My Best Friend's Girl (19 page)

“What’s going on?” I asked, panicked. “Why have you started to pack?” I stepped over the holdall, knelt down in front of Tegan. “I’m sorry,” I said, searching her small heart-shaped face and blue eyes for some semblance of understanding. For some hint, however slight, that I could talk her into staying. “I didn’t mean to shout at you. I was angry with myself not you. I’m sorry.” She didn’t move, simply held on to Meg, almost as though I hadn’t spoken.

“Tiga, please believe me, I am sorry. I am truly, truly sorry.”

“Please,” she whispered, then stopped, obviously terrified of what came next.

“Please…?” I echoed.

“Please don’t make me live at Nana Muriel’s house,” she said, then cringed down, lowering her head to be close to Meg.

“Why would I make you live with Nana Muriel?” I asked. Of all the things I thought she was going to say, that wasn’t it.

“Because I was naughty,” she replied. “I don’t want to go to Nana Muriel’s house. I want to stay with you.”

“Is that why you got your clothes out?” I asked.

She nodded. It had never occurred to me that Tegan thought returning to that hell in Surrey was an option. I thought she knew she was stuck with me, for better or worse. Was that why she was always so good? Never questioning, never arguing, never throwing a tantrum? Because she thought I might send her back to being beaten and starved?

“Tiga, me and you…” I paused as her face creased up in absolute terror, waiting for me to pass sentence on her. I started again, my voice as soft as a wish, “Tiga, you’re going to stay with me until you’re all grown up.”

The lines and creases of her face relaxed a fraction.

“You never have to see Nana Muriel again. Even if you’re really naughty you’re staying with me.”

Her eyes eased up to look at me at last.

“I’m going to look after you forever and ever,” I stated. That thought once again sent panic stampeding in my chest. “Tiga, this is your home. Even when you’re all grown up, wherever I am will be your home. I…I’ll always want to take care of you. Do you understand?”

“Even if I’m naughty?” she asked.

“Even then,” I said. “Not that I’m encouraging it,” I hastily modified. “If you are naughty we’ll find a way to work around it. But you’ll still stay with me.”

“I’m sorry I was naughty,” she said.

“You weren’t naughty, it was an accident.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was an accident, you didn’t do it on purpose. And I’m sorry for shouting at you.”

“Luke won’t see your pretty dress now,” she stated.

I was puzzled for a moment, searched her face to see if she knew. If she’d picked up on how my feelings for her best friend, my boss, had changed. She stared back at me, oblivious. She didn’t know that since my migraine four weeks ago, something had fundamentally changed between Luke and me. He’d not only become human, he’d become a man in my eyes. Our meetings at work had become chats, at the weekend he’d often stick around after Tegan went to bed and we’d stay up drinking tea and talking until three or four o’clock in the morning. Tegan didn’t know that I’d started to have unsettling thoughts about him. Thoughts about me and him and, yes, all right, sex. No, he wouldn’t see me in my pretty dress and that was good. The thoughts I had weren’t to be encouraged, let alone indulged. “That’s probably for the best,” I admitted to her.

“So, are you going to stay with me?” I asked, banishing Mr. Wiseman from my mind.

Tegan scrunched up her nose as she nodded.

“Good. I’m really, really glad.”

Tiga reached out with Meg and made the rag doll kiss my cheek. “Meg loves you a lot today,” she explained.

“I’m starting to get that. Shall we put away your clothes, sweetpea?” Another nod. Tegan slid off her bed. “And, as a special treat, you can stay up and see Luke.”

Her eyes widened with delight. “Really and truly?”

“Yup,” I replied, knowing she’d be asleep before eight-thirty. Nine, tops.

chapter 23

T
he allure of seeing Luke was, in fact, the strongest stimulant known to Tegankind—she was wide awake at ten-fifteen when he buzzed. I’d texted him to say Tegan was waiting up for him so could he come by on his way home, and he’d replied no problem.

I peeled myself off the sofa to answer the door, tiredness weighing down on me like an anvil, but Tegan, bedecked in her red-gingham PJs, clambered to her feet on the sofa and started bouncing up and down.

