Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Hartford
If Joshua Luca asked me to go to the moon, I’d probably say yes.
Which explained why I’d just stepped out of the shower instead of being curled up in bed catching up on Made in Chelsea.
It had been a long week at the hospital as Gerry and I continued our efforts to prepare to stop Merdon getting their ADHD drug approved by the regulator as soon as their application was announced.
Somehow Joshua had wrangled a promise out of me to go to lunch with him.
I should have said no because things were .
. . unclear between us, and I didn’t want them to get any messier.
But despite myself, I’d agreed. He was just so utterly convincing about everything—even that I should accept the parcel I’d found on my doorstep when I got home last night.
The dress packed in the tissue stuffed in the beautiful black glossy box was beyond beautiful. I would never have considered it if I’d seen it in the shop, but given the note he left with it, he knew that’s how I’d feel. It said, “Trust me. It will look great. Wear it to lunch tomorrow.”
More gifts. Another arrangement to meet—even if it was for lunch. This felt like more than friendship.
I toweled off and unzipped the tiered, floaty, floral dress.
If my mother was here, she’d tell me it looked like Grandma Green’s bedroom curtains.
And it did a little bit. But that didn’t stop it from being gorgeous.
I stepped into it, the lining slipping over my skin in the way that only expensive fabric did.
I zipped it up and the fit was perfect, as if it had been especially made for me.
Joshua had supplied sandals, which fit as if someone had made molds of my feet.
I spun in front of the mirror, loving the way the air caught under the skirt and lifted it up. I wasn’t one to complain, and the outfit was completely gorgeous, but it seemed a little over the top for a sandwich at Pret.
Right on time, Joshua knocked on the door.
“I feel overdressed for a sandwich,” I said as I answered the door. I swept my hand down my dress.
“Agreed. If you get asked to go for a sandwich, don’t wear this.” He grinned at me like he just won an account from Gucci. I knew he was dying to work with them.
“We’re not going to get a sandwich? You said lunch.”
Joshua was wearing pale blue-grey trousers and a white shirt without a tie. The pair of us could be going to a wedding.
He laughed and held out his hand. “There might be sandwiches, among other things. We’re having a picnic. Just across the road.”
He held out his hand and without thinking, I took it. We made our way to the lifts.
“We’re holding hands,” I said, stating the obvious as we rode down to the ground floor. “Is this another fake date?”
“I thought you needed a daytime date under your belt.”
“I appreciate your commitment to my success.” I tried to catch his eye but he was focused ahead.
We crossed the lobby and emerged into the fresh air. I couldn’t see Joshua as a picnic kind of guy, but it looked like he was serious about eating alfresco.
I resigned myself to feeling confused.
“Tell me about your week. I’ve barely seen you.”
“Nope, you just haven’t had to babysit me as much this week.
” I grinned up at him but he just frowned back.
“As well as doing the normal doctory stuff, I’m working with Gerry on a project that .
. .” I still couldn’t break Gerry’s confidence about Merdon getting the over-the-counter approval for Calmation, even though talking to Joshua might help spark some ideas.
I didn’t want Gerry’s contact getting into trouble.
I could safely give Joshua the outline without mentioning names.
“We’re working to stop the health regulator from approving a new drug that’s coming out. ”
“Aren’t new drugs a good thing?” he asked.
“I guess it depends. The pharma company is hoping to get this drug licensed for over-the-counter sales. Every pediatrician who knows anything would think it was a terrible idea if they knew.”
“Over-the-counter sales? Which drug is it?”
I shook my head. “I can’t say. I’m sorry. I wish I could. It would be great to get your help with it.”
He frowned. “If it’s a bad idea, the regulator will say no, won’t it?”
If only life was that easy. “You’d hope so.
” I wished I could tell him everything. “But we want to make sure that children’s interests are being looked after.
” Gerry and I had started to unofficially lobby against the drug.
We’d mined our contacts to see if we could reach people who had influence at the regulator and were briefing them privately.
