Valentine's Day. Nicola Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ numbness of shock was rapidly wearing off and leaving the deep, awful ache of pain behind it. With a humiliation chaser. She’d managed to thank the dumbfounded drive-time announcers—God, she was so British—before stumbling out of their studio, knowing that the radio station’s output was broadcast in every office on every floor via a system of loudspeakers.

      Hence all the badly disguised glances.

      The whole place knew what had just happened to her. Because of her. That their much-lauded Leap Year Valentine’s proposal had just gone spectacularly, horribly, excruciatingly, publicly wrong.

      She’d asked. Daniel had declined.

      As nicely as he could, under the circumstances, but his urgently whispered, “Is this a joke, George?” was still a no whichever way you looked at it and, in case she hadn’t got the message, he’d spelled it out.

      We weren’t heading for marriage. I thought you knew that...

      Actually no, or she wouldn’t have asked.

      That’s what made our thing so perfect...

      Oh. Right. That was what made it perfect? She’d known they were drifting in a slow, connected eddy like the leaves in Wakehurst’s Black Pond but she’d thought that even drifting eventually got you somewhere. Obviously not.

      ‘For God’s sake, will you close?’

      She wasn’t usually one to talk to inanimate objects—even under her breath—but somehow, on some level, the elevator must have heard her because its shiny chrome doors started to slide together obligingly.

      ‘Hold the lift!’ a voice shouted.

      She didn’t move. Her stomach plunged. Just as they’d nearly closed...

      A hand slid into the sliver of space between the doors and curled around one of them, arresting and then reversing its slide. They reopened, long-suffering and apologetic.

      ‘You mustn’t have heard me,’ the dark-haired man said, throwing her only the briefest and tersest of glances, his lips tight. He turned, faced the front, and permitted them to close this time, giving her a fabulous view of the square cut of the back of his expensive suit.

      No, you mustn’t have heard me. Making a total idiot of myself in front of all of London. If he had, he’d have given her a much longer look. Something told her everyone would be looking at her for much longer now. Starting with all her and Daniel’s workmates.

      She groaned.

      He looked back over his shoulder. ‘Sorry?’

      She forced burning eyes to his. If she blinked just once she was going to unleash the tears she could feel jockeying for expression just behind her lids. But she didn’t have the heart for speech. She shook her head.

      He returned his focus to the front of the elevator. She stared at the lights slowly descending toward ‘G’ for ground floor. Then at the one marked ‘B’, below that—the one he’d pressed.

      ‘Excuse me...’ She cleared her throat to reduce the tight choke. He turned again, looked down great cheekbones at her. ‘Can you get to the street from B?’

      He studied her. Didn’t ask what she meant. ‘The basement has electronic gate control.’

      Her heart sank. So much for hoping to make a subtle getaway. Looked as if the universe really wanted her to pay for today’s disaster.

      Crowded reception it was, then.

      She nodded just once. ‘Thank you.’

      He didn’t turn back around, but his grey eyes narrowed. ‘I’ll be driving out through the gates. You’re welcome to slip out behind me.’

      Slip out. Was that just a figure of speech or did he know? ‘Thank you. Yes, please.’

      He turned back to the front, then, a heartbeat later, he turned back again. ‘Step behind me.’

      She dragged stinging eyes back up to him. ‘What?’

      ‘The door’s going to open at Reception first. It will be full of people. I can screen you.’

      Suddenly the front-line of the small army of tears waiting for a chance to get out surged forward. She fought them back furiously, totally futile.

      Kindness. That was worse than blinking. And it meant that he definitely knew.

      But since he was playing pretend-I-don’t, she could, too. She stepped to her left just as the doors obediently opened onto the station’s reception. Light and noise filled the elevator but she stood, private and protected behind the stranger, his big body as good as a locked door. She sighed. Privacy and someone to protect her—two things she’d just blown out of her life for good, she suspected.

      ‘Mr Rush...’ someone said, out in the foyer.

      The big man just nodded. ‘Alice. Going down?’

      ‘No, up.’

      He shrugged. ‘I won’t be long.’

      And the doors closed, leaving just the two of them, again. Georgia sagged and swiped at the single, determined tear that had slipped down her cheek. He didn’t turn back around. It took only a moment longer for the elevator to reach the basement. He walked out the moment the doors opened and reached back to hold them wide for her. The frigid outdoor air hit her instantly.

      ‘Thank you,’ she repeated and stepped out into the darkened parking floor. She’d left her coat upstairs, hanging on the back of a chair in the studio, but she would gladly freeze rather than set foot in that building ever again.

      He didn’t make eye contact again. Or smile. ‘Wait by the gate,’ he simply said and then turned to stride towards a charcoal Jaguar.

      She walked a dead straight line towards the exit gate. The fastest, most direct route she could. She only reached it a moment or two before the luxury car. She stood, rubbing her prickling flesh.

      He must have activated the gate from inside his vehicle, and the large, steel lattice began to rattle along rollers towards her. He nudged his car forward, lowered his window, and peered out across his empty passenger seat.

      She ducked to look at him. For moments. One of them really needed to say something. Might as well be her.

      ‘Thanks again.’ For sanctuary in the elevator. For spiriting her away, now.

      His eyes darkened and he slid designer sunglasses up onto the bridge of his nose. ‘Good luck’ was all he said. Then he shifted his Jag into gear and drove forward out of the still-widening gate.

      She stared after him.

      It seemed an odd thing to say in lieu of goodbye but maybe he knew something she didn’t.

      Maybe he knew how much she was going to need that luck.

      * * *

      Hell.

      That was the longest СКАЧАТЬ