Luke entered bearing gifts. Like a dad who felt guilty about having to travel for work, who thought toys and other trinkets would be a compensator for his absence, Luke always bought Tegan something when he went away—even if it was for one night. This was his biggest hoard yet, though—he was weighted down with five plastic bags in each of his big hands.

“Jeez, how much have you spent?” I asked as he bustled past me.

“Erm, not much. One of my friends works for a toy company.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh yeah? She sounds like a great friend,” I said.

Luke glanced away the second I said “she,” then studiously avoided making eye contact. Guilty as almost charged, obviously.

“Come on, T,” he said, “let’s see what’s in the bags.”

Tiga stopped bouncing and, holding on to Luke’s arm, she climbed down onto the floor in front of the bags. Happiness flashed up in her eyes like twin beacons in a storm. All the jealousy I’d felt at how he’d come by his bounty was replaced by gratitude. She needed this, needed someone to make a fuss of her, to buy her presents and make her feel special.

Item by item, Luke emptied the bags in front of her and, I could have kissed him for this, most of the toys were educational. If not educational, then books—novels that were quite advanced for her age but that she would love because she became completely involved in stories, the more complicated the better; drawing pads and coloring pens; felt tips and crayons and coloring pencils; a couple of teddy bears and a game of Junior Scrabble.

“Are they all for me? Really and truly?” Tiga asked.

“Who else would they be for?” he replied.

“Thank you!” she screeched and launched herself at Luke, who was knocked backward, caught unawares, as we both were. She started bouncing up and down on his abdomen, not seeming to notice the “Ouf!” he made every-time she connected with his stomach.

“Look, Mummy Ryn! I’m jumping on Luke!” she giggled. I smiled. This was the old Tiga. Affectionate, lively, bouncy. “Mummy Ryn, am I ’lowed to kiss Luke for a thank-you?” she said, increasing her bounce rate.

“If Luke doesn’t mind.”

Tiga looked at Luke. “Course I don’t mind,” he said, winded. “Just don’t jump on my tummy anymore, OK?”

“OK,” Tegan said, disappointed. She leaned forward and planted a smacker in the middle of his forehead, just like he did to her whenever he kissed her goodnight or goodbye. She sat back, looked expectantly at me.

“What?” I asked, wondering what I’d missed.

Tegan sighed theatrically, as though I was being deliberately obtuse. “You have to kiss Luke too,” she said in a slightly exasperated voice.

I took a horrified step back while accidentally making eye contact with Luke.

“I don’t mind,” Luke said, his eyes shining with humor.

“He doesn’t mind,” Tegan encouraged.

“Yeah, well, I’m sure he doesn’t want to spoil your special kiss with mine.”

“Coward,” Luke mouthed at me.

“I think you should give him a few more bounces for me, though, Tiga.” Her face lit up and his contorted in horror. “Yeah, a few really big bounces, right on his tummy.”

“OK!” She took up her task with admirable gusto.

“Have you been crying?” Luke asked over an hour later. He’d read Tiga four stories and listened to her chatter on for a good ten minutes until her wind-up mechanism had finally unwound itself and she’d fallen asleep. He now removed the book I hadn’t tidied away from the sofa, slid it onto the floor before he sat down. I was on the other end of the sofa, I’d been half watching the television, half wondering if I should start washing up, and completely listening to Luke and Tiga talking in her room.

I turned to Luke as he sat down on the other end. He was exhausted: his eyes were pinkshot, his blue shirt was rumpled and the creases on his thirty-five-year-old face seemed more pronounced than usual. I didn’t reply to his question because I was stunned he’d asked it.

“Have you?” he repeated.

I’d checked my face in the mirror before he’d arrived and my eyes weren’t red or puffy. How could he know?

“Why do you ask?”

“You’ve got that look in your eyes. You used to have it a lot when we first met. I used to think it was disdain but now I know it was because you were crying a lot in those days—now I know it’s because Adele had just passed away. And that look is back.”

I couldn’t tell him why I’d been crying, no one could know about it. Especially not him, he who could make Tegan so happy. I didn’t want him to know I didn’t have his skill with her.

“So, who was this woman you were shagging in London?” I asked.

