Chapter 26
MARY
In fifteen years of being a badass businesswoman, I’d developed a pretty decent poker face. Apart from a momentary lapse when Rosie completely caught me off guard with her comment about Beckett asking me out, I thought I’d done a good job of concealing my escalating emotions since.
Too discombobulated to come up with a believable excuse for turning down lunch with Beckett while Gramps was elsewhere, I rudely rejected him outright, pretending not to notice the confusion and hurt flash across his features.
How could I eat lunch, drink tea, chat casually or even talk deep and meaningfully with this man, when I couldn’t look at him without crumbling into a gibbering wreck?
I didn’t know when or how the tug of attraction, the glimmer of possibility, the tiny spark of silliness had erupted into a full-on, all-consuming, what had to be a fantastical rebound crush on the man who’d turned up out of the blue like a white knight and changed everything.
We’d had our moments, absolutely.
When he’d shown me how to build a fire.
Speaking softly on the phone, curled up on the sofa watching the snow fall.
When the coffee mums had kept dropping it into the conversation at the spa day, as if it was an inevitability, my mind had started to wonder. To wander along trains of thought I’d not dared to consider.
Beckett was gorgeous, in every way. After Leo – especially now there was Bob – I needed trustworthy.
For me, dependable was the new sexy. Leo’s spontaneity and recklessness had initially felt compelling, as if it promised a life of thrills and excitement that would reveal me to be, for once, an exciting person, too.
If I was honest with myself, and for hours that previous night I’d tried my hardest to be, I’d also found it quite stressful at times.
Beckett was proof that safe didn’t have to equal dull.
He made me laugh, he challenged me and, however long we spent talking, I never grew bored or tired of hearing what he had to say.
We agreed on the things that mattered – like, for example, what should matter – and yet were different enough to stimulate and interest each other.
Beckett was the first friend I’d had who made me feel like an equal. I never felt as if I had to try. He was only my third proper friend, but still. As part of ShayKi, I’d had a lot of acquaintances.
He was also the first person who’d made me feel as if I was enough, all the quiet, simple, straight edges of me. Even as, at the same time, he inspired me to keep clawing my way out of my lifelong slump.
My husband had certainly not made me feel that way.
Added to that, I kept circling back to the whole him-being-gorgeous thing.
I hadn’t been sure I’d ever feel in a position to experience that kind of attraction again.
I’d done my best to shut it down, cram it in some dusty emotional corner behind my pain.
And then, last night, after thinking about Beckett before going to sleep, like the lost, lonely numpty I was, I’d dreamt about him.
We were back in the ShayKi offices, no doubt triggered by the message from Shay, and I’d been arguing with Kieran about something that made no sense, when I’d looked up and seen Beckett standing there.
He’d walked over and enfolded my hand inside his huge one, towering above my old friends, and I’d leaned close enough for my arm to brush against his side.
I’d felt seen, and understood, and loved. What rocked me was that I’d known, subconsciously, that I was also desired.
This man would fight dragons, if I asked him to. While reassuring me that he absolutely believed I had what it took to conquer them myself.
I woke up, hot and flustered and feeling things I’d long forgotten about, and wondered how long it was appropriate for someone in my situation to wait before falling in love again.
I feared it was already too late.
* * *
Leo started working for ShayKi three weeks after the summer party. I hadn’t been surprised when he’d got the job in the design team. What had rattled me was when Kieran invited me into his office and introduced me to his brother.
Leo smiled politely. ‘We met briefly at the summer party, but I wouldn’t expect you to remember.’
I gave a tight smile in return, making a sterling effort to retain my composure, while inwardly fuming that he’d omitted such pertinent information. ‘Sorry, I met a lot of people that evening.’
His eyes remained brazenly on mine. ‘Well, I’m a great admirer of your work. I’m looking forward to seeing how things operate behind closed doors, as it were.’
‘I wouldn’t expect our paths to cross that often, but welcome to ShayKi. I wish you all the best.’
Did he have the audacity to try to flirt with me? In front of Kieran ?
With a brief nod at no one in particular, I excused myself and marched back to my office, where I firmly closed the door, then leant against it, eyes closed and hand pressed against my chest until it stopped heaving, like a maiden in a Mills & Boon story.
