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Moments later, there was a soft knock at the door.
‘Amy? It’s Matt.’
She let him in reluctantly and tried to look normal and less like an awkward teenager. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Yes. I’m going to see Melanie Grieves. Ben asked me to keep an eye on her.’
She nodded. ‘Are you coming back for breakfast and to say goodbye to everyone?’
‘Yes. I don’t want to be lynched. Let me take my stuff, and I’ll get out of your way. Here’s your room key. Hang onto mine as well for now. I’ll get it off you later.’ He scooped up the suit, the shirt, the underwear, throwing them in the bag any old how and zipping it, and then he hesitated. For a second she thought he was about to kiss her, but then he just picked up his bag and left without a backward glance.
Amy let out the breath she’d been holding since he’d come in, and sat down on the end of the bed. There was no point in hanging around in his room, she thought. She’d shower and dress, and go downstairs and see if anyone was around.
Unlikely. The party had gone on long after they’d left it, and everyone was probably still in bed—where she would be, in her own room, if she had a grain of sense.
Well, she’d proved beyond any reasonable doubt that she didn’t, she thought, and felt the tears welling again.
Damn him. Damn him for being so—so—just so irresistible. Well, never again. Without his body beside her, without the feel of his warmth, the tenderness of his touch, it all seemed like a thoroughly bad idea, and she knew the aftermath of it would haunt her for ages.
Years.
Forever?
Melanie Grieves was fine.
Her wound was healing, her little twins were doing very well and apart from a bit of pain she was over the moon. He hadn’t really needed to come and see her, he’d just had enough of sitting around in the hotel beating himself up about Amy.
Not that he shouldn’t be doing that. He’d been a total idiot, and she really, really didn’t need him falling all over her like he had last night. And leaving the dance floor like that—God knows what everyone had thought of them. He hadn’t even asked her, just dragged her up the stairs and into his room like some kind of caveman.
He growled in frustration and slammed the car door shut. He’d better go back, better show his face and try and lie his way out of it. Better still, find Amy and get their story straight before his mother got her side of it and bent his ear. She’d always taken Amy’s side.
Oh, hell.
He dropped his head forwards and knocked it gently against the hard, leatherbound steering wheel. Such a fool. And his head hurt. Good. It would remind him not to drink so much in future. He’d thought he was sober enough, but obviously not. If he’d been sober—
His phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket and stared at the screen. Ben. Damn.
He ignored it. He’d talk to Amy first—if he got to her before they did. If only he had her number. She’d probably changed it, but maybe not. He dialled it anyway as he turned into the hotel car park, and she answered on the second ring.
‘Hello?’
‘Amy, it’s Matt. We need to talk—we will have been seen last night. Where are you now?’
‘Oh, damn. In the courtyard. Bring coffee.’
Stressed as he was, he smiled at that. He found a breakfast waitress and ordered a pot of coffee and a basket of bacon rolls, then went and found her.
She was waiting, her heart speeding up as she caught sight of him, her nerves on edge. She couldn’t believe what she’d done, couldn’t believe she was going to sit here with him and concoct some cock-and-bull story to tell his family. Her friends. Oh, lord …
‘How’s Mel?’ she asked, sticking to something safe.
‘Fine. The babies are both doing well.’
‘Good. Ben and Daisy’ll be pleased.’
Silence. Of course there was, she thought. What was there to say, for heaven’s sake? Thank you for the best sex I’ve had in over four years? Not to say the only …?
‘Any sign of the others?’ he asked after the silence had stretched out into the hereafter, and she shook her head.
‘No. I put my bag in the car. Here’s your room key. So—what’s the story?’
‘We wanted to talk?’
‘We didn’t talk, Matt,’ she reminded him bluntly.
Pity they hadn’t, she thought for the thousandth time. If they’d talked, they might have had more sense.
‘You were feeling sick?’ he suggested.
‘What—from all that champagne?’
‘It’s not impossible.’
‘I had less than you.’
‘I think it’s probably fair to say we both had more than was sensible,’ he said drily, and she had to agree, but not out loud. She wasn’t feeling that magnanimous.
‘Maybe nobody noticed?’ she said without any real conviction, and he gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
‘Dream on, Amy. I dragged you off the dance floor and up the stairs in full view of everyone. I think someone will have noticed.’
She groaned and put her face in her hands, and then he started to laugh again, a soft, despairing sound that made her lift her head and meet his eyes. ‘What?’
‘I have some vague recollection of passing my parents in the hall.’
She groaned again. It just got better and better.
‘Maybe you thought I needed to lie down?’ she suggested wildly. ‘Perhaps I’d told you I was feeling rough? It’s not so unlikely, and it’s beginning to look like the best option.’
‘We could always tell them the truth.’
If we knew what it was, she thought, but the waitress arrived then with the tray of coffee and bacon rolls, and she seized one and sank her teeth into it and groaned. ‘Oh, good choice,’ she mumbled, and he laughed.
‘Our default hangover food,’ he said, bringing the memories crashing back. ‘Want some ketchup?’
‘That’s disgusting,’ she said, watching him squirt a dollop into his bacon roll and then demolish it in three bites before reaching for another. The times they’d done that, woken up on the morning after the night before and he’d cooked her bacon rolls and made her coffee.
He’d done that after their first night together, she remembered. And when she’d come out of hospital after—
She put the roll down and reached for her coffee, her appetite evaporating.
‘So when are you off?’ she asked.
‘Tuesday morning,’ he said, surprising her. ‘Things are quiet at work at the moment, so I said I’d keep an eye on Mel till Ben and Daisy get back. They’re only away for two nights.’
‘Are you staying here?’
