‘You get a fantastic reference, and the experience of working on a successful project,’ said Lex. ‘That’s worth a lot when you’re looking for a good job.’
Romy knew that it was true. She badly needed both. She had had a lovely time drifting around the world, but she was ill equipped when it came to supporting her daughter. Phin’s offer of a temporary job with Gibson & Grieve had been a godsend, but finding a well-paid permanent job would be more of a challenge.
And even if she hadn’t needed something impressive on her CV, there was Tim and the rest of the acquisitions team to think about. They had made her welcome, taught her all they knew. They needed the deal with Grant’s Supersavers to go through, too. She couldn’t let them down either.
‘All right,’ she said, turning her bracelets as she tried to think it through. ‘Freya and I move in with you. We let people think we’re living together. Fine. How long before our mothers get wind of it?’
‘Oh, God,’ said Lex. He hadn’t thought about his mother. Or Romy’s mother. The mothers together. ‘Oh, God,’ he said again.
‘We can’t tell them the truth.’
He actually blanched. ‘God, no!’
‘So that means they’re going to have to believe that we’re in love,’ Romy went on remorselessly.
‘Oh, no…’ He could see exactly where she was going with this.
‘And
Lex gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white as he imagined the scene in appalling detail. ‘We’ll just have to say that it didn’t work out,’ he said. ‘We’ll say it was a mutual decision.’
‘I could say that I wanted to take Freya to be near her father,’ Romy offered. ‘I’ve been thinking that’s what I should do anyway.’
There was a tiny pause. ‘That would work,’ Lex agreed tonelessly.
‘But your mother will be furious with me.’
‘I’ll tell her I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I’ll say that I couldn’t cope with living with a baby. She’ll believe that.’
It was Romy’s turn to pause. ‘There you are then.’
Lex shot her a swift penetrating look, then fixed his eyes on the road once more. Neither of them said anything about the night before.
‘Problem solved,’ he said.
‘Where would you like to sleep?’
It had been a long day. The drive to Inverness, the flight back to London, and then, deciding to get all the upheaval over with in one fell swoop, the limousine that picked them up from the airport had detoured via Romy’s flat so that she could pack up everything she would need for the next few weeks.
Now they stood in Lex’s penthouse flat, surrounded by a sea of bags and toys and bumper packs of nappies. Freya’s things looked even more incongruous here than they had done at Duncardie. Holding Freya in her arms, Romy looked around her, impressed and chilled in equal measure.
The living area was a huge open space with a whole wall of glass looking out over the Thames. There was a grand piano in one corner, a sleek leather sofa, a black-granite-topped table with striking chairs. No clutter, no mess, no softness or colour. Hard edges wherever she looked. It was hard to imagine anywhere less suitable for a crawling baby.
‘What’s the choice?’ she asked.
‘There are two spare rooms,’ said Lex. ‘So you can sleep with Freya, sleep on your own.’ He hesitated. ‘Or sleep with me.’
Romy stilled. ‘I thought it was over.’
‘It was. It is.’ He moved restlessly. ‘It should be.’
All the way home he had been wrestling with memories of the night before. Closure? Hah! How could there be closure when Romy was sitting beside him, when the feel of her, the taste of her, was imprinted on his body and on his mind?
‘I just thought…if we’re going to be living together…’ He dragged his fingers through his hair, not really knowing what he was trying to say. At least, he knew what, but not how to say it. ‘It was good, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ Romy set Freya on the floor, where she immediately set about unpacking toys from one of the bags, throwing them all over Lex’s pristine carpet. ‘It was too good,’ she said.
Hugging her arms together, she stepped over the bags and wandered over to the huge window. ‘It would be so easy to spend the next few weeks together, Lex. It would be good again-it would be wonderful, probably-but how would we stop then?’
‘Maybe we wouldn’t want to.’
‘Look at all this stuff!’ Romy swung round and gestured at the sea of bags and baby gear. ‘We’ve only been here five minutes and already your flat looks like a bomb has hit it. How are you going to cope with this level of mess for weeks on end?’
Her eyes rested on her daughter, who had discovered a much-loved floppy rabbit and was sucking its already battered ear. ‘Freya isn’t always as happy as this,’ she told Lex. ‘Sometimes she wakes in the nights, and the screaming will sound like a drill in your head. There’ll be dirty nappies and sticky fingers all over your furniture… You’ll hate it!’
She tried to smile. ‘Remember how you said you would tell your mother that you couldn’t cope with living with a baby? I don’t think you’ll have any difficulty sounding convincing about that.’
‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Lex rubbed a hand over his face in a gesture of weary resignation. ‘I know you’re right, in fact.’
‘We may be different, but we’re the same in one way,’ said Romy. ‘We’re both afraid of getting too involved. Me because I’m afraid of being hurt, and you because you’re afraid of the mess that comes along with any kind of relationship. You could say that we’re made for each other,’ she added with a crooked smile.
‘Neither of us is prepared to commit to a relationship that we’re not sure will last, but, apart from that, what have we got in common?’ Romy went on, still hugging her arms together as she paced restlessly around the immaculate room.
‘This apartment is so you, Lex. It’s cool and it’s calm and it’s perfectly ordered. I can see why you like it like this, but it’s no place for Freya, and if it’s no place for her, it’s no place for me. So we’ll be leaving as soon as Willie has signed that contract. And the more nights we have like last one, the harder it will be to say goodbye.’
She was terribly afraid of falling in love with him. She was afraid of needing him. Surely Lex could see that?
‘You’re right,’ said Lex again. He straightened his shoulders. ‘It would be a big mistake. Madness. What was I thinking?’
He looked across the room into Romy’s dark eyes and knew exactly what he had been thinking. He had been thinking about the satiny warmth of her skin. About the heat and the piercing sweetness and the aching sense of peace when he lay with his face buried in her throat.
He hadn’t been thinking about reality. He hadn’t been thinking about business.
Fool.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Romy. ‘Really sorry. Forget I suggested it. Let’s make it easy on ourselves, and stick to business from now on.’
Over the years, Romy had slept in bus stations and on beaches. She had spent nights cold and muddy and soaking wet, huddled under rocks on a hillside, or swiping at mosquitoes in the rainforest. Every single one of those long, uncomfortable nights had been easier than the ones she spent in Lex’s apartment, trying to sleep in the room next to his and thinking about how close he was.
Thinking about how easy it would be to slip into bed beside him, and whisper that she had changed her mind, that nothing could be harder than never touching him again.
But Romy only had to think about Freya to remember that of course there could be something harder. There could be seeing her daughter hurt and lost, looking for someone who wasn’t there, just as she had once looked for her father after he had left.
It was the strangest month of Romy’s life. During the day, she went to the office, just as she had done before, and collected Freya from the creche at half past five. But instead of squeezing onto the tube with all the other commuters to get back to the poky rented flat that was all she had been able to afford, she put Freya in the
