The Proposal Plan (9 page)

Lucy at the dinner table with his parents. ‘My father’s in Birmingham. A friend offered him a job…’

How well he knew her. Almost well enough to have a stab at reading her thoughts? Perhaps she was still just angry with him and wanted space. Or perhaps she’d been to see her father.

Locking the car, he strode decisively across the square. The shop, with its sign ‘Have Your Cake…’ depicted retro style in icing-sugar pink on a pistachio green backdrop, was closed, just as he would have expected at this time of day. But he knew her better than anyone.

A couple of passers-by glanced curiously at the tall man pressing his hands against the cold glass of the cake shop window. Gabriel was oblivious to them. Shading his eyes, he could see nothing but the faint outline of the empty display cabinets and the counter. Then, as his eyes became accustomed to the dark, there at the back he saw a chink of light around the door that led to the back of the premises. To the kitchen, where the big ovens were, and the worktops where the cakes and pastries were made. He was right. She was here.

Feeling triumphant at how well he knew her, he left the shop front and felt his way down the narrow alley at the side to the back entrance, his fingertips trailing along the rough sand-papery bricks as he felt his way along in the semi-darkness. Light streamed from the window at the back of the shop and he saw her rusty old Mini car parked up tightly against the wall.

Trying the door, he was surprised when it opened easily, immediately assaulting his senses with the warm delicious smell of baking. He felt a burst of exasperation that she’d left the door unlocked. How many times had he harped on about personal safety to her?

‘Lucy!’ he shouted as he walked in, so as not to alarm her. There was no reply, so he continued along the short passageway to the kitchen, and then, rounding the corner, he took a deep breath as he saw her.

Her unruly hair was caught up roughly out of her face with a pencil stuck through it; a smudge of flour crossed her cheek. She was adding drops of a bright green liquid to a huge billowing white mound of something cake-looking on the counter in front of her. Her face was paler than ever, no sign of any colour on
the high cheekbones. There were dark smudges beneath her eyes. But he didn’t miss the fact that her mouth had a determined set to it.

‘Lucy,’ he said again, loudly enough that she couldn’t fail to hear him. There were batches of cakes and pastries on every surface. God knew how long she’d been here.

‘I’m busy.’ She didn’t even bother to look up, simply whisking the green liquid into the white gloop, watching it streak.

He grimaced involuntarily. ‘What the hell is that?’

‘A bit like a meringue,’ she said, looking at it appraisingly. And then, glancing up at him, ‘I’m experimenting with some funky macaroons.’

‘Looks like you’ve liquidised a frog.’

A second glance up at him. And the faint glimmer of a smile touched the corners of her mouth. His heart twisted as he noticed how tired she looked. He ached to just grab her and sweep her into a hug and he clenched his fists in a supreme effort to stop himself doing just that. He needed to talk to her first. To apologise. To make it right.

‘Lucy, I’m sorry,’ he said. When she didn’t look up, he walked over to her. Putting an
arm around her, he firmly removed the spatula from her hand and cast it onto the worktop next to the ghastly blob of green stuff. She still didn’t speak but she made no move to stop him as he propelled her over to a chair. Pushing her to sit down, he knelt down in front of her and took both of her cold hands in his. They were sticky from the cake mixture.

He looked deeply into her clear green eyes. ‘I had no right to talk to you like that about your parents.’ He searched her face for some response. ‘After everything they put you through, I don’t know what I was thinking.’ She simply looked at him as he squeezed her hands. ‘Lucy, I’m so sorry.’

‘How did you know I’d be here?’ she asked, after a moment.

He smiled gently at her. ‘Because I know
you
, Lu. Almost as well as you know yourself. Remember when there was that hitch when you were setting up the shop lease? And that time you crashed your car? You trashed my kitchen and cooked for England. When normal people need time to think they go for a drive, or maybe a walk. You cook. You had to be somewhere with an oven. I tried your flat. I just narrowed it down.’

A wry smile.

‘So am I forgiven?’ He looked at her hopefully.

She smiled at him properly this time and he felt a surge of relief that made his head swim. ‘You are forgiven,’ she said. ‘But only on condition that you quit stepping outside your remit. I asked you for a few pointers on how to propose. I didn’t expect you to try and counsel me about my past like some agony aunt. Agreed?’