Gerry was also using his high profile to get booked on TV and radio to talk about the effects of the recession on children, and bringing up the importance of mental health and doctor-parent collaborative care.
It felt like we were taking action, and it was exciting to be part of something bigger than just treating individual patients.
What we were doing could impact tens of thousands of children.
“It’s a drug for children?”
I nodded. “Children with ADHD. We’re trying to make sure desperate parents aren’t taken advantage of.
” I shouldn’t say anything else. I knew Joshua didn’t have much experience in pharma, but the world was a small place and I didn’t want to get anyone into trouble.
“So anyway, I’ve been researching stuff and planning things with Gerry.
We’ve been busy. So no babysitting duties for you. ”
Joshua squeezed my hand as he led me across the busy road to the park. “I’ve never babysat for you, Hartford. You’re perfectly able to look after yourself, cast or no cast, as we both know. We just have mothers who like to interfere.”
He always knew the exact right thing to say.
“I’m not as green as she thinks I am.”
“Having kissed you, I would agree with that.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, he dropped my hand and turned me to the left.
A patchwork of picnic blankets had been lain on the ground and large, jewel-colored, poufy cushions were strewn around a central, low table.
Over a white cloth, plates and dishes and glasses and jugs in gorgeous colors and patterns beckoned us to explore the delicacies they held.
“It looks like something out of a photoshoot.”
He chuckled. “Funny that. I did have some help from a prop-stylist friend of mine.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, seeing something new every time I looked. Was that a cake stand under that muslin cloth? “No man is going to do something like this for me.”
“A man already has,” he said, taking a seat on one of the cushions and pulling me down next to him. “Champagne?”
I nodded, still confused about what we were doing here.
“What made you think of this?” I asked. “It’s so pretty and thoughtful and honestly, Joshua, I’m not sure how you don’t have a girlfriend.
You’re absolutely killing the romantic gesture game.
” This was the kind of thing boyfriends did.
Not neighbors. Not friends. I might not date much, but I knew that.
I also knew that if he wanted us to be something more, he needed to say.
Joshua wasn’t shy. He didn’t get to have the business and lifestyle he had by being coy.
If he wanted this to be real, he would tell me.
And if he didn’t, I’d read the entire situation wrong somehow.
He handed me a glass but didn’t let go. He looked at me for a long moment before finally releasing his fingers. “I thought it would make you smile. And it’s my way of saying thank you.”
“What do you mean? Thank you for what?”
He shrugged. “You bring out a better man in me. You need to know that you make a difference, just by being you.”
I wasn’t sure anyone had ever said anything nicer to me. Ever. I was waiting for a but. I kept waiting. It never came.
“Of course, there’s cake,” Joshua said, pulling the muslin cloth off of the cake stand.
“A series of miniatures from the hotel. And then there are strawberries.” He pulled a cloche off a bowl full of strawberries speckled with vibrant sprigs of fresh mint.
“And sandwiches of course.” He revealed another cake stand under another cloth.
“Can we live here?” I asked, scanning the table and trying to figure out which of the delectable treats I was going to start with.
“It’s better than Borehamwood.” He grinned and handed me a tea plate.
“My lease starts on Tuesday. Who will you borrow a cup of sugar from when I’m gone?”
He froze, the cake mid-air. “You didn’t tell me you signed for a place already.” He put a selection of mini cakes on our plate and handed me a fork.
“Well, my three months at the residences are up at the end of next week. And this place is nice. It makes sense. Close to the train line.”
“I won’t visit you out there, you know. No one will.”
“That’s okay. I’ll have my cats. And my knitting. You’ll be rid of me.”
“Finally,” he said. “This babysitting gig is over.”
I’d miss Park Lane. Not because of the hotel or the fancy security.
Not because of the plush carpet or the windows that overlooked the park.
But because of my neighbor. He’d started off as my first love and changed into something even better—a really great friend and a man who arranged picnics in the park and took me to dinner.
A man who kissed me.
A man who’d done things to my body that should be illegal.
“So you have one date left.” He set his plate back on the table and shifted so he was cross- legged and facing me.
