Not many people in the village owned a matt black Lamborghini Aventador. In fact, there was a grand total of zero. But I knew one person who did. The bigger question was why it was currently parked in my parents’ driveway. Passing the stairs to my own place, I made my way to the back door, getting blown into the kitchen by an icy wind that was now well on its way to approaching gale status. Sat there at the table looking both oddly out of place, and yet completely at home, was Marco Benoit. Three of my petrol-headed nephews were opposite him, their eyes wide and their mouths slightly agape as he regaled them with tales of the Formula One track.
‘Hello, darling,’ Mum said. ‘Marco dropped by to see you. I wasn’t sure how long you’d be so I’ve invited him to dinner.’ Her tone was entirely casual, as if having billionaire racing drivers sat at your kitchen table was an everyday occurrence. My family had taken my going out with Marco in their stride – as they did everything – and Mum knew us breaking up hadn’t been easy on either side. Now she knew the full story, her care for him would have only increased.
‘Marco’s going to take us out in his car!’ My eldest nephew was practically reverberating with excitement.
‘Not in that weather he’s not,’ I replied firmly.
‘Exactly what I said,’ Marco assured me as he stood and bent to kiss me on both cheeks. ‘But I’ll come back when the weather is better, yes?’
I nodded acceptance and the boys bounced up and down cheering, before running around making car noises and zipping in and out of the kitchen. Mum eventually sent them into the living room so that she could get on with making dinner. A glance at the stove indicated there was more than just her and Dad and me and Marco eating here tonight.
‘What’s with all the food?’ I asked, shrugging off all the layers I’d put on to walk to and from work today. The weather seemed to be getting colder every day and the odds of a white Christmas were now only two to one.
‘Oh, I thought you might have seen one of the boys at work?’
I shook my head. ‘Only briefly but we didn’t have time to chat.’
The stream of customers into the shop had been almost continuous today and on the odd quiet moment, I’d taken the opportunity to pack up some online orders and get them ready for collection first thing tomorrow. I was exhausted but I knew it wasn’t just from being so busy. Busy was good. Busy kept me from thinking of other things. Like the most gorgeous, interesting, and disturbingly hot man I’d ever met telling me he loved me and me sending him away. Yep, I definitely needed busy.
‘Dan asked if we could all get together tonight,’ Mum said, interrupting my thoughts as the back door opened again after a brief knock. Cal walked in.
‘Oh, Cal, sweetheart. I’m so glad you could make it at such late notice. Is George not with you?’
The warm expression his face held for my mum turned to wary as he looked from me to Marco and back to me again.
‘Oh. No, sorry. I should have said. We’ve been building an army of snowmen this afternoon and he’s kind of worn out. I got him to have a nap and he was still out like a light. I didn’t really want to wake him, and Martha was happy to come and babysit. Dan’s text sounded like it was important though.’
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
Mum shrugged. ‘Honestly, I don’t know. I just work here!’ she said, laughing. ‘Cal, I’ve only recently made tea. There should be some left in that pot. Lexi, aren’t you forgetting your manners?’
I gave her a blank look. Cal Martin had a habit of making a woman forget a lot of things. All I could be thankful for was that I’d never slept with him. I had the distinct feeling that was something I’d never have forgotten. Odd then that despite everything, I was having such a hard time conjuring up any grain of gratefulness for that particular circumstance.
I steered my brain away from that thought with haste. ‘Oh! Marco Benoit, this is Cal Martin. Cal, this is Marco.’ Mum and I both knew that Cal had recognised the man the moment he’d walked in but we were British, and there were some things that you just had to do in the right way.
Cal nodded and held out his hand. Marco took it, his mouth smiling but his eyes assessing just as much as Cal’s were. The only difference is that Cal didn’t even pretend to smile. I prayed that they weren’t going to have some squeezy-handshake-until-the-death competition but luckily they just gave a brief shake and dropped their hands back to their sides.
‘You missed something.’ Marco smiled down at me, pulling the hat I’d forgotten off my head and the hair I’d roughly shoved under it tumbled down.
‘I so rarely saw you wear your hair loose,’ he said, his face thoughtful.
‘Not the best idea when you’ve got your head shoved halfway inside a car.’
‘You didn’t always have your head in an engine.’ He quirked an eyebrow at me and I made a point of ignoring it. And a point of not looking at Cal.
‘Still. It suits you.’
‘She had it short for a while when she was little,’ Mum added as she stirred something that smelled mouthwatering on the hob, ‘but it turns out that as much as she declared she wanted to be a boy and do “boy stuff”, it irked her to be actually called a boy all the time. She thought if she grew her hair it would stop people doing it. I tried to explain that wearing a dress occasionally might help too but –’
‘I’m pretty sure no one’s interested in that, Mum,’ I said, my insides curling with embarrassment.
‘I am,’ Cal and Marco both chimed in unison. They exchanged a look and I felt the tension in the air notch up a level. Perfect. Exactly what I needed. A double dose of amped-up testosterone.
‘Did you tell Mum you can’t make it to Christmas dinner yet?’ I asked Cal, effectively dropping him in it in a desperate bid to shift the focus of conversation.
