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

His laughter was rich and earthy. ‘Won’t that be fun?’

He dozed off afterwards on the couch, strands of blond hair falling across the perfect profile. Hannah never ceased to be amazed by his ability to sleep anywhere. He could doze off on a plane while she was fretting at the turbulence. He’d even fallen asleep on the Tube with her when they were only travelling from Green Park to Covent Garden. She covered him with his jumper and got up slowly to put the flowers in water.

Her eyes were soft with love as she gazed at him. She loved him, for all his moods and melancholy. It had to be the artistic temperament. The insecurity of acting combined with the soul-searching required for every role: it had to have a lasting effect on a person. That was Felix’s problem, Hannah decided. She had to learn to cope with that. You couldn’t be an actor’s wife and become emotional each time he became depressed. Other people might feel that they never quite knew where they stood with Felix, but not her. She was his wife, the one he brought flowers and love gifts to. They understood each other perfectly. Walking quietly so she wouldn’t wake him, she went down to the below-stairs kitchen. She was sure she’d unpacked a vase, but where was it?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#ulink_3907e87b-08e9-5660-a416-ef6fb83215cd)

Doug insisted on driving Leonie to the airport to pick up Mel and Abby.

‘I can’t take you away from your work,’ she said, knowing he was close to finishing an important painting he’d been working on.

‘I was in at the start of this Delaney family drama and I want to be in at the finish,’ Doug said. ‘Anyway, I need to go into town to see my friend with the gallery. If you come with me, we can have lunch and then go to the airport, killing two birds with one stone.’

‘If you’re sure…’ Leonie hesitated.

‘What are you like?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve said I’m sure. Unless you want Hugh to go with you?’

‘No,’ mumbled Leonie. She still hadn’t said anything about Hugh and the break-up to Doug. She felt so foolish. Doug would be horrified to think that Hugh wasn’t interested in the twins. He adored them and he wasn’t even dating her. Leonie shuddered. It was appalling to think she’d gone out with a man who didn’t care for her children.

‘See you at half eleven tomorrow then,’ Doug said.

She almost didn’t recognize him when he arrived the next day. In all the time she’d known Doug, she’d never seen him out of his shabby old jeans and lumpy jumpers the colour and consistency of wet cement. Today, he looked startlingly different. His wild auburn hair was tamed and brushed neatly back, and he wore a dark grey suit with a deep blue shirt that looked incredible with his hair. A sober steely grey tie completed the ensemble. Leonie stared at the urbane man about town in front of her. He looked so polished and elegant. You’d hardly notice his scars now: they were fading wonderfully. Ever since Leonie had read about the vitamins and minerals which help the body heal, she’d been forcing Doug to take a handful of tablets every morning. He joked that he rattled when he walked, but they, or something, were certainly working on the scars.

‘I’m not welded into my old work clothes, you know,’ Doug said, a mischievous glint in his eyes as Leonie goggled at him. ‘I do have other clothes and, occasionally, I like to dress up.’

‘But…you look so different!’

‘Better?’

She angled her head. ‘You look fantastic,’ she said, ‘but I love your old stuff. I’d never have felt so relaxed with you if I’d met you first like this,’ she added. ‘As the queen of jumble-stall grunge, I would have been far too intimidated to talk to you in your finery.’

‘This was Caitlin’s favourite suit,’ he said reflectively. ‘She hated my sloppy work clothes, insisted I clean the paint off and dress up in the evenings. She thought suits were very sexy. Does Hugh wear suits?’ he enquired suddenly.

‘Don’t mention Hugh, would you?’ Leonie groaned.

‘Having a fight?’

She nodded. It was easier to let him think that than get into complicated explanations.

In the city, Doug parked outside a gallery in Ballsbridge.

‘It will take me a few minutes to bring the canvases in,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go in and browse around.’

‘I’ll help,’ she offered.

‘You will not,’ he said firmly. ‘They’re heavy. Go on and browse. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.’

