The Marriage Miracle

Then Fran placed a steadying hand at Toby’s back, in case he should falter, smiling encouragement, and, putting in a big effort, he finally made it. Of course he did. Why would Toby need a fantasy superheroine when he had a mother with two good arms and legs?

‘Matty!’ Toby, spotting her from his vantage point, wobbled as he gave her an ecstatic two-armed wave from the top, and her heart rose to her throat. ‘Look at me!’

‘Oh, bravo, Toby!’ she called, waving back. ‘How did you get all the way up there?’

‘I climbed. All by myself.’

‘No!’ she said, doing the whole amazed thing. ‘But it’s so high! How did you do it?’

‘Do you want to see?’ he asked.

‘You betcha I want to see.’

And by the time he’d done it for a third time, just to prove to his apparently sceptical godmother that it wasn’t just a fluke, he could indeed manage it ‘all by himself’.

Her smile faded as she saw the half-finished picture she’d just ruined with her cartoon. Deliberate vandalism? Or was that just a load of psychological mumbo-jumbo?

She’d illustrated dozens of romantic stories for women’s magazines, and while she’d known from the beginning that this one—a wide, deserted beach with the distant lovers silhouetted against the setting sun—was going to be tough, she was a professional. This was her living, and she couldn’t afford to turn down commissions just because they tugged at painful memories.

‘Come and join us, Matty,’ Fran called, encouraging her to play truant. ‘It’s going to rain tomorrow.’

It was hard to resist such siren calls, but every minute spent with Toby was a wrenching reminder of how much she’d lost in the split-second lapse that had robbed her of that future. And Fran’s new baby, joy that she was, just made things worse.

Matty was beginning to feel as if she was trapped on the wrong side of the glass, a spectator to a life she was denied. If only she could afford to move away, get out of London and make a new kind of life. One that wasn’t just a fantasy.

When the phone began to ring, it was almost a relief to call back, ‘Maybe later,’ before turning to pick up the receiver.

‘Matty Lang.’

‘Hello, Matty Lang.’

For a moment her heart seemed to stop beating. It was as if her mind, conjuring up the image of the sleeping man, had somehow woken him.

When it started again, very slowly, she said, ‘Hello, Sebastian Wolseley.’ Then, ‘You’re an early riser. Isn’t it some unearthly hour of the morning in New York?’

‘That is true. But here in London it’s just coming up to eleven o’clock.’

No, well, she hadn’t really thought he was calling from the other side of the Atlantic just to say hello. That would have been totally ridiculous.

‘You said you’d have dinner with me when I came back, but I wondered if you might be able to make lunch? I’ve booked a table at Giovanni’s.’

Giovanni’s? A restaurant so famous that it didn’t have to bother with anything as functional as an address. The kind of restaurant where the rich and famous went to be seen. And it was nearly eleven now.

She had two hours to shower, change, find a parking space. Her hair! She…

She was living in cloud-cuckoo land. Getting carried away.

She never went anywhere without checking it out first. Calling the restaurant to make sure it was wheelchair accessible. That the cloakroom wasn’t upstairs. That, even if it was on the ground floor, she wouldn’t get stuck in the loo door.

Okay, she could still do that.

But she wouldn’t.

‘I said perhaps,’ she reminded him. ‘When you came back. You haven’t been anywhere.’

‘On the contrary, I went to Sussex yesterday,’ he said, and she could see the teasing spark that would be lighting his eyes, the tiny lift at the corner of his mouth that presaged a smile. ‘Command invitation to lunch with the family.’

‘Why is it that I find it hard to believe that you’d respond to anyone’s command?’

‘Well, I did want to borrow a car.’

‘Your family has spare cars lying around?’

‘It’s old. Just taking up space in the garage. I wish I’d taken you with me.’

‘I’m jolly glad you didn’t.’

‘You’re right. Dead boring. Utterly selfish to even consider it. So, anyway, I’ve been somewhere, and now I’m back.’

‘You know I didn’t mean that.’

‘I don’t recall you stipulating a destination. Doesn’t Sussex count?’

It counted. That was the problem. She wanted to have lunch with him.

It would be so easy, sitting opposite him, surrounded by luxury, pretending that they were just two people having lunch together. But then he’d get up and walk away.

She’d already had that dream, but then she’d woken up.

‘I’m really sorry, Sebastian, but I’ve got a deadline that’s getting tighter by the minute. I’m afraid lunch today will have to be a sandwich. But thank you for asking.’

And then, before he could say anything else, she gently replaced the receiver on the cradle.

Sebastian sat back and acknowledged that he could have handled that better.

Giovanni’s, it occurred to him, had been his first mistake.

He’d really wanted to see her, talk to her, but instead of saying so he’d thrown out an invitation to lunch with him at a moment’s notice at the fanciest restaurant he could think of. Few women of his acquaintance could have resisted.

But she wasn’t like other women, and he hadn’t given a single thought as to what she might prefer. Or even that she might have a full and busy life without a moment to spare for him.

Nothing new there. He’d been treating women in that casual, take it or leave it manner for years.

The decent women had left it, the minute they realised he wasn’t offering more. Only the users had hung around: the ones who’d wanted to be seen in smart restaurants, mixing with high-stake players. And that had been just fine. Everyone had got what they wanted without the bother of pretending that they were engaging in anything but the most superficial of relationships.

Nothing messy to interfere with the only thing that really mattered to him. His career.

‘Sebastian, is your phone off the hook?’ Blanche asked, then, seeing him sitting with the receiver in his hand, ‘Oh, you’re making a call.’