‘You can’t?’ Mum turned, disappointment creasing her features.
Cal gave me a “thanks a bunch” look and set about trying to come up with a plausible explanation that didn’t involve the words “I just need to put a few thousand miles between me and your daughter right now”.
Taking the opportunity of the distraction, I turned to Marco. ‘Why are you here anyway? I mean, it’s nice to see you, but …’
‘I was passing.’
‘Passing.’ I raised an eyebrow. Somehow I doubted that.
‘And, I wondered if you’d come to a decision yet … about the things I offered you.’
Even from the back and involved in another conversation, I could see Cal’s body tense. I cut Marco a look that told him I wasn’t in the mood for him to play games. It was obvious he’d sussed immediately that Cal was the man I’d spoken about meeting and also that we most definitely weren’t together. It was hard not to notice that Marco would prefer it stayed that way.
‘Don’t,’ I said, keeping my voice low. The tone was enough for him to raise his hands in submission.
Cal had his arm around my mum’s shoulder, hugging her to him as she patted his arm. ‘That’s OK, love. You just have a lovely time out there on holiday and perhaps you could pop round when you get home for a meal sometime.’
‘That sounds perfect, Annie. Thank you. And thanks so much for inviting us in the first place.’
She patted his arm again and smiled. I could see the disappointment it was masking but I pretended not to notice. The passing glance Cal gave me told me he was doing exactly the same.
‘Bloody hell! You traded up your car, Cal?’ A still slightly bruised Joe suddenly barrelled in the back door, before opening it wider for more of my nieces and nephews to pile through as the rest of my family arrived in one big influx.
Cal gave a hollow laugh as he shook Joe’s hand and then proceeded to do the same to the rest of my brothers, dropping kisses on the cheeks of their various partners. ‘Hardly.’
‘It’s Marco’s, Joe,’ I called over to him and various glances shot Marco’s way. Marco had met my family a few times before, when we’d been together, so I left them all to it as Mum asked me to grab some extra napkins from the top of the cupboard. I climbed on a chair. Cal, standing close, automatically put out his hand to help my ascent. I took it without thinking and made the briefest of eye contact with him, receiving the ghost of a smile in return.
I glanced down to check my footing and instead felt Cal’s hands at my waist, lifting me down.
‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘but you do know I’ve been climbing up and down on these chairs since the year dot.’
The smile glimmered again. ‘I don’t doubt it. And I wasn’t suggesting you actually needed help. I just wanted to give it.’
His voice was soft, even though the general noise level of my family having come together was probably way above EU recommendations.
I looked up at him. ‘It might be easier for both of us if you don’t.’
‘I know. And then I see you and I can’t help it.’
‘Then it’s probably a good thing you’re going to Antigua.’
A shadow passed across his features. ‘And where are you going?’ he asked, his glance taking in the additional guest in our kitchen.
I lifted my gaze. ‘It’s what I’m good at.’ Neither of us missed the element of sadness in my voice.
Cal carefully pushed my hair back over one shoulder. ‘So why don’t you sound excited about it?’
‘I am. I mean, I will be. I’ve just been really busy with everything else here.’
Keeping myself busy so that I didn’t think about you.
‘If it’s what you want then I’m really happy for you, Lexi.’
I knew what I wanted beyond anything else. He was standing right in front of me, sending my brain spinning and turning my insides to liquid. But I also knew there was something that he wanted too. I chewed my lip and took in the noise and crowd filling the kitchen as my family did what it did best – came together, laughing, talking over each other, taking the mickey, supporting. Everything he had never had. Everything he wanted. And everything I might not be able to give him. He’d turned now, absorbing the atmosphere. I watched him and I knew my decision.
‘Are we late? Did we miss it all?’ Giselle rushed into the kitchen, Xander following.
‘No, darlings. We’re just about to take everything through to the dining room. You’re right on time,’ Mum said, giving them a flush-faced squeeze as she bustled about.
‘Oh good,’ Giselle replied, draping her dusky pink wool swing coat over the back of a chair, eyeing the two men flanking me as she did so. ‘Hello, gorgeous,’ she said, hugging me, ‘everything all right?’ Her eye contact was direct and her words were loaded.
‘Yep. Fine, thanks,’ I replied, knowing I wasn’t fooling her for a moment. ‘How are you?’
She flapped a perfectly manicured hand before laying it on her stomach. ‘I’m great. Well, apart from wishing this baby would find somewhere more comfortable to sit than on my bladder. Marco, isn’t it? We met at one of the races.’ Giselle held out her hand and Marco took it, lifting it to his lips instead of shaking it. I made a groaning noise. Marco and Giselle looked at me. Cal and Xander laughed.
‘That was out loud, wasn’t it?’ I pulled a face.
‘’Fraid so, Muppet.’
‘He’s being charming.’ Giselle laughed her tinkly laugh. There was no way she’d ever cheat on Xander but I guess she appreciated – and knew what to do with – charming manners when she came across them.
‘All my charm is, sadly, quite lost on Lexi.’
I rolled my eyes at him and then looked at Giselle. ‘Believe me, he isn’t always that charming. He can actually be a proper diva at times.’