Luke paused as a host of emotions—shame, delight, embarrassment, guilt—flitted across his features. “I take it the social worker’s visit didn’t go well,” he plowed on, determined to get me to open up.

Not as determined as I was to keep mum, however. “I’m guessing she was a new conquest judging by how much she heaped on you?”

Luke’s eyes remained fixed on me for a moment as he calculated something. “I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he said, admitting defeat, it seemed. “I, well, I kind of…you know, some things get mixed up in your head? I liked her but she’s not my usual type of, well, you know, and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what my type is and if I’ve been a bit rigid in only going for one sort of woman. And I guess I got my emotions jumbled up with my logic and one thing led to another, really. Nothing to write home about but—”

“I shouted at Tegan,” I blurted out. I couldn’t bear to hear anymore.

“Is that why you were crying?”

I nodded.

“It’s OK, you know, we all lose our tempers every now and again.”

“You don’t understand, I lost it. I said I’d had enough of her, I told her she was doing my head in. I…I almost told her that she’d ruined my life.”

“But you didn’t, that’s what’s important.”

“So it’s not important that I think that?”

That stumped him. “Ryn—” I liked that since we’d become friends, he’d taken to calling me Ryn too—“it’s not going to be easy, this. It’s hard enough when you plan for a child but when you haven’t, well it’s going to be a hundred times harder. And, it’s a horrible fact, but she has ruined your life. The life you had before has been dismantled, so it’s been demolished, ruined. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad ruined. There are good ruins—look at the Acropolis. They’re good ruins. People pay good money to see them cos they’re good ruins.”

Bless him for trying.

“What did the social worker say?”

I gave him a brief rundown.

“Bitch,” he spat at the end of it.
Ah, I might have given him the Kamryn-spun version
.

“Maybe she didn’t say it quite like that. She didn’t actually say that Tegan only likes me because she’s got no other option and that she’s just grieving for her mother so counseling might help her to see that,” I conceded.

Luke smiled. “I didn’t think she had but she obviously added to you being upset earlier, that’s why I called her a bitch.”

Over the past few weeks, I’d learned more about Luke’s story. After university he moved to Boston to study at Harvard Business School, then he settled in New York to begin working in banking. He’d returned to London, then moved to Scotland for a couple of years. He’d worked in Japan for a year, then he’d decided to go to New York again and began working in management consultancy; and then returned to London working for the same American company, having split up with Nicole. Then he was headhunted by Angeles. From the sound of it, he was always moving, trying new things. Part of me admired that pioneering spirit, part of me wanted to ask what he was running away from. I couldn’t though; we’d only recently ceased hostilities and asking such personal questions wasn’t allowed. Support was allowed, though. And he was offering it to me.

Luke edged across the sofa, placed his hand on my face, stilled my head.

“She was so scared,” I said, shaking my head, trying to dislodge the image of her face. “I did that. I nearly gave her a nervous breakdown.”

“It’s going to be OK,” he reassured, his warm hand punctuation for his words. “You’re a good person.” His voice dropped a fraction. “You’re a great person.”

My eyes traced the contours of his face, taking in the smooth arcs that looped into his big eyes, the sloping lines that created his mouth, the solid shape that formed his nose.
I like him
. The thought hit me like a mallet on the head. I did. I liked him. I’d had sexual thoughts about him but I’d assumed that was because he was the only man in my life. This was more than sexual attraction. I liked him.

Luke traced the outline of my face with his eyes too. I wonder if he saw something different from when we first met. My black hair was longer now but cut into a layered style with a fringe that swept across my face. My eyes hadn’t changed from their chestnut brown, although there were a few more shadows under them; my nose was still the same small, flat, broad shape; my lips still plump. I hadn’t changed much at all, but he didn’t look at me the way he used to. The disgust had gone. Replaced by what would seem to the untrained eye, the eye that wasn’t privy to the history between us, affection.

The silence fizzed with expectation. We were meant to kiss. His head was meant to move closer and his lips were meant to meet mine and my day would be complete…A complete and utter disaster. I was pretty certain he wasn’t attracted to me. He liked me as a friend, he might even bed me, but he wasn’t attracted to me like I was to him. And he still loved Nicole. No matter what was happening now, he still loved his ex.

