Chapter Ten
JENNIFER PEERED INTO the dim, shadowy bowels of the pub, wondering whether she would recognise her date and fighting off a sickening feeling of déjà vu.
She’d been here before.
Online date. Disappointing guy. Hurried glances at her watch.
Philosophical reasoning that she’d have better luck next time.
She was getting right back on the horse in an attempt at distraction because it seemed the best idea.
The alternative was moping and crying and just… thinking way too much for her own good.
It had been three months since she had said goodbye to Gabriel.
Three months! A lot had happened during those three months, and yet in a weird way, it felt as though time hadn’t moved on at all.
She was stuck in the same groove, with a broken heart, saying her last goodbye to the only man she’d ever loved, lost and drifting on tides that were taking her nowhere.
She refocused.
The pub was a traditional London pub. It was a Grade-II-listed building with a lot of dark oak fittings and wood panelling and long wooden tables with benches.
At six thirty in the evening, the place was heaving.
You could barely hear yourself think. Everyone was escaping the icy clutch of the oncoming winter outside.
There were people at the bar, people in the bright restaurant area she could see just beyond the lounge area and a few families in the cosy snug adjoining the bar.
And a lone guy with a beard sitting at a table in the corner, nursing a pint.
She pinned a smile on her face and wound her way between the tables to join him.
‘Colin?’
‘That’s me, babe! Get you a drink?’
He was rising to his feet, and Jennifer already knew that disappointment lay ahead.
He was shorter than she’d expected. Maybe she should have checked his profile a little more thoroughly.
She was tall. Height mattered, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
He was also plumper than she’d thought, which just made her think of Gabriel with his fabulous body and lazy, muscular sexuality.
She felt the familiar urge to start crying.
‘I’ll have a white wine.’
He looked a little taken aback.
‘Or a diet cola.’
‘Great!’ He nodded. ‘I’ll grab us some crisps. Salt and vinegar do for you?’
‘Not for me,’ Jennifer said politely. ‘I’m actually dieting at the moment.’
That elicited an assessing stare from him, and he nodded again, which made her think he agreed that yes, a diet was a good idea. Which in turn made her hackles rise, but she kept smiling through bared teeth.
She wasn’t sure whether she could be bothered with the inevitable chit-chat about nothing in particular before one of them made some kind of lame excuse to leave.
She would ask him about himself and show some polite interest, but she would be thinking about how much her life had changed since she’d returned from Italy.
No more living at home with her mother. No more Suffolk. No more teaching at the local school in a routine she had perfected over the years.
Instead, she had seen the money Gabriel had insisted on paying her land in her account when she’d returned to England, and the tantalising thought of escape had beckoned.
In fact, he had deposited a hell of a lot more money into her account than they had agreed.
He’d obviously felt guilty about knocking her back.
She hadn’t complained.
Why should she?
If he felt guilty because he’d walked away when she’d opened up her heart to him, then that was just fine with her. She wasn’t going to be a martyr and wring her hands while telling him that no, she couldn’t possibly accept more than they had agreed.
She’d gone to London, registered with two estate agents and found somewhere to buy within the week.
She hadn’t been fussy.
Small house…two bedrooms so that she could rent one out to her friend Alicia, who had arranged interviews at the school where she now worked.
She had pulled strings and put in a load of good words and managed to get her a maternity cover job that would tide her over until she could find something permanent.
A sweet, small house in a safe area in a part of southwest London that she knew, because she had a couple of friends in the area, girls she’d been on her teaching course with years before and with whom she kept in touch.
As a cash buyer in a buyer’s market, she’d had her pick of places, and had chosen a little terraced house in Sheen with vacant possession. She had been able to move in within seven weeks.
And she’d said goodbye, just like that, to everything she’d ever known.
‘So, Colin,’ she said as he settled into the chair opposite her, with another pint for himself and her diet cola, ‘your profile says that you work in IT. It sounds fascinating…’
Gabriel looked at the address that his mother had texted to him. She’d even added London… England after the postcode for good measure.
