He frowned. ‘I’ve already told you, I’m separated from Nadine. It won’t be a problem.’
‘What about the woman you had an affair with?’
He stared at her in disbelief. ‘What woman?’
‘Oh, come on. It’s the main reason why marriages break down. Someone has an affair. Usually the man.’
Was she really that cynical?
Had that happened to her?
He couldn’t remember Pete or Ally ever talking about going to Emmy’s wedding, but at the end of the day a marriage certificate was just a piece of paper. Maybe Emmy had been living with someone who’d let her down in that way. ‘Not that it’s any of your business why my marriage broke up, but for the record neither of us had an affair,’ he said tightly.
Colour stained her cheeks, ‘I apologise.’
Which was something, he supposed. ‘There’s nobody who would be affected by us sharing a house,’ he said quietly.
Or was there another reason why she’d asked? A way to introduce the subject, maybe, because there was someone in her life who’d be upset? ‘If it’s a problem for you, I’m happy to—’
‘There’s nobody,’ she cut in.
Was it his imagination, or did she suddenly look tired and miserable and lonely?
No. He was just reflecting how he felt on her. Tired and miserable, because he’d barely slept since the news of the crash; and lonely, because the one person Dylan could’ve talked to about this—well, he’d been in that crash and he wasn’t here anymore.
‘Though I could do without a string of dates being paraded through the house,’ she added.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m not quite divorced yet. Do you really think I’m dating?’ Despite the fact that he knew his almost-ex wife was, he wasn’t.
She grimaced. ‘Sorry. I take that back. It’s not your fault I have a rubbish taste in men. I shouldn’t tar you with the same brush as them.’
He’d been right, then. Someone had let her down. More than one, he’d guess.
Dylan had never noticed before, probably because he’d been more preoccupied with being annoyed by her, but Emmy Jacobs was actually pretty. Slender, with a fine bone structure highlighted by her gamine haircut. Her hair was defiantly plum: not a natural shade, but it suited her, bringing out the depths in her huge grey eyes.
Though what on earth was he doing, thinking about Emmy in those sorts of terms?
Better put it down to the shock of bereavement. He and Emmy might be about to share a house and the care of a baby, but that was as far as it would go. They’d be lucky to keep things civil between them. And he definitely wasn’t in the market for any kind of relationship. Been there, done that, and failed spectacularly. It had taught him to steer clear, in future. He was better off on his own. It meant there was nobody to disappoint. Nobody to walk away, the way his mother had and Nadine had.
‘I assume you have a set of keys to Pete and Ally’s house?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘You, too?’
‘So I could keep an eye on the place while they’re not there. For emergencies. Which I always thought would be a burst pipe or something like that. Not...’ His throat closed, and he couldn’t get the words out. For the first time in years, he was totally speechless.
To his surprise, Emmy reached across the table to take his hand and squeezed it briefly. With sympathy, not pity. ‘Me, too. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and discover that this is all just some incredibly realistic nightmare and everything’s just fine. Except I’ve woken up too many times already and found out that it’s not.’
Whatever her faults—and Dylan knew there were a lot of them—Emmy’s feelings for Ally and Pete were in no doubt. Surprising himself further, he returned the squeeze. ‘And we’ve still got the funeral to go through.’
She sighed and withdrew her hand. ‘I guess their parents will want to arrange it.’
‘You said yourself, Pete’s dad is elderly and Ally’s mum isn’t well. They’ll need support. I was going to offer to sort it out for them. If they tell me what they want, I can arrange it.’
‘That’s good of you to take the burden off their shoulders.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Count me in on the support front. Anything you need me to do, tell me and I’ll do it.’
She wasn’t being polite, Dylan knew. The tears were shimmering in her eyes again. And he wanted to get out of here as fast as he could, before she actually started crying. ‘Thanks. I guess we’d better exchange phone numbers. Home, work, whatever.’
She nodded, and took her mobile phone from her handbag. It was a matter of seconds to give each other the details. ‘And we’ll meet at the house after work tomorrow to sort out the rota.’
‘OK. I’ll call you when I’m on my way.’
‘Thanks.’ She drained her cup. ‘I’d better get back to Tyler. See you later.’
He watched her walk out of the café. The woman who annoyed him more than anyone he’d ever met. The woman he was going to move in with tomorrow.
Yeah, life was really throwing him a curveball. And he was just going to have to deal with it. Somehow.
* * *
The next morning, Emmy unlocked the door to Pete and Ally’s three-storey Georgian house in Islington, pressed in the code for the alarm, and put her small suitcase down in the hallway.
‘It’s just you and me for now, Ty,’ she said softly to the baby, who was securely strapped into his sling and cradled against her heart. ‘We’re home. Except—’ her breath caught ‘—it’s going to be with me and Dylan looking after you, from now on, instead of your mum and dad.’
It still felt wrong. But over the course of the day she managed to make a list of the rest of the things she needed to bring from her flat, feed Tyler, give him a bath and put him to bed in his cot, and make a basic spaghetti sauce for dinner so that all she’d have to do was heat it through and cook some pasta when Dylan turned up after he’d finished work.
Home.
Would she ever come to think of this place as home? Emmy thought with longing of her own flat in Camden. It was small, but full of light; and it was hers. From next week, a stranger would be living there and enjoying the views over the local park. And she would be living here in a much more spacious house—the sort she would never have been able to afford on her own—with Dylan and Tyler.
Almost like a family.
Just what she’d always wanted.
Well, she didn’t want Dylan, she amended. But Emmy had envied part of her best friend’s life: having a husband who loved her and a gorgeous baby. Something Emmy had wanted, herself. A real family.
‘But I didn’t want to have it this way, Ally,’ she said softly. ‘I wanted someone of my own. Someone who wouldn’t let me down.’ Someone that maybe somebody else should’ve picked for her, given how bad her own choices of life partner had been in the past.
And that family she was fantasising about was just that: a fantasy. The baby wasn’t really hers, and neither was the house. And she was sharing the house with Dylan Harper, as a co-guardian. She couldn’t think of anyone less likely to be the love of her life, just as she knew that she was the exact opposite of the kind of women Dylan liked. Chalk and cheese wasn’t the half of it.
But then again, Tyler might not be her flesh and blood, but he was her responsibility now. Her godson. A baby she’d known for every single day of his little life. A baby she’d cradled in her arms when he was only a few hours old,