Lovers in law (30 page)

Half way across,
we stopped and looked east along the river to
Tower Bridge in the distance. To our right stood Shakespeare’s wood
and thatch Globe Theatre in stark contrast to the ultra-modern
Shard piercing the night sky. London was old and new. History and
future. Enduring and yet reinventing itself over and
over.

I wished as much for my
relationship with Allie.

The evening breeze blew away
the last of the day’s stresses and
a
feeling of deep contentment settled upon me. Sensing it, Allie
slipped her hand into mine and rested her head on my
shoulder.

“How could they ever think
I’d be happy in Rome?” she sighed. “This is too much to leave
behind.”

“Am I included in
that?”

She
looked up at me with those clear, green eyes of hers and I
knew, without doubt, I was. “You’re everything to me, Radford. I
could no more leave you than step off the edge of the
world.”

I kissed her and felt her smile
against my lips. “Have you any idea how much I love you?” I
asked.

“I think so. But please don’t
stop reminding me.”

I fished in my pocket and
pulled out the padlock I’d bought that lunchtime at the
ironmongers. I handed it to Allie with an indelible pen. “Put our
initials on it,” I said.

Laughing
, Allie wrote our names on the lock and drew a heart around
them. With a flourish, she added an arrow and the date. “I saw this
on the Ponte Milvio in Rome. Hundreds and hundreds of lovers’
padlocks attached to the bridge. I thought how wonderful it must be
to love someone that much.”

“I love you that much,” I
told her, clipping the padlock
around one
of the railings. “And a lot more besides.”

The
padlock idea hadn’t caught on in London yet and ours was
amongst the first to be left. I liked that this symbol of our love
was so visible to anyone on the bridge. I handed Allie the key. She
threw it into the river; a bright flash of brass before it
disappeared under the steely surface.

“We have to stay together for
ever now,”
I told her. “It’s the
law.”

“We better had
then
,” she agreed. “I’d hate for two
lawyers to do anything illegal.”

“Especially when
you
r name’s Lawless. You’d look guilty
from the start.”

She slipped her arms around
my neck and trailed her fingertips up
across my cheek. Her beautiful, green eyes regarded me with
so much love I felt humbled but I was more than ready to take on
the responsibility for her heart’s safekeeping.

“I love you,” I told her
again. “A year ago I hadn’t even heard your name and now it’s my
favourite word
in all the
world.”

She sighed deeply and looked
more relaxed than she had in a long while. “I don’t deserve you
being so nice to me when I’ve been so awful recently. I’m
sorry.”

“Nothing to apologise for,”
I
told her. “But I’ve been worried about
you.”

“I know. And I’m sorry for that
too.”

“You’ve been so distant I began
thinking you were going to leave me.”

Her eyes flashed alarm and
she rushed to reassure me.
“I know what
it’s like to live without you and I swear I wouldn’t choose that
life again.”

It was exactly what I wanted
to hear and
, before she could say
anything else, I launched into the most important closing argument
I’d ever made, my heart pounding.

“Since the age of fourteen,
I’ve spent every waking minute looking for someone to sleep
with.
But then I met you, and realised it
was far more important to have someone wonderful to wake up
to.”

“What we have together is
more wonderful than I could ever have imagined
.”

She
smiled and melted against me but, instead of softness, I
detected tension in her body. I sensed her secrets were forming
behind her lips and held her tighter, silently letting her know I’d
always love her and keep her safe.

“I have something to tell you,
Radford,” she said eventually, her voice hesitant.

“No need.
” Breaking all my own rules, I rushed to reassure her, not
giving her chance to speak. “I know everything.”

She did a double take. “Who
told you?”

“No one. I worked it out for
myself. And I want to say that everything will be fine. I’ll look
after you – both of you.”

“Both…?”

“You’ve changed my life,
Allegra Lawless and I never want to let you go.” Taking her
completely by
surprise, I dropped down
onto one knee. I held her hand, never thinking that a confirmed
flirt like me would ever find himself proposing where the whole
world could see. Oblivious to the passers-by who’d stopped to
watch, I continued.

“I want to marry you and give
our baby a name,” I said. “We can sell my apartment, buy a family
house, get a nanny so you can go back to work if you want. I’ll be
there to support you every step of the way – and every day in the
future. I love you – love both of you. I want to be the most
adoring husband and best father I can be. So would you do me the
very great honour of becoming my wife?”

Allie looked down at me, her
face ashen and
her hand frozen in mine. I
swear she’d stopped breathing but then, so had I.

“I’m sorry, Radford,” she
said at last. “But the answer’s
,
no.”

The people watching sucked in
their breath in a collective cry of disappointment. I
stared down at Radford, still on one knee and
looking as though I’d just clubbed him around the face with a
hammer. My heart somersaulted in my chest.

“What do you mean, no?” he
asked, too bewil
dered to get up. “You
love me. You said you’d never choose a life without me. Why won’t
you marry me?”

“You’re only proposing
because I’m pregnant.”

“I’m not.”

The onlookers gasped in unison –
one even had his mobile phone out – and I decided the middle of the
Thames was no place to discuss our private life.

Urging
Radford to his feet, I suggested we moved away. “I don’t
particularly want this conversation uploaded to YouTube later.
Let’s go.”