‘No. I’m going back to Ben’s.’
She nodded. It made sense, but she wasn’t thrilled. She’d be tripping over him in the hospital at random times, bumping into him at Daisy’s house when she went to feed Tabitha—because if he was next door at Ben’s, there was no way she was going to stay there, as she’d half thought she might, to keep the cat company.
Or moving in and renting it as they’d suggested, come to that. Not after last night’s folly. The last thing she wanted was to be bumping into Ben’s brother every time he came up to visit them.
Daisy had stayed in her own house adjoining Ben’s until the wedding because of Florence, but she’d be moving into his half when they came back, and they’d offered her Daisy’s house. They wanted a tenant they could trust, and her lease was coming up for renewal, and it was a lot nicer than her flat for all sorts of reasons.
It had off-road parking, a garden, a lovely conservatory—and the best neighbours in the world. She’d been debating whether to take it, because of the danger of bumping into Matt who was bound to be coming back and forth to visit them, but after this—well, how could she relax?
She couldn’t. It would have been bad enough before.
‘Why don’t we just tell them to mind their own business?’ she suggested at last. ‘It really is nothing to do with them if we chose to—’
She broke off, and he raised a brow thoughtfully.
‘Chose to—?’
But his phone rang, and he scanned the screen and answered it, pulling a face.
‘Hi, Ben.’
‘Is that a private party over there, or can we join you?’
He looked up, and saw his brother and brand-new sister-in-law standing in the doorway watching them across the courtyard.
Amy followed the direction of his eyes, and sighed.
‘Stand by to be grilled like a kipper,’ she muttered, and stood up to hug Daisy. ‘Well, good morning. How’s the head?’
Daisy smiled smugly, looking very pleased with herself. ‘Clear as a bell. In case you didn’t notice, I wasn’t drinking.’
Amy frowned, then looked from one to the other and felt the bottom fall out of her stomach. Ben’s eyes were shining, and there was a smile he couldn’t quite hide. ‘Oh—that’s wonderful,’ she said softly, and then to her utter humiliation her eyes welled over. She hugged Daisy hard, then turned to Ben—just in time to see Matt release him with a look in his eyes she hadn’t seen since—
‘Congratulations, that’s amazing,’ he said gruffly, and gathered Daisy up and hugged her, too, his expression carefully veiled now.
Except that Amy could still see it, lingering in the back of his eyes, a fleeting echo of a grief once so raw it had torn them apart.
‘So, when’s it due?’ he asked, going through the motions. Not that he wasn’t interested, but today of all days …
‘The tenth of May. It’s very, very early on,’ Daisy said wryly. ‘I did the test this morning.’
‘Right after she threw up.’
Matt gave a soft huff of sympathetic laughter. ‘Poor Daisy. It passes, I’m reliably informed by my patients.’ That’s right, keep it impersonal …
‘It’s a good sign,’ Amy said, her voice slightly strained to his ears. ‘Means the pregnancy’s secure.’ Unlike hers. Oh, God, beam me up …
‘Changing the subject, it’s none of my business, but—’ Ben began, but Matt knew exactly where this was going and cut him off.
‘You’re right, it’s not. We needed to talk, there were a lot of people about. Amy slept in my room, and I went to hers.’
At a quarter to six this morning, but they didn’t need to know that, and he was darned sure they wouldn’t have been up and about that early. But someone was.
‘Yeah, Mum said she saw you coming out of your room and going to another one at some ungodly hour.’
Damn. Of all the people …
‘I went to get my phone so I could ring the hospital,’ he lied, but he’d never been able to lie convincingly to Ben, and as their eyes met he saw Ben clock the lie and yet say nothing.
As he’d said himself, it was none of his business, and he obviously realised he’d overstepped the mark. He’d back him up, though, if their mother said any more, of that Matt was sure. ‘So how is Mel?’ Ben asked, moving smoothly on, and Matt let out a slight sigh of relief.
‘Fine. They’re all fine. I’ve been in to see them, and they’re all doing really well. She was keen to hear all about the wedding. I promised I’d take her some cake—unless you want to do it when you come back?’
‘No, you go for it. I’m glad she’s well. Thanks for going in.’
‘My pleasure. Did you order coffee or do you want me to do it?’
Daisy pulled a face. ‘Can we have something less smelly, and something to eat? I really don’t think I can wait till breakfast.’
‘Sure. I’ll order decaf tea. What about bacon rolls?’
‘Oh, yes-s-s-s!’ she said fervently. ‘Amazing! Matt, you’re a genius.’
He smiled, glancing across at Amy and sensing, rather than seeing, the sadness that lingered in her. She was smiling at Daisy, but underneath it all was grief, no longer raw and untamed, maybe, but there for all that.
Would it ever get easier? Ever truly go away?
He hoped so, but he was very much afraid that he was wrong.
‘Well, hello, Mummy Grieves! Are you up for visitors?’
‘Oh, yes! Hello, Amy, how are you? How was the wedding? Did Daisy look beautiful?’
‘Utterly gorgeous, but I bet she wasn’t as gorgeous as your little girls. Aren’t you going to introduce me?’
‘Of course. I hope you don’t mind, but we’ve called them Daisy and Amy, because you two have been so kind and we really love the names.’
‘Oh, that’s so sweet of you, thank you,’ Amy said, her eyes filling. In a rare complication, the twins had shared the same amniotic sac, and the danger of their cords tangling had meant Mel had been monitored as an inpatient for several weeks, and she and Daisy had got to know Mel very well. And this … She blinked hard and sniffed, and Mel hugged her.
‘Thank you,’ she corrected. ‘So, this is Amy. Want a cuddle?’
