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‘No.’
‘Don’t you have Christmas trees in Italy?’
‘Some,’ Anton said, ‘but we go more for nativity scenes and lights.’
‘You have to do something.’
‘I’m hardly ever here, Louise,’ Anton said.
‘It’s not the point. When you come home—’
‘I don’t like Christmas,’ Anton said, but then amended, ‘Although I am starting to really enjoy this one.’
‘What do you have to get today?’
‘I need to get something for my secretary,’ Anton said. ‘Perfume?’
‘Maybe,’ Louise said. ‘What sort of things does she like?’
Anton spread out his hands—he really had no idea what Shirley liked.
‘What sort of things does she talk about?’
‘My diary.’
‘God, you’re so antisocial,’ Louise said.
‘Oh, she likes cooking,’ Anton recalled. ‘She’s always bringing in things that she’s made.’
‘Then I have the perfect present,’ Louise said, ‘because I’m getting it for my mum. That’s what we’re going to line up for.’
It wasn’t just a book. The first twenty people had the option to purchase a morning’s cooking lesson with a celebrity chef. It was fabulous and expensive and with it all going to charity it was well worth it.
Celebrating their success at getting the signed books and cookery lessons, at ten a.m., having coffee and cake in an already crowded department store, they chatted.
‘If your mother can’t cook, why would you spend all that money? Surely it will be wasted?’
‘Oh, no.’ Louise shook her head. ‘If she learns even one thing and gets it right, my dad will be grateful for ever—the poor thing,’ she added. ‘He has to eat it night after night after night. I usually wriggle out of it when I go and visit. I’ll go over tomorrow and say I’ve just eaten, but you can’t do that on Christmas Day.’
‘How bad is it?’
‘It’s terrible. I don’t know how she does it. It always looks okay and she thinks it tastes amazing but I swear it’s like she’s put it in a blender with water added, burnt it and then put it back together to look like a dinner again …’ She took out her list. ‘Come on, off we go.’
Louise was a brilliant shopper, not that Anton easily fathomed her methods.
‘I adore this colour,’ Louise said, trying lipstick on the back of her hand. ‘Oh, but this one is even better.’
‘I thought we were here for your sisters.’
‘Oh, they’re so easy to buy for,’ Louise said. ‘Anything I love they want to pinch, so anything I love I know they’ll like.’
Make-up, perfume, a pair of boots … ‘I’m the same size as Chloe,’ she explained, as she tried them on. ‘It’s so good you’re here, I’d have had to make two trips otherwise.’
Bag after bag was loaded with gifts. ‘I want to go here,’ Louise said, and they got off the escalator at the baby section. ‘I’m going to get something for Emily and Hugh’s baby,’ Louise said. ‘Hopefully it will be a waste of money and I can give it to NICU.’ She looked at Anton. ‘Do you think she’ll get to Christmas?’
‘I hope so,’ Anton said. ‘I’m aiming for thirty-three weeks.’
Louise heard the unvoiced but and for now chose to ignore it.
They went to the premature baby section and found some tiny outfits and there was one perk to being the obstetrician and midwife shopping for a pregnant friend, they knew what colour to get! Louise said yes to gift-wrapping and they waited as it was beautifully wrapped and then topped with a bow.
‘I’ll keep it in my locker at work,’ Louise said.
It was a lovely, lovely, lovely day of shopping, punctuated with kisses. Neither cared about the grumbles they caused as they blocked the pavement or the escalators when they simply had to kiss the other and by the end Louise was seriously, happily worn out.
‘You want to get dinner?’ Anton offered.
‘Take-out?’ Louise suggested. ‘But we’ll have it at my place. I’m not going to your miserable apartment.’
‘I have to go back,’ Anton said. ‘I have to do an hour’s work at least.’
‘Fine,’ Louise conceded, ‘but we’ll drop these back at my place first and I’ll get some clothes.’
‘You won’t need them,’ Anton said, but Louise was insistent.
All her presents she put in the bedroom. ‘I can’t wait to wrap them,’ Louise said. ‘I’ll just grab a change of clothes and things, you go and make a drink.’
Louise grabbed more than a change of clothes. In fact, she went into her wardrobe and pulled out some leftover Christmas decorations and stuffed them all into a not so small overnight bag. She also took the tiny silver tree that she’d been meaning to put up at the nurses’ station but kept forgetting to take.
‘How long are you staying for?’ Anton asked, when she came out and he saw the size of her overnight bag.
‘Till you kick me out.’ Louise gave him a kiss. ‘I like to be prepared.’
Anton really did have work to do.
A couple of blood tests were in and he went through them, and there was a patient at thirteen weeks’ gestation who was bleeding. Anton went into his study and rang her to check how things were.
Louise could hear him safely talking and quickly set to work.
The little tree she put on his coffee table and she draped some tinsel on the window ledges and put up some stars, a touch worried she might leave some marks on his walls but he’d just have to get over it, Louise decided.
