‘It seems she’s back in the UK for good, and she wants to spend Christmas as a family.’
It’s a slap in the face. ‘Right. Okay. Of course.’
‘This is a massive shock to me, too. She only showed up half an hour ago. I need to get my head straight, baby. I owe it to Bea.’
That shakes me out of my stupor. I squeeze the hand that’s still holding mine.
‘Of course you do. That’s what you should do, so don’t feel bad. You know, we wrote Bea’s letter to Santa today before we went to Harrods. I’ll send you the picture I took of it. But Miles, she put her mum on the list.She wished for her mummy.And she comes home, and her mum is there waiting for her. Do you have any idea how unbelievable that is? I’m sohappyfor her.’
I drop my head and the tears come, and I hope to God Miles thinks they’re tears of joy for Bea, for this amazing little girl whose belief in magic has just been vindicated by this Christmas miracle, and not tears of sadness for myself.
Because the problem is that what’s bad for me is good for Bea, and Bea’s happiness is far, far more important than mine. She’s a tiny girl who was abandoned and heartbroken, and now her mum has come back for her. She has a chance of happiness.
It may just have coincided with me losing mine.
‘Look. I need some time to think this over.’ Miles pinchesthe bridge of his very nice, very straight nose. ‘I owe it to Bea to give Allegra a chance, see what her story is.’
‘I know. I understand, I really do.’ My bottom lip is trembling like Bea’s. Miles looks up and sees it, and touches his finger to it.
‘I’ll give you a shout after Christmas, all right? Just—just take the time off, and I hope it’s not too late for you to get home to your family.’
I nod numbly. ‘Merry Christmas,’ I whisper. ‘Give Bea a huge kiss from me.’
‘Merry Christmas, baby.’
It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to hear him say, but it was never meant to sound like a goodbye.
He presses his lips to my cheek and rolls his face slightly against me, inhaling against my skin. Then he stands up and walks back towards the lifts.
CHAPTER 29
Saoirse: Thursday 23 December
Isit huddled on the Piccadilly Line as it whisks me efficiently away from Miles, Bea and the magic of Knightsbridge to the grim, grey shittiness of Park Royal. This place is so depressing. Lines of boxy, pebble-dash post-war houses. Retail parks. Self-storage units and offices and drive-thru McDonalds. Trampoline parks and DIY super-centres. Dual carriageways and nasty neon street lights. Not like the pretty, Mary-Poppins-esque Victorian ones around The Montague. Ugh.
It’s weirdly comforting to be back somewhere that suits my current mood, and my sense of self worth, so well. Hanging out in Knightsbridge and South Ken and Mayfair has been a dream, an amazing adventure that’s ended as abruptly as it began. I didn’t belong there. And it would be hard to be satisfactorily depressed in those pretty parts of London. It’s very easy to feel profoundly downcast in Park Royal.
I trudge to M&S Simply Food. Normally, we shop at the Asda superstore because it’s cheap, but that might send me over the edge today. Mince, passata, onions and spaghetti go inmy basket. Oh, and a huge wedge of parmesan. And a tub of M&S’ obscenely sticky mini flap-jack bites. Tonight calls for some serious comfort-eating.
I’m the first one home. The heating’s just clicking on for the evening, so the house is bloody freezing. It’s dark and vaguely damp, but once I’ve turned on all the lights on the Christmas tree and the garlands we’ve put up, it feels a bit cheerier. I put the shopping on the kitchen floor and plump down on the sofa. Cover my eyes with my hand. Squeeze my fingers against my eyelids. I’ll smudge my mascara, but who cares? Literally no one.
Miles.
I curl up on my side and pull my knees up to relieve the physical ache in my stomach. I miss him.Understatement.I’m completely bereft. Someone has let a guillotine hurtle down over the fairytale I’ve been living these past few days—weeks, even—and the pain of being completely cut off from him and Bea, of having the cosy, merry little bubble we created, is excruciating.
When I close my eyes and think about the three of us together, my heart quite literally glows. We make—made—the perfect little trio. At Sorrel Farm, at the ballet, at the Savoy. Even at Winter Wonderland, when he was still in full-on Grooge mode, bitching and moaning about its brand of high-octane festivity, there was still a connection. We both still appreciated seeing the fun through Bea’s eyes. I’m going to miss my little Christmas companion almost as much as I’ll miss Miles.
I let myself get comfortable so quickly. Way too quickly. It was something about Miles’ total lack of game-playing once he decided to act on his feelings for me. For someone who was so gruff and grumpy and Groogy when I met him, who did such a terrific job of keeping people at arm’s length, he committed to me in style. I have to hand it to him.
He let me in.
And the warmth of his affection and generosity, and of his desire for me, was so wonderfully blissful that he melted my heart like butter.
I didn’t stand a chance.
Who knew he’d be such a softie? Who knew that under the layers of armadillo hide, there was a giant heart he’d be willing to share with me so fully? I would never have guessed. I fancied the pants off him from the start, and that kind of crush-from-afar was harmless until I spent more time watching him fathering Bea, seeing firsthand how kind and selfless and adoring he was as a dad.
But it wasn’t until he turned all those virtues on me that yearning and textbook lust gave way to something more fragile and special. A dawning realisation that together, this man and I had some kind of magical connection, in bed and out of it. A connection I’ve never had before. Not with any of my exes.
