was still young.
‘But time goes by so fast, Bel. It seems like yesterday that Helen had the boys, and now they’re seven. Next thing I know, I’m going to be forty-five and I’ll be the spare man invited to dinner parties to make up the numbers, sitting next to the woman who’s just got divorced and either hates all men or is desperate for company.’
She frowned. ‘Alex, this isn’t like you. And this whole thing about looking to the future…oh, my God.’ A seriously nasty thought clicked into place. The reason why he suddenly wanted to settle down. ‘Is there something you’re not telling anybody?’
‘Such as?’
Well, if he wasn’t going to say it, she would. This needed to be out in the open. Right now. She swallowed hard. ‘You’re seriously ill?’
For a moment, there was an unreadable expression on his face, and Isobel felt panic ice its way down her spine. Please, no. Not this.
‘I’m fine. In perfect health,’ he told her. ‘But I did hear some bad news about a close friend while I was on my last dig.’
Someone else. Not Alex. Relief flooded through her, followed by a throb of guilt. Bad news was still bad news. ‘I hope your friend’s OK now.’
He shook his head. ‘He didn’t make it. It didn’t seem right, standing at Andy’s graveside only a couple of years after I’d been in that same church for his wedding. He’s the first one of my friends to die, and it’s made me realise how short life can be. How I shouldn’t take things for granted. And I got to thinking, maybe it’s time I did something about settling down.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘That’s one of the things I really liked about the specifications for this job. There’s enough travelling to stop me getting itchy feet, but not so much that I can’t have a family life as well. It’s the best of both worlds.’
A family life.
So he did want children.
Which meant, Isobel thought, that he needed to marry someone who could definitely have children—not someone who had a huge question mark hanging over her. After her miscarriages, the doctor had reassured her that the statistics were all on her side, that plenty of women went on to have healthy babies afterwards. Miscarriages were so common that the hospital wouldn’t even begin to look into the causes until a woman had had at least three.
But Gary hadn’t wanted to take the risk. He hadn’t wanted to stick around and wait.
And although Alex wasn’t like Gary—she knew he had the integrity to stand by her—he wanted a family. Something she might not be able to give him.
Telling him the truth was out of the question. If she did, she’d see pity in his face and she’d feel that she was no longer his equal. No way did she want that to happen.
But not telling him… If he was serious about settling down, if he’d meant that proposal and intended to ask her again, she’d have to refuse. It wouldn’t be fair to accept. If it did turn out that she couldn’t carry a baby to term, that she couldn’t have children…she didn’t want their relationship to go the same way as her marriage had. Down the tubes.
She pushed the thoughts away. This wasn’t about her. It was about him. ‘Hey, you’ll be a shoo-in for the job. And once you actually stay in one place for more than three seconds, you’ll find Ms Right,’ she said brightly.
She suppressed the wish that it could’ve been her.
They spent the rest of the evening talking shop, the way they always did. And Alex behaved the next morning as if everything was just fine, so she followed his lead and pretended he hadn’t opened his heart to her, the previous night.
She’d been at her desk for an hour when a courier arrived.
Odd. She wasn’t expecting a delivery. But when she opened the parcel, she discovered a box of seriously good chocolates. And there was a note in familiar spiky script: ‘Thanks for listening.’
Alex might be a whirlwind, but he never took anything for granted.
She flicked into her email program.
Thanks for the chocs. Unnecessary but very, very nice. Bel x
A few moments later, her monitor beeped. Mail from Alex.
Least I could do. Don’t eat them all at once.
Ha. As if she would. She smiled, and carried on with the report she was writing.
A few moments later, her monitor beeped again.
Doing anything tonight?
Nothing special. Why?
It was a while before he responded. And then:
Consider your evening annexed. Meet you from work. What time do you finish today?
Six. Do I need to change first?
If you’re dressed as Flavia, yes! Otherwise, fine as you are. Ciao. A x
Which told her absolutely nothing about what he had planned. Typical Alex.
But she was busy and it was easier to go along with him, so she didn’t push the issue.
He was waiting for her in the foyer at six, wearing a casual shirt and dark trousers and looking absolutely edible. For a moment, her heart actually skipped a beat.
But this wasn’t a date. This was just two friends meeting up while one of them was briefly in London. The fact that he was staying with her was by the by. They weren’t living together and it wasn’t that kind of relationship.
And that marriage proposal hadn’t been a real one. She really needed to get a grip.
‘Hi.’ His smile did seriously strange things to her insides, and she strove for cool.
‘Hi, yourself. Good day?’
‘Not bad.’ He slid a casual arm round her shoulders and ushered her down the steps. ‘How was yours?’
‘Fine.’ She was glad her voice wasn’t as shaky as she felt. This was crazy. She and Alex had always had a tactile relationship. So how come this didn’t feel like his usual hug?
‘Good. You hungry?’
She grinned. ‘Considering I’ve been eating chocolate all day…’
‘What, and you didn’t even save one for me?’
She laughed. ‘No. But I did share them in the office.’
‘Hmm. So was that a yes or no to food first?’
‘Food before what?’
‘Before…’ He took his arm from her shoulders, fished in his pocket for his wallet, then removed two tickets and handed them to her.
She felt her eyes widen. Two tickets to that evening’s performance of Much Ado about Nothing at the Globe. The best seats in the house. ‘These are like gold dust, Alex!’ And to get them at short notice he must’ve paid a fortune to one of the ticket agencies.
‘I wanted to see the play, and it’s more fun going with someone who actually enjoys it, too.’
‘At least let me pay for my own ticket.’
‘No. But you can buy me a drink in the interval, if you insist.’
‘I do insist.’
‘“My dear Lady Disdain,”’ he teased.
‘I did that play for A level,’ she reminded him.
‘I know.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I used to have to listen to you and Saskia murdering it in the summer house when I was home in the holidays.’
‘Murdering