Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
When Maeve found Debra in precisely eight minutes, she didn’t know whether to be impressed or concerned.
Still, before she could say anything, she was being pulled into a bone-crushing hug, while simultaneously being assaulted by Maeve’s bergamot perfume.
Even without being up close, it was enough to make your eyes water.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Maeve murmured against her hair. “You’re trembling.”
“I’m fine.” Debra pressed her face into Maeve’s shoulder, aware that she was lying through her teeth. She just didn’t want to get into it all standing on Savile Row. “Really, I am.”
Maeve pulled back, raised an eyebrow, and said nothing.
“Come on.” She looped her arm through Debra’s and dragged her across the street.
“We’re not standing out here where you can catch hypothermia and have a breakdown in public.
There’s a bar two shops down that does martinis strong enough to raise the dead. You need two.”
Debra let out a choked laugh. “Just two?”
“Oh, if it’s as bad as you sounded on the phone,” Maeve said cheerfully, “we may ask for one of those cocktail trees they do. I’ll have you home and blissfully unaware before you’ve had time to even think about why you’re upset.”
Instead of fighting her best friend on that one, Debra chose to be guided to wherever Maeve had suggested.
She dragged her into one of those dark, moody cocktail lounges with velvet booths and bartenders who looked like they’d taken vows of artistic seriousness with their garnishes before they’d been employed.
Before Debra had made herself comfortable in a curved booth, Maeve was already ordering for them. “Two French martinis, extra Chambord, and whatever olives you’ve got in the back that cost more than my car.”
Debra stared at the table. Then at her hands. Right now, she was willing to focus on anything that wasn’t the expectation on Maeve’s face.
“So,” Maeve said as she folded her arms. “Start talking.”
Debra sighed. “It’s stupid, really.”
“Oh, how wonderful. My favourite kind of tragedy. Go on.”
“It’s Billie.”
“Ah, yes. Billie.” Maeve grinned. “The one who stuck her fingers—”
“Don’t say it out loud in a bar.”
Maeve held up her hands. “Fine. The artisan tailor who provided additional…craftsmanship.”
Debra wanted to weep knowing she’d never have those moments with Billie again. “She did far more than that.”
“Clearly,” Maeve said. “So, come on. What’s really been going on, because I have a feeling you’ve been holding some things back.”
Their drinks arrived, and Debra took a sip before she started. Then she told Maeve everything. Lunch and the museum. The night Billie stayed over. How gentle she’d been, how she’d let go and allowed herself to be undone by Debra’s hands, and then how Debra had let herself hope.
“And this morning?” Maeve pressed gently. “What happened?”
Debra stared down at her glass. “I had my final fitting appointment. I thought that maybe she’d been busy or was feeling a little awkward with the unexpected connection we’d found between us. I thought that whatever her reason for the silence…we could salvage something.”
“And?”
“She barely looked at me. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, and she wouldn’t speak to me beyond anything relating to the suit.
It was as though there was no conversation to be had, and that was that.
It was like…” She took a shaky sip of her drink.
“Like she’d scrubbed me from her mind and didn’t want any trace of me left. ”
“Oh, Deb.”
“And then she told me…” Her voice broke, but Debra continued. “That I should just forget about her now that I’ve got my suit.”
Maeve reached her hand across the table and squeezed Debra’s. “Look at me.”
Debra swallowed as she lifted her head.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I must have—”
“No.” Maeve squeezed her hand a little more firmly this time. “Whatever’s going on with her, it’s for her to deal with. It’s certainly not something you caused or something you could have prevented.”
Debra shook her head as a tear slipped free. “It’s just…it’s been so long since someone made me feel like that.”
“Desired?” Maeve asked softly.
“Alive.”
Maeve’s eyes flickered with empathy. “Sweetheart, you’ve been a wife, a mother, a caretaker, and a fucking diplomat for decades.
You’ve forgotten what it feels like to be wanted without condition.
” She brushed a thumb over Debra’s knuckles.
“And then along comes this—” She gestured vaguely, “—this butch tailoring sex goddess with cheekbones sharp enough to commit murder, and she actually sees you. Really sees you. Of course you fell a little.”
Debra scoffed. “A little?”
“Fine. A lot.” Maeve smiled. “But listen to me. Women like Billie, women who live inside their own armour… They don’t pull away because you did something wrong. They pull away because they’re terrified of wanting something real.”
Debra slumped back against the booth. She was fed up with feeling exhausted all the time. “I just wish she’d said something to me. I wish she’d told me why she’s no good for me, or why it’s ‘safer’ if we don’t see one another anymore. All the cryptic conversations are just fucking with my head.”
Maeve nodded. “You deserve someone who shows up. Not someone who panics and bolts the first time things become real.”
Debra chewed her lip. “But what if she didn’t bolt? What if she’s just protecting herself?”
“Then she needs to come back and tell you that herself.”
Aware that it was never that simple with Billie, Debra forced the tension from her shoulders and reluctantly started to accept that maybe they just weren’t meant to see one another again. “I don’t think she will.”
“Maybe she won’t, but if she does…you’ll know it’s because she chose to and not because you chased her.”
Debra nodded and swallowed past the ache. For the first time since she’d stepped out of Brown she just hoped that one day Billie would be a distant memory to her. Perhaps even a lesson learned.