‘Merry Christmas, Paul.’ She picked up her bag, ready to leave.
‘Merry Christmas, Amelia.’
And with a final kiss on his cheek, Amelia said her goodbyes and left the penthouse and Paul behind for good.
Chapter Seventeen
Nathan
He wasn’t sure what had happened earlier with Amelia. One minute they’d been chatting along happily, talking about what had brought them to New York, the next she’d taken a phone call and caused a big commotion by crashing into a waitress. He’d paid the bill, he’d walked her home to her apartment struggling to keep up the pace. She didn’t want to talk about whatever it was and when they got there she barely turned to say goodbye before she disappeared inside the brownstone.
Nathan had assumed the phone call must have come from the boyfriend, Paul, making his presence known, perhaps unhappy she was out with another man. Shame, he’d only met the guy for a few minutes at the apartment but even those moments had been enough to tell him he wasn’t right for Amelia. Not in his eyes anyway. Then again, hadn’t he been telling Kyle and Scarlett all along that they hardly knew one another well enough to be having deep feelings about a lasting relationship? Perhaps he was getting far too carried away in the holiday spirit. Blame it on New York? Maybe he would. It seemed a good excuse.
Scarlett came back to the suite at the Inglenook Inn well before five o’clock as he’d specified and he managed to ask her all the usual questions about what she’d seen, had she enjoyed herself, before he launched into the topic he needed to.
‘We’re not kids anymore, Dad.’ She jutted out her jaw in defiance.
He’d sat her down to talk about the birds and the bees or whatever he was supposed to call them. At moments like these he missed Dawn even more. She’d know what to do. Girls needed their mum at a time like this, but he’d do his best. ‘I’m well aware.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Were they your condoms?’
‘Dad!’
‘Much as you don’t want to talk to me, you’re going to have to if I’m to trust you. I need a bit of honesty.’
His demands had the desired effect. ‘I bought them, coming up here was my idea, not Kyle’s.’
‘So why did you let me blame him?’
‘You were hardly in a mood to be reasoned with, if you remember. I yelled after you but you’d already manhandled him out of the inn.’
‘He took the wrap for you.’
‘He did it because he likes me and wants to see me again when we’re back in England.’
Why had his heart just plummeted like a lift with broken ropes going from the top floor to the bottom with a crash? ‘You live in totally different parts of the country.’
‘We can make it work.’
He’d tell her she was being ridiculous if he hadn’t been thinking along the same lines about Amelia. Although that was a dead end now Paul was back in the picture.
He tried to look at Scarlett’s budding relationship in a different way. At least with Kyle he had a contact – Amelia – to keep this pair in line should anything go wrong. If Scarlett didn’t carry things on with Kyle, she’d probably have another boyfriend soon enough. In an ideal world it wouldn’t be until she was well over eighteen and the boy in question would have a squeaky clean past, he’d be studying as hard as she did, he’d be polite, and he wouldn’t find them in bed together.
‘We should go find somewhere to eat,’ he suggested. He blamed his voracious appetite on the freezing temperatures in the city as well as all the walking.
‘What sort of food?’ She leapt at the peace offering being silently exchanged. ‘We could have anything, anything’s possible here in New York. We could ask Amelia and Kyle to eat with us, give you a chance to see what a kind person he is.’
‘How about you reserve tonight for your dad?’ It was the only way he could cope with the thought of Amelia on her date with Paul, snuggled up somewhere together, warm and cosy, perhaps in bed together already.
She put her arms around him and hugged him the same way she had when she was little. ‘As long as we can have pizza.’
‘I’m happy with that but only if we go to a decent restaurant, I’m not standing at a table like last time.’
‘Deal.’
*
They found an Italian café on Canal Street that was casual enough for Scarlett so that it wasn’t pretentious, upmarket enough for him so they at least got a seat. With a candle in the centre of the table to set the tone and impeccable waiter service, they were both happy.
Full from pizza, steak with rosemary-garlic sauce and a decadent dessert of cream semifreddo with a chocolate crumb, Scarlett hooked her arm through his as they walked back to the inn.
