Chapter 53
Marc’s mug of tea paused halfway to his lips. He put it back down again on the bedside table. Turning towards Lauren, he saw how seriously she was regarding him.
‘Is everything okay?’
Lauren’s silence unnerved him. Was she getting cold feet? A sudden, sick feeling of disappointment and guilt threatened to overwhelm him. Struggling to swallow them down, he reached out a hand to take one of hers.
‘Talk to me, Lauren. We were so great at talking last night. I don’t want that to stop.’
Lauren’s eyes dropped from his to the duvet, but he didn’t try to catch her gaze again.
He’d realised, early on, that sometimes she found eye contact difficult.
Trying to be patient, he gave her hand a squeeze.
‘Honestly, whatever you have to say to me… it’s all right.
I’m a big boy. I can take it!’ He hoped she’d catch the attempt at levity in his tone.
‘Last night was wonderful,’ she murmured, her eyes still on the patterned duvet cover.
‘It was.’ Marc knew there was more, though. The sunlight on his back warmed him, but his gut was beginning to churn. ‘But…’
Lauren’s hand jumped in his, and as he watched her, she took a deep breath and raised her eyes to meet his. ‘This is a lot for me, Marc. I don’t do… this.’ She gestured around the room.
‘Shame,’ Marc said, injecting a note of lightness into his tone that he hoped would be reassuring. ‘Because you’re very good at it.’
Lauren shook her head. ‘I’m serious. I can count the number of people I’ve slept with on the fingers of one hand, and I wouldn’t need my thumb!’ She gave a nervous giggle.
‘I’m hardly Cassanova myself,’ Marc replied gently. ‘And you’re right. This is a lot. But it’s a lot in a good way.’ He leaned over and drew her into his arms.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered into his shoulder. ‘I’m fine, really.’ Giving a laugh, she added, ‘Just embarrassed.’
‘Why?’ Marc began to stroke her silky, light brown hair away from her neck. ‘You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’ She fell silent again. ‘I know you and I have both got a lot going on, that’s all. I don’t want to put any pressure on you with my stuff. You’ve got enough of your own.’
‘Is this about Tessa? Or Myriam?’ Marc asked carefully. When he’d seen Lauren looking at the boys’ picture of their mother, he’d felt so many things. Things that were hard to define. She nodded against him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be very honest with you, Marc, because you deserve that.’ Lauren moved away from him, and he immediately felt colder.
‘Go on.’
‘It’s so hard…’ She clenched her fingers again.
Swallowing down frustration, Marc let her speak.
‘I-I think I might want to do this again. And I think I might want to do this a lot. And spend more time with you, and the boys, and get to know you better.’
Marc almost sagged in relief. ‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘So why were you so afraid of telling me that?’
‘Because, if I’m going to be honest about that, I need you to do the same.
Are you ready to get to know me better? To let me into your life?
’ She looked up at him, and her eyes were so open, so tender, that he suddenly felt as though he was going to cry.
A lump rose in his throat when he realised what it must have cost her to admit to that.
And it didn’t go away when he decoded what, exactly she was really asking him.
‘I will,’ he said quietly. ‘And promise you’ll hear me out.’
‘I promise.’
Marc drew in a deep, slightly shuddering breath.
‘It’s been two years since Tessa died. And those years have been the toughest of my life.
Raising the boys is hard – really hard – on my own.
Anyone who comes into my life, anyone who wants to have a relationship with me, must understand that the boys will always come first. They’re so young, Lauren, and they lost their mum.
’ He paused, blinking away sudden tears.
‘And you lost your wife, Marc.’
‘I did. And that won’t ever just go away. I – we – are a complicated proposition. You need to know that.’
‘I do know that.’ Lauren’s hand moved from under his, and she placed it gently on top. ‘Complicated is hard, but it can also be wonderful.’
‘It can also mean me suddenly cancelling plans because one of the boys is sick, or sad, or there’s a school thing I’d forgotten about, or an appointment, a football match…’ He trailed off. ‘This is me trying to put you in the picture that it won’t always be like this.’
‘Are you trying to scare me off?’ He’d expected her expression to be light-hearted, but she looked deadly serious.
‘No,’ Marc said carefully. ‘I just need you to know what you’re getting into, if we decide that this is what we want.’
Lauren didn’t reply immediately. Just as Marc was beginning to worry that he’d come on too strongly, she spoke.
‘Everyone has things in their life that make it complicated,’ she began. ‘Life with my mum can be just as tricky, even though she’d hate me for saying it. When you’ve spent your whole life looking out for someone else, it’s difficult to imagine sharing that with a new person.’
‘But… do you want to try?’ Marc could hear the hesitation in his own tone.
There was no answer from Lauren, and Marc began to kick himself.
He’d obviously scared her. He knew, much like his brother Noah, that he guarded his heart fiercely.
But once moved, he found it very difficult to play it cool.
He just wasn’t built that way. And Lauren had touched his heart, had made him feel like, perhaps, maybe, possibly, he was starting to feel an attraction to someone else again.
Obviously realising that he was waiting for her to reply, Lauren looked back at him. ‘I’ve got a favourite saying,’ she said.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah.’ Lauren’s lips met his before she continued. ‘Something I’ve learned over the years, that seems, very much, to be true.’
‘Well,’ Marc teased, ‘either tell me, or keep kissing me. Either is good.’
Lauren kissed him again, and her hands stroking through his hair made his senses come back on high alert. He responded to her touch, pulling her closer to him until they were entwined on the bed again, all thoughts of tea forgotten.
‘That saying of yours,’ he murmured, before he lost the ability to speak in coherent sentences. ‘What was it?’
Lauren broke away from him, smiling. ‘It’s daft, really, but I always think… life is a journey, not a destination, right?’
Marc’s heart twisted in a combination of pain and pleasure. If that wasn’t a sign, that Lauren’s mantra was the same as Tessa’s had been, then he didn’t know what was.
‘You’re right,’ he said, a tremble in his voice. ‘And this is one journey that I want to take with you.’ Their lips met again, and as they kissed, the morning sun warmed them both, rising over the vast, sparkling expanse of Willowmere Lake.