Читать книгу 200 Harley Street - Lynne Marshall - Страница 25

IT WAS A bad day at the office.

Leo and Ethan were bunkered down in Leo’s office for most of the day but the tension from behind the door seemed to seep out and attach itself to everyone.

Rafael looked almost grey as he dashed back between theatre cases to check on a child who had a post-operative fever. Lizzie was trying to calm the mother down more than the baby when a grim-faced Rafael pulled her aside.

‘I asked you to tell her to take the baby over to the Lighthouse for me to examine him.’

‘I know that,’ Lizzie said, ‘but she thought I said we would see him here and then, if needed, transfer him to hospital. It was a simple miscommunication.’

Lizzie could see he was holding onto his temper—a simple miscommunication, with Rafael’s heavy operating list, was something he simply did not need. On top of that he had a wife in America and a very sick baby of his own to worry about.

‘Will you give him his first dose of antibiotic and arrange for him to be admitted?’ Rafael asked.

‘Of course,’ Lizzie said. ‘Rafael …’ She wanted to ask how things were but Leo had said not to and she saw too the warning in Rafael’s eyes for Lizzie not to go there so she changed what she was about to say. ‘I am sorry for the mix-up.’

His anger dimmed then and he gave a small nod of thanks for her about turn and gave a wry smile and Lizzie saw a glimpse of the real Rafael—gorgeous, passionate, and terribly Italian. He apologised for his non-outburst with his smile and his eyes. ‘That’s not a problem—it was a simple miscommunication.’

It was more of the same all day. Ethan left looking boot-faced and then Leo headed over to Kate’s, where he had surgery scheduled into the evening, but he did stop by her office to say goodbye.

‘I don’t know what happened this morning.’

Lizzie looked up at him.

‘I think …’ He just looked at her and she looked back at him—a man who didn’t hang around waiting for the rows to start, a man who saved work for work, not relationships.

‘Maybe it’s better not to think sometimes,’ Lizzie said.

Leo nodded.

He didn’t want to think about that morning’s row, he didn’t want to acknowledge they’d lain in his bed together but apart last night, bristling with rancour—like some miserable married couple who saved sex for birthdays and anniversaries.

It was just one night, he reasoned.

Couples rowed sometimes.

He just didn’t want to be half of that couple that rowed sometimes.

‘That function I have to attend on Saturday,’ Leo said. ‘Lexi’s pushing for a response …’

‘I told you.’ Lizzie looked up at him. ‘I’m seeing my parents this weekend.’

Leo just looked at her. ‘These things are bad enough at the best of times,’ he attempted, ‘without having to go alone.’ He was trying to keep his voice even, what the hell was the point of having a plus one if she couldn’t even attend? What the hell was the point in committing to a relationship if she was never around?

And Lizzie looked at him. Why should she drop her visit to her parents for a man who was going to drop her any time soon?

It was unsustainable.

The both knew it.

‘Come over tonight,’ Leo said, but she shook her head. ‘Come over,’ Leo repeated. ‘You know that we need to talk.’

‘Talk, then.’

‘We can’t here.’

She blew out a breath and nodded. They had to work together after all so they had to end it, and neatly.

Nicely.

Lizzie did consider just heading home, maybe they should write today off as a bad one, yet she knew it was more than that.

Cracks were appearing and Leo wasn’t one for papering over them, whereas she had the sudden image of her rushing around with a trowel in a frantic attempt to repair them before everything was broken.

It had to be over, Lizzie knew that.

How, though?

How did you end something so wonderful just because you knew it couldn’t last?

Wait till it’s horrible, wait till the rows start?

They were almost there.

Lizzie took the lift up to his flat and as she stepped out she blinked as she saw a huge bunch of roses and chocolates there and was reminded just how very nice Leo could be—that in the middle of a very long day he had taken the time to think of her.

Of them.

Lizzie wasn’t really one for red roses but she read the card.

‘Seeing as you can’t make it for Valentine’s I thought we could have our own tonight. Lx’

They couldn’t make it.

Both of them knew.

Oh, God.

They were over, and both knew it.

Tonight was their goodbye, their Valentine’s. Before they took to fighting, before things turned bitter, they would end it nicely.

She wasn’t overthinking things—in the little time they’d been together they had come to know each other well.

Too well perhaps, Leo thought as he finished operating and headed to the changing rooms.

Rafael was there, getting changed to head over to the Lighthouse, he told Leo.

‘How are Abbie and Ella?’ Leo asked, but Rafael was in no mood to talk. He just gave some vague answer and then said he was in a rush.

Leo wished Rafael would speak with him but really he couldn’t blame him for not doing so. After all, the last thing Leo wanted to do was discuss his feelings for Lizzie with anyone.

Maybe Ethan?

Yeah, that would go down well.

He and Lizzie were too close for comfort, Leo thought as he drove home.

