Jamie stopped stroking Percy.
Her father frowned.
Her mother cleared her throat. “Rosie, dear—”
Becky was staring at her, her expression pinched and shocked. “What did you say?”
“You’re in love with Declan.” She knew instinctively that it was true, and her heart ached. What a mess. What a total mess. “You’ve been in love with him this whole time. It didn’t occur to me before now, but it should have done. I should have recognised the signs.”
“What signs?” Becky’s hands were clenched into fists by her side. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been avoiding me. Us.” It might as well have been just the two of them. All her focus was on her sister.
And her sister looked panicked.
“Yeah, because you two were slobbering all over each other.”
“And that must have been difficult for you.” Rosie swallowed. She felt terrible. She shouldn’t have blurted it out, but it was too late to change that so she carried on. “Why didn’t you tell me? And why didn’t I see it? That night you introducedus—I thought then how comfortable you were with him, how you chatted and laughed and didn’t squirm or look at the door or want to be somewhere else.”
“Of course I was comfortable with him. We were work colleagues forever.” Becky turned to look at Declan, her expression fierce. “Say something.”
He’d been frozen to the spot but now he stepped forward. “Rosie—”
She ignored him, her gaze still fixed on her sister. “You talked about him as a colleague, but you never said you had deeper feelings—Becky,why?” What had she done? What had she done to her sister? “I didn’t see it. And then you were weird at the wedding, and I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t work out what—how could I not have known?”
Becky glanced at the door, as if she was judging the distance. “I was not weird at the wedding.”
“You rushed out of the room and spent an hour in the toilet.”
“I ate shellfish.”
“We all ate shellfish.”
“You didn’t all eat the shellfish I ate. One bad prawn is all it takes. I was unlucky. And you are wrong.” Becky’s voice was shaking. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”
“Becky—”
“Stop! We weren’t going to do this now but I see we have no choice. We were going to keep it a secret,” she stumbled slightly, “because of Jamie and Hayley and this being their special moment, and because of Christmas and everything else that is going on, but given what you’re saying, and what you’re thinking, which by the way istotallywrong, you need to know that—well—” she sucked in a shaky breath “—I’m in love with Will.”
Rosie heard their mother gasp.
“Will?You mean—our Will?”
Thrown by that totally unexpected announcement, Rosiedragged her gaze from her sister to Will. He was looking directly at Becky and his expression gave nothing away. How did people do that? she wondered. How did people manage to keep their feelings inside? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t manage it.
Their mother put her hand to her chest, her eyes shiny.
“Oh Becky! Will!” There was surprise and delight in her voice. “Is this true?”
“Of course it isn’t true.” Rosie wasn’t buying it. She knew her sister. Sheknewher. “Will? Seriously? You expect us to believe you’re in love with Will?”
“Yes.” Becky stepped closer to Will and slid her hand into his. “And he’s in love with me. Why do you think we spent last night at a hotel?”
Jamie cleared his throat. “Er—because it was snowing and there was a ten-car pileup and you always get impatient if you’re forced to sit still in traffic for more than three minutes?”
“That was just the excuse we used, but what we really wanted was a romantic night together before having to be apart for Christmas. We had this gorgeous room right up in the eaves of the hotel over snowy fields. We woke to the sound of church bells.”
Rosie heard her dad mutterthere seem to be a lot of those ringing around here at the momentand her grandmother saysurely one of them is going to be pregnant soon, and then her mother hurried forward and hugged Becky and then Will.
