Cathy Kelly - Just Between Us

‘Beautiful, just like her mother,’ Nick said examining the photo. ‘What about her father? Do you share custody?’

‘Nothing that ordinary,’ Stella said. ‘He works in the oil business and he’s abroad all the time. Amelia spends time with him when he’s here. She’s with him now.’ Stella didn’t mention how she tried hard not to resent this.

‘I split up with my ex husband when Amelia was a baby. There wasn’t anybody else, we’d just made an awful mistake. I’d like to say we married too young but I was twenty-eight, old enough to know better,’ she added ruefully. ‘How about you?’

The silence seemed to go on forever and Stella would have done anything to claw back the words, but finally, Nick spoke.

‘Why does any marriage break up?’ he said. ‘We made a mistake too; it just took twenty years to figure it out. I was seconded to the company’s office in Stockholm for four months a couple of years ago and it would have been difficult for Wendy and the kids to come because of school. So we agreed that I’d go and come home as often as I could, which I did, every few weekends. Four months became six months and when I got back for good, we found it impossible to live together again. That sounds terrible,’ he said looking at Stella, ‘but it’s the truth. We even went to counselling for a while. It didn’t work. Talking about it made us realise that the only glue keeping us together was the girls. The problem was, Wendy was prepared to put up with that. I knew we couldn’t.’

‘That must have been tough,’ Stella said gently. ‘You’re not over your divorce, are you?’ she added, knowing she was going too far but not being able to stop herself.

His eyebrows shot up. ‘Believe me, I am over my divorce. I’m not over the trauma and hurt that went with it. It was the most personally painful thing I’ve ever experienced and it’s with me every day.’

‘What about the girls?’

Nick’s face lit up.

‘Jenna is fourteen and Sara is nineteen. Sara’s doing Arts in college and Jenna’s in school; mind you, she looks old enough to be in college. When she’s with her friends, they all look about twenty.’

He took out his wallet and extracted a photo of two girls. It looked like a holiday shot. Sara was fair-haired, lanky and smiled up at the camera with her father’s warm, intelligent eyes. Jenna was smiling too, but she looked more posed, as if she liked the camera. It certainly liked her. She was incredibly pretty with a heart-shaped face, almond eyes and dimples. Even the glint of the brace on her teeth couldn’t dim her teenage beauty.

‘How often do you see them?’

‘All the time, I couldn’t bear not to. But it’s caused some problems. Wendy is from Dublin and she never wanted to live in London, but at the time, that was where the work was. After the divorce, she moved back here with the girls. I missed them so much,’ he said, ‘that when I got an offer of a job here, I jumped.’

Stella was silent. How that must have infuriated his wife. He wouldn’t leave London for her, but he could make that sacrifice for their daughters.

‘It’s been tough,’ Nick added, confirming Stella’s instincts. ‘In so far as any divorce is ever amicable, you could say that ours was. There was nobody else for either of us but it’s still hard splitting after twenty years. The hardest part was telling our daughters.’ His face was bleak as he spoke.

‘We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,’ Stella said hurriedly.

He shrugged. ‘We don’t have to, but it’s a good idea to get to know each other, for, you know, future dates.’

It was Stella’s turn to look uncomfortable.

He stared at her. ‘I’ve messed things up, haven’t I?’ he asked. ‘Telling a prospective girlfriend all about the traumas of your divorce is not the way to impress her. I told you I wasn’t that clued in about modern dating,’ he said.

‘Forget it.’ Stella wanted to make it better. So what if he wasn’t dating material because he had more baggage than a jumbo jet. He was a nice man. ‘Let’s talk about something else. How about films, the big issues of the day…’

‘Like politics and religion?’ he interrupted, amused.

‘I take that bit back,’ Stella said, wincing. ‘Forget the big issues of the day. I’m fed up discussing politics and religion and you can’t talk about either without a row. No, let’s go for serious subjects, like which is your favourite James Bond.’

Nick gave her a grateful smile as he leaned forward and poured her more claret.

They were the last to leave the restaurant after a mild tussle over who’d pay the bill.

‘Let me,’ insisted Stella.

‘But I asked you out.’

‘No, really, let me.’

The waitress stood patiently to one side while they argued.

‘You could always make a run for it so nobody would have to pay,’ she suggested.

Both Nick and Stella looked up in surprise.

‘Or split the bill,’ the waitress added.

They split it and soon found themselves outside on the street where the sky was undecided over whether to send down snow or sleet. A sheet of something white began to fall as they walked along and Stella shivered in the icy wind.

‘Let’s get out of this for a moment,’ Nick suggested. They sheltered in a shop doorway, watching the snow fall onto the wet street and disappear.

‘At least it’s not sticking,’ Stella said, still shivering.

Without saying anything, Nick took off his coat and draped it over both their shoulders so that Stella was warmed by an extra layer. She had to stand close to him so they’d both be covered, and the sensation of being that close to another person felt strangely good. No, she thought, not just another person. Nick. Standing close to Nick felt good and somehow right.

‘I don’t think it’s going to stop,’ he said.

‘No,’ she agreed, pasta and claret churning inside her in excitement. She couldn’t believe she was standing in a doorway with this man; a man she found unbelievably attractive.

‘You’ll freeze.’

‘Body heat’s a wonderful thing,’ he smiled at her.

Stella smiled back, feeling a little nugget of heat inside her despite the cold. His coat slipped and Nick pulled it back over her, his arm momentarily round her shoulders. She kept staring at him. The arm didn’t move, staying wrapped round Stella, who found herself leaning in closer towards him. His mouth was just a few inches above hers and Stella wondered if she was supposed to give him a signal that he could kiss her. Was that how it worked nowadays? Maybe she should have read Aunt Adele’s despised copy of The Rules to find out. Without waiting for any signal, Nick’s mouth lowered onto hers. Then both his arms were around her and they lurched against the doorway, like lovelorn teenagers stealing a forbidden kiss, bodies tight together as the kiss deepened into fierce, hard passion. Tasting the sweetness of his mouth, holding his body tightly, Stella didn’t care who saw her. All she wanted was Nick; Nick kissing her face and her throat, murmuring endearments and making tender love to her…

Nick broke away first, his olive eyes shining, his breath ragged. ‘We haven’t had the fifty dances yet and there’s no chaperone,’ he said.

‘You’ve got one foot on the ground, haven’t you?’ she replied.

‘Yes, just about!’

This time, Stella kissed him and went on kissing him until they were no longer cold and until the snow was swirling around their doorway like a blizzard.

Only when a police car drove carefully down the street, blue light illuminating doorways, did they stop and step onto the street, laughing like kids and holding Nick’s coat over their heads.