For a second, Ella could’ve sworn that the same deep, intense yearning she felt was reflected in his eyes. But that had to be imagination or wishful thinking. Of course he didn’t feel like that about her. Why would he?
She stared at his mouth, wondering for a crazy second what it would be like if Oliver kissed her. It must be that second glass of champagne affecting her, she thought, vowing to stick to water for the rest of the evening.
But dancing with Oliver was headier than any amount of champagne. And she noticed that, although she’d been clumsy with her other partners, with Oliver she didn’t seem to put a foot wrong. Dancing with him made her feel as if someone had put a spell on her—but a nice spell, one that made her feel good.
And when he drew her closer still, she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. Just for these few moments, she could believe that she and Oliver were together. Just the two of them, dancing cheek to cheek, with nobody else in the room. Just them and the night and the music...
At the end of the evening, Oliver said casually, ‘I think you’re on my way home, Ella. Can I give you a lift?’
The sensible thing to do would be to smile politely and say thanks, but she’d be fine—though she hadn’t remembered to book a taxi, and there was bound to be an enormous queue so she’d have to wait for ages in the cold. It was a twenty-minute drive from here to her flat. She could manage that without making a fool of herself and throwing herself at Oliver, couldn’t she?
‘Thank you. That’s very kind of you,’ she said. ‘It’ll save me having to wait ages for a taxi.’
‘Pleasure,’ he said. ‘Shall we go?’
She walked with him to his car. It was icy outside, and the thin wrap she’d brought did nothing to protect her from the cold.
‘Here,’ he said, shrugging out of his jacket and sliding it across her shoulders.
‘But you’ll be cold,’ she protested.
‘Not as cold as you,’ he said.
Typical Oliver: gallant and charming. But she appreciated the warmth of his jacket, and tried not to think about the fact that it had been warmed by Oliver’s body heat.
Just as she’d half expected, his car was sleek and low-slung. When he opened the door for her, Ella nearly tripped getting in and was cross with herself for being so stupid and clumsy.
‘Ella, relax. There aren’t any strings. This is just a lift home,’ he said.
More was the pity, she thought, and was even crosser with herself for being such an idiot.
‘Sorry. Too much champagne,’ she fibbed.
When she fumbled with the seat belt, he sorted it out for her. Her skin tingled where his fingers brushed against her.
Stop it, she told herself. He doesn’t think of you in that way. And you’re too busy at work to get involved with anyone—especially a colleague who apparently never dates anyone more than twice. Keep it professional.
‘What’s your postcode?’ he asked.
She told him and he put it into the sat nav. Then he switched on the stereo and soft classical music flooded the car. ‘Do you mind this?’ he asked. ‘I can change it, if you like.’
‘No, it’s lovely. I like piano music,’ she said. ‘We have a piano at home.’
‘You play?’
‘No, Mam does. I meant home in Ireland, not here,’ she said. ‘Mam’s a music teacher. She plays the piano at school in assembly and in the Christmas Nativity plays for the little ones.’
‘Did you ever think about being a teacher?’ he asked.
‘No.’ Everyone had thought that little Ella O’Brien was very sweet but not very bright, and would never get through her exams. Until the new biology teacher had started at her school when Ella was fifteen, worked out that Ella was dyslexic rather than stupid, and batted her corner for her. ‘I always wanted to be a midwife, like my Aunty Bridget.’ Everyone had thought that Ella was being a dreamer when she’d said what she wanted to do, but she’d put in the effort and worked so hard that she’d managed to get through her exams with good enough grades to get a place in London to train as a midwife. ‘It’s so special, sharing those first few minutes of a new life coming into the world.’ She paused. ‘What about you? Did you always want to be a doctor?’
‘Yes.’ Though there was something slightly shuttered in Oliver’s voice, and Ella wondered if he’d had the same kind of struggle she’d had about her choice of career. Although her parents supported her now, they’d worried throughout the whole of her degree and her training as a midwife, even though her tutors knew about her dyslexia and were really supportive. Her parents had told her all the time that she ought to give it up and come home to Ireland—particularly when she’d had her operation for a ruptured ovarian cyst and fallen behind in her studies. Thankfully Ella had been stubborn about it, and her parents had eventually come to terms with the fact that she was staying in England. She tried to make it home for a visit every couple of months, as well as video-calling them at least once a week through her laptop. And nowadays she knew her parents were more proud of her than worried about her.
Oliver didn’t elaborate on his comment, and she felt too awkward to ask anything more. Particularly as she was so physically aware of him sitting next to her.
Well, she was just going to have to be sensible about this. But, when he pulled up on the road outside her flat, her mouth clearly wasn’t with the programme, because she found herself saying, ‘Thank you for the lift. Would you like to come in for a coffee?’
* * *
This was where Oliver knew that he was supposed to say no. Where he was supposed to wish Ella goodnight, wait until she was safely indoors and then drive away. But he discovered that his mouth wasn’t working in partnership with his common sense, because he found himself saying yes and following her into her flat.
Her tiny flat was on the ground floor in one of the pretty Regency squares in Cheltenham.
‘Come and sit down.’ She ushered him into the living room. ‘Black, one sugar, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Thanks.’
‘I’ll be two seconds,’ she said, and disappeared off to what he presumed was her kitchen.
He glanced around the room. There was enough space for a small sofa, a bookcase full of midwifery texts, and a very compact desk where there were more textbooks and a laptop. It looked as if Ella spent a lot of time outside work studying.
There was a framed photograph on the mantelpiece of her at graduation with two people who looked enough like her to be her parents, plus several others of a large group of people in a garden. Clearly she was at some family party or other, and everyone seemed to radiate love and happiness. Oliver felt a momentary pang. His own family wasn’t like that, though perhaps part of that was his own fault for distancing himself from them. He could hardly be close to his brother while avoiding his parents, though; and when he saw his parents he was always on the receiving end of their disappointment.
Sometimes he thought that most parents would’ve been proud of their son for sticking through fourteen years of training and qualifying as an obstetrician. But the Darringtons had had rather different expectations for their son...
He really ought to make his excuses and leave. Ella was the last person he should get involved with. Apart from the fact that she was obviously much closer to her family than he was to his, she was his colleague and he didn’t want things to get messy at work. Nothing could happen between them.
But when he went into her small kitchen to tell her that he needed to go, she turned round and smiled at him and all his common sense fled. Her beautiful green eyes held him spellbound. And right at that moment he felt the strongest connection to her. Her mouth looked warm and sweet and soft, and he really wanted to kiss her. When his gaze