She took out her can and sprayed snow on his gleaming windows, and oh, it looked lovely.
‘What the hell have you done?’ Anton said, as he came into the lounge, but he was smiling.
‘I need nice things around me,’ Louise said, ‘happy things.’
‘It would seem,’ Anton said, looking not at her handiwork now but the woman in his arms, ‘that so do I.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#uf4ef54a2-2681-506d-ba72-7239917834a4)
‘WHAT HAPPENED LAST Christmas?’ Anton asked, late, late on Sunday night. They’d started on the sofa and had watched half a movie and now they lay naked on the floor bathed by the light from the television. ‘You said it was tinsel-starved.’
She really would prefer not to talk about it. They had had such a lovely weekend but there were so many parts of so many conversations that they were avoiding, like IVF and Anton’s loathing of Christmas, that when he finally broached one of them, Louise answered carefully. There was no way she could tell him all but she told him some.
‘I broke up with my boyfriend on Christmas Eve.’
‘You said it was tinsel-starved before then, that you didn’t go to many parties.’
‘It wasn’t worth it.’
‘In what way?’
‘I know you think I’m a flirt …’
‘I like that about you.’
‘But I’m only really like that with you,’ Louise said. ‘I mean that. I used to be a shocking flirt and then when I started going out with Wesley … well, I got told off a lot.’
‘For flirting with other men?’
‘No!’ Louise said, shuddering at the memory. ‘He decided that if I flirted like that with him, then what was I like when he wasn’t there? I don’t want to go into it all, but I changed and I hate myself for it. I changed into this one eighth of a person and somehow I got out—on Christmas Eve last year. It took months, just months to even start feeling like myself again.’
‘Okay.’
‘Do you know the day I did?’ Louise asked, smiling as she turned to face him.
‘No.’
‘We were going to Emily’s leaving do and I saw you in the corridor and I asked you to come along …’
‘You were wearing red,’ Anton easily recalled. ‘You were with Emily.’
‘That’s right, it was for her leaving do. Well, even when I asked if you wanted to come along, I deep down knew that you wouldn’t. I was just …’ She couldn’t really explain. ‘I was just flirting again … sort of safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t go anywhere.’
‘But it has,’ Anton said.
‘I guess.’ Louise smiled. ‘Have you ever been married?’ Louise asked.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I just wondered.’
‘No,’ Anton said. ‘Have you?’
‘God, no,’ Louise said.
‘Have you ever come close?’
‘No,’ Louise admitted.
‘You and Rory?’
Louise laughed and shook her head. ‘We were only together a few weeks. Just when we started going out I found that it was likely that I was going to have issues getting pregnant. It was terrible timing because it was all I could think about. Poor Rory, he started going out with a happy person and when the doctor broke the news I just plunged into despair. It wasn’t his baby I wanted, just the thought I might never have one. It was just all too much for him …’ She looked at Anton. ‘I think I was just low at that time and that’s why I must have taken my bastard alert glasses off. I’ve made a few poor choices with men since then.’ She closed her eyes. ‘None worse than Wesley, though.’
‘How bad did it get?’ Anton asked, but Louise couldn’t go there and she shook her head.
‘What about you?’ Louise asked. ‘Have you been serious with anyone?’
‘Not really, well, there was one who came close …’ It was Anton who stopped talking then.
Anton who shook his head.
He simply couldn’t go there with someone who might just want him for a matter of weeks.
CHAPTER TWELVE (#uf4ef54a2-2681-506d-ba72-7239917834a4)
‘CAN YOU KEEP a close eye on Felicity in seven?’ Anton asked. ‘She’s upset because her husband has been unable to get a flight back till later this evening.’
Felicity was one of Anton’s high-risk pregnancies and finally the day had arrived where she would meet her baby, but her husband was in Germany with work.
‘How is she doing?’ Louise asked.
‘Very slowly,’ Anton said. ‘Hopefully he’ll get here in time.’ He picked up a parcel, beautifully wrapped by Louise. ‘I’m going to give this to Shirley now. She’s only in this morning to sort out my diary before she takes three weeks off. Then I will be in the antenatal clinic. Call me if you have any concerns.’
‘Yes, Anton,’ Louise sighed.
Anton heard her sigh but it did not bother him.
Things were not going to change at work. In fact, he was more overbearing if anything, just because he didn’t want a mistake to come between them.
‘This is for you,’ Anton said, as he went into Shirley’s office. ‘I just wanted to thank you for all your hard work this year and to say merry Christmas.’
‘Thank you, Anton.’ Shirley smiled.
‘I hope you have a lovely break.’
He went to go, even as she opened it, but her cry of surprise had him turn around.
‘How?’
Anton stared. His usually calm secretary was shaking as she spoke.
‘How did you manage to get this—there were only twenty places.’
‘I got there early.’
‘You lined up to get me this! Oh, my …’
