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CHAPTER FOUR
ITWASHERPERFECTDAY.
In every way.
There was so much to see and do and they crammed in all they could.
‘I should have bought some gloves,’ Naomi said, blowing into her hands as they wandered down Madison Avenue, but Abe had a trick for that and bought them huge pretzels, hot from the cart, and they warmed their hands very nicely.
‘My dad taught me that,’ Abe said. ‘Though I think it was more that he loved to eat them.’
‘You did some nice things with your dad.’
‘We did,’ he admitted, and stole a look at her and wondered why this amazing woman had no one. And how come she had no family?
And so he pried, only it didn’t feel that way to him. He just had to know.
‘Do you, did you...?’ He watched as she braced herself, no doubt used to the question, so he rephrased it. ‘Do you have any memories at all of your family?’
‘Not good ones,’ Naomi said, and she peeled off some warm dough but didn’t put it in her mouth. Instead, she told him the truth. ‘I’ve never seen my mother. I tried contacting her when I was old enough to, but she didn’t want to know.’
‘Then she missed out,’ Abe said, but it sounded like a trite response and he knew it so he tried again. ‘Maybe it was for the best.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Some people shouldn’t be parents,’ Abe said, and he shared with her something he had never, ever shared with anyone. Not with his father, not with Ethan. Oh, they knew it, of course, but he’d never said it out loud. ‘My mother was one of them.’
Naomi knew that she was hearing the truth, rather than being placated. And she knew, too, that he was sharing a very private part of his rather public life.
‘And,’ Abe added, only this time, given what he’d just shared, it didn’t sound trite, ‘shedidmiss out—I can’t imagine anything nicer than a day spent with you.’
It was possibly the nicest thing he could have said to her.
They stood on a busy street but it might just as well have been empty because it felt as if it was just the two of them. Then, not used to too much disclosure, he peeled off some dough and popped it into his mouth. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Lots to see...’
He fought not to take her hand and Naomi had to ball hers into a fist so as not to reach for his.
And so, rather than make herself look a fool, she peered into a very well-dressed window. ‘Now,that’sa coat!’
It was long and the deepest shade of violet, perhaps more of a velvet cape than a coat.
It was absolutely exquisite.
‘I’m supposed to be get measured up,’ Abe said, thinking of the fitter he had blown off today and deciding that while they were here to just get it over and done with. ‘Let’s go in.’
Naomi would never, in a million years, have entered such a place and neither would she have been greeted as warmly. But as she was with Abe the blonde and groomed sales associate was very amenable.
‘Mr Devereux!’
‘Felicia.’ Abe’s return greeting was less effusive, but it didn’t matter. Of course, he was told, it wasn’t a problem that he’d missed the private appointment that had been scheduled to take place in his office earlier today.
‘I was just speaking with Jessica,’ Felicia said with a smile, ‘and trying to arrange another time. Let’s get you measured. Will your, er...’ She glanced at Naomi and clearly didn’t know how to place her, but she gave it a go. ‘Will your assistant be coming through?’
It was the only awkward moment.
Well, it was for Naomi.
Of course, they would never think she might simply bewithhim and merely assumed that she was one of his staff.