‘Ah! I disagree.’ Marco’s eyes twinkled with amusement. ‘I have been known to be upset … but I have never slid down the slope to divaship. When you have engineers who tell you to stop being such … what is the phrase you favour again?’ He glanced at me, tapping his chin in mock thought, ‘oh yes, “an arse”, it is a little difficult to believe that you are particularly special.’
‘To be fair, I never said it that much.’
‘To be fair, I think I probably deserved it when she did.’ He spoke to the small group we had now formed.
‘Right, everyone! Into the dining room please. Cal, Dan, Xander, can you take these please?’ Mum directed the boys to the last of the items to be taken through and we headed into dining room, mouths watering with the aromas drifting from the dishes in the middle of the table.
***
‘Thanks for sorting this all, Mum. I know it was all a bit of a last-moment thing,’ Dan began once we’d all eaten far too much and were sat lounging in our chairs, vaguely wondering how we’d ever move again. ‘And thanks to you all for coming. Claire and I have something to share, and we wanted to tell everyone we love all at the same time.’
Various murmurs went around the table as glances were exchanged. Marco, next to me leaned in. ‘I feel as though I am intruding.’ I laid my hand on his arm briefly and shook my head. He didn’t say anything more but it was the first time I’d ever seen him not feeling totally at ease.
‘And, Marco –’ Dan smiled at him ‘– you’re just as welcome. Everyone knows you might be about to whisk our Lexi away with a much-deserved promotion.’ He glanced at me as he made this point. ‘But if it makes her happy, then we forgive you.’
Marco smiled and gave an accepting, grateful nod.
‘For the most part,’ Dan finished, winking at me.
I rolled my eyes at him and returned the smile, trying to scrunch down the feelings churning inside of me. I’d made my decision. It was the right one. I knew it was. The sensible one. So why did I have an overwhelming urge to throw myself on the floor and wail like a toddler that I didn’t want to go?
‘You OK?’ Cal, on the other side of me, whispered close to my ear as, momentarily, the others talked around us.
I nodded without turning my head, doing my best to ignore the little rockets of wanting his warm breath on my skin kicked off.
‘So,’ Dan started again, ‘I expect some of you might have already guessed why we’re here. But if you could still act surprised, that’d be great,’ he said, taking his wife’s hand and laughing. She rested her head on his shoulder and he kissed the top of her hair. ‘Claire and I have some news.’ We waited as he reached an arm under the table and produced a small, blue teddy bear, which he then sat in front of him. A moment of silence surrounded us as we took in the meaning, smiles forming, tears spilling, and laughter bubbling as we all shared in a joy that had been so wanted and so deserved, and so long in coming.
Beneath the table, Cal’s hand slid to mine. He leant closer. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, the noise around us concealing his question from the others.
I turned, grateful for his thoughtfulness, and for a moment forgetting that we were supposed to be keeping our distance, being sensible.
‘Yes! Yes, I am,’ I replied, tears streaming down my cheeks, taking the remnants of the day’s mascara with it. ‘It’s wonderful. Perfect. Oh, Cal, they’ve waited for this for such a long time!’
Cal nodded, smiling. I knew what he was thinking. That I might find the news hard. And I could understand that. But I also knew the struggle that Dan and Claire had had, the pain, the stress, the disappointments, the heartbreak. It had formed a bond between us that strengthened the joys and deepened the heartaches each of us experienced.
‘Do you need this?’ he asked, offering me his napkin.
I giggled through the happy tears. ‘No, I’m OK for now. But thank you.’ He smiled, gave another gentle squeeze of my hand, and then withdrew his own.
‘And everything is … OK?’ Mum asked the question lurking in all our minds.
‘Fingers crossed, yes,’ Dan answered. ‘Claire’s over four months already. We just didn’t want to get our, or anyone else’s hopes up too early, which is why we’ve been a bit sneaky about it – for which I apologise. Had it been summer, Claire hiding underneath big jumpers might not have been such a viable option.’ Dan grinned and gave his wife another kiss, the love and happiness beaming out of them like sunshine on a cold winter’s day.
‘We went for a check-up today and they’re extremely happy with the progress and everything’s looking great. We’re sorry we hid it from you all up to now, but we know you understand. Once we got the news today though, we wanted to tell every special person in our lives as soon as possible,’ Claire said, picking up the thread as Dan’s eyes shone with emotion. He wasn’t the only one. Napkins had turned into handkerchiefs almost without fail around the entire table. Mum had now appropriated Dad’s as well, leaving him to use his sleeve to wipe the tears brimming in his eyes.
‘Congratulations!’ Marco raised his glass, jerking us all into action, and the sentiment echoed loudly in the large dining room as we all toasted the parents to be and the new life that would be with us before we knew it.
‘There’s just one more thing,’ Dan added, placing another bear on the table beside the first, this one soft pink in colour.
‘Twins?’ Mum’s voice was barely a whisper. It was as though the whole room had stopped breathing.
Dan nodded, the brightest, most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen lighting his face. Cal, his own eyes glittering with emotion, turned as I lost it completely and, without a word, held out his napkin to me.