Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

Felix raised his eyebrows. ‘When you left that night, he had the nerve to say he was going to ask you to marry him, the little bastard.’

She blinked. ‘Harry said that?’

‘Yeah,’ said Felix unconcerned. ‘Imagine him thinking that you’d prefer him to me. I ask you! I told him where to get off, I said we were already engaged and were having a row, so he could bugger off if he knew what was good for him.’

‘But we weren’t engaged,’ she said evenly. ‘You’d left me, Felix. You had no right to say that to Harry.’

Felix’s response to this was to slide one warm hand up under her top, long fingers burrowing into the lace of her bra. ‘We’ve all got a past, love,’ he said. ‘Harry was your past and I’ve got mine. But that’s what they are: the past. Forget him, you’re with me now.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#ulink_7847a17a-02b0-5834-b63b-6126cc8900ad)

Emma sat at her desk and opened the second drawer. Like everything else in her pristine office it was scrupulously tidy, with a box of spare staples, another of spare paperclips and several pens and post-its neatly arranged on top of a couple of ring notebooks. Emma reached into the back of the drawer and took out a small toiletry bag. Her emergency kit, as she called it, contained tampons, a spare pair of knickers, a pair of barely black tights, an old foundation compact and some make-up in case she ever needed to go anywhere after work and forgot her make-up, and painkillers.

She needed them now. Her period had only just started but already she could feel the agonizing cramps she suffered from every three to four months. She’d barely popped the pills in her mouth when Colin Mulhall appeared at the door with an ‘I’m bored and want to chat’ expression on his face.

Emma took a swig of water and swallowed, mentally cursing the fact that Colin was the one to catch her self-medicating. By lunchtime, it’d be round the office that poor Emma had a headache/period ache/brain haemorrhage/ whatever. Colin liked to exaggerate. When the receptionist was off for three months with glandular fever, Colin had had her diagnosed as dying with cancer, until she came back and quickly scotched the rumours by appearing healthy. Whoever said that women were the worst gossips had obviously never met Colin, Emma thought grimly.

‘Not well?’ Colin enquired silkily, perching on Emma’s spare chair. He was wearing a red spotted bow-tie today. It looked ridiculous.

‘Headache,’ Emma said sharply.

‘I find meditation really helps,’ Colin said. A devotee of anything New Age, he never stopped telling everyone exactly how they could improve their life the way he had. All you needed was time and an open mind, he’d say piously, as though he was open-minded and the rest of the office were cretinous oiks.

‘I find paracetamol helps,’ snapped Emma. ‘Was there something you wanted, Colin?’

‘Yes. Finn isn’t in and Edward came to me about the plans for the conference.’

Emma bridled. Finn was the charity’s press officer. He and Emma often worked closely together planning the yearly conferences. If Finn wasn’t in, the last person Emma expected Edward to approach about it was the odious Colin, who couldn’t type four lines without making eight errors. Imagine asking him about the forthcoming conference on child safety. The words ‘piss-up’ and ‘brewery’ came to mind.

‘Did he?’ was all she said. Her head ached with the desire to tell Colin he was a jumped-up little idiot who wouldn’t do himself any favours trying to leapfrog over her to a senior managerial position in the company. But being a bit sharp with Colin was about as forceful as Emma had ever been, so she held her tongue.

‘He wanted to see what we’d been planning publicity-wise and I took the opportunity of putting my oar in with regards to how long the conference will last,’ Colin said smugly.

Irrationally, Emma found herself taking offence. Working out how long conferences lasted and organizing every detail was her job. Helping Finn as publicity officer was Colin’s job. Not that he did that very well, Emma thought crossly.

‘Isn’t that a bit beyond your remit?’ she said.

‘Well, you see,’ Colin’s beady little eyes looked earnest, ‘I’ve been talking to journalists and they say if we want to really get the message across that we’re a serious agency concerned with children, then we should be having week-long conferences, maybe outside of Dublin, you know. So people can go away for a week and concentrate on them.’ He was getting into his stride now. ‘It’d be a wonderful idea, maybe go to Limerick or Galway and take over a small hotel where we can have guest speakers…’

‘Go away for a week?’ Emma was incredulous. ‘How is KrisisKids supposed to finance that sort of conference? The costs would be ruinous. And I don’t know which journalists you’ve been talking to, but it’s difficult enough to get one full day out of most of them because they’ve so many other events to cover. Only a small percentage will make the second day of the conference this time – and you want them to go away for a week! You’ve no idea, Colin, really you don’t.’

Colin sniffed and got to his feet, tossing his head back in pique. ‘Edward thought it was a wonderful idea,’ he said. ‘He said he’d talk to you about it, but I thought I’d mention it first so you wouldn’t be surprised. I wish I hadn’t bothered. I remember when you were a nice person, Emma. I don’t know why you’ve changed, but you have – and not for the better, either! You’ve turned into a jealous bitch.’ With that, he swept out of Emma’s office.

Emma stared at the door open-mouthed. Had she been awful to Colin? Had she been professionally sharp or merely unprofessionally bitchy because she felt threatened? Was Colin right – had she changed so much? It was hard not to when life was so difficult, she reasoned. Everyone and their granny had what they wanted and she didn’t. One baby, just one small baby, that’s all. Was that so much to ask for? How could anyone expect her to be serene and happy when this crippling need for a child was taking over her whole damn life! Crack. Emma looked down and saw that she’d broken one of the pale green KrisisKids pencils. Snapped it right in two.

