Christie gave a half-smile. ‘My sister is such a meddler. I might have known she’d phone you right away. She’s done something like this to me once before.’
‘Is that a no, then?’ He looked so deflated, but she couldn’t stop herself smiling.
‘No. It certainly is not.’ This, after all, was what she’d been waiting for, been longing for, even if she had needed Mel’s interference to achieve it. ‘I’d love to.’ She picked up Olly’s hat and scarf from the end of the banister and passed them over. Christmas was definitely taking a turn for the better.
‘Then why don’t I bring Olly over tomorrow and we can all go to the pub?’
‘I’ve got an even better idea. Mel’s going to be here then, and since she’s all but set us up, I’m sure she won’t mind staying in with the kids for a couple of hours.’
Memories of their last kiss vanished as he lifted one hand to her face, the back of his fingers brushing her cheek before he cupped the side of her head. He leaned forward and kissed her. His lips were soft and warm against hers. This time she abandoned herself to her feelings, knowing that this was what he wanted too. He held her close before they broke away from one another.
‘I’ve been longing to do that,’ he murmured. ‘That first time I wasn’t sure you were ready or that you even wanted me to kiss you back.’
‘Oh, I did,’ she whispered back. ‘And I definitely do now.’
*
Nick often came to her in her sleep. In the early days she had woken up shocked that the empty side of the bed next to her was not warm from his body. She often dreamed of him walking up the drive to the new house.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ she’d ask.
‘I always know where you are. I’ll never leave you,’ was his reply.
In the last few months he’d been appearing to her less frequently, and when he did, he was hard to reach. Something was holding him back, taking him from her. She could see him talking to her but she could no longer hear his words.
The night she kissed Richard, she did not dream of Nick.
The arrivals hall of Terminal 2 was busy with February half-term travellers. Those newly arrived passengers who weren’t keeping an eye on their children stood focused on the conveyor-belt as the cases thudded down the ramp, one after another – but almost never theirs. Libby’s was one of the last off. Grabbing it, she hoisted it onto their trolley, almost knocking Fred over as he climbed aboard.
‘Hurry! We’ve got to catch them up,’ he yelled, bouncing up and down, watching Olly being pushed towards the exit by Richard.
‘Get off!’ insisted Libby, giving him a shove. ‘I can’t get this one on if you’re sitting there.’
‘Leave it out, kids.’ Christie put out a hand to steady their bags. ‘We’ve managed a week without a row. Do you have to start the minute we’re back in England?’
Libby actually apologised and put her hand beside her mother’s, helping to steady the trolley, which seemed to have grown wheels with a mind of their own. They yanked it towards the exit. As the boys argued about whether they were riding horses or motorbikes, Libby glared at them with contempt. Richard and Christie exchanged a private smile, sharing their amusement over the squabble. They pushed out into the terminal building, looking for the directions to the car-park bus. Suddenly, as they skirted the edge of a WHSmith, Fred let out a bellow and pointed. ‘Hey! Look, Mum. Isn’t that you?’
Christie turned towards the direction in which he was pointing. She stopped, letting her trolley skid into the back of Richard’s legs. A stack of OK! magazines was staring face out towards them with the words ‘LYNCH IN A CLINCH’ so bold and such a bilious yellow they couldn’t be missed. Above them was a photo of Richard and her smooching on the snowy chalet balcony. She remembered exactly the moment on their first night away when they’d stepped outside to escape the kids, but someone must have been waiting with a long-distance lens. Worse still, overlapping the picture was another of Sam looking unusually dishevelled, his body half hidden by the question ‘BROKEN-HEARTED?’ The implication was obvious.
‘Oh, my God.’ She felt as if all the breath had left her body.
Fred and Olly had made a beeline for a rack of sweets and were already arguing over the choice of two jumbo Haribo packs. Libby, cheeks burning, was looking anywhere but at her mother.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Richard was rubbing his calf. His gaze followed Christie’s. ‘My God! What’s that about?’
‘Would you mind buying a copy?’ she asked him.
‘Er … yeah … if you really want to read it.’ He sounded uncertain.
‘I do.’
He went over to the stand, picked up a copy, then paid for it and the boys’ sweets.
Christie pulled her woolly hat a little further down in a fruitless attempt to disguise herself from the other customers in the shop – she was sure they must have read every word and were staring at her.
Richard gave the boys their sweets, tucked the magazine into his shoulder-bag and put his arm round Christie. ‘Come on, gorgeous. Let’s get you to the car.’ He whistled up a barely responsive Libby and the five made their way to the bus stop.
On the bus, Christie sat next to Libby and took her hand. ‘Darling, I’m so sorry to be such an embarrassing mum. It’s terrible for me too.’
Libby snatched her hand away and turned up her iPod Shuffle.
While they were driving home, Christie read the magazine piece, which said little but implied that she and Sam had been seen having cosy dinners together. Apparently he had hopes for more than a professional relationship with her. Richard was portrayed as a handsome single father whom she’d homed in on at the school gates. There were ‘quotes’ from a so-called ‘mum at the school’, who claimed that no dad was safe from the attractive, well-paid widow and TV broadcaster who was beginning to believe she was better than Gilly Lancaster. She was even accused of attempting to push Gilly out of Good Evening Britain altogether. The piece was full of lies, peppered with the odd grain of truth to make it convincing.
Richard kept quiet, merely asking if she was all right.
Later that night after supper, Christie and Richard sat together on the sofa with the boys sprawled on the floor, gripped by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Richard dozed, making little sputtering noises whenever he exhaled, while Christie lay back, her eyes half shut, reliving the past weeks.
How thrilled she had been when Richard had suggested they all went skiing at half-term, but she had vetoed the idea immediately. The job came first and she knew it was out of the question to ask Julia to wangle any time off for her. She could imagine the response. ‘More time off? You’ve just had Christmas. Out of the question.’ But then the news came through that Gilly was desperate to get back on air. Two months at home with the triplets was driving her crazy, so she had begged Jack to let her return, just for a week. Her doting parents were thrilled to be grandparents at last and allowed to look after the babies.
In the end, it was Julia who asked Christie to take the week off. She’d be doing them all a huge favour if she agreed to step aside, even though they were all aware this would be a breach of her contract. ‘And I know how keen you are on money,’ Julia had added, quite unnecessarily. ‘So I’d better tell you now that you won’t be paid. They can’t afford two salaries. I don’t want you to think that I’ve taken it out of your pay packet.’
Christie assumed this was a poor attempt at a joke after she had pursued