After we’d kissed in the hotel garden that night, we’d done more talking and laughing and then kissed a whole lot more before I’d firmly sent Leo off in a taxi and crept up to bed, assuming that was that.
I had noted the new follower ‘LondonLeoDesign’ on my neglected Instagram, but hadn’t added anything apart from ShayKi posts since the party.
Of course, I’d spent the past few weeks thinking about him, replaying our conversations and blushing as I remembered our midnight kisses in the garden.
Now, he was working here. A one-time interaction with someone Shay went on to hire wouldn’t be a major issue, if we both acted professionally from now on.
However, snogging Kieran’s brother was something I had no framework of reference for.
He still had layers of issues surrounding his dad’s other family, ones Shay had barely been able to uncover, let alone me.
I could foresee only trouble and heartache, and angry firings leading to a nightmare lawsuit if anything happened between us again.
The problem was, there had been nothing professional in that stare. Or the way he’d held up his coffee mug as I’d glanced back and caught him still watching me through Kieran’s open office door.
What scared me the most was how, underneath the annoyance and anxiety, that stare sparked a frisson of anticipation. The newly discovered rash part of me from the party was thrilled by the blatant hunger I’d seen burning in those electric-blue eyes.
* * *
I did half-heartedly discuss with my co-directors whether there could be any issue with employing a close relative.
Shay confirmed that Leo had bags of talent and excellent experience, and while we’d worked hard to avoid nepotism since those early years in our attic workshop, we weren’t going to reject an applicant on the basis that he shared Kieran’s deadbeat dad.
It took three agonising days before Leo knocked on my office door.
‘I was hoping to chat to you about one of the induction forms.’
I nodded to indicate he could come in. ‘Oh? Which one?’
He closed the door and took a seat across from me. ‘I don’t mind. Any of them.’
I closed my laptop, hoping he couldn’t hear my heart thudding beneath my dress. ‘Excuse me?’
Leo grinned. ‘It was the best reason I could come up with to come to your office.’
‘Leo.’ I sighed. ‘You know we can’t do this.’
‘What, talk about induction forms?’
I did my best to sound stern. ‘This is highly inappropriate.’
His voice softened. ‘Tell me to get lost, and I’ll go.’
He stayed.
* * *
We kept it secret for two months. Not easy, when both my office and bedroom were right next to his boss’s.
We met in random tiny restaurants on the other side of the city, went for long walks in the Peak District and spent a few weekends doing the kind of activities I’d never even considered before.
We caught the Eurostar to Paris, a mini-cruise across to Rotterdam.
We tried indoor skydiving, Leo talked our way into a celebrity party and we got up hideously early to drive to the coast and take a sunrise swim in the freezing North Sea.
Everything felt wild and exhilarating. I felt a tiny bit wild.
Our relationship was similar to a never-ending game of truth or dare.
We couldn’t go to my apartment, so we were always at Leo’s, which, along with my long-time habit of going with the flow, meant he set the tone and pace of our time together.
Leo constantly encouraged me to give it a go, be brave, embrace the moment.
I couldn’t, however, quite find the courage to admit how it sometimes all left me longing for a chance to catch my breath.
Things rapidly intensified throughout the autumn.
Leo constantly told me how much he loved me, how he’d never felt this way before, I was amazing, dazzling, beautiful.
We were made to be together. After a lifetime of being slightly on the edge, feeling like the centre of someone’s world was irresistible.
He did, however, seem to get a kick from growing increasingly reckless at work.
He made comments in front of colleagues that were too personal, and the couple of times we were at the same meeting, he reached for my hand beneath the table and leaned in far too close.
When I tried to half-heartedly confront him about it, he downplayed my concerns with jokes, and reassured me it was his job on the line, not mine, so I shouldn’t worry about it.
Until, one afternoon in mid-November, Shay walked into my office the exact moment he pulled me into his lap.
‘Right.’ She pursed her lips. ‘I’d thought as much.’
Then she walked straight out again. The door slammed so forcefully, Kieran came out of his office to ask if everything was okay.
‘Ask her,’ I heard Shay bark from the other side of my door. ‘If she won’t spill, then try your brother.’
* * *
We had a long, drawn-out, embarrassingly candid meeting that night, back at the apartment.