Blind-Date Baby (9 page)

She sat in one of the wrought iron chairs circling the table, her bottom welcomed by a cushion at least five inches thick.

‘This looks fabulous! Thank you so much, Noah—for all of this, last night…I feel like I’m on holiday!’

Noah joined her at the table and poured them both cups of coffee from the silver pot.

‘No. Thank
you
. Your presence was very effective in keeping the undesirables at bay. I didn’t get asked to autograph a cleavage once last night, so I count it a success.’

Grace grinned at him and reached for a croissant and loaded her plate with strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. ‘You’re welcome.’ She broke off a piece of croissant and popped it in her mouth.

Oh, my. She’d died and gone to heaven. It was light, flaky and buttery all at the same time. As she rested in her chair, she idly thought about infiltrating the kitchens to see how the chef did it.

Breakfast was long and leisurely, with gentle banter and
plentiful cups of coffee. When Grace was confident she wouldn’t need to eat another thing until at least next Thursday, she propped her feet up on one of the spare chairs, closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun.

‘I could get used to this.’

Off in the distance, the traffic roared and the wind lifted the fine hair at the edge of her temples. She sighed.

‘Could you? Why don’t you, then?’

Grace turned her head and lifted one eyelid. Noah was leaning forward, his chin on one of his fists, giving her a very serious look. A sudden shiver ran up her spine and she tugged her robe tighter around her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean…’

Grace dropped her feet to the floor and sat up straight. Noah gulped in a breath, not looking at all like a sexy spy for once.

‘I mean, you could live like this all the time…if you married me.’

A sudden wave of vertigo hit her. A delayed reaction from hanging over the balcony, probably.

‘What did you just say?’

Noah stood up, circled the table and sat down in the chair she had just had her feet on. He took one of her hands in his and looked into her eyes.

‘Marry me, Grace?’

The first time in her life, Grace didn’t have a witty comeback, a smart reply. ‘But…but…we’re just friends…you don’t love me.’

‘I think you’re wonderful, Grace. I have a great deal of respect for you. And I have fun when I’m with you. Fun I’d forgotten how to have.’

‘But…’

‘And there’s plenty of chemistry between us.’

She looked down at their intertwined fingers, then back up
at Noah. ‘Yes, there is…’ A little too much chemistry on occasion. ‘But…’

‘You said yourself that you weren’t looking for Romeo and Juliet. I’m proposing a partnership based on the mutual respect, compatibility—’ a small smile kicked the corners of his mouth up ‘—chemistry…’

Suddenly, he leaned in. She could feel his breath on her lips and, without warning, her heart rate doubled and her eyes slid closed. The kiss that followed was as soft and slow and balmy as the spring sunshine.

Noah pulled back and held her face in his hands, his eyes searching hers, asking questions, finding answers.

She’d missed this.

Not just the kissing—although it was pretty spectacular—but connecting with someone. She knew Noah was telling the truth. They
were
compatible. And he’d meant what he’d said, how he felt about her. No one had said those kinds of things about her for a very long time. Tears clogged the back of her throat.

But it wasn’t love.

Could she agree to a marriage on the foundations that Noah had outlined? A couple of months ago she’d have laughed herself silly at the idea, but now…

No more lonely days. No more struggling to do everything on her own. Someone to talk to when she was down. Someone to laugh with when she was happy. Suddenly her soul ached for those things.

She pulled away from him and stood up, pressing trembling fingers to her lips.

‘I…I don’t know, Noah. I need to think about this. I’d like to go home, please.’

Her heart was pounding so fast that Grace considered collapsing onto the top step and resting against the front door to her flat for a moment before she went inside. In fact, that was a
fabulous idea. She turned and slumped against the door, letting gravity pull her into an untidy heap on the landing.

The ride home had been excruciating. She just hadn’t known what to say. How could she have chit-chatted after a proposal of marriage? A proposal she hadn’t actually turned down. Was she mad?

When the car had pulled up in the alley behind The Coffee Bean, where the back entrance to her flat was, she’d grabbed her overnight bag and bolted. And now she was sitting here, her heart rate returning to normal, and she still didn’t know what to do.

Her flat was her space, her sanctuary, but she had absolutely no desire to go inside at the moment. The first thing that would greet her when she opened the door would be the photo of Rob in his uniform, holding Daisy just a few days after she’d been born.

She sighed. When they’d married, she and Rob had felt so grown up. And yet, when she looked back at her photo albums now, they both looked impossibly young, little more than children themselves. For goodness’ sake, Daisy was almost the same age as Grace had been when she’d got married. Just the thought of Daisy with a ring on her finger and a bump under her T-shirt was enough to make Grace break out in a cold sweat.

