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To get over it.
‘I don’t need to. He’s...’ Polly searched for the right word. ‘He’s complex, Clara. He has this amazing family.’ She could hear the wistfulness in her own voice and cringed. ‘They’re really supportive and loving, like yours if you multiplied your family by three, the noise level by ten, added in a host of toddlers and moved to France.’
‘Just like my family, then.’
‘Yours was the happiest, most together family I knew until I met the Beaufils,’ Polly admitted.
‘So he has the family you always wanted,’ Clara said shrewdly. ‘I still don’t see the problem.’
‘He was ill, really ill in his teens and it nearly killed his parents.’ Polly winced as she pictured the pain in his dark eyes. ‘I don’t know whether he really blames them for caring so much or himself for causing so much pain. I think it’s a mixture of both. Throw in a first love who died in her teens and you have one emotionally mixed-up man.’
‘We all have our scars, but most of us are redeemable. For the right person.’
‘That’s just it.’ Clara had got it. ‘I’m not the right person, Clara. Gabe needs someone who understands him, someone with the patience to wait for him, to help him. Me? I have a business to run, a baby on the way. I have no idea how a functioning family works. I can’t help him! He deserves better.’
Clara didn’t say anything for a long moment and then she got up and picked up the paintbrush. ‘It’s a lot, I agree,’ she said. ‘But you’ve never backed down from anything daunting before. If you think you and he have a chance, if you think it might, could be love, then you should go for it. But, Polly, if you’re backing down out of fear, then you’re letting yourself down and you’re letting Gabe down. Be sure before you let him walk away.’
* * *
He still had a key in his pocket but using it just didn’t feel right. Not with her car parked outside and the windows flung open.
A part of Gabe had hoped that Polly was out, working maybe or with her brother, that he could have nipped in, gathered his stuff and left again leaving no trace.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed the doorbell. How hard could this be? After all, they saw each other every day at work. They sent emails, held meetings. It was all fine.
Polite. Formal. Fine.
There was a pause and then the sound of light footsteps running down the stairs before the door was pulled open.
‘I left it open for you...oh!’ Polly stepped back, her eyes huge with surprise. ‘You’re not Clara.’
‘Non,’ he agreed.
‘She was just here, helping me paint and popped out for sandwiches so I thought, I assumed...’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Paint?’ That made sense, he thought as his gaze travelled up her despite his best intentions to stay cool and focused. Bare feet, long tanned legs in a pair of cut-off denim shorts. Who would have thought the elegant Polly Rafferty even owned such disreputable-looking garments, fraying and paint splattered?
Her vest top was falling off one shoulder, revealing a delicate lilac bra strap.
Lilac. The colour he had bought her. It might even be the same set. His breath hitched, his heartbeat speeding up, blood pounding around his body in a relentless march.
No. He dragged his mind back to the matter at hand. They weren’t on those kinds of terms, not any more.
They had almost got in too deep; he’d allowed her in too deep. Thank goodness Polly had seen sense.
Her hands tightened on the door. ‘I’m decorating the baby’s room purple, to go with the bunting. Only it’s a little darker than I thought, more bordello than nursery.’
‘It might lighten when it dries.’ He shifted his weight onto the other foot. Such a non-conversation. As if they were mere acquaintances.
‘That’s the hope,’ Polly said.
She still hadn’t asked him in.
‘I just wanted to return your key and get the last of my things.’
‘Oh.’ Her eyelashes dropped, veiling her eyes. ‘Of course, come in.’
She opened the door fully, stepping aside as she did so. ‘Is your flat fixed?’
Gabe grimaced. ‘Unfortunately not. The underground cinema and gym is proving most expensive for my oligarch neighbour. He’s still paying hotel bills for at least twenty people.’
‘Including you?’
He shrugged. ‘There’s a gym. It’s convenient for work. No more trains.’
‘That’s good.’
Gabe stepped over the threshold and stopped, unwanted regret and nostalgia twisting his stomach. The scent of fresh flowers mixed with beeswax and that spicy scent Polly favoured, a dark cinnamon, hit him. It smelled like home.