He could hear the tiredness in her voice but she sounded absolutely resolute. He was prepared to accept anything at this moment in order to make it all right.

‘Agreed,’ he said, thankfully. Standing up, he hooked another chair from the corner of the room with one foot and pulled it over, sitting down next to her.

She loosened her unruly curls and caught them back up, forcing the pencil more securely through them. ‘Anyway, things didn’t turn out so badly after all,’ she told him, without meeting his eyes. ‘I took your advice and went to see my dad.’ And without waiting for any further response from him she stood up and went back to the worktop, picking up the spatula and
scooping a blob of the green macaroon mixture onto some baking paper.

‘Oh?’ He didn’t dare venture any comment for fear of saying the wrong thing. She’d only just forgiven his behaviour and there was no way he intended to risk another argument.

She glanced briefly around at him. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe it, either. I’m really proud of myself. I was so angry with you for suggesting I let them back into my life. You had no right. But the trouble was, once you’d said it I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It drove me mad, until I just had to go and see him to find out how I really feel.’

‘And how do you really feel?’ He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know the answer to that.

‘Well, I’m not scared of him any more.’ She put the spatula down and turned to face him, leaning back against the worktop. ‘You should see him, Gabe. He’s just a sad old man now. His drinking doesn’t look any better but he seems to be holding down a job, so it can’t be that terrible, can it? I feel like maybe I could have a relationship with him now on my own terms. I have my own life now and I can choose how much of a part he plays in that. I’m totally in control.’ She smiled at him and
his heart felt as if it would liquefy at the relief he saw in her face. ‘It’s a good feeling. I’ve been putting him out of my mind for so long. It’s so lovely not to have to do that any more.’

It was no good. He had to ask the question that bothered him the most. ‘And how’s things with Ed?’ He kept his voice as neutral as he could, betraying no feelings.

The oven alarm sounded suddenly and they both jumped. Lucy broke their eye contact to cross the room and remove some cupcakes. With her back to him she was mercifully unable to see the agony that crossed Gabriel’s face as she said, ‘Good, thanks. If anything this has made me more certain than ever.’ She put the cakes down on a cooling rack and turned back to him, removing the oven gloves from her hands.

‘Really? You’re going ahead with the proposal?’ His heart felt like lead in his chest. As if someone had wrung it suddenly, or maybe stamped on it.

‘Yes.’ She took a skewer from the counter and stabbed it into one of the cupcakes. ‘You’ve done me a favour, Gabe. If I wasn’t sure before I damn well am now. I can’t change my past but I
can
shape my future. What I have
with Ed is based on the most important things. All the things that were missing for my parents, why their relationship was such a train wreck. Ed and I don’t compare with what they were. I can make my own family now and I know I’ll get it right.’

Gabriel’s heart constricted in his chest. He forced himself to smile at her. ‘Great. That’s great. I’m sure it will all be fine.’

She looked really happy. Tired but determined. And she’d been through so much. He dug his nails into his palms so hard that they left a mark.
Because of your selfish desire to keep her to yourself you’ve put her through hell this last week. Well, no more
. As he stood there in that moment he hated himself more than he’d ever hated anyone. He, who was supposed to care about her, not caring how much he hurt her as long as the outcome was what he wanted. He now admitted to himself that he loved her. That he’d loved her for years. It was pointless denying it. Too late to tell her now and it served him right. How could he turn her life upside down again when she was so happy and settled?

He made a decision on the spot. He would back right off. And with good grace this time.
No petulant outbursts like the one he’d had in Smith’s. She would get married to Ed. Live a long and happy life with her kids and her business. And he would stick with the role of friend. Embrace it and be grateful for it. This week he’d proved to himself that he was barely worthy of that.

She was moving the cupcakes onto a rack now, her attention totally taken up with them. He needed to get out of here.

‘I’ll get going now, Lu. I can see you’re busy.’ He walked steadily across the room and leaned over her shoulder to kiss her cheek. Closing his eyes, he breathed in the scent of her. She smelled sweet, like vanilla, and he felt his body respond instantly, involuntarily. He clenched his fists tightly and stepped away immediately as if burned. She was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn’t even notice.

