Never Too Late (71 page)

Stephen couldn’t come back until they were all healed,

all ready, otherwise they’d be back at square one in a year.

‘You shouldn’t,’ she said softly. ‘But I understand why

you did. We just need to give it a little longer …’

Their eyes met. He stretched across the table, over the

tray littered with empty burger boxes, and took her hand

in his. ‘I can wait,’ he said fiercely. ‘You’re so different now - so confident, so beautiful - that I get scared you’ll meet

someone else, someone who doesn’t need fucking therapy

so he doesn’t scream at his own kid.’

Olivia glared at him. ‘Language!’ she hissed, swivelling

her eyeballs to where Sasha sat talking quietly to herself

and her new toy.

‘Sorry. A father who needs therapy so he doesn’t swear

in front of his kid,’ Stephen amended apologetically. He

held her hand tightly, his voice almost a whisper. ‘I don’t

care what you do so long as I’ve got you, Olivia, don’t you

understand? I love you. Please don’t forget that or me.’

With her other hand, she softly stroked the corded veins

in his hand.

‘I’m not interested in anyone else, Stephen. I never was.

It’s always been you, but it has to be right. If what we have

is worth having, then we’ve got to fight for it.’

He nodded. It was then she realised that his eyes were

full of tears. Hard man Stephen MacKenzie was crying in

McDonald’s in full view of the genera! public. It was

unbelievable, incredible. Promising.

Olivia beamed at her husband. They were both changing,

thank God.

Lorraine flicked through The Star aimlessly, ignoring most

of the news. She paused at a picture of a glamorous

woman in a glittery dress and sighed.

‘Wouldn’t you love to be going to parties and premieres

every night of the week?’ she said.

Evie, spending her lunch hour laboriously ticking off

acceptances in her wedding notebook, murmured yes in

response.

‘I mean, look at this dress. It probably cost two grand

and I bet she didn’t have to pay for it. Designers give

people like Mia Koen dresses whenever they want them

just for the thrill of having her wear their outfit in the …

news,’ she added, as Evie whipped the paper from her,

scanning the photo.

How could any normal woman compete with that? she

thought furiously. Mia, clad in a bum-skimming sequinned

number that dipped so low in the front that the decollete

nearly met the hemline coming the other way, was pictured

on the arm of a famous singer leaving a private party

at the Merrion Hotel. Her chestnut hair was in artless

ripples around her slender shoulders and she was laughing, seemingly unaware she was being photographed. Cow!

Evie bet that woman could sense a photographer at live

hundred yards.

Staring at the photo as it she wanted to see every dot

individually, Evie searched for Max. There were people

behind Mia but none of them looked like a tall man with

strong shoulders and a jaw that could chisel marble.

He had to be there. Rosie had said he was back in

Dublin and although Evie would have loved to have asked

a million questions about him, she daren’t. It would kill

her to learn that he and Mia were together, the glittering

couple to beat all glittering couples: the successful producer

and the woman he’d made into a star.

‘She’s beautiful all right,’ sniffed Lorraine. ‘But I don’t

like her. Pofaced, if you ask me.’

‘Smug is the word I’d have used,’ Evie said bitterly.

Smug because she had everything in the world; everything

Evie wanted.

The intercom on the phone buzzed. It was Nicky

Wentworth, the dazzling blond new boss who sent

Lorraine and most of the female staff into spasms of

delight just by speaking in his husky Northern accent.

‘Evie, I know it’s your break but could you come into

my office for a wee minute?’

Lorraine stuck out her tongue suggestively and pretended

to pant like an overheated dog. ‘Lucky Evie,’ she

gasped. ‘If he asked me into the office for a wee minute on

my lunchbreak, I’d gallop in.’

‘Slapper,’ retorted Evie, sticking her tongue out in retaliation.

‘I’m not interested in him.’

‘Then you’re the only one who isn’t,’ sighed Lorraine

dreamily.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Scowling at her monitor, Cara repositioned Saturn until it

was the third planet from the sun and rearranged a couple

of stars as ordered. She didn’t see why she had to mess

with the solar system simply because the creative director

wanted ‘that planet with the rings’ nearer the front of the

ad. In a fit of wickedness, she put Earth closest to the sun

and vowed that if any astronomer complained about this

fatal and reckless rearrangement of the solar system for a

washing machine advert, she wasn’t taking the blame. The

creative director, a man so obsessed with the world of

advertising that he genuinely thought the Milky Way was a

chocolate bar, could take the rap.

Intent on the job in hand, she heard the door to the

office swing open but didn’t turn around. ‘I hope you’ve

bought supplies, Penny,’ she grumbled. ‘I could murder

some crisps.’

‘No, but I could offer you dinner later if you’re that

ravenous,’ said a familiar voice.

Cara dropped her electronic pen in shock and whirled

around to see Ewan lounging against the door jamb, looking

effortlessly cool and relaxed even in the humid atmosphere

of her non-air-conditioned eyrie. His green eyes glowed like

tourmalines in a face tanned caramel by the sun and his

dark curly hair was longer than ever, brushing the collar of

the white linen shirt he wore loose over khaki combats.

Like a round-the-world traveller who’d just wandered back

after trekking leisurely around Morocco, he looked so

laid-back he was practically horizontal.

‘Hi,’ she said, flustered and wishing she’d had some

warning he was back. Here he was looking wonderful after

two weeks away and she was greasy-haired and hollow

eyed from yet another late night comforting Phoebe. And,

she was wearing a desperate faded brown T-shirt over her

jeans because she’d been too busy to do any of her holiday

washing. It was too small, had a gaping hole under one

armpit and looked like something Oxfam wouldn’t allow

in the shop.

‘Have a nice holiday?’ she asked.

‘Great. I went to Tunisia.’ He didn’t move, just watched

her with those intense eyes. ‘And you?’

