A Very Special Proposal. Josie Metcalfe

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СКАЧАТЬ to the same bench in the science labs. It had happened every time she’d seen his profile outlined against the tall stark windows or had dared to meet his serious dark gaze…even when their elbows or shoulders had brushed innocently as they’d reached for a flask of reagent during an experiment or noting down their findings.

      He’d been every teenage girl’s fantasy of ‘tall, dark and handsome’ with an extra dash of ‘dangerous’ thrown in for good measure. She could still remember that his brown eyes had been so dark that they’d appeared as black as his hair, and as for that hair, it had been unruly, with a rebellious natural curl that had made her hands tingle with the urge to stroke the heavy weight of it back off his forehead to see if it was as silky as it looked.

      ‘The forbidden romance that never was,’ she murmured wryly, remembering that, apart from one notable occasion, they’d barely exchanged a word outside the classroom or the library. And that occasion was definitely better off being forgotten, if the heat of revisited embarrassment climbing her cheeks was any indication.

      Except she’d never really forgotten him, even though so many years had passed. Sometimes, months had gone by and any thoughts of him had been buried under the everyday load of a stressful job and a relatively high-profile marriage. But, still, she’d wondered what would have happened, whether her life would have been very different if she’d only had the courage to…What was the phrase? Take a walk on the wild side?

      Wild? Amy Willmott, née Bowes, the original over-achiever?

      Suddenly she had a disturbing insight into how her life must look to others and she almost laughed aloud.

      In comparison with her, plain boiled rice would seem exciting.

      ‘For heaven’s sake, what’s to stop you having a go at surfing the net?’ she muttered crossly. ‘It’s not as if anyone else is ever going to know and think any less of you.’ And there would be a certain amount of satisfaction in finding out whether Zach had avoided coming to the ignominious end that their teachers had predicted.

      Or would she rather remember him the way he’d been then—forever flouting school dress code in a disreputable leather jacket as he’d thrown one long lean leg over the motorbike he’d been prohibited from parking on school property, then flashing her a wicked grin before he’d flipped the visor down on his helmet and roared off down the road.

      That night, in spite of the fact that she’d had an extremely busy shift at work and was totally exhausted, somehow she just couldn’t sleep.

      For some time she lay in the darkness and practised the relaxation and breathing techniques that had got her through her vivas unscathed, then she tried to read a light-hearted romantic novel, but the characters just couldn’t hold her attention, not when the fictional hero was having to vie with her memories.

      Finally, she gave in to temptation and padded through to the spare room that she’d set up as an office where her laptop sat waiting on the desk in the corner of the room.

      It was amazing how easily she found the site her colleagues had been talking about and how quickly she was able to find the name of the school she’d attended, but even before she began to scroll through the list of names, her misgivings returned, full force.

      ‘What on earth am I doing?’ she demanded of the gently humming machine, her hand hovering over the mouse. One more click would take her to the names beginning with ‘B’ and would tell her whether Zach’s name was registered. Part of her would love to know that he’d gone on to make a success of his life, but she really didn’t want to know that anything…anything bad had happened to him.

      Somehow that would sully the innocent passion of her memories…the soft-focus fantasy that she’d indulged in for years that, if only he’d noticed her…asked her out on just one date…he would have discovered that she was the only woman for him and they would have lived happily ever after.

      Except it had all been one-sided.

      They’d spent weeks as lab partners, assigned purely on the basis of their names in the register, Bowman coming directly after Bowes, so if he’d had any interest in her as even a moderately attractive female, surely he’d have said…something! Anything!

      He could have suggested they had a coffee together…walked with her after a study session in the library…taken her for a ride on his fearsomely powerful bike…

      Ha!

      The closest he’d ever come to that had been to throw her a wicked grin before he’d roared off into the distance, leaving her gazing wistfully after him.

      Even when she’d screwed up her courage to mention the school leavers’ dance, he hadn’t taken the hint. Instead of a blissful evening spent in his arms, she’d had to make do with a rather strained celebratory meal with her parents in an expensive restaurant, listening to the two of them rhapsodise about the glittering future that lay ahead of her. She couldn’t allow herself to be side-tracked by anything, they’d insisted. All she had to do was keep her eye on where she was going. There would be plenty of time for her to have a social life once she was qualified and surrounded by people with the same aims and aspirations…other doctors, for example…

      Amy deliberately shut Edward’s image away, refusing to allow guilty thoughts of the husband she’d lost just over a year ago to intrude on her present dilemma.

      The cursor continued to blink patiently beside Shelley Adams’s name at the top of the list but it almost seemed to taunt her. Just one more click and the section on display would be replaced by the next one and she would know whether Zach’s name was there, then one more click and she would see…what? A copy of that infamous school photo with his dark unruly hair defying taming and his dark eyes…those dark eyes that had followed her through her dreams for years, even into her marriage…? Or would it be a contemporary picture with his striking features blurred by weight and age and his hairline receding towards middle age?

      The idea that she might find out that he was now happily married with half a dozen beautiful dark-eyed children was somehow worse than the prospect of finding out that he’d had a fatal accident on that noisy bike of his or that he’d ended up in prison, and that was totally crazy, considering the way her own life had gone.

      With her parents encouraging her every step of the way, she’d accepted the place her stellar grades had secured at one of the most prestigious medical schools in the country, and immediately after she’d qualified, she’d married Edward in a fairy-tale wedding, much to their delight.

      Edward Willmott, who couldn’t have been less like Zach if he’d deliberately tried. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, he’d been totally focused on getting to the top of the tree in the shortest possible time, no matter what else he had to sacrifice or postpone along the way. Edward, who had died a hero in the middle of a motorway pile-up, leaving her without the child that they were always going to have next year, and feeling guilty that she hadn’t really appreciated what she’d had until it was gone and her life was totally empty.

      She’d had it all, so why should she resent the very idea of Zach finding the same fulfilment?

      ‘No reason at all,’ she said aloud as she decisively broke the connection with the internet and shut the computer down. ‘And no reason whatever to look him up, especially at this time of night when I’ve got to be getting up in another four hours to go to work.’

      She returned to bed, determined not to let her thoughts stray in his direction again, but discovered when she woke up too early, tired and out of sorts, that СКАЧАТЬ