Runaway Groom (13 page)

April wiped her palm against her jeans. “When’s the Coffee Haven opening again?”

“The week after next, if I can round up enough staff.”

April bit her lip. Matthew didn’t need her. Not really. She breathed in. “I’d like to come back to both.”

“That’s great!”

They finalized the details.

Tonight, when Matthew came home, they’d talk. If she stayed it would be because he’d asked her to. Because there had been a decision made between them to move their relationship to the next level.

The thought of more was frightening. Relationships didn’t last, but her feelings for Matthew were all consuming. She couldn’t deny them any longer in the hope of avoiding heartache.

Maybe he didn’t want more. Maybe sleeping together every night was enough for him, but it wasn’t enough for her. She had to have more.

It was tempting to hold on to what they had. To enjoy the moment without rocking the boat. But right now they were like a boat adrift, floating without purpose. She was making a grab for the oars—with luck she wouldn’t capsize them in the process.

*****

The house was dark when Matthew came home. He flicked the light on in the hall and frowned. Chairs and the kitchen table blocked the hallway. He dropped his briefcase and then squeezed past them into the dark kitchen.

There was a dark shape slumped in the corner of the room. He fumbled for the switch, flooding the room with light. “April?”

She was huddled in the corner.

“April?” He said louder. Was she hurt?

She stirred. Her head rose and sleepy eyes blinked.

“What are you doing?”

A bottle of liquid sat on the floor before her, and a damp sponge.

“Ah.” Her face reddened. She ran her tongue over her lips. “What time is it?”

“Late.”

She reached out and touched the shining floor in front of her. Picked up the bottle and sponge and got to her feet. “I was putting polish on the floor.”

“But why are you in the corner?”

She rolled her eyes. “I…”

He finally got it. The reason she looked so damned embarrassed. “You painted yourself into a corner.”

Her gaze lifted. She grinned. “I know. It’s totally stupid, isn’t it? Everyone knows you start at the far reaches and wax in, but I was distracted and before I knew it I’d boxed myself into this corner.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I must have fallen asleep waiting for the damned stuff to dry.” She held up the bottle. “It takes an hour, apparently.”

She stepped forward on fluffy-sock clad feet. “I’ll just finish this and start dinner.”

Matthew walked into the room and took the polish from her hands. “Forget it. We’ll go out.” They hadn’t left the house for days. With other women, he’d taken them out to dinner and dates but with April they’d fallen into a rut of eating at home like an old married couple.

She reached for the bottle. “It will only take a minute to finish up.”

As usual, she was acting the good housekeeper. He hated it. He didn’t want her to wait on him, to be responsible for keeping his house in order any more.

“Leave it.”

“If I leave it, we’ll have to wait even longer to put the furniture back.”

“Fine. I’m going upstairs to change.”

He stalked away, frustration roiling in his gut. She was always here. Always waiting. He’d lived alone for so many years; the constant sharing set his teeth on edge. He was so damn dependent his heart pounded as his feet quickened as he drew closer to home every night. His appetite for April was out of control. Most evenings he couldn’t wait to touch her, to take her to bed. Instead of wanting her less as time went on, he wanted her more.

Yesterday he’d even blown off a meeting to come home at lunchtime to spend time with her. Her absence had filled him with a mixture of relief and annoyance. Relief that she wouldn’t be aware of just how obsessive he’d become, and sexual frustration that she wasn’t there.

In the bedroom Matthew stripped off his suit. He tossed his shirt into the empty hamper. She was so damned efficient. Doing his laundry, keeping his house clean. Preparing delicious meals every night.

With a curse he grabbed jeans from the wardrobe.

“You’re in a crap mood.” She stood in the doorway, watching him.

“I’m hungry.”

She sat on the bed and pulled off her thick socks. “Let’s go out then.” She slipped her feet into shoes, and grabbed her bag from the floor.

She’d expressed a hankering for pizza, so they hadn’t travelled far, just walked up to the pizzeria at the corner. Now, as he waited for the waitress to bring their meals, Matthew regretted the choice. The tiny restaurant was filled with people.

April swallowed a mouthful of red wine. “I heard from Elizabeth today.”

