Page 5 of The Best Thing He Never Wanted

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Bea looked out the window onto the alley below. She should probably find a better word for it; with its bright window boxes and smartly dressed doormen stationed by the hotel entrance, it was far too upmarket to be called an alley. Her point was that the only view from her room looked down into a narrow space between two buildings. She should be grateful. Unless she wanted to pay a fortune, she was lucky to have a view of anything other than a brick wall.

She turned away from the window. The view shouldn’t even be a consideration. She should be out there, making the most of her weekend in London. Who knew when she’d come to visit again? But without Meg, the thought of browsing the shops on Bond Street, or even wandering among the stalls at Covent Garden, had lost its appeal. And besides, she didn’t want to wear herself out before returning to the O2 tonight. She’d need all her energy if she was going to get up and dance in the little space behind her seat. And she’d half convinced herself that she was going to.

She sank into the armchair in the corner. It was a very comfortable armchair. She could order a sandwich from room service and spend a couple of hours right here, reading. Her lips twitched as she eyed the book on her bedside table. The book she’d taken down to breakfast with her — and hadn’t yet read beyond the first few lines. In her defense, she had read those lines at least a dozen times by now. She could probably recite them by heart if needed.

And honestly, how was a woman supposed to concentrate on Geneva Storm’s The Stories We Carry when she was acutely aware of a very large, very stern-looking American sitting a few tables away?

She’d spotted him the moment she arrived at the restaurant, though she’d managed to look away before he caught her. Sadly, she hadn’t been able to see him from her table — there’d been a bloody great fern in the way.

But she’d had another glimpse of him when he left. And even though a woman approaching sixty probably wasn’t supposed to notice such things, she’d been very grateful that he left before she did — while she was still seated and at eye level with … Well. Let’s just say he wore those Wranglers well. And as sorry as she’d been to see him leave, it had been no hardship at all to watch him go.

The sound of her phone ringing startled her out of the armchair. She hurried over to the desk, deciding as she went that the heat in her cheeks must be the shock of someone calling — and had absolutely nothing to do with those Wranglers, or the way he filled them out so nicely.

“Meg! How’s Amy? How’s the baby?”

“They’re fine. Everything went well, and rather quickly — although Amy says that’s easy for me to say. It’s not as though she hasn’t done this before, though. She’s an old hand at it now. She’ll be home tomorrow.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. And they’re both fine and healthy?”

“They are. Baby Molly weighed in at a healthy seven pounds two ounces. Amy looks radiant again already, which I told her is completely unreasonable of her. If you remember, I looked like the walking dead for the first six months after I had her.”

“You did not. You were radiant yourself, and you still are.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere with me. Tell me how you are. How’s it going? And, Beatrice Hartley, you’d better still be in London. If you’ve snuck onto a plane early and —”

Bea laughed. “I’m in London. I stayed. I went to the concert last night, and I’m going back tonight.”

“Well, that’s a relief! I don’t feel nearly so guilty now.” Meg exhaled audibly. Then, she asked more quietly, “How are you really, my love? Was it awful, walking into that arena by yourself? Did you take a taxi home? Tell me you didn’t walk back from the tube station to the hotel all by yourself. Oh my God, Bea, I didn’t think this through! There’s that dark alley, and—”

“Meg, stop!” Bea laughed. “I was perfectly fine. The alley is very well lit, and the doormen are so sweet. In fact, all the staff here are lovely. I was thinking I might go out and get them a box of chocolates or some cookies. You know, something they can share. What do you think?”

“I think you’re trying to change the subject, and I’ll let you — but we’ll come back around to it. And yes, you should get them something. Probably cookies and chocolates, so there’s something for everyone.”

Bea eyed her phone suspiciously. She loved giving little gifts to people. People who worked what had to be awful jobs. People who went out of their way. People who might not get a gift from anyone else. People she suspected went mostly unnoticed in their own lives.

Meg didn’t exactly disapprove. She just claimed Bea had an incurable need to make sure nobody in her vicinity went unappreciated.

Meg laughed.

“What?”

“Cookies and chocolates,” she said. “From two different shops.”

“Why two different shops?”

“Because preferably they’ll be nowhere near each other. That way, you’ll have to leave the hotel, and you can’t spend the rest of the day sitting in an armchair, eating a room-service sandwich, and pretending to read.”

Bea turned slowly to look at the armchair. The book was still lying on the bedside table, untouched since she’d set it there.

“You don’t know that’s what I was planning.”

“Beatrice Hartley, I have known you for most of your life.”

“I might have gone out.”

“You might still. After you’ve found the chocolates and the cookies.”