A Whirlwind Engagement

shot!'

But Josh didn't come round. He didn't come round, and he didn't ring. He didn't email. He didn't even send a text.

Bella spent four days checking the phone to see if she had missed a call, although that wasn't likely as she took her mobile everywhere. Of course, his phone might not be working, she reasoned desperately, but then he could use the phone at work, couldn't he? Ditto computers. What were the chances that his laptop and his entire company network would crash at the same time? There had even been time for him to write her a letter and put it in the post!

'Do you think he might be ill?' she asked Phoebe on Friday morning.

'No,' said Phoebe patiently. 'I think he's waiting to hear from you. From what you told me about the way you were on the flight home, I think he's probably sitting there thinking that you don't even want to be friends any more.'

'Or he's too happy with Aisling to even think about me,' said Bella glumly.

'Well, you won't know until you talk to him, will you? Don't be silly, Bella,' said Phoebe sternly. 'Just ring him!'

In the end, Bella sent an email which took her ages to compose. She didn't want him to think that she had been pining, but she had to see him. So she pretended that she had been terribly busy and apologised for not being in touch sooner. Since she knew perfectly well that Josh hadn't even tried to be in touch with her, he wasn't to know that her inbox hadn't been jammed with messages and her phone permanently engaged, was he?

'What about a drink sometime?' she finished in what she hoped was a suitably casual way that would give him no indication of the degree of her desperation. Surely that sounded just like someone whose only concern was to pick up their friendship exactly where it had been before they had spoilt everything by sleeping together?

As soon as she had sent it Bella agonised about whether she had put it the right way. Every five minutes she checked her inbox to see if Josh had replied yet, and when his name finally popped up in bold, her heart lurched hammering into her throat.

God, she was in a bad way, she thought. It ought to take more than the sight of his name to reduce her to this state, but her hand shook on the mouse as she clicked to open the message.

'Doing anything this evening?' it read.

'Nothing special,' Bella typed quickly in reply. Apart from loving you and needing you and wanting you. 'Why don't you come round? We can have a bottle of wine and a chat. It'll be like old times!'

There, that didn't sound too intense, did it?

Josh's reply came back a few minutes later. Bella clicked eagerly. Perhaps he would say how much he was looking forward to seeing her, how much he had missed her even? Anything to give her some indication of what he felt.

She should have known better.

'OK,' said the message.

Bella was a terrible rambler when she got going, but Josh had succinct emails down to a fine art. They were always restrained, polite and to the point. Like him, really.

She was absurdly nervous before he arrived that evening, and dithered about the house wondering what to wear, how to look, how to be. It had never been a problem when she wanted to impress a man before. Kate had always said that she should have a Ph.D. in flirting, but she couldn't imagine flirting with Josh. She couldn't make play with her eyelashes or cross her legs or smile seductively at him. He would just ask her why she was fidgeting.

The peal of the doorbell broke into her thoughts, and Bella's heart jerked wildly. She had to take several deep breaths before she could even open the door, and when she did all the air evaporated from her lungs all over again at the sight of him standing there.

'Hi.' Her voice came out as a squeak, and Josh looked faintly surprised. Not a good start. Bella coughed. 'Sorry, frog in my throat,' she mumbled. She stood back. 'Come in.'

He was looking exactly the same as ever, she thought with a mixture of joy and despair. Joy because the mere sight of him now was enough to make her senses tingle and send happiness rushing along her veins. Despair because she could see no sign that she had the same effect on him. There was no outward indication that Josh had missed her at all, or that this evening was any different from all the other evenings when he had dropped round to see her as a friend.

He did look a little tired, though, Bella thought, studying him covertly as she got out a bottle of wine, but there could be lots of reasons for that. He wasn't drawn and puffy-eyed from crying himself to sleep every night like her, that was for sure.

'Have you been busy?' she asked as she rummaged for a corkscrew.

'Chaotic' Josh sat down on one of the shabby sofas at the end of the kitchen. 'C.B.C. contacted us the day after we got back. They gave us that contract.'

'Really?' Bella looked up from the corkscrew in surprise. 'In spite of Bryn?'

'It turns out that the man who really makes the decisions at C.B.C. was on that boat trip as well,' said Josh. 'He was the short guy who helped us move the boat round the island. Anyway, he seemed to think that we were what their organisation needed.'

'Josh, that's fantastic news!' Bella was genuinely pleased for him. He had only set up his company a couple of years ago and she knew how much he needed a big contract like the one they had just won from C.B.C. to make it secure.

'He was very taken with you,' said Josh. 'He went on and on about how charming you were. I suspect you might have done more than the rest of us to get us the contract.'

'I'm sure that's not true.'

Bella poured the wine and carried the glasses over to the sofa. Handing one to Josh, she sat cross-legged at the other end of the sofa, where there was no danger of touching him, and leant forward to chink glasses.

'Thank you anyway,' he said.

There was a pause. For a man who had just secured his company's future, Josh seemed ill at ease. 'So, how have you been?' he asked after a moment.

'Fine. And you?'

'Yes, fine.'

Talk about stilted conversation, thought Bella despairingly. Anyone would think they were on a blind date.

'I wasn't sure if you would be coming on your own or not,' she tried again brightly. 'Where's Aisling tonight?'

'Aisling?' echoed Josh, as if puzzled by the question. 'I've no idea.'

The icy claws that had been clamped around Bella's heart since that awful taxi ride back from Heathrow eased their grip for the first time. Cautiously, it was true, but definitely eased it. 'So you're not…?'

'Not what?'

'Not together again?'

'No.' Josh sounded almost cross.

'I'm sorry,' she said, afraid that she had touched on a sore point.

'Why?'

Bella was flustered by the direct question. 'Of course I'm sorry if you're unhappy.'

'I'm not unhappy,' snapped Josh, and drank his wine morosely. 'Not about Aisling, anyway,' he added as an afterthought.

It was so unlike him to snap that Bella wasn't quite sure how to react. She eyed him a little uncertainly. 'Well, if it's not Aisling,' she said cautiously, 'what is it that's making you unhappy?'

Josh hesitated.

'You can tell me, can't you?' Bella persevered. 'A problem shared is a problem halved and all that. That's what friends are for, isn't it?

'That's the trouble,' said Josh, putting down his glass with a sharp click. 'I don't think I can be friends with you any more.'

He said it so seriously that for a moment Bella could only stare at him. Surely he didn't mean it? 'You can't just stop being friends, Josh,' she said in a voice that wavered in spite of herself.