Elizabeth? He searched in his memory, but came up empty.

“You remember Elizabeth? My landlady and boss?” Her head was tilted to the side, and the space between her eyebrows creased with a frown. They’d barely exchanged a word since he got home, so she was justified in feeling annoyed.

“Oh yeah, Elizabeth.”

Their pizzas were put down on the table with a flourish by the waiter. When April smiled at him, he smiled back.

“Anyway…” She picked up a piece of pizza and chewed off a hunk. “They’ve finished the repair of the coffee shop and offered me my job back.”

Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that.

April looked down at her plate. “The apartment has been refurbished too. She asked me if I wanted to move back in.” The fingers of her right hand curled into her palm. Silence hung in the air for long moments. She was waiting for something. Something from him.

Do I want her to move out?

Before he had time to process the thought, April started talking, rapid-fire.

“I told her I would. And I’m going to have to give you notice on the job too.”

“Give me notice? Is that all I am to you, a job?”

Her gaze pinned his. “You know damn well you’re more to me, Matthew. But living with you was only ever going to be a part-time thing, wasn’t it?”

“Things changed, though. Didn’t they?” He didn’t know why he felt so angry, but the urge to punch something made his muscles tense. “We started something.”

“Yes.” She crossed her arms, meal forgotten. “But me living in your house, dependent on you for everything isn’t real life for either of us. We didn’t make the decision to live together like this. It just happened.” A muscle twitched in the corner of her jaw.

“Are you saying you don’t want to be with me anymore?” Jeez, he sounded pathetic. And why exactly he was questioning her decision when earlier he’d had exactly the same thought, he didn’t know. The thought of coming home to a house without her in it made his stomach clench, but at the same time, he wasn’t ready to commit.

Maybe he’d never feel ready.

“Do you want me to stay? To make this permanent?”

There was no point in lying. “No.”

April pulled in a shaky breath, and reached for her wineglass with trembling fingers. “I’ll move out at the weekend.” She drank deeply.

This wasn’t ending. This couldn’t be the end. Matthew covered her hand with his. “I don’t want this to be over. We just need to slow things down a little. I’m just not ready…”

Her clear blue eyes shone with a trace of what might be unshed tears. “I’m not ready either.” She pulled her hand away.

The food tasted like cardboard. When April’s cell phone rang it was a welcome distraction from the tension simmering in the air between them. She fished it out of her bag and glanced at the display. “Hi, Dad.”

Matthew rubbed the back of his neck. Irritated she still hadn’t confessed to her family they were together.

“No, I’m just out having dinner with a friend.” She shot him a glance.

The man on the other end of the phone was doing all the talking. She responded with terse yes and no’s for a while. Then finished with, “I’ll call you tomorrow and organize everything.”

“June and Dad are in London. She wants to see the dress tomorrow. I’ll take it to her hotel for the final fitting.”

“You can invite them to the house.”

She shook her head. “There’s no need.”

She didn’t want to let her family know about him. Didn’t want to rock the damn boat. “I’m not ashamed of our relationship with you, April. Are you?”

“The wedding is in two weeks. I don’t see the point of introducing drama at this point.”

Her words were so cool, someone who didn’t know as well as he did might think she didn’t care, but her body couldn’t lie. The vein pulsed in her jaw; her fingers were curled into fists again.

“I’m not drama. I’m your man.”

Her eyes softened. “Are you?”

*****

He’d kissed her outside the restaurant, his lips soundlessly telling her what he wouldn’t say. They’d walked back to the house holding hands in silence, and when they got there had walked upstairs in the dark and made frantic love for hours.

She woke alone.

She’d pushed Matthew for a commitment and he’d pulled back, just as she knew he would. Her insides ached. The last meaningful thing he’d said was that he was her man, and yet he was prepared to let her move out, risk her walking away for good.

Tonight she’d be out for dinner with June and their father, and tomorrow she would move back into her apartment. She’d hired a van to transport her meager belongings, and co-opted Marie and Eliza in to help. They were full of questions she didn’t want to answer but she’d promised full disclosure once she was safely back in her old apartment.

It was too painful to talk about before then.