I tried to take his hand
again but he pulled away and walked a distance apart. His limbs
stiffened and his face took on that look of haughty impenetrability
that always made him so unreadable in court. There was a bench
outside the Tate Modern, overlooking the river and the dome of St
Paul’s on the far side. Radford sat down at the far end, leaving as
much space between us as possible.

“I’m very flattered by your
proposal,” I told him.

“Not flattered enough to
accept, obviously.” His ultra-kissab
le
lips pulled into a taut line and he could barely look at
me.

“Are you only proposing
because of the baby?”

“No. Of course not.” He
seemed genuinely shocked that I’d come to that conclusion. “It’s a
factor, obviously. I want our child to have a solid family
from the start.”

“But without the baby you wouldn’t
have asked?”

“No.” He swore under his
breath. “I mean, yes.” He stumbled over his words, unusually
flustered. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Allie. I love you
more than life itself. Perhaps if you hadn’t fallen pregnant, I
might have left it a year to ask. Or I might have proposed now
anyway. What does it matter? I love you, want to marry you and
bring up our baby together.”

He obviously hadn’t
anticipated having to justify himself and hovered between
disappointment and anger.

“It matters a great deal to
me,” I said. “Loving me and wanting to
get married is one thing. But stepping up and doing the
decent thing is something else entirely. It sounds like I’m
trapping you into making a commitment.”

Radford lost his temper and
raked his hand through his hair in frustration.
“This isn’t about trapping me! What’s wrong with wanting to
take care of you and provide a home for our child?”

“Nothing. It’s very noble.”

“Noble?” He leapt to his feet
and walked away for a few paces, thumping his heels into the tarmac
as he struggled to bring himself back under control. “For God’s
sake, Allie. There’s nothing noble about it. It’s selfish.
Completely selfish. I can’t bear the thought of losing you. Either
of you. I love living with you, waking up next to you every
morning, making love to you, arguing over who’s in charge of the TV
remote. I adore everything about you and – baby or not – I want to
marry you. Now. This second. Tomorrow if you like.”

He stood in front of me
defiantly; hands on hips and his eyes burning with a ferocity of
love I’d never seen. This man was prepared to fight for me –
literally if Daniel Greene was anything to go by – but I was about
to bring his world crashing down around him.

“There is no baby,”
I said, afraid to look at him. “I’m not
pregnant.”

The pain and disappointment
passing across Radford’s face forced tears to my eyes. God only
knew how long he’d been living under the delusion but he’d somehow
convinced himself he really wanted this non-existent child. Guilt
scored the surface of my heart until it felt raw.

“No baby? You mean you’ve…” He
couldn’t finish the sentence.

I choked in horror. “God, no.
I wouldn’t have taken that decision alone.” I laced my fingers
through his and, this time, he didn’t pull away. I forced him to
sit back down. “I was never pregnant in the first place. I don’t
know what made you think that.”

“You’ve been ill. Withdrawn.
I heard you being sick.” His voice trailed away. “I jumped to
conclusions because I thought you were deciding whether to keep the
baby.”

“I was
making decisions. But not about a baby.” He listened
intently, his eyes scanning my face for the truth and stacking up
the questions in his head. “Three weeks ago, the Rome office made
me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Huge salary. Accelerated
partnership. A big increase in responsibility. They want me to
start immediately and make a minimum five year
commitment.”

“Five years!”
Radford recoiled. Then he remembered the meeting
with his friend. “Stephen didn’t say anything.”

“He doesn’t know.
I
t would have put him in an impossible
position.”

Radford’s fingers tightened
around mine.
“It’s a huge
decision.”

“Which is why
I’
ve literally been sick with worry.” It
was the understatement of the century. I hadn’t slept for weeks and
felt physically and mentally exhausted. “I have to give them my
answer after the weekend.”

He nodded, trying to
absorb it, his mind working to understand where
he fitted in. “What will you tell them?”

As a lawyer, he’d been taught
only to ask questions where he already knew the answer – less
chance of surprises that way.
But now he
was going out on a limb and had absolutely no idea what was
coming.

“Whatever decision I
make
will involve a commitment,” I began.
“It’s been impossible to decide where the greatest risk lies –
London or Rome.”

“Lov
ing me shouldn’t be a risk.”

“It isn’t.” I’d never been
more certain of anything in my life. “But
this a new relationship. We have no idea yet where it’s
heading. Turning down Rome would put you under pressure to
commit.”

He risked a smile.
“W
hy are you so afraid to ask me for
commitment today?”

“Because I’m terrified you’ll
turn me down.”

Radford looked at me as if I
were stupid – which I suppose I was, in a way. I had a man I
adored
, who loved me enough to propose
and who’d been worried half to death about me for the past three
weeks. I kicked myself for having left us both in limbo for so
long.

“I’ve been offered my dream
job, in my second favourite city, and it’ll put me so far along the
career path you won’t see me for dust,” I went on. I noticed he was
letting me do all the talking – an old trick of his. The more I
said, the more he had to argue against. “A year ago I’d have jumped
at this chance but then Mike broke his leg, I waltzed into your
chambers and the world started turning at a different
speed.”

“It’s your fault for kissing
me.”

“It’s yours for being so
kissable.” To prove it, I leaned in and kissed him
slowly
. His mouth softened against mine,
tempting me deeper into the kiss until I only broke away because we
were drawing stares. “This job will give me money, position, kudos,
leverage,” I said breathlessly against his lips. “In five years, I
could name my price.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”
Again the risky question with no predictable answer.