The traffic was bad, he’d have been quicker walking or at least taking the Tube, but he was actually glad of the pause before he got home to Lizzie.

Home to Lizzie.

He was growing far too used to that and Leo wasn’t used to relying on anyone.

How, in just a few weeks, had she come to be such a part of his life? Leo didn’t like it, loathed the thought that he might ever need another person.

As he pulled up his phone rang and, seeing it was Lexi, Leo took the call.

‘I need a response for Saturday,’ Lexi said. ‘I’ve been putting it off.’

So had Leo.

‘Yes, I’ll be attending.’

‘Who’s your guest?’ Lexi asked. ‘They need it for the table plan.’

He sat and stared out of the window. The wipers were still going and he watched the light bouncing off the black roads and he paused for a long moment before answering.

‘I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know in the morning.’

Lexi didn’t turn a hair. It was a regular response from Leo. He always left things like this till the last minute—his low attention span with women ensured that names could not be given weeks in advance.

He’d asked Lizzie, but she’d said no.

You could always go alone, a voice that sounded like his own told him.

‘Why?’ Leo said to the silence. ‘Why should I?’

Because that’s what relationships are about, that small voice told him.

Compromise.

It wasn’t something he did well.

As the door opened Lizzie’s back was towards him. He saw her putting roses in the vase, he could see her slender arms and the curve of her bottom in the fitted skirt, and he just wanted to go over, turn her around and just bury himself in her, yet he held back.

‘They’re for you.’

‘I know,’ Lizzie said, ‘but for all the time I’m at home …’ She halted, saw the brief look in his eyes and simply didn’t want go there just yet. Neither did Leo. ‘Let’s just enjoy them tonight.’

She walked towards him, smiling, and he pulled her into his arms, inhaled the fragrance of her hair, held the woman he had come home to and hated it that he wasn’t capable of making their relationship last but he just did not believe in forever.

He was hurting her. Every day that they were together would simply make the parting harder, and so instead of diving into a kiss he headed over to the dresser and, rarely for Leo, poured a drink. ‘Do you want one?’ he offered.

‘Not if I’m driving.’

He hesitated but poured two.

‘It’s not working, is it?’ Lizzie was the one who broached the subject. ‘It hasn’t been since you visited the nursing home.’

‘It’s not that.’

Lizzie didn’t believe him. ‘Leo, what my mum said about a husband and babies was a ten-year-old Lizzie she was remembering.’

‘So you don’t want that?’ Leo glanced over.

‘I do.’ Lizzie was honest enough to admit it. ‘But I know that’s not for you—I know what she said freaked you out.’

He held his breath. It had freaked him out but not in the way Lizzie was thinking—it was more that she deserved someone who could give her all that she wanted when he honestly didn’t think he could. ‘Why would it freak me out?’ he asked. ‘I already told you it’s not for me.’

They stood there and the usual response would have been, So where are we going, then? Except Lizzie had always known the answer.

Nowhere.

‘I don’t want to fight,’ Leo said. He loathed arguments more than anything, loathed the sound of raised voices as people hurtled out of control.

Leo was always in control—always a step ahead, always making sure that it never came to that.

It had possibly saved Ethan’s life.

It had certainly messed up his own.

He looked at Lizzie, so loving and warm, so where he wanted to be, yet the gap between them was a chasm he could not breach.

‘We’re not fighting, Leo, we’re talking.’

Ah, but about their relationship, he thought.

‘Can you come on Saturday?’ he asked. ‘I have to give Lexi the name of the person accompanying me by the morning.’

She could do it, Lizzie knew that. She could head down to Brighton on Friday instead of Saturday, hit the worst of the traffic, and then race back Saturday afternoon, but they had birthday cake after dinner at the nursing home. Her father would be devastated if she wasn’t there—and for what?

Another night in Leo’s bed, then perhaps another.

For a glimpse of a future, she’d do it, but he denied them both that.

‘Leo …’

As she went to answer he walked over to her. He didn’t want to hear that, no, she couldn’t come, neither did he want the question about where they were heading, because it was a path he’d always refused to take.

So he kissed her.

A kiss that offered more escape than the brandy he’d barely touched.

‘Leo …’ She pulled back a bit and then gave in, because she wanted him so much, wanted that mouth that was on hers, that was kissing her top lip, over and over. Lizzie wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her.

They were frenzied as they set themselves free from an impossible conversation. He pushed her down so they were half leaning on the sofa, half kneeling on the floor, so their mouths barely need to part to undress each other. Frantic, deep kisses, till Lizzie was down to her bra and shoes and Leo was kissing her chest and up to her neck. He should rise, should get out of his trousers, but the taste of her skin and her hands pressing into his back were the only things Leo could think of.

