He smiled to himself and reached down into the rucksack he’d dropped by the chair earlier and pulled out a bottle of red wine. Nothing extravagant. Just a bottle of supermarket Cabernet.
In one smooth second, Louise unclenched. She smiled at him, started to speak and then just shook her head. She rose, extracted a couple of teacups from Laura’s picnic set and plonked them on the coffee table. Thankfully, the bottle had a screw cap, because he doubted the picnic set came complete with corkscrew. After pouring a generous amount of wine into each cup, he handed one to her.
‘A toast-to Christmas,’ he said as they cheerfully clinked teacups.
Louise just laughed. ‘Something weird is happening here…To Christmas!’
Ben took a sip of the warm, rich wine and kept his thoughts to himself. He knew exactly why he’d phrased the toast that way. Christmas was about giving-and receiving. That weird feeling Louise didn’t recognise? That was the joy of letting someone show you how much they cared. If there was one thing he could give as a present this Christmas, it would be to show her that not all gifts had hidden traps, and that receiving them could be a pleasure.
She needed a friend. A true friend. And that was the sort of gift a
As they worked their way through the bottle of wine, a tiny teacup at a time, they retreated to the sofa thing that was piled high with cushions. Even though it was on the opposite wall to the fire, the boathouse’s upper room was small enough for them to get all the benefits of its warmth. They talked about anything and everything before falling into a comfortable silence. The candles flickered, the sun set and the temperature outside began to drop.
He was just starting to think that it was about time to get going when Louise suddenly said, ‘I don’t think I know who I am any more.’
Uh-oh. Good deeds, practical gestures, he was good at. Touchy-feely, girl-type conversations were not his forte. Thankfully, Louise seemed happy for him just to listen.
‘The curse of being an ex-WAG,’ she said, turning to smile at him weakly.
What was a WAG, anyway? He’d never been exactly sure what the term meant.
‘Short for “Wives And Girlfriends”,’ she added, obviously able to read the look of confusion on his face. ‘Probably more accurately used to describe the other halves of famous sportsmen, but it seems to fit me too. WAGS hunt in packs, love shopping and having their photographs taken and-above all-they love
‘You’re not a WAG!’ he said, rather too quickly, forgetting he didn’t know what to say in situations like this.
‘Well, not any more-having divorced Toby.’
Ben shook his head, frowning. He couldn’t see how that definition could ever have applied to Louise. She hated having her photograph taken! He was about to say so, but she preempted him again.
‘Oh, I was at the start,’ she said. ‘I embraced it wholeheartedly-the parties, the magazine covers, the
Didn’t she realise what a rare quality that was-to be able to laugh at oneself?
‘But, eventually, it grew old. I was famous because of him, because I was Tobias Thornton’s wife, not because of anything I had done.’
He shifted to face her a little more. ‘I thought you were a model when you met him.’
She nodded and looked into her teacup of red wine. ‘I was. And we made it work at first. But it was hard to keep a marriage going when we spent weeks at a time on different continents. And then Jack came along and it seemed only right to give him a home and some structure…’
Why was she punishing herself for that? That was Louise all over-she’d thought of her family first instead of selfishly pursuing what she wanted.
She was lost in a daydream, staring at the rain lashing against the windows. There was a wistful expression on her face, as if she was remembering something or wishing for something she couldn’t have.
Maybe it was time Louise did something for herself, got something for herself. Not out of selfishness, but because she deserved it. He rubbed his chin with his thumb. Now all he had to do was to discover what she wanted.
Pulled out of her daydream by some unknown thought, she turned her head, and the look she gave him sent a shiver up his spine.
Surely not.
Her pupils were large and dark, and there was such a heat in her eyes. He’d received that kind of look before from women, but he’d never expected to receive it from her. Surely, she didn’t want…him?
His heart rate tripled.
Uh-oh. That put Being What Louise Needed on a whole new level.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHAT she really needed, Louise thought, was to stop looking at Ben as if he were a Christmas present she wanted to unwrap. It was easier said than done.
The different-sized baubles on the Christmas tree twinkled, reflecting the light from the candles placed all around the room. This wasn’t her festive daydream, starring Ben, but it was close. There was the tree, the fire, the sense that someone had thought about her for a change…
Actually, reality was better. The meal, the wine, the companionship had been a much sweeter present than the anonymous gift in the silver box in her fantasies. But, whatever was missing, whatever had changed from her daydreams, one thing remained the same. Ben. It all revolved around him.
The other thing she needed to do was to stop babbling on about losing herself. But the babbling was helping keep a whole other set of urges at bay, so it would do nicely for now. She folded her hands in her lap and smiled at him. ‘So…that’s what I am. A WAG. A woman who defined herself by her husband and is now adrift with no direction in her life, no purpose.’
Ben began to disagree, but she was on a roll, so she just kept going. ‘I’ve got plenty of money, so I don’t need to work, but I do need to do more than just look after Jack and-’ she waved a hand to indicate the freshly refurbished room ‘-decorate. But, apart from knowing how to pout for the camera, I have no qualifications. I didn’t even finish school.’
There. That would scare him off. He’d have to believe she was a bimbo now. Only, when she dared to look at him, he didn’t seem convinced. She would just have to try harder.
‘Oh, I tried all sorts of jobs while I was married to Toby. He was always encouraging me to do some of the things his friends’ wives were up to. I did the whole charity circuit, then I tried a bit of television presenting on a fashion show-and was supremely bad at it.’ She let out an empty little laugh and Ben fidgeted on the other end of the day bed. ‘They never asked me back. I even designed my own range of sunglasses.’
She looked at Ben and waited for a reaction. He shrugged, as if to say,
Yeah, so what? That was what the buying public had thought too. It had been an utter flop.
She took a breath, searching for another stupid exploit to fill the silence with. Nothing came. What a waste. She was thirty-one years old and this was the sum total of what she’d achieved in her life. It was pathetic.
‘Why didn’t you finish school?’
She looked at Ben, expecting to see that same superior look that many people gave her when they found out that little bit of information. Everyone knew that models were thick, and wasn’t she a glowing representative of the stereotype?
‘Louise? What happened?’
He genuinely wanted to know. She frowned and looked away. He might just be the first person to ask why.
‘Dad’s illness got worse when I was about fifteen. Some days he needed me at home. Of course, there were home helps and health visitors, but the area where we lived was poor and the local services were overstretched. On
