Well, he wasn’t going to capture her this time.
Over Toby’s head, she met Mac’s amused navy-blue gaze, her own eyes bright with unspoken challenge, and the space between them was suddenly charged with an electric tension that sparked and sizzled alarmingly.
It was interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. ‘That’ll be Geoffrey.’ Georgia leapt to her feet in relief. ‘Toby, can you just finish putting away the last of the toys?’ she asked, without much hope that he would oblige.
Toby heaved a sigh. ‘Geoffrey’s Georgia’s boyfriend,’ she heard him mutter glumly to Mac as she headed for the door. ‘He’s boring.’
Georgia suppressed an equally heavy sigh. She wished Toby would accept Geoffrey. He might not be fun or have a ridiculously expensive camera for Toby to fiddle with, but he was a nice man and very kind, quite apart from being the only friend they had at the moment.
She wished he wasn’t standing on the other side of the door, though.
It was bad enough with Mac here, making her feel edgy and hassled, without having to deal with the two of them together. Dinner was shaping up to be its usual disaster, too. What Georgia really wanted was for both of them to disappear so that she could put Toby to bed and collapse on to the sofa with a stiff gin.
Still, it was too late for that now. Pinning a suitably bright smile to her face, she opened the front door.
CHAPTER THREE
PUNCTUAL to the minute, Geoffrey was standing there with—surprise, surprise—a bunch of flowers.
‘They’re lovely, thank you, Geoffrey,’ said Georgia, dutifully accepting the proffered tulips and a kiss on the cheek. ‘Come in.’
He followed her into the living room where, much to her surprise, Mac and Toby were on their knees, putting the last of the toys into the box.
‘Oh…thank you,’ she said, rather thrown by this evidence of helpfulness on Mac’s part. She was fairly sure Toby wouldn’t have done it on his own, but then Mac had never been able to comprehend the need to see the carpet before you walked on it, either.
‘I knew you wouldn’t relax until it was done,’ said Mac virtuously. Getting to his feet in a leisurely way, he offered his hand to Geoffrey, who had stopped dead at the sight of him. ‘Hello, there,’ he said.
Too late, Georgia realised that she should have thought how she was going to handle the introductions. ‘Um…you remember Mac, don’t you, Geoffrey?’
‘Mac…?’ Geoffrey looked at her in dawning dismay.
‘Mac Henderson,’ Mac reminded him helpfully, and quite unnecessarily. ‘Georgia’s husband.’
‘Ex-husband,’ snapped Georgia.
‘Husband?’ said Toby.
‘We met once at dinner at Georgia’s parents’ house,’ Mac went on, obviously enjoying Geoffrey’s consternation.
‘I remember,’ said Geoffrey stiffly, taking Mac’s hand and shaking it with obvious reluctance.
‘Husband?’ Toby asked again, looking from Georgia to Mac. ‘Does that mean you’re married?’
‘No,’ said Georgia, just as Mac said ‘Yes,’ and Geoffrey looked disapproving.
Georgia sucked in her breath crossly, furious with Mac for mentioning the subject in the first place, but reluctant to start an argument in front of Toby.
‘It’s a long story,’ she told him after a moment. ‘I’ll explain it to you later, but for now I think it’s time for bed.’
Toby’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘But it’s not time yet!’ he said with a scowl.
‘It is time,’ Georgia insisted. The prickly atmosphere was making her edgy, and gave her voice a sharper edge than normal.
‘Oh, but Georgia…’ Toby moaned. ‘Mac hasn’t finished showing me his camera.’
‘I can do that upstairs.’ Mac stepped in, seeing that Georgia was looking frazzled. ‘Why don’t you show me your room, and we can take a picture up there? I expect Georgia would like to talk to Geoffrey on her own, anyway.’
Georgia would, but she didn’t like Mac calmly arranging her life for her. On the other hand, getting Toby upstairs was half the battle most of the time, and she didn’t want to embark on a big confrontation in front of Geoffrey, who thought Toby was too undisciplined at the best of times.
‘That’s a good idea,’ she said, managing a tight smile. ‘Why don’t you go up with Mac, and I’ll come up and say goodnight in a bit?’
‘What’s he doing here?’ Geoffrey demanded the moment they had gone.
‘He says he wants to talk about the divorce,’ said Georgia, conscious of a twinge of irritation.
She didn’t have to explain to Geoffrey. She’d made it very clear that for now they were simply friends, and that she wasn’t prepared to take their relationship any further until she had divorced Mac. She had every intention of doing that, but until then Geoffrey had no right to disapprove of anyone she chose to invite to her home.
‘He turned up out of the blue this afternoon, and I thought it would be better to talk about things over supper. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be civilized about this.’
‘You might have warned me!’ said Geoffrey, still huffy.
‘I tried, but Ruth said that you were busy.’
‘I was with a client, hence I couldn’t come to the phone.’
Irritation flickered again at Geoffrey’s fondness for the word ‘hence’. He used it a lot and it always grated on Georgia, although she wasn’t usually as exasperated by it as she was today.
That was Mac’s fault, she thought darkly. Geoffrey had hardly irritated her at all until he turned up. He had just been kind and helpful and friendly—as he still was, Georgia reminded herself guiltily. She could put up with ‘hence’ if it meant having a steady, reliable friend like Geoffrey by her side.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said penitently. ‘I wish I had been able to warn you that Mac would be here tonight. It was a bit of a shock to me too when he turned up, but perhaps it’s not a bad thing. Now that he’s here we can talk properly, face to face, and sort things out. With any luck Mac will sign the papers while he’s here, and then I’ll be able to move on. I did explain that I didn’t want to start a proper relationship with you until I’d done that.’
‘Yes, you did,’ Geoffrey agreed. ‘And you know I think you’re worth waiting for. I’ve waited a long time, and I don’t mind waiting a bit longer.’ He smiled. ‘But you can’t blame me for getting impatient sometimes!’
Georgia kissed him impulsively on the cheek. ‘Thanks for understanding, Geoffrey.’
How different he was to Mac, who would never have stood patiently by and given her the space she needed to sort out another relationship! With Mac it was always all or nothing.
Which only went to show that Geoffrey was a much better man for her.
Geoffrey followed her into the kitchen as she checked the meal. She had never been a very enthusiastic cook—OK, she was a terrible cook—but Geoffrey liked home cooking, so she was trying to make more of an effort.
After all, he was making so much more of an effort for her. He was holding back when he could have been pushing, giving her time when he could have been issuing ultimatums, offering support when she needed it most. Trying to follow