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She sat staring at her paper-strewn desk, her mind racing on. He hadn’t once asked her if she was with anyone—that clearly hadn’t crossed his mind! It was incredible, but he thought she had sat at home just waiting for his call since they had finished! He didn’t know her at all, but then she hadn’t known him either. Which was scary.
It wasn’t the first time she’d thought along these lines and the faintly panicky, disturbed feeling which always accompanied such reflections brought her nibbling at her lower lip. There were people who got it right and stayed together all their lives—her parents were a prime example—but there were plenty who got it terribly wrong, as she would have done if
she’d married Dean. How on earth did you know if something was going to last or not?
She took a sip of the coffee Emma had brought everyone a few minutes before the call from Dean had come through, and grimaced. Somehow Emma managed to make perfectly nice coffee taste like dishwater! The thought of the other girl led her mind on to the cottage and then Flynn, and she knew her previous deliberations had nothing at all to do with Dean and everything to do with Flynn. She was in too deep. She liked him too much. This getting to know each other as friends hadn’t been such a good idea after all.
She stood up restlessly, walking across to the big plate-glass window and looking down into the busy London street beneath. Dean had hidden his real self from her and she hadn’t had the experience or where-withal to recognise the signs of his deceit. But compared to Flynn, Dean was like a little boy, so how on earth could she ever know where Flynn was coming from? She had made one big, big mistake with Dean; she didn’t need to make another. Even without the spectre of Celine forever hovering in the background, Flynn Moreau was way, way out of her league.
All the excitement regarding the cottage and the wonderful offer of work faded, and she had the ridiculous urge to burst into tears. Instead she turned away from the view, marching back to her desk and attacking her mountain of paperwork with resolute grimness. No more thinking; no more ifs and buts. She had work to do.
She left the office later than usual, and almost got blown away by the wind as she stepped onto the pavement outside the building. There was a storm brewing, a bad one, she thought as she raised her eyes to an angry sky.
She did some shopping on the way home to the flat, struggling into the street of three-storey terraced houses with her arms feeling as if they were being pulled out of their sockets. She had just put the bags on the doorstep, delving into her handbag for the front-door key as the wind howled and the darkness surged all around her, when a hand on her shoulder nearly caused her to jump out of her skin.
‘Sorry, did I make you jump?’
‘Dean!’ She’d swung round and knocked one of the bags full of groceries flying, and as they scrabbled about retrieving the food she said tightly, ‘What on earth are you doing here? I thought we’d said all that needed to be said this afternoon.’
‘I had to come.’ He straightened with the bag of shopping clasped in his arms, and as she stared at him Marigold wondered why it was she had never noticed how weak his mouth looked. He was good-looking, in a boyish, charming manner, but almost… What was the word? she asked herself silently. Foppish. That was it. He was almost too well-dressed, too well-groomed. And she’d planned to marry this man.
‘Dean, there’s no point to this.’ She held out her hand for the bag but he ignored it. ‘Please, just go.’
‘You don’t mean that.’ He moved closer, causing her to step backwards until she was pressed against the front door. ‘You can’t. We’re meant to be together.’
The hell they were! The words sounded so like something Flynn would have said that Marigold blinked, as though she’d heard his voice. ‘It’s taken you long enough to find that out. It was the end of August we split, wasn’t it?’
He stared at her, taken aback by her tone. He had clearly expected her to fall into his arms in grateful surrender after he’d made the big gesture of coming to her, Marigold thought grimly. She was relieved to find she didn’t feel a shred of emotion at seeing him again beyond mild irritation. Hearing his voice so unexpectedly this afternoon had been a shock and it had upset her a little, raking up all the trauma. Now, faced with Dean himself, she knew he meant nothing to her any more.
‘I’ll make it up to you, Dee.’ His pet name for her was annoying but that was all. ‘I promise.’
He was still amazingly sure of himself, although Marigold thought she had detected just the slightest edge of uncertainty behind the arrogance, which made it all the more surprising when he suddenly lunged forwards, his free arm grabbing her as his mouth descended on hers.
For a moment Marigold was too startled to react, but then out of the corner of her eye she was aware of a vehicle pulling up on the road below them. She knew who was inside. Even before her eyes met ones of silver ice, she knew it had to be Flynn. It was fate, kismet.
She pushed Dean away, her voice sharp as she said, ‘Don’t! Don’t touch me.’
‘But Dee…’ And then, as he saw her eyes were focused on something beyond him, Dean swung round, the shopping bag still in his hand. And then he saw the stony, cold face looking at them.
Marigold saw the metallic gaze take in what appeared to all intents and purposes a cosy shopping trip, and with the kiss on the step she half expected Flynn to order the driver to pull away.
Instead the door swung open and Flynn unfolded himself from the rear of the taxi cab, his height and breadth swamping Dean’s slim five feet nine. ‘Hello, Marigold.’
If one hadn’t been looking into his dark, angry face, Flynn’s voice could have appeared perfectly normal, Marigold thought a touch hysterically.
‘I just stopped by for a quick visit,’ he continued with the softness of silk over steel, ‘but I can see you’re otherwise engaged.’
In spite of the fact that Marigold was aware how bad it looked, she found she bitterly resented Flynn’s assumption that she had been a willing participant in the kiss. And it was the knowledge of her own contrariness which made her voice brittle as she replied, ‘Dean was just leaving, as it happens.’
‘Really?’ Flynn acknowledged the other man for the first time, his eyes scathing as they flicked over Dean, and in spite of the awfulness of it all Marigold knew a moment’s amusement at the scandalised expression on her ex-fiancé’s face. Dean had just had a salutary lesson in the fact that he was replaceable, and she hoped it might prove a warning to him in his dealings with the opposite sex in the future. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ Flynn said with distant chilliness, before his gaze returned to Marigold.
There was no further attempt at persuasion. Dean thrust the bag at her, his face like thunder, before he disappeared off down the street without a backward glance.
‘That was Dean,’ Marigold said weakly. She suddenly had the nasty feeling she had a tiger by the tail.
‘So you said.’ It was acidic.
‘I didn’t know he was going to be here. He phoned me this afternoon and then just turned up on the doorstep. I didn’t…I mean I didn’t want…’ She stopped abruptly.
