believe that you mean it now. Tomorrow…The day after…’
‘No. You have to believe. It’s more than that. I can’t lose you.’ He reached for her, wrapped his arms around her. ‘Not now I’ve found you. I want us to be together always. I want you to be my wife, Louise.’
A lump rose to her throat, so that she couldn’t speak. It was like all the Christmases, birthdays, Valentine’s Days, rolled into one. Every dream coming true.
And still she hesitated.
She knew that at that moment Max would have promised her anything. Deep down inside her, though, there was still that small nagging doubt. That he meant everything he said, she was certain. Whether he still understood what that meant, she wasn’t totally certain. Wasn’t convinced that it was a risk she should take.
But then she’d learned from experience that safety wasn’t enough, either. James had been a safe bet, ‘a banker’, the kind of husband any woman would be fortunate to have.
Max, on the other hand, was always going to be a gamble. But when life without him meant putting her heart into permanent cold storage…
‘Why don’t you save it until the fourteenth, Max?’
‘The fourteenth?’
‘Valentine’s Day. We have a date, or have you forgotten already?’
‘Actually, I don’t remember you saying yes to that.’
‘I didn’t. I’m saying it now. Turn up with the ring in your pocket, do your stuff then and we’ll make an announcement.’ Her flippant tone gave nothing away of the tangle of emotions in her heart.
‘You want me to go down on one knee in front of everyone?’
‘Would you do that for me?’
He hesitated for barely a second. ‘Anything.’
‘I’m the only one you have to convince, Max,’ she said, then leaned across and kissed him. ‘Make it a solitaire. Not too big. I don’t want it to look as if it came out of a Christmas cracker. Now, can we eat?’
Everyone worked on Valentine’s Day. Even John and Robert were pressed into service at the Mayfair restaurant, working together, a pair of world-class experts in smoothing out wrinkles, keeping diners whose tables were delayed from getting fractious.
Max was at the Knightsbridge restaurant. Lavish, contemporary, it was a favourite with the social elite as well as the aristocracy of the theatre.
Louise was playing hostess at the Chelsea restaurant, a popular haunt with the livelier celebrities who arrived trailing a crowd of paparazzi. She knew them all and would be at her best there, Max knew, and, as the original restaurant, it was traditionally where they held the huge after-hours party where everyone, all the staff, all the family, gathered to celebrate the year.
This year, as their diamond anniversary, was extra special in more ways than one. Max patted his jacket where the ring he was going to give Louise-a solitaire, a single carat, he wanted her to know that he’d been listening-was tucked into his ticket pocket, along with the safety pin she’d given him.
When he’d emptied his pockets on his return from Meridia, it had been there among his change and keys. Such a small thing and yet it had signalled a change in their relationship: a move from war to peace. A symbol, a link that somehow held them together, and since the night when he’d told her he loved her, asked her to marry him, he’d taken to carrying it with him.
He hoped to get away some time in the evening. He’d arranged for a bottle of Krug to be waiting in the tiny office and, with the door firmly closed, he’d make a proper job of his proposal. He’d seen the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. A momentary shadow of doubt. He had to convince her, once and for all, that without her Bella Lucia meant nothing to him. It was true. He’d looked into the abyss, the dark emptiness of life without her, and he knew it was true. She would always come first.
He glanced at his watch. Ten o’clock. A quick look around. Everything was humming. No problems. He could slip away now, be back before…
‘Mr Valentine-’He turned at the hushed urgency in the maitre d’s voice ‘-we’ve got a bit of a problem.’
No. Not tonight…
‘I’m just leaving, Jane. See Stephanie.’ Nothing, no one, would stop him from putting Louise first tonight.
‘It’s not…please…’
She looked as if she might faint. ‘Steady, now. What is it? What’s the matter?’
‘Table five. Charles Prideaux. The actor?’ she added, in case he didn’t know. ‘He’s not well.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’
She pulled herself together. ‘He’s clammy, no colour, complaining of indigestion.’
‘Classic indications of a heart attack. Call an ambulance,’ he said, turning away.
‘No! He won’t allow it. He doesn’t want to attract attention. He seems more concerned about his wife finding out he’s here with some young actress when he was supposed to be at a business meeting than whether he’s about to die.’
‘The two may not be mutually exclusive.’ But not in one of his restaurants. ‘Where is he?’
‘One of the other diners found him in difficulties in the loo and called a waiter. We’ve put him in the office.’
Who’s with him?’
‘No one. He wouldn’t let me get anyone else even though I’m not a first aider. He said I could only get you.’
‘Hell, he shouldn’t be left alone.’ Whether he liked it or not, Max was involved. ‘OK, Jane, it’s not your fault- you’ve done well, considering the circumstances. I’ll take it from here. Can he walk?’
‘With help.’
He looked at his watch. It would take half an hour, no more. ‘Get him back to him now and take him out through the rear. I’ll drive him to the nearest A and E.’
Louise took a tray of coffee out to the paparazzi wanting to be the first with photos of newly acquired diamonds. It was cold out there and, despite their bad press, she understood they were just doing a job like