‘OK,’ she said without looking up. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then. What time are you picking me up?’

He floundered momentarily. What the hell was she talking about? And then he remembered. His work dinner. That would be some kind of torture now. But maybe he could use it
as an opportunity to work on their friendship. Set some new boundaries that might help him to let go of the image of her as something more than a friend. As his lover. Find a way to help him carry on as just her friend.

‘I’ll pick you up at seven,’ he called over his shoulder on the way out. He didn’t wait for an answer.

L
UCY
looked appraisingly at her reflection in the mirror. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn a cocktail dress. College ball, maybe? Even then she didn’t think she’d ever worn anything as lovely as this. Following the success of the personal shopping session, she’d picked a dress outside the scope of what she would normally wear. It was a simple sheath of black silk, ankle length and bias cut so it skimmed her body in all the right places, giving the impression of curves for once despite the fact she hardly had any. The spaghetti straps showed off the creamy skin of her shoulders and the back was daringly low cut. She had bought a soft black wrap to go with it. The whole outfit had cost more than she could remember spending on one shopping trip, ever. But she’d done her best to ignore her frugal instincts. Gabriel would be proud of her progress,
she thought. With a lot of work and plenty of hair products she’d even managed to tame her curls for once. She’d pinned the front sections back and the bulk of her hair cascaded over her bare shoulders and down her back. A few tendrils escaped, framing her face.

A normal night out for her was a meal down at the local pub with Ed, for which she barely made the effort to wash the flour out of her hair. She sprayed perfume in a cloud and walked into it, the way the magazines said you should. She had to admit that she was enjoying the evening so far. It was lovely to get dressed up for a change.

She wouldn’t let herself think about Gabriel in any other way than as a friend. That had all been some minor head rush, cold feet about settling down, nothing more. The argument about her parents had made it easier to ignore those feelings; she had been so angry with him. She refused to think about the way her heart had raced at the bakery yesterday when Gabriel had apologised and had looked into her eyes and held her hands. Furious anger with him followed by the misplaced heart-thumping desire that she’d spent the last days fighting. Two extremes.

Does Ed ever make you feel that intense?
her mind whispered suddenly, and she suppressed the thought. Tonight would be a good opportunity to get her friendship with Gabriel back on track after their argument. And then tomorrow night she was going to take her life in her hands and propose to Ed. It was all going to turn out perfectly. She closed her eyes briefly. So why did she feel more excited, more on edge, more
alive
about tonight than she did about tomorrow?

She stepped into the black high heels. Instantly the hang of the dress was perfected and the girl in the mirror had a proper womanly figure for a change instead of her usual look of an orphan who could do with feeding up. A dab of lip gloss and she was ready. She checked the clock. It was almost seven. She decided to wait through Gabriel’s customary late half-hour downstairs. She could put the TV on and take her mind off her nerves bubbling in her stomach.

For once she actually thought he had outdone himself. Just five minutes had passed before the buzzer sounded, and she pressed the button to open the door and then returned to the sitting room to search for her handbag. She
heard the door slam and then footsteps entered the room. She dropped lip gloss and keys into her bag without looking up.

‘Pretty much on time—makes a change,’ she joked, and then turned around with a grin to see not Gabriel, but Ed, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.

He let out a low whistle. ‘Wow.’

She smiled at him uncertainly. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘I know. I just thought I’d pop in on the way to the pub.’ He was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before.

‘Do I look OK?’ She turned this way and that, trying to appraise the hang of the dress. She felt a little shy, even with Ed, simply because it was so far removed from anything she normally wore. The heels were three inches, so for once she almost matched Ed for height. Gabe was taller than Ed and so would still tower above her, of course, but she was used to that.

‘You look stunning,’ he said. ‘Shame it’s going to be wasted on Gabriel.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Still…’ he walked over to her and ran a finger down her bare back ‘… I could make up for it now.’

She wriggled away before she could think about how that would look. ‘Not now, Ed. It’s taken for ever to make my hair look like something other than a bird’s nest. The last thing I need is to roll around on the sofa.’

Ed retreated across the room as if stung, and guilt stabbed at her as she caught his hurt expression.