Back then, she and Rob had been so convinced that what they had would last for ever, but what
really
would have happened if he’d still been alive? Would they have been the perfect family of her daydreams, or would they be living in separate houses, fighting over custody arrangements and child support?

How could she walk past that picture of Rob when she was thinking like this? She couldn’t block him out and pretend he’d never existed, not when she’d spent all these years keeping him alive by being the Grace he’d fallen in love with.

She’d never doubted any of this before, not even in her
twenties, when she’d dated quite a bit and had still been full of hope that she’d find someone new to fill the void in her life. But none of them had measured up to fun-loving, generous Rob, and twenty-something men had a habit of running scared from a ready-made family.

It had just confirmed what she’d known all along—Rob had been her soulmate and she wasn’t going to find another man like him. Just wasn’t going to happen. So she’d given up the search.

But now she’d found Noah.

He was nothing like her darling Rob, and any relationship she embarked upon with him would be totally different from her marriage. Noah wanted companionship, a partnership built on mutual respect. Those criteria hadn’t even been on her radar when she’d accepted Rob’s proposal. It had been about love and destiny and forever. Only forever hadn’t come. And now she had to decide what to do with the time she had left, rather than treading water and pretending she had an endless supply of days left to her.

Respect. Compatibility. Support.

It all sounded so logical. Yet the Grace inside her who liked fishnets, tequila and rock concerts was yelling
no
and shaking her head. Was she just being childish?

Grace rubbed her hands over her face.

The scary thing was, part of her wanted to say yes. Part of her wanted all those things. And, if she decided she could move towards this idea of a more mature, balanced view of love, what did that mean for her marriage to Rob? Would she be crossing it out and saying it was a mistake?

She might not know what it meant, but it
felt
like betrayal.

On the other hand, that love-song, only-in-movies kind of thing wasn’t the only kind of love. And perhaps, if that was what Noah wanted from her, she would have turned him down flat anyway. Love like that meant one thing—loss. It
was as if the universe had to balance out the intensity by taking it away again. Too much perfection could not be good for a soul. And she couldn’t survive that again, losing the man she totally adored.

So, on reflection, maybe Noah’s idea was the logical choice…

Oh, she was going round in circles!

She sighed, stood up and let herself into the flat, avoiding both the photo and the laptop sitting on the coffee table in the living room. She had no intention of logging in to Blinddatebrides.com tonight to see if Marissa and Dani were hanging out there. They’d want to know about the so-called date.

She needed time to get her head round this before she shared it with anyone. She wasn’t even going to tell Daisy yet.

Noah didn’t come to The Coffee Bean for a few days, although he sent her a couple of very neutral emails in the meantime. He was such a gentleman, giving her space, knowing she’d freaked out a little. It was such a relief that she didn’t have to explain it all to him, that he understood.

She could do a lot worse than Noah Frost.

Grace unpacked a batch of miniature chocolate tarts and pressed a single fresh raspberry into the smooth surface of each one before lining them up in the display case.

Caz would know what to do. She’d been like a surrogate mother to Grace and a surrogate grandmother to Daisy in the last couple of decades. Grace didn’t go to her for advice often. Normally, because she didn’t like the advice she got and, even more frustrating, it usually turned out to be spot-on.

But as she approached Caz, who was sitting in the corner table poring over a large accounts ledger, she realised that the older woman was staring off into space, not even looking at the web of figures on the page before her. It was the third time today Grace had spotted her doing this, and it just wasn’t like her. She was normally so down-to-earth.

She pulled out an old wooden church chair—complete with hymn book holder on the back—and sat down opposite Caz.

‘Penny for them?’

Caz sighed. ‘I’m not sure they’re worth it, but a couple of thousand might be more welcome.’

‘Problems?’

Caz nodded and twisted the book round for Grace to have a look. Maths had never been her strong suit, unless it involved pounds and ounces rather than pounds and pence, and Grace was forced to nod without really knowing what she was looking at. She stood up again, walked behind Caz’s chair and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, pressing her cheek against the side of Caz’s face.

‘Don’t give up. We’ll make it. We’ve always managed before.’

Caz just patted Grace’s arm and stared off into the distance.

Grace took a deep breath. She’d kept this info to herself for a few days, but now she needed to let it out.

She bit her lip.
Soul-churning? Firework-inducing? Utterly fabulous?

Grace covered her face with her hands. Even now, just thinking about the hotel terrace, she went all hot and tingly. She’d never be able to look at a croissant the same way again.

Grace chuckled, despite herself. Marissa was right. She
had
been holding back from her friends. Which was incredibly daft. She really needed someone to talk to at the moment. Her head was constantly going round in circles and sleep deprivation was setting in.