Chapter 18 #2
‘No. You don’t get it. I haven’t mentioned it because it’s only a secondment and I’ve decided not to go.’ Panic is clear in my shaky words. ‘If I said that last night, it was drink talking. I haven’t told my boss that I won’t go yet but I’ve already made the decision.’
‘Shh, calm down, baby. I… I’ve been thinking about it a lot today and I think maybe you’re right.’
‘What? No.’
He strokes my fallen hair back behind my ear. ‘So much has happened. It would give you time to think. Space. Like you’ve been saying you need.’
‘You…’ The words are crushing my chest. ‘You want me to go?’
‘No, Scarlett. I don’t want you to get trapped in a dark world, in my world that you don’t…
You deserve better. You deserve knights and flowers, a man with a good heart.
A man who can feel the way any man should around you, like he’s the luckiest man alive, and make you see that, give you the fairy tale. ’
I hold my hand to his chest. ‘Gregory, yours is the only heart I’ll ever want.
Please believe me. I know you think you can’t let me in but you can.
I don’t ever want to leave. I don’t want the fairy tale.
’ A single, silent tear tickles my cheek as it worms down my skin like the sliver of doubt in my mind.
Is he protecting me from him or him from himself?
‘Hey, shh. Okay.’ He wipes the tear away and we both jump as his phone starts ringing. He leans away from me to retrieve the phone from the opposite arm of the sofa.
‘It’s for you,’ he says, handing me the handset.
‘Me?’ I glance at the screen and see Jackson’s name. I rub a hand across my cheek and calm my breathing as Gregory takes my free hand in his. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s Sandy, sweets.’
‘Oh, hey, Sandy. You and Jackson share phones now, do you?’
Sandy giggles and it’s that sweet giggle that she reserves for when she’s really giddy. Just about the only thing that could improve my mood. ‘We’ll be sharing a lot more than that soon.’
‘Huh?’
‘I wanted to tell you in person but I don’t want anyone else to know before you.’
I plant my tea cup on the floor then sit bolt upright on the edge of the sofa. ‘What? Tell me what?’
I can just imagine her, eyes twinkling, brown cheeks flush, an arm wrapped around her ribs. ‘Geoffrey asked me to marry him and I said yes.’ She laughs, utterly, blissfully happy.
‘Oh my gosh, Sandy! I can’t believe it! That’s amazing!
You make such a lovely couple. Jackson is a good guy and you…
oh my gosh, he’s so lucky to have you.’ My eyes fill and for the first time in as long as I can remember, they’re wet with happiness.
‘Oh Sandy, you’re going to make me cry. I’m so happy for you. I really, really am.’
‘I’m so happy. Geoffrey is wonderful.’
‘And it’s so soon, so romantic; he’s completely swept you off your feet, hasn’t he?’
‘It’s a dream,’ she says, her smile obvious in her words.
I sit back into the corner of the sofa and Gregory resumes his hold around my shoulders. ‘Tell me everything. How, when, where? I knew he was a closet romantic. Wait until I see him.’
‘Oh deary me, I’ll have to sit down.’ I hear her fumble around in the background. ‘We’re staying at The Ritz, can you believe it? I don’t know how he afforded this.’
I raise an eyebrow in Gregory’s direction. I suspect I know how and I love him even more for it too.
‘We walked around Hyde Park in the afternoon yesterday and then Geoffrey had booked a table in the restaurant. Can you believe we ate at The Ritz?’
I laugh, sharing in this wonderful woman’s happiness. ‘Go on, go on.’
‘Well, I had a smoked salmon terrine to—’
‘Sandy! Stop teasing me! I don’t want to know what you ate.’
She laughs a hearty, Sandy laugh. The type that’ll have her small belly jiggling and her fingers covering her mouth.
‘All right. All right. Well, we had coffee and petits fours after dinner. He was getting all sweaty. You know, I was starting to worry about him but he had a big steak for mains so I thought maybe it was just the meat sweats.’
‘Sandy!’ I try to sound stern but my chuckle gives up my game.
‘No, this is part of the story, I promise. So there he was, sweating, but we still had coffee in our pot and well, I won’t be going to The Ritz again any time soon so I fully intended on getting my money’s worth—’
‘Sandy! Get to the proposal!’
‘Right, yes, that’s where I was going. So I moved to pour another cup of coffee and when I turned back around, he was on one knee.
It took me a second, mind you, to realise what was happening.
One minute, he was in the chair next to me and the next…
pop! So there he was on one knee in the middle of The Ritz…
can you imagine? And he said it’d been a whirlwind of drama but more happiness than he’s ever known.
And then he just said it… he just asked… Sandy, will you be my wife?’
‘Aw, Sandy, that’s perfect. Really, it is. I hope you had some fizz.’
‘Oh, yes, well, Gregory actually had already arranged to have a bottle sent to the table. Such a kind man.’
‘Hold on a second. Gregory knew?’ I sit back and look at his suppressed smile.
‘Well, yes, that’s why I had to call. I wanted you to be the first to hear it from me. You see, Geoffrey needed to ask Gregory and Lara for the time off.’
I scowl and turn a playful pout on Gregory. ‘Are you staying there tonight?’
‘Yes, we’ve just had a late cream tea. Geoffrey’s calling it a mini-moon.’
‘And is it too early to ask when the big day will be?’
‘Oh, when we can afford it. Not for a long time. We’re just happy being engaged for now. It sounds a little silly doesn’t it, engaged at our age.’
‘It really doesn’t, Sandy. It sounds just right.’
‘It feels just right, sweetheart. It feels just right. Well, I’m going to go and find Geoffrey. I bet he’s stealing the free shampoo.’ She laughs again, another belly-aching sound. ‘Bye, darling.’
‘Bye, Sandy. Have a good night.’
‘I’m sure we will.’
I shake my head and shudder at the thought of Jackson and my stand in mum-cum-best friend having a good night together.
As happy as I truly, genuinely am for Sandy, a small part of me is jealous. She’s known Jackson less time than I’ve known Gregory and they’ve agreed to spend the rest of their lives together. I push the thought from my mind and focus on the man next to me.
‘I can’t believe you knew and you didn’t tell me,’ I say, flicking the phone at Gregory, who catches it in one hand.
‘I told you they were going for a special dinner.’ There’s a cheeky glint in his eye.
‘That’s hardly the same as saying, “Scarlett, Jackson is taking Sandy to The Ritz tonight to propose.”’
‘Why are you talking like that?’
‘What? You don’t like my man voice?’
‘Stop it!’
‘I don’t know what you mean; stop what?’ I say, keeping up my not-at-all-manly man voice.
‘It’s really unattractive. Are you supposed to be me? I don’t sound like that.’
‘Ja, ja! Pasop Boet!’
In a swift movement, he grabs me and throws me to the other side of the sofa. He clamps my foot between his knees, pulls off my sock and starts tickling. I squeal and wriggle and he worms those horrid, nimble fingers to the crease beneath my toes.
‘Do you relent?’ he asks.
‘No!’ I scream.
‘Sure?’
‘Yes! Okay! Yes! Stop!’
He pauses then but I can’t stop a smirk from rising to my lips.
‘You tickle like an octopus with no tentacles!’ I say in my fake-Gregory voice.
‘I would never say that,’ he says.
‘Ja, ja.’
The tickling starts again. Relaxed Gregory is putting in a rare and undoubtedly fleeting appearance.
Life is pretty screwed up.