‘I’m sorry,’ she gabbled. ‘I’m just nervous, I suppose. Not used to parties like this, and I won’t know anyone apart from Gabe.’ She gave a little laugh and walked back towards him, intending to compensate for giving him the brush off. But Ed was having none of it.

He pushed her away roughly as she tried to put her arms around his neck. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d think there was something going on between the two of you. First you start dressing differently and spending more time with him, and now you’re done up like a dog’s dinner as his escort and you give me the cold shoulder. When the hell do you dress like this for me? That’s what I’d like to know.’

Not this, not now
. Jittery enough already at the prospect of the evening ahead, she had to take deep breaths to keep herself calm.

‘You’re not being fair,’ she protested. ‘Yes,
I’ve changed my clothes a bit, but only because I thought I was looking a bit tired and boring. And you’ve got a cheek criticising me for seeing Gabe. You’ve been out with your mates four times this week.’ She turned on her heel and left the room, angry and upset. She hated arguments like this. It transported her back to her childhood when she used to sit on the top stair and listen to the raised voices below. She tried her best to always solve problems calmly, whoever she was talking to, but she had to admit that sometimes she didn’t find it easy. She had quite a quick temper and it didn’t always behave the way she would have liked it to.

‘There’s an important distinction though, Lucy,’ he shouted after her. ‘My mates are all men!’

He stormed after her and caught up with her in the kitchen. ‘What would you think if I took a woman out for the evening to a work party? I think I’ve been more than understanding under the circumstances.’ He pointed an emphatic finger at her as she turned to face him. ‘In fact I think I’ve been an absolute saint. And it’s gone on long enough. You’re not going tonight. I forbid it. So you might as well go and
get that dress off and put some jeans on.’ He had the air of someone who expected his bidding to be done without question.

Lucy felt any control she retained over her anger disappear and she let fly with full force. ‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do! This has nothing to do with me having a relationship with Gabe. I’m doing a favour for a friend and that’s all. It has
everything
to do with your lazy approach to everything about you and me. When do I dress like this for you? When the hell do you take me anywhere that has a dress code other than jeans?’ She opened her clutch bag and pawed through its contents in search of her house keys. She would find them and wait outside. Gabriel would be picking her up at any moment and she didn’t want him to wander inadvertently into World War Three. Ed could let himself out.

She found the keys as he snarled his answer.

‘If you weren’t so damn tired from working God-knows-what hours then maybe we’d have a bit more of a social life. But you’re the one who can’t leave that damn bakery alone for five minutes. And when I ask you to show a bit of interest in
my
business, put some investment my way, there’s zero interest. Zilch.’

A horn sounded outside. She couldn’t have timed it better herself. Maybe she and Gabe had some psychic link that enabled him to read her mind.

‘I can’t do this now,’ she said. ‘I’m going out.’ She walked carefully down the hall towards the front door, deliberately placing one foot in front of the other in the unfamiliar high heels. They clicked against the wooden floor.

‘Get back here. You’re not going anywhere!’

She ignored Ed’s shout but as she slammed the door behind her she couldn’t stop the tears beginning to burn at the back of her throat. The night was cloudy and she could feel the threat of rain. It perfectly matched the way she felt. She ran without looking back down the steps to the silver Aston Martin and climbed in. Only then did she look back. Only then did she realise that she’d absolutely expected Ed to run after her out of the house. The door remained closed. He hadn’t bothered. She wondered for a moment how she felt about that, what it might say about Ed’s feelings for her. She didn’t like the thought that right now they seemed to be growing apart instead of closer.

‘Are you OK?’ Gabriel looked like James Bond in his perfectly cut dinner suit. His eyes
looked deeper blue-grey than ever against the black jacket combined with his dark hair. His face was full of nothing but concern for her.

‘Just drive,’ she said. She pulled the visor down in front of her so she could use the mirror. Fishing in her clutch bag for a tissue, she used a corner of it to carefully mop her eyes without smearing the eye make-up that had taken the best part of half an hour to get right. All these small deliberate movements helped her to get her temper back under control. Gabriel did exactly as she asked and as the car purred smoothly away he didn’t speak to her for several minutes. Some unobtrusive and soothing classical music drifted from the car stereo. She found herself marvelling at the way he knew exactly the behaviour she needed from him. Not a huge inquest into whether she was OK or not, or twenty questions about why she was upset. Just a calm background, which allowed her to gather her thoughts and fight the tears back into submission. Again she found him instinctively knowing how to act with her in a way Ed never did.

