Juggling Briefcase & Baby

had been so comforting that Lex had almost convinced himself that he had made it up. His mother had been too bound up in her own grief to notice anything, and Romy had slipped away when they followed the coffin out to the graveside. It was almost as if she had never been there at all.

But he had seen her as soon as she came into the house with Molly, and he had spent the afternoon torn between joy at her presence and despair that he was going to have to get used to her not being there all over again. He hadn’t talked to her. He didn’t know what he would say. The only thing he could think of to say was, ‘Come back, I miss you,’ but what was the point? Romy had made her choice, and he had to live with it. Better not to say anything at all.

So Lex moved through the afternoon like an automaton, talking to guests, agreeing that they would all miss his father, not letting himself think. Especially not letting himself notice Romy, slender and vibrant in the dark suit she had used to wear to work. Today she had substituted a dark purple top for her usual brightly coloured blouses, but she still looked more vivid than anyone else in the room.

She was a flame, constantly catching at the edge of his vision. It didn’t matter that she was only talking quietly to other guests. She spoke to his mother, to Phin and Summer. She did nothing to draw attention to herself at all, but Lex was intensely aware of her all the same. She might as well have been the only other person in the room.

Now Lex kissed Molly’s cheek, and let himself look properly at Romy at last. She looked gravely back at him, her eyes dark and warm, and as his gaze met hers there was such a rightness to it, as if everything were suddenly falling into place, that Lex was sure that everyone in the room must surely hear the click of connection.

His jaw was clenched so tightly he could feel the tendons standing out in his neck. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said.

There, he hadn’t seized her in his arms. He hadn’t humiliated himself by begging her to come home. It wasn’t much of a victory, but Lex felt as if he had negotiated a long and arduous obstacle course.

‘Faith looks all in,’ said Molly, apparently not noticing the way her daughter and Lex were staring desperately at each other.

With difficulty, he dragged his eyes from Romy’s. ‘Yes. Yes, she is. Phin and Summer are going to take her home with them.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m going back to London too.’

‘On your own?’

‘Yes,’ said Lex, unable to keep the bleakness from his voice. ‘On my own.’

There was a pause. ‘I think I’ll go and say goodbye to Faith,’ said Molly.

Lex was left alone with Romy. The moment he had longed for. The moment he had dreaded.

Romy drew a breath. ‘Can I come with you?’ she said.

‘Where?’

‘To London.’

The dark eyes were drawing him in. Lex could feel himself slipping. Any moment now and he would be falling again, tumbling wildly out of control once more. He made himself look away.

‘I think I need to be on my own,’ he said.

Romy put her hand on his arm. ‘No, you need someone with you,’ she told him gently.

‘Romy, I can’t…’ Lex broke off, groped for control. ‘I can’t say goodbye again.’

‘We’re not going to say goodbye.’

Mutely, he shook his head, and Romy shattered what was left of his defences by stepping closer so that his senses reeled with her nearness, with the warmth of her hand, the piercing familiarity of her fragrance.

‘Lex, you buried your father today,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve been strong for your mother, but you need to grieve for yourself. Now let me be strong for you. Let me drive you. You don’t have to do everything on your own.’

The longing to be with her, to put off the moment when he had to watch her leave, was too much. Strong? He had never been strong where she was concerned. Lex did his best to resist the temptation, but then handed over his car keys. It felt deeply symbolic. He wanted to say, ‘Be careful, that’s my heart I’m giving you there.’

He didn’t, of course, but Romy smiled reassuringly at him anyway. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m a careful driver.’

Lex was used to being driven. He often sat in the back of limousines, but this was different. He was sitting in the passenger seat of his own car, and Romy was at the wheel, and he was very aware of having ceded control. It felt dangerous. And it felt like letting go.

Letting go of responsibility.

Letting go of the pretence that he could be happy without Romy.

Letting the jumble of feelings overwhelm him. Guilt and grief and resentment for his father. Love and loneliness and joy and despair and desire and everything else that Romy made him feel, everything he had been trying not to feel for so long.

Tears were unmanly. Gerald Gibson had taught his son that long ago, and Lex hadn’t cried since he was a very small boy. He didn’t cry now, but inside he could feel himself crumbling. He stared straight ahead, his face set like stone, his mouth pressed into a rigid line, and his throat too tight to speak.

To his intense relief, Romy didn’t try to make conversation. She just drove him back to the apartment, unlocked the door with the key he handed over without a word, and poured him a great slug of the whisky he had bought for Willie Grant a lifetime ago, all without a word.

Lex sat on the sofa, head bent, the glass clasped between his knees. He swirled the whisky, letting the warm, peaty smell of it calm him before he drank, and its mellowness settled steadyingly in his stomach.

Romy sat quietly beside him, her hand on his back infinitely comforting.

‘He never said well done.’ The words burst out of him without warning. ‘Not once. But do you know what he did? He left me a controlling share in Gibson & Grieve. I had to listen to some lawyer tell me that my father thought I’d done well. That I’d shown I was worthy. He said he was confident that he was leaving the company in capable hands,’ said Lex bitterly.

Romy’s throat ached for him. ‘He was proud of you.’

‘It’s too late for him to tell me now! Why couldn’t he…?’ He broke off, too angry and frustrated to speak.

‘Why couldn’t he tell you?’ she finished for him. ‘Perhaps he was afraid to, Lex. Perhaps, deep down, he was afraid that if he gave you the approval you craved, you wouldn’t need him any more.’

She rubbed his back, very gently. ‘I think you and I need to forgive our fathers,’ she said. ‘I certainly need to forgive mine. I loved him so much, but I wanted him to be somebody he couldn’t be. I didn’t understand that he was just a man, wrestling with his own fears.’

Lex said nothing, but she knew he was listening. ‘And your father,’ she went on, ‘he didn’t know how to be a man who could admit weakness. I think he didn’t know how to tell you how important you were to him, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love you. He just couldn’t say it. But he did the best he could, and maybe my father did the best he could, too.’

Lex took a slug of whisky, felt it burn down his throat. ‘I thought you would never forgive your father.’

‘I thought so, too. It was only when I talked to my mother today, and she made me think. And watching you bury your father, I was imagining how I would feel if it was my father who had died.’ Romy swallowed. ‘He’s the only father I’ve got. Perhaps I should just accept him for what he is.’

‘He hurt you.’ Lex looked up at her, pale eyes fierce. ‘He left you.’

‘He left my mother, not me,’ said Romy. ‘I think the truth is that I left him when I refused to see him. I thought that he had chosen his other child over me, but now I think that he chose happiness over duty. Perhaps I need to learn from that. Perhaps we both do.’

‘Learn? Learn what?’

‘We could learn to be happy,’ she said.

‘Happy?’ Lex stared into his glass and thought of the long, lonely weeks since she’d been gone. The wasteland he had trudged through every day. He thought of the years he had spent trying to forget her, the years he would have to spend forgetting her all over again. ‘Happy? Hah!’

‘I thought I could make myself happy,’ said Romy as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I was afraid to rely on anyone else for happiness. I thought all I needed was to be able to provide for Freya and keep her from being hurt, and I can do