‘Wonderful, marvellous. We had great weather in Spain

and I actually ended up lying in the sun, even though you

know I’m not the greatest sunbather in the world,’ she rattled

on, trying to fill up his meaningful silence with words. She

knew she should say something but she didn’t know how.

Despite her nervous prattling, she was at a loss for words.

‘Ken said you were looking for me at the beginning of

the week?’

‘Yeah, I wanted to say hello … No.’ Cara went over to

him. She had to say this and there was no point waiting

until she was all dolled up like a dog’s dinner with freshly

washed hair to do it. ‘It was more than that.’ The words

tumbled out: “I wanted to tell you that I was crazy about

you and that I was so sorry for the way I hurt you. Please

let’s try again?’

They were practically the same height and as she stood

just feet away from Ewan, Cara searched his face for a sign

that he understood, that he wanted her back.

For an agonising few moments he didn’t say a word. Then,

his hands were around her waist, his mouth was on hers and

they were kissing, melting together frantically as if they

couldn’t believe this incredible thing was happening.

‘Oh, Ewan, I’ve missed you so much, I’ve been so

stupid!’ cried Cara, her mouth buried in his hair while his

blazed a white hot trail along her neck.

‘Me too, Cara,’ he said hoarsely.

‘I wanted to tell you on Monday. I’ve thought about it all

the time I was away, that it was all my fault with my stupid

neuroses. I mean, who the hell does it matter to that we’re

going out with each other?’

‘I know.’ His lips were at her collarbone now, devouring

her.

‘There was a reason, you know,’ Cara said, feeling the

desire leaping in her belly like a salmon leaping upstream.

‘A stupid reason but still a reason. I want to tell you about

it. It happened when I was at college and I never let myself

get over it.’

He stopped kissing her, his face anxious. ‘What happened

in college?’

His mouth was dark from being bruised against hers and

his pupils were huge with hunger, mirroring her own eyes

Suddenly, Cara decided that she’d tell him later. They

had all the time in the world.

‘We’ll talk about it tonight,’ she said, bringing her mouth

down on his, ‘in bed.’

When Penny climbed the stairs to the graphic design

department a few minutes later, carefully carrying two

mugs of tea and a Kit-kat, she found her mentor wrapped

in a heated clinch with someone who looked like that

lovely Ewan Walshe from copywriting. Penny thought it

was him but you couldn’t be sure because most of his face

was buried in Cara’s Tshirt.

As quietly as she could, she shut the door, went back

down to the halfway step and unwrapped the Kit-kat. She

wished she looked exotic and dramatic like Cara. Those

cheekbones, the huge, reddened mouth and the rippling

black hair made her stand out. Men were always looking at

her admiringly when they went out for lunch together.

Penny longed for men to look at her like that: hungrily yet

cautiously, as if Cara’s fierce hazel eyes fascinated yet

frightened them in equal measures.

Penny finished the Kit-kat. If reincarnation worked, she

was putting her name down for a Cara Fraser body and

face, definitely.

Mary Todd looked uneasy. Evie tried not to notice. Her

future mother-in-law always looked uneasy.

‘Do you think we’d be able to look after that big garden?’

Mary asked fearfully, as if the property had several, sprawling acres at the back instead of a long, narrow wilderness

even Evie’s short legs could cross in fifteen large steps.

‘Of course,’ Evie said impatiently, determined that whoever

did look after the garden, it wouldn’t be her. Then,

seeing Mary’s pinched little face, felt sorry for sounding

snappy and put an arm around the older woman. ‘It’ll be

fun, Mary,’ she said. ‘Imagine it all tidied up with a bit of

lawn there and some nice garden loungers where we could

sit on sunny days. Herbs maybe, by the patio, so the smell

would hit us and some plants in patio tubs.’

Mary didn’t look convinced. A fragile seventy year old,

she was in constant fear of crooked paving stones and wet

leaves in case she fell and broke something. The patio in

the property she and Evie were viewing had more uneven

paving stones than even ones. It’d all have to be ripped up

and relaid if Mary was ever to sit outside with any degree

of confidence.

Evie thought of how Rosie carelessly left magazines,

tennis rackets and school bags abandoned on the floor and

on every step of the stairs at home and wondered how

Mary would fare if they were all living in the same house.

This place was certainly big enough for the four of

them: the ground-floor annexe had one bedroom, a small

sitting room and shower room, while the rest of the house

had four bedrooms, a sitting room-cum-dining room, two

bathrooms and a big kitchen. Large and therefore expensive,

it was only within their price bracket because Mary,

Simon and Evie were all going to contribute money

towards its purchase. It was also desperately rundown and

needed huge amounts of renovation. Looking at the prewar

decoration, Evie gloomily predicted a lifetime of

stripping wallpaper and sanding down wood.

‘I don’t know if it’s right,’ Mary said tremulously. ‘I

know Simon said I’d like it but I’m not sure …’

Evie cursed Simon and the inevitable meeting which

meant she was the one using up her precious half-day off

showing his mother around the latest house that was, ‘Just

perfect for us, Evie”!’

‘Mary, we’ve all got to love it,’ she said wearily. ‘Don’t

worry your head about it if you don’t. Your opinion is just

as valid as Simon’s. He can just find another house.’

‘But with the wedding only two weeks away, we’ll have

to get it sorted before you go away to Greece,’ Mary said,

twisting the handles of her beloved patent handbag with

nerves.

‘Not to worry if we don’t,’ Evie said with false cheeriness.

‘We’ll manage until later in the year. Houses will be

cheaper in the autumn, anyway.’

She settled Mary in the passenger seat, closed the door

and closed her eyes. She felt totally frazzled. And the day

wasn’t over yet. The hotel wanted to see her about some