Gemma Townley - When in Rome...

I want so much for David to come in, to take me in his arms and tell me everything is okay. But it’s not as simple as that, I remind myself. And anyway, he doesn’t seem to want to come up.

There’s a long pause before David speaks again.

“Georgie, I need to know whether you still have feelings for Mike,” he says slowly. “I need to be able to trust you.”

“Trust me?” I say incredulously. “After everything I’ve done today, you need to know if you can trust me? David, I’ve had Mike here this evening threatening me with his bloody Mafia friends because I gave Jane that Zip disk. My mother and I broke into his flat to get it and my stepfather wrote off a car so that we didn’t get caught. Of course you can trust me.”

“That was very sweet of you, Georgie,” he smiles. “I’m sorry. But you must admit, you have caused me a bit of strife in the past few days.”

I take a deep breath in. It would be so easy now to make up with David, to give him my usual cheeky grin and say I’m sorry. To admit that I’ve been a bit silly and that I should just listen to him in the future and not be so impetuous. But I’m not going to do it.

“David, do you know why I took the disk?”

David sighs. “You thought you were helping me, I know. But come on Georgie, you believed Mike—the very person I told you not to see.”

“Exactly! David, just listen to yourself, will you? Youtold me not to see Mike? I’m your girlfriend, not a child. Why didn’t you just tell me what he was up to instead? You even told Candy not to tell me about her and Mike, so I had no idea what a liar he was. David, you are a wonderful boyfriend in so many ways and you are truly a great lover. But you can’t treat me like a little girl! Are you really surprised that I end up doing stupid things when you don’t ever let me know what’s really going on?”

David looks up, dumbfounded.

“Are you trying to say it’s all my fault?” he says incredulously.

“No, of course not,” I sigh. “What happened is all my fault. But you do need to take a bit of responsibility. What I’m talking about is us. If there is an us, that is. If there’s going to be an us . . .” I pause for dramatic effect. “I just think that you need to change the way you see me. To tell me what’s going on instead of treating me like a child and shielding me from everything. I need you to take me seriously . . .”

My voice trails off as I look at David’s face. He looks shocked. Oh God, he probably can’t believe that having put him through hell I’m now having a go at him for not trusting me. Am I being unfair?

Suddenly gripped by fear that I could be screwing up yet again, I decide to shout down to David that I was completely in the wrong and that he probably had really good reasons not to tell me about Mike. But before I can open my mouth, I notice his face changing. He still looks serious, but now he’s looking at me as if he’s seeing something he hasn’t seen before. I couldn’t be sure, but I almost think he looks a bit proud.

“You’re saying there may not be an us?” he says softly, so softly that I can only just hear him through the night air.

“Well, no, not really,” I shrug. “But it got you to listen, didn’t it?”

“I’m sorry, Georgie. Really and truly sorry. I thought, well, I thought it was up to me to protect you. I didn’t realize I was shutting you out. I just . . . I didn’t want you to know about the horrible stuff I get involved in. Could I . . . could I maybe come in so that we can talk about this with some, well, privacy?”

I nod and walk over to press the intercom buzzer. I push it several times, but I can’t hear David opening the door.

“It’s open,” I call, walking back to the window, but David isn’t on the street anymore. I lean out of the window to see where he’s got to, and to my amazement I find that he’s climbing up the wall. He is shinnying up the very same drainpipe that floored Mike.

“David, what are you doing?” I call excitedly. “You’re insane!”

“Not insane, Georgie, but perhaps a bit stupid,” David replies, grabbing onto the wall for a better grip. “I thought I was doing the right thing keeping the truth from you. I didn’t want you to worry, and if I’m absolutely honest, I probably didn’t know you really cared about it. But Georgie, the last thing I wanted was to lie to you. I just didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily.

Plus, I knew you had feelings for Mike and I thought you might think I was making the whole thing up.” He swings his legs onto the top of the first-floor window.

“And you’re right. I mean, about me,” he says thoughtfully, pausing to change his grip. “I’ve been thinking that I need to make some changes in my life.”

“Changes? You don’t need to change,” I say gently. “You’re pretty much perfect as you are.

Just, you know, tell me stuff. Don’t keep secrets from me. David, be careful won’t you . . .”

I’m half hanging out of the window now, terrified that he’s going to fall.

“No, I do need to change,” says David through gritted teeth—his head is now level with my windowsill. I hurriedly move my planters into the flat. “I don’t want to spend so much time at the office anymore. Jane has booked me on a course in ‘delegation’ and I’m going to really try.”

I grin. I can just imagine Jane telling David exactly what she thinks of his delegation skills.

“You see,” David says, pulling himself into my sitting room, “I haven’t had a holiday for a very long time. Rome made me realize what I’m missing—what we’re missing. And if I’m going to take a long holiday, well, I need to be able to delegate. To trust the people working for me.”

“Except Vanessa,” I point out, as David’s feet touch the floor.

“Yes, except Vanessa.” He’s standing in front of me now, sweat glistening on his forehead, brick dust staining his city coat. Noting my shocked expression, he shrugs and grins. “Jane also said I should try a romantic gesture. The florists were shut, so I thought climbing up to your window might do the trick . . . it’s all about balance, you know . . .”

I raise my eyebrows at him. I have a sneaky suspicion he might have seen Mike attempt, and fail, to climb up to my window and was determined to outdo him. But that’s absolutely fine by me.

“Anyway,” David continues, “the point is that I need to get to a place where I can take a few weeks off without worrying that everything’s going to fall apart.”

He puts his hands on my shoulders. “Honeymoons can’t be short, can they? You would want to go away for at least two weeks, wouldn’t you? If you . . . I mean, were you to do me that honor . . .”

He trails off and looks at me beseechingly. Is David . . . did he just . . . is this what I think it is? I don’t want to say anything, in case I misheard. In case he was joking or something.

“Two weeks is generally considered about right,” I manage. The corners of David’s mouth start to edge upward.

“You mean, you might think about it? Even though I can be an arrogant prick sometimes?”

I grin. “David, you’re not arrogant. Just misguided. And a bit too protective sometimes.”

“All valid criticisms,” David admits with a smile. “Now, what about you? Am I allowed to tell you what your faults are yet, or are we still focusing on me?”

“Definitely still focusing on you,” I say firmly. “Probably will be for quite a while yet.”

“I see. I suspected as much,” murmurs David, kissing my neck. “Your hair is beautiful, by the way. It suits you short.”

“I didn’t know if you’d like it.”

“You look like a sassy chick,” he says appraisingly. “Far too gorgeous for a boring accountant like me.”