While Doug and a man from the gallery with mad bouffant hair and a pink tie brought in the paintings, Leonie wandered around, admiring vivid oils and gentle, dreamy watercolours and spiky, aggressive sculptures in the middle of the floor. Everything was very expensive. Doug’s paintings would probably be even more costly. Hugh had told her that Doug Mansell paintings were a serious investment.

‘You could buy a cheap one from him,’ Hugh had said, eyes lighting up as he planned a bit of money-making, ‘and in a few years sell it for a tidy profit.’

Leonie had been horrified: make money from a friend? No way.

She was peering at a large modern picture and trying to figure out exactly what it was supposed to be, when the gallery door slammed loudly. Leonie’s head swivelled round to see a petite blonde woman march in.

Vivacious would be how you’d describe her, Leonie thought idly. And energetic. Energy fizzled out of the woman like bubbles from champagne. From behind a weird piece of sculpture, Leonie admired the woman’s extravagantly red trouser suit, perilously high funky boots and her short, spiky blonde hair. She didn’t dye that herself, Leonie thought, with an expert eye. The woman reached Doug and then leaned up to take his face in her hands and kiss him.

Leonie’s eyes widened. It couldn’t be…

‘Hello, Caitlin. I didn’t think you’d be here,’ Doug said evenly.

‘I heard you were coming in,’ Caitlin answered in a Marlboro rasp.

Leonie did her best to melt into the background. She admired a horrible daub of a painting and tried not to eavesdrop. But she couldn’t help it. This was the woman who’d destroyed Doug when she left him.

‘How have you been?’ Caitlin asked, one small hand still touching Doug’s arm.

She was much shorter than Doug, and had to arch her slender neck to look up at him. Vivacious, definitely, with that expressive little face and huge dark eyes. She never stopped moving, one foot tapping constantly as she spoke.

‘I missed you, you know,’ she said.

‘Did you? You never called. You knew where I was living,’ Doug answered.

Leonie felt her heart ache for him. He’d longed for Caitlin and she’d abandoned him. The bitch.

Caitlin angled her body closer to his, one hand sneaking up to touch the lapels of his jacket in an intimate gesture. ‘You wore my favourite suit,’ she said softly, looking up at him.

‘Yes.’

One word could say so much. He’d worn it for Caitlin, Leonie knew.

She couldn’t take any more of the tortured eye contact between the two of them.

‘Bye, darling,’ she said, blowing a kiss to the surprised gallery man. ‘I’m just popping next door to have a coffee. I’ll be back later.’

Rising to the occasion, he blew her a dramatic kiss back. ‘Fine, sweetie, see you then.’

Skirt whirling, she left, whisking past Doug as if she didn’t know him. It wouldn’t be fair to muddy the waters for him. If he wanted Caitlin back, he might not want her to know about his friendship with Leonie.

Not, Leonie thought forlornly as she ordered a decaf and a doughnut in the coffee shop, that there was anything to their relationship other than pure friendship. She stirred her coffee miserably, suddenly realizing that she wished there was something more to it. Doug was lovely, kind, her friend. She wanted him to be more than a friend. Much more. And she’d had her chance but now she’d blown it.

Don’t be stupid, he was never interested in you anyway, she told herself firmly. What could she offer a man who’d gone out with someone like Caitlin, a little bombshell who was well under forty, had a fantastic career into the bargain, and who didn’t have to buy granny shoes to fit her huge feet?

She’d bet her life savings that Caitlin didn’t have a wardrobe of sloppy leggings and sweatshirts for her fat days. No, if Caitlin had two wardrobes one would be a ‘Wow, I’m feeling sexy’ wardrobe and the other a ‘My God, I’m bloody gorgeous!’ wardrobe.

She sipped her coffee and stared out the window, longing for Doug to appear and tell her he’d sent Caitlin off with a flea in her perfectly shaped little ear. She’d drunk her second cup and eaten all of her bun when the gallery man appeared at the door. Spotting her, he waved dramatically and sashayed over, his pink tie shimmering into purple under the strip lighting.

‘Leonie, is it?’ he said.