Horrified, she realized she’d just gone off on to another baby rant in her head. Thinking about her baby was taking over her entire life. Work, home, play, sex: you name it, longing for a baby drowned every other emotion and overwhelmed all other parts of her life. Now it was affecting her at work to the point where she had lost her temper with a junior member of staff who was doing nothing more than trying to come up with new ideas. Colin was a terrible gossip, for sure, but he wasn’t a bad person. Perhaps he did have a problem with Emma being his superior, but it was up to her to make sure that her subordinates worked with her and not against her. If Colin didn’t like having a woman boss, or if he was genuinely trying to make her look foolish, Emma should have dealt with it in a professional way and not by snapping his head off. It had to stop, she decided.

Edward was on the phone when she knocked on his door but he motioned her to come in anyway.

When he had finished the call, he smiled at her a tad nervously and said he was glad she’d come in because there was something he wanted to discuss.

‘Colin Mulhall came up with quite a good suggestion earlier and I wanted to talk it over with you,’ he said hesitantly. He was never usually hesitant. Edward was the most direct and uncompromising person she’d ever met. But she instinctively knew he was wary of telling her this because he was afraid she’d go ballistic. How awful that she’d changed so much and nobody had told her.

‘I know you see the conference as solely your baby,’ Edward said.

She winced at his choice of words.

‘And for that reason, I don’t want you to get upset at this, but we must consider all ideas, you understand?’

Emma put him out of his misery. ‘Edward, I know what you’re going to say because Colin told me a few minutes ago – and I’m ashamed to say I was angry with him. I blew his suggestion out of the water because I was jealous and felt threatened, and I’m on my way to apologize to him. I just wanted to drop in to ask if you think I haven’t been doing my job properly lately, or if I’ve been difficult to work with…’ It was a tough question to ask but Emma’s high standards demanded it.

Edward’s momentary hesitation told her everything.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said before he could speak. ‘There really is no excuse, Edward. I’m going to see Colin now, then I’m going home. When I come in tomorrow, I’ll be my old self again.’

‘Promise?’ Edward said.

She nodded.

Colin was sulking and immediately picked up his phone to make a call when Emma walked slowly to his desk. However, when Emma began to apologize profusely and explain that she was under a lot of strain about something entirely unrelated to work, he cheered up.

‘I thought you must be stressed out about something,’ he said. ‘I said to Finn only the other morning that you weren’t your lovely, smiling self and we couldn’t imagine what it was. We all know what it’s like to be under strain too, and if you ever feel like an old chat over a cappuccino, talk to me. You know I’d never breathe a word about anyone’s personal business.’

‘I know you wouldn’t, Colin,’ Emma agreed, thankful that she still had a sense of humour. ‘We’ll talk about your idea tomorrow, but I’m going to take a half-day today, so I’ll see you in the morning.’

At home, Emma threw her self-help books in the bin and then cleaned out her secret hoard from the bottom of her wardrobe. It broke her heart to throw out the pregnancy guide, the how-to-feed-your-baby guide and the lovely baby clothes she hadn’t been able to resist buying. The tiny yellow bootees were the worst: hand-made chenille from a craft shop, they were exquisitely made. So dainty and small. When she’d bought them, she’d wondered how any baby’s feet could ever be that tiny to fit inside the little shoes. It had been ages since she’d taken them out and touched them. She allowed herself one brief caress, then she bundled them into the bin liner with the other things. She threw the baby lotion she used as make-up remover into the kitchen bin and dragged her bag of goodies outside. Double-parking at the Oxfam shop, she left the bag just inside the door and then hurried off. She cried as she drove away. It was so final, so absolutely final. There was no hope for her and she was only tormenting herself by thinking that there was. Apparently, she was tormenting other people too. If she couldn’t have a baby, then she couldn’t and that was that. What was the point of destroying her life and Pete’s into the bargain because she couldn’t come to terms with it?

She went to the supermarket and bought her groceries, including stacks of cleaning equipment. It was odd, being in the supermarket in the early afternoon. Usually, she went at the weekend or late at night when the place was full of harassed career women and men flinging microwaveable meals into trolleys. Today, there was a different type of harassment in the air: that of exhausted mothers with young children, trying to drag youngsters in primary school uniforms away from the chocolate biscuits while simultaneously consoling the sobbing toddler jammed in the trolley seat.

Emma pushed her trolley to the check-out with the shortest queue. Ahead of her was a petite Chinese woman with a small baby in one of those chunky carry seats. Emma tried not to look at the baby as the woman threw groceries on to the conveyor belt. She couldn’t help it. Dark, slanting eyes stared solemnly at her from a tiny face topped with a bright pink hat.

The baby waggled her fingers at Emma imperiously, demanding attention. Tiny fingers ending with minuscule translucent nails. It never ceased to amaze Emma that a creature so small could be such a perfect version of an adult, with fingers, toes and a little button nose that was scrunched up now in dismay because nobody was paying her enough attention.

‘Isn’t she lovely,’ said an elderly voice behind her.

A fragile old lady with just a few things in her trolley was smiling at the baby, making coo-coo noises. ‘They’re lovely at that age,’ she said to Emma.

‘Yes,’ Emma replied faintly. Talk about attacks from every side.

‘Do you have any yourself?’ the old lady asked.

Emma wondered how rich she’d be if she had a pound for every time she’d been asked that particular question. She’d also wondered how astonished the questioner would be if she were to scream, ‘No, I’m infertile, you nosy, insensitive bastard!’ at them. But you couldn’t say that, especially not to a little old lady who was probably lonely and wanted company.

‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ she replied.

The old lady smiled. ‘There’s plenty of time, love, you’re only young.’