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       CHAPTER NINE

      LIBBY STARTED AWAKE. The unfamiliar room came into focus and she felt the weight of Alex’s arm on her waist, the heat of his naked chest at her back. The dream that had woken her, vaguely familiar in the way recurring dreams were, was still pounding the blood around her body. Always the same. She was searching for something she had no hope of finding, only to jerk awake with the feeling that she’d failed some momentous task and would never be happy again.

      She lay still, closing her eyes and slowing her breathing, mindfully scanning her body, willing her tense muscles to relax in the hope of returning to sleep. But, like many nights before, tonight was to be one of mind-racing exhaustion, and after ten minutes she gave up, carefully slid from underneath the slumbering Alex and shuffled to the edge of his enormous bed.

      Like the one at his Oxfordshire estate, this bed was a sleek, modern four-poster. He lay sprawled in the middle, his muscular back revealed by the sheets pooled at his waist and his hair a dishevelled mop partly obscuring his handsome, relaxed face.

      The tattoo that snaked around one side of his chest was partly visible—a line of script: Rise by lifting others. She’d read it fully earlier in the shower, her fingers tracing the ink.

      After the limo they’d showered together, soaping and nibbling every inch of each other’s bodies until they’d drawn a third orgasm from each other and then collapsed into Alex’s very comfortable, too-big bed. Not that he’d let her keep her distance. And Libby had been too tired to object when he’d dragged her by the waist into his spooning.

      Finding his dress shirt discarded on a chair, she slipped it on and crept from the room. Her clutch was where she’d dropped it on the hall table. She located her phone and headed for the state-of-the-art kitchen, hoping to find a kettle amongst the seamless cupboards and contemporary appliances.

      Within a few minutes she’d brewed tea and was snuggled on an oversized couch, pulling a throw over her legs to ward off the middle-of-the-night chill. A quick calculation of the time difference proved favourable and she dialled Sonya’s number. She’d neglected her pregnant friend, sending only daily e-mails. She needed to hear her voice. Reset her equilibrium.

      Sonya answered on the second ring. ‘What are you doing up? Isn’t it the middle of the night over there?’

      ‘Hi, to you too. I couldn’t sleep.’ Libby sipped her tea, spotting a well-placed mirrored coaster on the minimalist slab that paraded as a coffee table.

      ‘Still jet-lagged?’

      Libby longed to pick apart her insomnia with Sonya, to bounce her unsettled emotions off her friend. She winced. But Sonya was nine months pregnant and solely in charge of their business.

      ‘I guess… How are you? I rang to make sure you aren’t working too hard.’ Libby’s throat burned, and she felt inexplicable emotion close to the surface at the sound of her friend’s voice.

      A long sigh. ‘I’m fine. Fit to burst, but fine. I’ve worked from home these last two days,’ said Sonya. ‘Vinnie has rescheduled some of my out-of-town appointments for you when you get back next week. Sorry. I guess it’s finally catching up with me.’

      Libby worried at a cuticle, her shoulders tense. ‘Of course. That’s absolutely fine. I can come home earlier if you need me.’

      She could drop everything and be back in New York in ten hours. No wedding. No more adrenaline. No more Alex.

      She barely managed a swallow.

      ‘No need. It’s almost the weekend. No one needs you that urgently.’

      A smile tugged her cheeks. Sonya sounded like her old self. Perhaps she needed them. Her friends, her business, her life. That was who she was.

      The rush of homesickness tightened her chest, but she suspected the vice would be crossing the Atlantic with her when she returned to New York. The only thing to warm Libby’s bed there was Dumbledore, and he hogged the pillow, purred in her ear and had fishy breath.

      She scrubbed at her face. Perhaps the idea of a wedding had unsettled her more than she admitted.

      ‘Look, Libbs, I was going to wait until you were back, but I want to give you as much notice as possible. I’m not coming back.’

      The silent pause raised the hairs on Libby’s arms.

      ‘What? When?’

      Libby’s tired mind played catch-up.

      ‘After the baby’s born.’

      ‘Of course you aren’t!’

      She should never have left Sonya alone at a time like this. Her friend’s voice held a strain.

      ‘No. I mean I want to stay home with the baby. I’m not coming back after my maternity leave. I know it means leaving you in the lurch, but I want to sell my share of the company.’

      Libby reeled. ‘I understand. Of course you want to be there for your tiny human.’

       But I’ll miss you.

      Tears threatened, closer than ever to the surface. She swallowed them down, hating the selfishness that had enabled her to leave her heavily pregnant friend in the first place, and now bemoaned her decision to be a stay-at-home mom.

      Sonya rushed on. ‘I won’t pull out straight away. I’ll give you a chance to find someone you can work with. There’s no rush.’

      ‘Don’t be silly. I’ll be fine. You just focus on you and the baby. I’ll miss you, though.’ The last words were choked out past a constricted throat.

      She wasn’t fooling anyone—least of all her best friend.

      ‘Libbs, I’m sorry. I just don’t want to feel pressured to return to work, or to feel obligated.

      ‘I understand.’

      Did she? She’d spent long career-focussed years trying to forget Callum’s death and her own misery. Cheated, she’d closed down that aspect of her life, denied herself sex, relationships, even friendships in case they wandered from the friend zone into something too close to what she’d once had with her fiancé. What she couldn’t risk feeling again. But could she call it happiness? Living?

      Libby clutched her stomach, holding in the emotion that threatened to send her running for Heathrow Airport. What would she do without Sonya? Her dry sense of humour and her shared passion for cute shoes? They were a team. The best team. But her friend was moving on…her life was transitioning to the next phase…whereas Libby had purposely withdrawn from the well-travelled СКАЧАТЬ