She used the peace to gather her thoughts about Ed. There was a part of her that was a tiny bit pleased by his angry possessiveness,
Neanderthal as it was. The idea that she’d been able to make a few changes and make him take stock of what he had. If nothing else his jealousy, the fact he was so aware of the change in her appearance, showed that his regard for her was clear. She watched Gabriel wistfully, fighting the pang of regret that she had never been able to provoke such a reaction in him. He hadn’t even bothered to stay until the end of her styling session. If only it were Gabe feeling jealous, but he barely seemed to acknowledge that she was female half the time. She felt a rush of shame at how these thoughts betrayed Ed. She wanted things with Ed to work the way they always had, not be thrown into disarray like this.

Only when Gabriel glanced across and could see she was calm did he venture any comment. ‘Ed still alive?’

She gave a bitter laugh and he smiled his gorgeous lopsided smile at her. He’d always teased her about her temper when they were kids, describing it as a hurricane, against her indignant protestations.

‘How do you know this is about Ed?’

‘Well, I think the whole street probably heard you slam that front door,’ he said. ‘In
fact I’m surprised the building is still standing.’ When she didn’t laugh this time he looked briefly across at her again. ‘Are you OK, Lu?’ He took his hand from the steering wheel and placed it over hers. She felt a sparkling rush of electricity start in her wrists and spread slowly up her arms. The softness in his voice made the tears threaten again and she swallowed hard.
Keep it together, Lucy
.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he ventured, concern obvious in his voice.

She shook her head vigorously. ‘It’s just a stupid row.’ Her voice sounded thick through her stuffy nose.

Why does my heart leap like this when he touches me? Why him and not Ed?
She didn’t want this. Her future with Ed meant so much to her and she wanted to feel passion for him, not Gabriel or anyone else. She wished she could force her body to react to Ed in the way it did to Gabriel, tingling at his touch and melting when he looked at her in a certain way, but it seemed mind control only went so far and her body was working to its own subconscious agenda.

Maybe she should drop this whole proposal thing. All this upheaval had only begun when
she started planning it all out. Her heart sank miserably at the thought. She’d spent so long wanting her happy family it made her throat tighten to think of giving it up. But she wasn’t sure she could ignore the growing feeling that she’d be settling for Ed when he just didn’t inspire the passion in her that she knew she felt for Gabriel. Was settling for someone really good enough? For Ed or for her?

‘Let’s just forget about it and concentrate on tonight,’ Gabriel said. ‘This isn’t a social evening, you know, it’s practically a career move. Get this wrong and it could set back my senior partnership prospects by a good few years. It’s vital to look and play the part in the right way.’

She shook her head at him, exasperated. ‘Don’t you think you’re taking the whole thing a bit seriously? Surely your bosses wouldn’t make a business decision based on who you roll up with at some work function.’

‘They might,’ he said, glancing across at her. ‘Sleeping with work colleagues isn’t seen as best practice in current legal circles.’

‘Well, why do it, then?’

He shrugged. ‘It always seems like a good idea at the time. And it’s never meant to be anything serious.’

She was relieved to be talking about him rather than dwelling on her own problems.

‘That’s where you’re going wrong. You obviously don’t understand women.’ She pointed at him with an emphatic finger. ‘If a woman sleeps with you, it’s an emotional investment, Gabriel. Most women would follow that up by wondering how your surname would sound after their first name.’ She got out her lip gloss and, looking in the visor mirror again, reapplied it before adding, ‘And you wonder why they get fed up when you ditch them after a month.’

He grinned. ‘Actually I found that a month was a bit long. They tend to be far more accepting if you only see them for three weeks max.’

‘You’re such a pain.’ She looked at him wearily.

‘You like me that way, though. You’d hate it if I never annoyed you.’ He winked quickly across at her before turning his attention back to the road.