“I’d better get on with the washing up,” I said, jerking my head away and standing. He didn’t move as I went to the kitchen area. “Have you eaten?” I asked over my shoulder, without looking back.

“Erm, no,” he replied. I heard him get up.

“There’s pasta left, if you want some.” I retrieved a dinner plate from a cupboard, heaped on the penne pasta in a homemade tomato sauce. Luke took his dinner from me then went to the table. He moved to pick up his fork, realized he didn’t have one and turned just as I held one out to him. We exchanged intimate smiles, the type that couples gave each other, and I felt that kick again: more than lust, less than love; a reckless cocktail of emotions that would end in fantastic sex—and trouble.

Two minutes later, I rolled on rubber gloves and turned on the hot water. Luke appeared beside me holding his plate, nothing but streaks of pasta sauce on it.

“Did you inhale it or something?” I asked, taking the plate and submerging it in the bubbly water.

“I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I started eating—and although your pasta deserves to be savored, I couldn’t help myself. I never can, every time I have it I can’t get enough, quickly enough and have to wolf it down.”

What?
I gave him a suspicious sideways look. “Is that your way of saying I’m a good cook?”

Luke turned fully to me, his face innocent and sweet, especially now that it was beard-free. “Not a good cook, a great cook.”

He’s flirting with me
, I thought with a mental smirk. That in itself was comical. The fact that he was so bad at it made it hysterical.

“Wash or dry?” he asked when I didn’t respond to his ridiculous statement. His large but nimble fingers undid the pearly buttons on the sleeves of his blue shirt and he rolled up his sleeves.

“Neither. You must be knackered, why don’t you head off?” It was best he left now and spared us both the embarrassment of my feelings and his flirting.

“Won’t hear of it. I ate so I help to wash up.”

“OK, dry.” I handed him a tea towel and began cleaning off the first dish with a sponge, rinsed it, then handed it to Luke, who dried it. We worked in a companionable silence for all of thirty seconds before he broke it with, “You’re such a good mother, I don’t know how anyone could ever doubt you.”

I gave him another sideways glance and found he was vigorously drying off a plate. He was nervous. Mr. Arrogance himself was nervous about flirting with me.

“Tegan is such a lovely child and that’s mostly thanks to you. You’re a great influence, you care so much for her and you encourage her. It’s—”

“All right,” I said, dropping the plate I was cleaning into the sink, “stop now. You make me sound like Mary Poppins, Maria from
The Sound of Music
and Supermum all rolled into one. I’m not. I’m Kamryn. Who keeps screwing up.”

“You’re so hard on yourself,” he commented with a shake of his head. “I noticed that quite early on, you’re very critical of yourself when you’ve no need to be. You’re a fantastic person and mother.”

“Luke…” I threatened.

“It’s true,” he protested. He stared straight at me, not a hint of a smile.

“If you say so,” I conceded, picking up the plate and soaping it again. I rinsed it off and handed it to him. Seconds later, he launched into, “You don’t give yourself enough credit for how good a parent you are. And how much of a difference you’ve made in Tegan’s life. And the difference you’ve made in my life. I’ve changed so much and that’s because of—”

“Are you flirting with me, Mr. Wiseman?” I injected with a deadpan face. “Because if you cram anymore compliments into that soliloquy, I might think you are.”

He slid a plate onto the worktop. “Are you winding me up, Ms. Matika?”

“You’re an easy target when you keep chucking such over-the-top compliments at me,” I said. Before I could wonder what he or I would do next, I felt Luke’s strong hands on my waist, spinning me toward him, and suddenly his lips were on mine in a swift, breathtaking kiss. Taken aback, it took me a couple of seconds to respond, to kiss him back, to raise my arms and link them around his neck. While his lips parted mine and his tongue pushed into my mouth, Luke’s muscular body pressed mine against the sink, and his hand moved up my top, slowly caressing my lower back, as his knee slipped between my legs. The rubber gloves stuck to his skin and soapy water dribbled down my forearms but neither of us cared as we kissed.