‘Hey, Beth— Oh, sorry,’ Jodi said, and Beth glanced at her, hoping that she herself looked perfectly calm and unruffled. She realised that this wasn’t the case when her friend raised an eyebrow and gave her a puzzled look. ‘Um, Sandra Bernstein is here.’ Jodi pointed in the direction of the sales floor and Beth was brought back to reality: Mrs Bernstein was one of her regular customers. ‘I can help her out if you want…’
‘No, no, I was just on my way.’
‘Better get to it myself.’ Ryan smiled laconically, giving Beth another appraising glance and she tried to avoid his eyes as well as Jodi’s questioning gaze.
She straightened her shoulders and nodded at him. ‘I’m sure I’ll see you around.’
‘Absolutely. See you soon, Beth.’
She reluctantly pulled herself away and walked with determination towards the sales floor, feeling completely discombobulated. What the hell had happened back there?
All of a sudden, Beth understood exactly why Ryan Buchanan’s recent arrival at Carlisle’s had caused such a stir, and was sending female hearts all aflutter.
***
Later that morning, the phone buzzed on the bedside table, and even without checking the display Danny knew that it would be Beth calling. He meant to get in touch with her first thing, but his mind had been elsewhere…
Picking up the phone, he swung his legs off the bed and retrieved his shirt from where he had dropped it earlier.
‘Can’t it wait?’ Adele asked, regarding him with her dark chocolate eyes. She pushed her lustrous black hair back behind one ear as she leaned closer, waiting for his answer.
‘Sorry, I need to get this.’ She seemed to take it as a brushoff, and moved to the other side of the room, fastening her hair into a loose ponytail.
Danny retreated to the attached bathroom for some privacy. He somehow felt less guilty about this entire thing when he was not in direct view of Adele’s questioning, probing eyes. It was so much harder to lie to Beth, when Adele was listening and knew exactly what he wasn’t saying aloud.
Pushing his arms into his shirt and hastily buttoning it up, he accepted the call and quietly shut the bathroom door behind him.
‘Hey,’ he greeted into the handset, hoping his voice sounded normal – hoping he could pull this off – again.
‘Hi! Hope you got some sleep last night and aren’t working too hard today,’ Beth said, and he could hear the usual happy smile in her voice.
Danny’s heart sank. He hated deceiving her, hated hiding things but at the moment there was really no choice. He couldn’t help it. This is not how he pictured things years ago,hell, even a few weeks ago. Why couldn’t he just come clean?
‘Do you think maybe you could escape for lunch for a half-hour?’ she continued. ‘I really missed seeing you last night.’
Despite himself, he raised a smile. There was something so appealing about Beth’s unashamed adoration of him. For her there was never any game-playing or pretence of any kind, and he’d always loved how she wore her heart on her sleeve.
Unlike him, he conceded, guilt and self-loathing building afresh. ‘I know, and again I’m really sorry about Florida. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’
‘Ah, don’t worry about that. I was more disappointed not to have you home last night. Not that Brinkley minded, though; he took over your side of the bed.’
Danny also appreciated Beth’s unerring ability to pretend that everything was OK, as if they hadn’t been through stressful times recently. He knew that despite her outward cheeriness and relentless ability to look on the bright side, deep down she had worried about his job, and the fact that the company had cut his hours, threatening his career and their livelihood.
But Danny also couldn’t help but acknowledge that it was perhaps all the stress he’d been experiencing at work that had led to the predicament he was in now. The work-related strain had resulted in some recent nit-picking and tension in their relationship, all of which, he guessed, had brought him right to Adele’s door.
It was a vicious cycle, and one that Danny didn’t know how to stop. He loved Beth and yet…
‘So what do you think?’ his girlfriend continued. ‘Do you want to meet for lunch today?’
Danny swallowed hard. He knew he couldn’t see her now. He needed to shower and change his clothes beforehand, if only to try to get the stench of guilt off him. At this point, it was almost like it was coming out of his pores.
‘Honey, honestly I would love to, but I’m probably going to end up working through lunch. I just ran out a while ago to pick up some takeout, something quick,’ he lied, thinking of Adele on the other side of the door. ‘I’m sorry; I was just trying to get through this day so I could maybe get home early this evening.’
It was clear Beth was disappointed. ‘Oh, OK, well, I just thought that maybe I would just ask anyway, I wasn’t sure…’
Danny felt a lump growing in his throat and truly wished at that moment that he could reach out and pull her close to him, cry into her hair, ask for forgiveness, a fresh start,anything.
He felt desperate, but he also knew that it was completely unfair of him to expect her simply to accept any of this – to believe that she would just forgive his lies and still want to be with him. Especially when he had hidden so much already. How did couples move on when there were so many secrets, so much information concealed, not to mention trust breached?
