‘So you’re always saying,’ said Bella, who had never had any trouble communicating from a sofa with a phone in her hand.
Josh grinned. ‘I know your idea of the great outdoors doesn’t extend beyond a veranda, but other people get a lot out of being pushed to do things they’ve never done before.’
‘That’ll be schmoozing a room for you,’ said Bella tartly. ‘What else is on offer?’
‘I’m not sure. Aisling’s keen to go scuba-diving, and there’ll probably be sailing as well, so I might not be too bored.’
She sighed. It all sounded a bit too hearty for her. ‘What’s wrong with lying on warm white sand?’ she asked. ‘You can network just as effectively at a beach bar, you know.’
‘We don’t all have your ability to forge intimate bonds over a pina colada,’ said Josh.
‘It’s a lot more useful than being able to dive. How much networking can you do underwater? It’s just a lot of pointing and blowing bubbles.’
‘You being such an expert on diving!’
‘I’ve seen it on telly,’ said Bella a little sulkily.
Josh laughed. ‘You just don’t like the idea of getting your hair wet. Luckily, Aisling isn’t quite such a princess in these matters!’
Of course not. Aisling would tie her hair up sensibly, wear practical clothes and leave her high heels behind.
Good luck to her, thought Bella sourly. If she wanted to spend a week underwater in a rubber suit with a tank on her back when she could have a soft tropical beach and a warm lagoon and a long, cool drink brought to her lounger on a tray, that was her problem!
‘By the way,’ said Josh, swinging Bella round in what was for him a nifty bit of footwork, ‘did you get a chance to talk to Phoebe?’
He had tightened his arm around her so that she didn’t lose her balance as she swung, and it was enough to make every nerve in Bella’s body jump to attention. Her heart did an odd sort of flip-flop and then settled with a thud that left her momentarily breathless.
‘Talk to Phoebe?’ she echoed, struggling to sound normal.
‘About Aisling moving in to the house.’
‘Oh, yes. Yes, I did.’ Bella took a steadying breath.
She wished the music would stop and that Josh would let her go. It might be easier to concentrate then.
‘What did she say?’
For a treacherous moment Bella wondered if she could throw the blame onto Phoebe, but she knew that wouldn’t be fair. ‘She left it up to me,’ she told Josh the truth instead. ‘But to be honest I think I’d like to keep the house to myself for a while.’
There, that sounded reasonable enough, didn’t it? More tactful anyway than ‘I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than share a house with Aisling,’ which was the alternative.
‘Fair enough,’ said Josh. ‘Aisling will be disappointed, though. She thought you would get on really well together.’
‘Did she?’
‘Yes, she likes you a lot.’
Bella didn’t believe that for a minute. Aisling might smile sweetly, but her green eyes had always held a distinctly cool look. Bella had a fair idea it was a pretty accurate reflection of her own expression when the two of them met.
‘Really?’ she said in what she hoped was a suitably neutral tone.
‘Oh, yes.’ Josh nodded. ‘She’s told me so several times.’
Oh, well, if he was going to believe everything Aisling said…!
How naı¨ve could you get? Bella wondered. She would have expected Josh to be more perceptive. He must be really besotted with Aisling if he believed every word she said. The thought was profoundly depressing somehow.
To Bella’s intense relief, the music ended just then, and Josh let her go. ‘I hope she’ll find somewhere else soon,’ she said, feeling more in control of herself and thinking she had better make the effort to be pleasant. ‘I’m sure there are more convenient places than Tooting, in any case.’
‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Josh didn’t seem unduly perturbed. ‘She can move in with me in the meantime anyway. You couldn’t get more convenient than that!’
‘What?’ Bella stopped dead in dismay.
‘Well, she’s got to live somewhere,’ he pointed out reasonably. ‘She has to move out of her current flat at the end of next week, and she won’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘But you never wanted anyone living with you before!’ Josh was famously solitary.
He shrugged. ‘Aisling’s different. She’s a very special lady. We get on really well, and we’ve got a lot in common.’
Bella felt sick. Now look what she had done! ‘You don’t think it’ll be a bit much, living and working together?’
‘We won’t know until we try, will we? It hasn’t been a problem keeping our professional and private relationships separate so far. I think it’ll work out fine.’
So that was that.
Bella couldn’t believe how disastrously her refusal to share the house with Aisling had backfired. She had never dreamt that Josh was serious enough to ask Aisling to move in with him! He had always guarded his privacy so carefully. Previous girlfriends might spend the weekend with him, but he had never asked them if they wanted to leave so much as a toothbrush.
And now here he was, sharing his flat and his life with Aisling, of all people!
Bella didn’t like it. Before, she had always known when she could find Josh on his own, but now he was with Aisling all the time. As the weeks after Kate’s wedding passed, she saw him less and less often. When she did, she looked for signs that he was feeling crowded, or to hear that Aisling was moving into her own place, but she had to admit that they both seemed perfectly happy.
And she had no one to blame but herself. Bella could see that quite clearly. She had pushed them into living together, and now she was just going to have to accept the situation.
She didn’t have to like it, though. And she missed Josh. She missed him terribly. Just his friendship, of course, she reassured herself, but still, it was a big gap in her life.
For a while she pinned her hopes on Will. She convinced herself that everything would be different when he came back from Hong Kong. Absence would work its usual miracle and the moment she saw him again she would realise just how much he meant to her.
Only it wasn’t like that. She was pleased to see him, and they got on well, but something had changed. Will could see it as clearly as she did.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said miserably. ‘It’s not you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
‘Hey, don’t worry about it,’ said Will, who was turning out to be a real sweetie. Bella had never appreciated him properly before. ‘We can still be friends.’
In some ways, Will took over Josh’s role, although he could never know her as well as Josh did. Bella knew it wouldn’t be long before he found someone else—he was too good-looking to stay single for long—but in the meantime they got on much better than when they had been a couple.
Her life was much quieter than it had been before…before what? All Bella knew was that she didn’t feel like going to parties any more for some reason, and that now she preferred meeting friends for a quiet drink or going to see a film.
The theatre had never held any interest for her before either, but when Will said that he had