Now, the thought of dragging June’s dress across town to her hotel was beyond exhausting. Matthew’s words from the previous night echoed in her mind. She wasn’t ashamed of her relationship. And it wasn’t over; it had merely shifted down a gear.

If there was to be any hope for a future with Matthew, she needed to obliterate some of the barriers. Up until now, cowardice had made her choose the easy option—the option of hiding her relationship with Matthew from her family, because avoidance felt a hell of a lot safer.

It was time to burst the bubble they’d been living in.

She could play it safe, or shake it up.

She picked up the phone.

June didn’t answer her cell, so she left a message.

“June, instead of meeting at your hotel, grab a taxi this afternoon and come to me instead.” She rattled off the address
. Let the fireworks begin.

She’d told Matthew last night she was meeting June at the hotel. Now, she called him.

“Hi.” His deep voice melted her insides, as usual.

“I’ve changed the arrangement with June. She’s coming over.”

Silence stretched for a long moment.

“Did you tell her about us?”

“Not yet.” April glanced at her watch. “But she’ll be here in a couple of hours. I just wanted to give you a heads up, in case you want to work late or something.”

“I don’t see any reason to avoid her. I told you last night, I’m not ashamed we’re together.”

The warmth in his voice soothed her. “Okay, I’ll see you later.”

Being with Matthew wasn’t easy. Her father would go ballistic, and the thought of yet another daughter being involved with Matthew Logan might cause her mother to have a heart attack. Mum’s hatred of the man who’d run out on her eldest daughter was wrong, considering the facts, but she didn’t know the facts, did she?

When June arrived two hours later, it was evident from her face that she got it. She knew exactly whose house April was living in. She stood on the doorstep in her Laboutin shoes and black skinny-jeans, with her long blonde hair falling in waves to the top of her breasts.

“Hi.” She looked behind April, as if searching for someone else.

“Come in.” April stepped back to let her sister in.

June kissed the air next to April’s cheek. “So this is where you’ve been hiding!” With every step into Matthew’s house her gaze took an inventory of his pictures, his furniture, his evident wealth. “Staying with a friend?”

April led her into the kitchen, unable to contemplate talking to her sister in the room where she and Matthew had first made love.

“I think you know exactly whose house this is.”

June sat. “I sent an invitation to this house, so damn right I know whose house this is.” Her eyes flashed and her nostrils flared a little. “What are you playing at, April?”

“I could ask you the same question.” April pulled out a chair opposite. She sat and clasped her hands together on the table top. “I’m staying here with Matthew.”

“I thought you didn’t know where Matthew lived? As I remember it, you didn’t even know he lived in London.”

“I didn’t until you told me you’d invited him to the wedding. Then I looked up his address in the phone book and came out here to talk to him.”

June’s eyebrows rose in perfect arcs. “I don’t see why.”

“I came to ask Matthew not to come to your wedding. I thought it would be disruptive having the man who ran out on your previous wedding attend your current one.”

June’s face relaxed. “I told you why I invited him. I want people to forgive him. By inviting him to the wedding I was sending a message to everyone that I accept the choice he made, that I’m happy, and want him to be happy too.”

“You want Matthew to be happy?”
Here it comes.

“Of course.”

“Happy with me?”

June frowned, as if not believing what she was hearing. “With you?” Her voice was so high it was almost a squeak.

April nodded. “With me.”

“As in…a couple?” June had gone pale. Her gel nails fluttered, like painted bugs trying to fly away.

“Matthew and I are in a relationship.”

“Oh, darling.” June reached out and grabbed April’s hand. Her head shook from side to side, setting her cloud of blonde hair bobbing. “Matthew isn’t…Matthew doesn’t…”

“Matthew doesn’t what?”

June sighed. “Matthew has never got over me. This relationship with you, it’s a way of getting back at me.”

Wow, June’s ego knows no limits.

“Matthew ran out on you years ago.”
Tell me. Explain to me.

June’s gaze skittered to the corner of the room. Her hand withdrew. “Ah, well...” She gazed into April’s eyes, as if weighing up what April knew, and what she didn’t. “It wasn’t quite as clear-cut as that.”