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

‘It might have gone better if you’d told Jane about me,’ Leonie suggested. ‘It’s not easy meeting someone who’s under the impression that you’re nothing more than a colleague. I thought we were going out, Hugh, but listening to you earlier, you’d swear we were old, platonic friends on the verge of getting our bus passes.’

‘Sorry. It’s difficult, you know. Jane is…well, she’s sensitive.’

About as sensitive as a rhino, Leonie thought grimly.

‘I should have told her, Leonie. Please forgive me.’ He squeezed her fingers. ‘I’m afraid I’m one of those indulgent fathers who can’t deny my children anything. Jane expects nothing short of adoration.’

‘And the use of your credit card,’ Leonie remarked. ‘Jane mustn’t be very good with money if she’s got this wonderful job and still has to beg from you.’ As soon as she’d said it, Leonie regretted it. Criticizing your beloved’s children was a dating no-no, on a par with saying you’d got a letter from the clinic and the warts were practically all gone. She could have kicked herself. ‘Sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘That was rotten of me.’

‘I thought you of all people would understand,’ Hugh said tightly. ‘Children are there to be nurtured and taken care of.’

Leonie nodded. She agreed with him. But Jane wasn’t a child. She was a manipulative grown-up and Hugh wasn’t doing her any favours by not seeing this. Treating her like an adored child was a recipe for disaster.

‘I know you love them to bits and I shouldn’t have said that,’ Leonie apologized. ‘I guess I’m a bit upset because Jane obviously didn’t approve of me.’

‘Silly,’ said Hugh sweetly. ‘She’ll love you when she gets to know you. It just takes time.’

Now where had she heard that before?

‘How did it go?’ asked Hannah when she rang the next day.

‘I am compiling research for a book called Dating Divorcés,’ announced Leonie, ‘and the longest chapter is going to be about meeting horrible, self-obsessed children who think you’re after their father for his money and who make it perfectly obvious that they hate you.’

‘You mean you’re not after him for his money?’ joked Hannah, trying to inject a note of humour into things.

‘Hugh has less money than I do,’ said Leonie hotly, not seeing the funny side of it. ‘And now I know why. He gives it all to Jane, although I can’t think why, because she has a perfectly good job. She had the nerve to ask him if she could book her holiday using his credit card. I ask you – a twenty-something with a good job! It’s ludicrous.’

‘It didn’t go well, then?’ Hannah said tentatively.

‘His son is a darling and was very sweet to me, but the daughter, Jane,’ Leonie paused, ‘is hideously jealous. As if he can’t love her and me.’

‘Maybe she’s afraid that if you’re there the cheques will dry up,’ said Hannah pragmatically.

‘It’s more than that. It’s weird. She’s nuts about him, like a small child.’

‘Girls and their fathers,’ Hannah pointed out. ‘Somebody wrote a song about their heart belonging to Daddy.’

‘I don’t know any grown woman whose heart belongs to Daddy,’ said Leonie crossly. ‘Yours doesn’t and neither does Emma’s. Mel and Abby love Ray but they didn’t go into a flat spin when he married Fliss.’

‘That’s because they’re well-adjusted kids.’

‘Hugh’s well adjusted,’ Leonie argued. ‘How could he have a daughter like this?’

‘What’s his ex-wife like?’

‘Sounds perfectly normal. They get on well and the split was as amicable as any I’ve ever heard of.’

‘Ah well, that’s it,’ Hannah said sagely. ‘No split is ever amicable. It’s an oxymoron: the words “split” and “amicable” just don’t go together. Do you think Mummy is poisoning little Jane to loathe every woman who ever tries to replace her?’

Leonie gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I don’t think Jane needs anyone to poison her. She’s poisonous enough on her own. Hugh is so wonderful, but I can’t bear the thought of having to put up with Jane’s bitchiness for the rest of my life.’

‘Hugh thinks you’re wonderful,’ Hannah comforted. ‘That’s all that matters. Jane will come round, you’ll see.’

Leonie liked Hugh’s home. A three-year-old townhouse on the edges of Templeogue, it was pristine, still new looking and without any peeling paintwork or teenage detritus. Inside, it was wall-to-wall magnolia, enlivened by Hugh’s collection of old film posters, the bookcases that lined the walls and lots of curious collectibles like a wind-up gramophone and a huge marble chessboard with marble pieces fashioned into jungle animals. It was all very quirky and Leonie liked it. In fact, there was only one thing Leonie didn’t like in the house and that was the plethora of pictures of Jane all over the place. The mantelpiece was a veritable shrine to her, with seven separate photos of Jane looking winsome as a First Communicant, sulky as a teenager, and even sulkier on a variety of other occasions. There were only two of Stephen. Leonie hoped he didn’t mind, although he probably did secretly. Nobody could remain untouched by the fact that their parent preferred their sibling. Leonie hoped she’d never made one of her children feel they were less loved than the other two. The small back garden was like a rugby pitch, thanks to the antics of Wilbur, Harris and Ludlum, Hugh’s dogs. Leonie kept meaning to bring Penny on a visit to Hugh’s house but hadn’t got round to it yet. It seemed forward to bring her dog there, because investigating whether their animals got on was tantamount to discussing whether they should live together or not. Leonie was crazy about Hugh, but she didn’t think they were anywhere near that stage yet.