‘You’re getting in touch with Jennifer?’ she had asked casually, but he had detected the hope in her voice and had been determined not to encourage it.
Who knew what would happen when he contacted her?
If he chose to contact her. No, why kid himself, he was definitely going to get in touch with her. He had to. He’d been going crazy.
Three months was a long time.
Especially when he thought about how things had ended between them.
A declaration of love from her and a swift rebuttal from him.
Hell, he had even tried to persuade her that she was making a mistake in thinking that she had feelings for him, as though somehow a change of scenery and a little Mediterranean heat had gone to her head and made her hallucinate.
He’d tried every trick in the book to avoid the response he’d known she’d wanted to hear.
Love?
Love was a weakness that led to pain. He had slammed the door shut on any response to her declaration of love but the one that was negative.
They had made love for the last time, and he had felt an urge to cry, but of course he hadn’t. Instead, he had followed her cue, had resumed some level of superficial amicable communication so that they could mug along for the remainder of their time with his mother until they returned to England.
At which point he had feigned important meetings in Hong Kong and had promptly disappeared for a fortnight.
‘Can’t be helped,’ he had told his mother in a phone call. ‘I had a lot of time off in Italy, and it’s catching up with me. No such thing as a free lunch, or whatever that saying is…’
He’d tried to contact Jennifer, but his texts had gone unanswered, and his calls had gone to voicemail.
And he was going crazy.
With memories…with sorrow…with remorse.
Every day, another piece of the puzzle had slotted into place, and the friendship that had seemed so straightforward morphed seamlessly into a love that had grown like a weed until it had invaded every corner of his life without him noticing its advance.
He had turned away from the only woman he had ever loved. Living with that growing realisation had made him feel sick.
It took very little time for him to head out of his office, summon his driver and take the fastest route to the address his mother had texted him.
Jennifer was in a daze.
Two pints for him had somehow turned into three, she was on her second diet cola, and the packet of crisps had evolved into a plate of fries drowning in ketchup.
‘I’m ravenous,’ Colin had said when he’d ordered the fries.
‘Don’t mind, do you? With your diet and everything?
I mean, feel free to have some. Of course, I can get you something…
’ He’d frowned and looked a little vague.
‘A salad? I’m not a fan of those, but I guess that’s the sort of stuff you’re eating to lose weight? ’
‘I’m fine,’ she said.
The moment to leave seemed to have been missed, and now she felt as though she would simply have to ride the date out, wait until he’d run out of steam talking about himself and then make her escape.
She’d always been far too well-mannered when it came to ditching men after ten minutes on the first date.
She was listening to him go on at length about various routes he had taken to various jobs in various counties to fix various computer issues when she saw him glance over her shoulder.
‘Think someone’s looking for you, babe.’
‘No one knows I’m here.’
‘He’s heading straight in this direction.’ He picked something from between his teeth and helped himself to another chip.
Jennifer turned around and felt this really was déjà vu. For a few devastating seconds, her heart actually seemed to stop beating, and her brain went into tumultuous meltdown.
Gabriel.
The last person she expected to see and yet the only one she wanted to.
She wondered whether she was hallucinating, whether she had managed to conjure up the guy standing in front of her from her feverish imagination, a grim optical illusion there to persecute her even more than she already had been.
He was in charcoal-grey work trousers and a white shirt and a jacket. As he walked towards them, he began removing his tan trench coat.
People surreptitiously swivelled to stare as he made his way through the crowded pub, his dark eyes lasered to her face.
Jennifer began to stand as he closed in on them.
‘Gabriel…’ she breathed shakily when he was within touching distance of her. ‘What are you doing here?’ She bunched her hands into fists and stuck them behind her back. Her temples were throbbing, and the crowd around them had faded away, leaving just the two of them staring at one another.
Once they were friends. Now she looked at him with simmering hostility as the hurt of rejection swamped her.
‘I’ve come to see you.’
‘Well, I don’t want to see you.’
‘Jen, please…’
‘I don’t want to have a scene here with you, Gabriel, so you should just go away and leave me alone.’
‘You’re angry with me, and I can’t blame you.’