His lips trailed a path from her neck to a mouth that was waiting and then he moved back down, over and over, tasting her skin till her neck was arching. Just inhaling her and crushing her as she pulled at his zipper and freed him, and continuing to kiss her. Concentrating on the same areas over and over—the neck he would never again kiss, the breasts that would tease and the mouth that would, from tomorrow, forever taunt him.

He didn’t do for ever, Leo reminded himself, except he wasn’t listening to himself now.

Lizzie wrapped a leg around him and sobbed as Leo stabbed into her. She rose to him, tightened her leg around him, and she almost just wanted this done, because his mouth was driving her crazy. Dizzy and crazy, because how could he kiss her with such passion when soon he would want her gone?

Lizzie curved into him, pressed herself to him, but then he slowed things down, thrusting slowly and deeply inside her, his mouth to her ear as her body urged him on.

‘Please …’ Lizzie said.

She wanted this done.

She lied.

‘Please …’ she begged to a groin that thrust slowly, to a mouth that was roaming her ear. She was coming and Leo refused to and she hated his control. Hated it that he could now look down and watch her come as he still moved deep inside her. Hated how his blue eyes could reproach her as they made love, as if it was she who was messing with his head, rather than the other way around.

Then she saw him, felt him briefly still, and watched the moment when Leo gave in—the grimace and the pleasure and the bliss of escape as he moved now and filled her with the most intimate part of him.

She didn’t want it to end.

It just had.

‘Lizzie …’ He looked down at her. He didn’t even know what it was he was going to say, he had never wanted to hurt her and whatever way it went now, surely he would.

He kissed her eyes and her cheeks and then met her gaze, and he could see the tears in her eyes that he’d put there.

She wriggled from under him, but he didn’t let her go.

The trowel had been passed to him now—it was Leo frantically plastering over the cracks. ‘I was thinking, if you went and saw your parents early and then came back …’

‘Leo, it’s Mum’s birthday on Saturday.’

Leo’s jaw gritted.

‘They do a cake at dinnertime,’ Lizzie explained.

‘Can’t they do it at lunch?’

He let her go then, sat on the sofa as she moved for her clothes, it was all so easy for him.

He tried, though. ‘I’m not saying don’t go, just that you were there yesterday, you could be there for her birthday—you don’t have to drop everything …’

‘But I do,’ Lizzie said, and stood to pull on her skirt. ‘And I will continue to do so. Leo, you seem to think yesterday was an anomaly, a brief inconvenience, but the last few weeks have actually been very quiet for me. Often I’m there every weekend with one drama or another …’

‘You make it harder on yourself.’

‘I never said it was hard.’

‘Actually, you did.’ Leo could be a bastard sometimes. ‘Several times.’

‘Oh, I’m to drop everything because you’ve got a dinner on Saturday with the directors of Kate’s?’

‘You drop everything for them.’

‘And I will continue to do so.’ Lizzie was dressed now. ‘For as long as they’re alive I will drop everything if they need me.’

‘That’s your choice.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘If you ask me—’

‘I’m not.’ Lizzie just stood there. ‘I’m not asking your opinion on family. I’m not asking someone who’s so royally screwed up every relationship he’s ever had to tell me how I should handle mine. Yes, my parents are a huge part of my life, yes, I might have not much to show for it, but I’m content with my choices.’

‘Content.’

‘Too boring for you, Leo?’ Lizzie challenged. ‘I happen to like content, I happen to like sleeping and waking and living guilt-free. I’ve always known what I wanted—whether I’ll get it might be another thing, but I wanted to be a nurse and I wanted a family of my own, and a career, not screwing and partying and trying to outrun hell. It catches up, Leo …’

‘Not if you don’t let it.’ Leo shrugged. ‘I was right the first time.’

‘What?’ Lizzie’s head snapped round as she picked up her bag to go, to walk out. ‘Yes, I’m running into the woods, never to be seen again,’ she snarled. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine at work.’

Only Leo wasn’t referring to a fairy-tale, he was referring to a conversation that had taken place even before he’d met her.

‘Saint Lizzie …’ Leo drawled, his scalpel sharpened, ready to lance this once and for all. ‘You’re a martyr, Lizzie …’ He could be very scathing at times. ‘You really do need to get out more …’

‘Oh, I’m getting out, Leo,’ Lizzie said. ‘Just a little too late.’

She walked away and he wanted to call her back, to catch her and turn her around, but he just stood there.

He heard the door slam.

The lift bell pinged and he should run and stop her, tell her they could sort something out.

But what?

He looked at the roses, taunting him because romance was the only part he could do. The compromise, the rows, he did not.

Ah, but the making up afterwards?

It had never dawned on him that you could.

Leo wrenched open the door, went to run down the stairs, but for what?

Lizzie knew what she wanted from life.

He walked back into the apartment to the scent of her mingled with roses and he unleashed his anger at himself, slamming the vase from the table with his hand. The crash and splinter of the glass barely registered, such was the noise in his head.

Back to being single.

Again.