Tonight, they were reaching an important point in their relationship, however. Going To Bed Together. In Leonie’s mind, this event was in capital letters. It was immense, huge, a giant hurdle to be crossed.

They had been going out for four months and, although there had been some erotic moments, like that time in the Savoy Cinema watching a modern film noir, or the evening at Leonie’s when Danny and the girls had been out and they’d ended up getting very hot and bothered on the couch, they’d never been that intimate with each other.

It wasn’t that Leonie didn’t fancy Hugh. Far from it. She found him very sexy. He was actually slightly shorter than her, but she didn’t mind that. There was something virile about him. How virile, she planned on finding out tonight. That tonight was the night was an unspoken arrangement between them. Leonie had asked her mother to stay at the cottage with the girls, ostensibly because she was going away for the night with Emma and Hannah.

Claire – whom Leonie suspected knew exactly what was really going on but was too discreet to say ‘about bloody time!’ – had said she’d be delighted.

The girls taken care of, Leonie had splurged money she didn’t have on matching knickers and bra in silky coffee-coloured lace. She’d spent so long scrubbing herself in the bath that she reckoned she’d probably lost a pound in skin alone, and she’d massaged scented body lotion into every centimetre of her body.

Determined not to reproach herself for forgetting to rub the anti-cellulite cream into her bum and thighs, Leonie didn’t look at herself too long in the mirror. She was a forty-three-year-old woman, not a supermodel. Hugh liked her for what she was. She couldn’t change what she was, no matter how much she’d secretly like to.

Hugh had obviously made a similar effort in the cooking department. When she arrived, the three dogs chorused a delighted greeting and then raced back into the kitchen to stand guard over whatever delicious-smelling thing Hugh was cooking.

‘Beef?’ said Leonie, sniffing the air in the hallway and getting an enticing mix of garlic and onions with some subtle herbs.

Hugh, looking good in a cream cotton sweater over chinos, shook his head before kissing her hello.

‘It’s a surprise,’ he said.

‘I love surprises,’ she replied archly.

He kissed her neck too. ‘I’ve got another surprise for you later,’ he purred, making her giggle.

Dinner was wonderful, but Leonie found it hard to eat too much. She didn’t want her belly to be hanging out over her sexy new knickers purely because she’d stuffed her face with boeuf bourgignon and summer pudding with cream.

‘You don’t like it?’ Hugh asked anxiously when she insisted on only having a small portion of dessert.

‘I love it,’ she said. ‘You’re so good to cook for me, darling. I’m just er…not that hungry after the lovely beef.’

They shared a lingering kiss over the coffee and danced in the kitchen to the mellow sounds of Frank Sinatra. With her arms wrapped round Hugh’s neck, her body meltingly close to his, Leonie closed her eyes and thought how perfect it all was.

‘Shall we go upstairs?’ Hugh said thickly.

She murmured assent and, holding hands, they climbed the stairs. Leonie had only been in Hugh’s bedroom once when he’d shown her around the house. It wasn’t as tidy as it had been that day: obviously the strain of cooking up a cordon bleu feast meant he hadn’t had time for too much housekeeping. Clothes hung carelessly on the back of a chair by the dressing table, a towel graced the back of the door and a single sock peeped out from the half-open wardrobe. But the double bed was perfectly made up, with fresh smelling navy striped sheets reeking of flowery fabric softener. Leonie grinned until she saw the small table beside the bed.

A blue painted picture frame with a carved teddy anchored on one side sat beside a high-tech clock radio and inside the frame was a picture of Jane. The frame was more suited to a nursery than an adult’s bedroom.

‘Isn’t it lovely?’ Hugh said fondly, noticing the direction of her gaze as he hastily tidied up. ‘Jane gave it to me last week. She’s such a pet, always giving me gifts.’

Leonie gritted her teeth and vowed to dispose of some item of clothing so that it covered up Jane’s picture. There was no way she could make mad, passionate love with Hugh and have Jane’s smirking face watching every move.

Having Jane in the room with them was good in one way. It meant that Leonie didn’t have a moment to feel nervous about Hugh lovingly peeling off her blouse or helping her out of her skirt. She couldn’t concentrate on the awfulness of her thighs because she was thinking that it was as if Jane was in the room with them, watching, looking, sneering.