“Yes, the doctor. Who is going to be very impressed with my kissing skills, thanks to you.”
“You don’t have me to thank for your kissing skills.”
“You’re right. You don’t deserve thanks. I’m ruined after that kiss.”
“Ruined? How do you work that out?”
“Isn’t it obvious? No man is ever going to be able to kiss me like you did—right out of my shoes.
I’m ruined. Every kiss I have from now on is going to be compared to yours and it will come out wanting—I’m sure of that.
” Just the thought of that kiss had my skin tingling and shivers snaking up my spine.
The corners of his mouth turned to the sky and he gave me one of his trademark smiles. “Out of your shoes, huh?”
Was he genuinely being coy for the first time in his life?
“You know.”
He took my plate from me and set it on the table and then kneeled up, took my hands in his, and kissed me again. Out of my shoes.
He pulled me onto his lap and cupped my face in his hands as his tongue worked its magic against mine.
This didn’t feel like a practice lunch date or a lesson in kissing. My brain was filled with a faint buzzing I recognized as the sound of my forcefield officially giving up. I wanted this man whose arms I was in. And I wanted to know if he wanted me too.
“I’m sitting on your lap,” I said.
He circled his arms around me and nodded. “It’s nice.”
“Ruining me so I can never kiss another man without comparing him to you wasn’t enough?
You had to bring me here, with all this”—I indicated our picnic set up—“so the bar will be set impossibly high for future romantic dates. Now you’re going to hold me while we watch the clouds pass overhead.
Where’s the poetry, Joshua? I mean, you’ve come this far. We should have poetry.”
“I agree.” He slid me off his lap so I was sitting beside him and then he lay back, patting the ground beside him so I would do the same.
Joshua tucked his arms behind his head and cleared his throat. “‘On the Ning Nang Nong all the cows go bong and the monkeys all say boo—'”
I started to laugh. “You can’t recite the Ning Nang Nong to me. You’re totally breaking the mood.”
“Then what?” he said, “Ah. Okay, I have the perfect poem.”
“No more Spike Milligan,” I said, mockingly serious.
“I promise.”
“Then go ahead.”
“‘The more it snows, tiddley pom . . .’”
I pushed up on my elbows. “That’s not poetry.” I tried to shoot him a stern look, but my smile gave me away.
He pushed up so we were face-to-face, nose-to-nose, then he kissed me again. I was less stunned this time and more intent on savoring the firmness of his lips and the press of his tongue.
As he pulled away, we rested our foreheads together. I pressed my fingers along his jaw, exploring what it might be like to really be with this man beside me instead of just pretending. A man who’d just confessed to being a better man with me in his life.
We parted and he took my hand in his like we were a couple who’d been together a decade.
“I beg to differ,” he went on. “‘The More it Snows’ might just be the best poem ever. Besides, it’s the only one I know by heart.
There’s one by Keats I quite like but I can only remember one line.
” He furrowed his brow in concentration.
“‘Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard even sweeter.’ For some reason, I don’t seem to like it as much as I used to.
‘The More it Snows’ or ‘The Ning Nang Nong’ is more my style, I think. ”
“You’re still seven years old in your head, aren’t you?”
“Not seven but maybe seventeen. Aren’t you?”
All I could remember about being seventeen was the accident.
It had made me grow up fast. I’d slipped on a cloak of heaviness after giving up what I’d dreamed of, and I’d never been able to shrug it off.
I’d been happy since then, of course, never more so than when I was busy.
But when I was with Joshua, I could imagine a life that was more than that.
A life where I could be happy in the silence.
“This is all beautiful.” I wanted to know what was going on between us. I needed to understand whether I was reading something into nothing.
He looked at me and grinned. “I’d call this afternoon pretty close to perfect.”
The thoughtfulness, the preparation, the kissing. I needed clarity. I wanted to understand why we were here. I summoned all my courage and took a deep breath. “I’d call it a date.”
He pulled me closer. “I’d agree—a perfect date.”