All Because of You (Lakeview #2) (33 page)

“Great investment,” Natalie agreed. “I wish I’d thought of doing something like this ages ago, but I suppose I’m still hanging onto my dream of affording something in Belgravia.” She sighed dreamily.

Jay laughed. “You publicists are obviously earning much more than I thought!”

“I
did
say it was a dream,” she replied, making a face at him. “But honestly, I really adore this place – your own little piece of Paris, it’s heavenly.”

“I’m glad you like it and, to be truthful, it’s nice to have someone to enjoy it with.”

Natalie raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t bring any of your previous girlfriends here?”
Or boyfriends
, a wicked voice piped up inside her, and she gulped.

“I’ve only had it a year, and seeing as I broke up with my last girlfriend over a year ago …” The rest of his sentence trailed off, as he went to check the food in the oven.  Behind his back, Natalie smiled, pleased that he’d taken the bait, and even more, that his reply had put to rest the idea that he might be gay.

From what she could make out, he was preparing some kind of casserole, which in a way was a little bit of a letdown. There was a side of her that was sorry they weren’t going out to some cosy Parisian restaurant on the Left Bank – despite her protestations that she’d tired of fine food – but no doubt whatever Jay had in mind, it would be gorgeous.

It was. When they eventually sat down to eat not two hours after their arrival in the French capital, Natalie realised that, along with all his other attributes, Jay was a seriously good cook.

“What’s the catch?” she asked him, as she tucked into the most fantastic beef bourguignon she had ever tasted. “What am I missing here?”

“Catch – what do you mean?” Jay said, looking a little worried.

“Well, this is clearly the nicest beef thingamajig I’ve ever tasted, and most men I know can barely boil a kettle, so what gives?”

“The best you’ve ever tasted? Wow, that’s a hell of compliment. I’ll be sure to pass it on to the boys.”

“What boys? Oh, let me guess, you’ve got an army of bloody servants dancing attendance on you too, have you? Bloody hell, Jay, who
are
you?” she said, dropping her fork. “I’m sorry that I haven’t had time to Google you before now. When I do, I’ll probably find that you’re a descendant of the Queen!”

“Do people really do that?” Jay said, laughing. “Look people up on the internet?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

“Um – no,” he said as if the thought had never, ever crossed his mind.

“Well, you should – you never know who you’re dealing with these days.”

Jay chuckled. “Now I know why you’re so successful in your work.  You know everyone’s deepest darkest secrets.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Natalie said, taking another forkful of food. “
Do
you have an army of servants dancing attendance on you, and making delicious beef thingamajigs for your lady friends?”

“I told you – I don’t know who all these lady friends are that you’re talking about,” he insisted, before adding casually, “and the boys I referred to are Marks and Spencer – this is from their Finest range – six ninety-nine a piece.”

For a long moment, Natalie just stared at her plate. “Bloody hell! I
definitely
eat out too much!” she laughed, before launching straight back into her food. 

They chatted for ages over dinner, finding out more about one another’s likes and dislikes, where they’d travelled, where they’d like to travel in the future, and the more they talked the more Natalie found herself liking him. This – date or relationship or whatever it was, was so different to anything that had gone before. They had so much in common, and seemed to share so many similar values that it was quite frightening really. Was this what Tara had been talking about? About Natalie finding out these things about the men she dated instead of just zooming onto the possibility of marriage like a radar missile? If so, she had to admit it was pretty good advice.  Totally obvious of course, but sometimes these things needed to be pointed out; in her case they’d
certainly
needed pointing out!

So, by the time they’d finished their second bottle of wine, Natalie decided she couldn’t hold out if Jay made a move tonight, which he surely would, given that he’d brought her all the way to the most romantic city in the world – and to his own
place
in the most romantic city in the world – he was hardly going to have her sleep on the couch, was he?

As if reading her thoughts, Jay began to speak. “Look, Natalie, we’ve had a great time this evening, but … well, I didn’t want to be presumptuous or anything, so I booked you a room at a small boutique hotel not far from here – just in case you thought I was pressurising you to spend the night,” he added quickly, “with me.”

Her heart sank to her stomach. What kind of man would book a girl into a hotel in Paris when he had his own apartment? He was
definitely
gay after all, she decided regretfully, or else he found the thought of sleeping with her so repulsive that –

“Of course,” he added, twisting a strand of her hair around one of his fingers, his breath warm and tingly on her skin, “if you decide that you’d
like
to stay over, well, I won’t argue with that either.”

Then before she could think any more about it, Natalie threw her arms around Jay’s neck and pulled him roughly towards her. Sod Tara and her rules, she thought as he returned her kisses with a fervour that banished all Natalie’s doubts about his sexuality, and pushed her back on the couch, his hands roaming freely over her body.

When it came to being committed to
not
sleeping with Jay just then, on a count of one to ten, Natalie was minus one million.

One afternoon, Luke was out digging his garden when he spotted his next-door neighbour return from walking the dogs in the fields. 

He liked Liz, and since he’d moved into the house properly had been seeing her every day heading off over the fields with the dogs. She was a lovely woman, always so friendly and chatty. A good-looking woman too, he noticed, but what was most appealing about Liz was that she seemed to have a slight frailty about her. In fact, with her dark hair and ladylike ways, she reminded him of his youngest sister, although Ingrid wouldn’t go near a dog to save her life.

“How’s it all going?” she called, giving him a friendly wave, while trying to herd the dogs back into their individual kennels. “Doing some work on the garden, I see?”

“I’m nearly sorry I started to be honest,” he called back, standing up and leaning on his
shovel. “It’s bloody hard work.  But I thought I’d better do something with it.  Actually,” he added, sticking the shovel into the dirt and coming across to chat to her, “your friend Tara shamed me into it with all her talk about it being a wilderness.”

Liz smiled. “Yes, Tara can be a bit persuasive all right.”

“Did you two enjoy your night out on the town that time? Apart from having to make conversation with me.”

“Don’t be silly – it was a great night, and once Tara got started there was no fear of us running out of things to say. But I’m sorry she went on at you like that about your job and everything.” 

“Yes, she speaks her mind all the same, doesn’t she?” he laughed and Liz laughed too.

“Bi
t of an understatement, I think,” she said. “Yes, Tara doesn’t hold back.”

“I think she told me she grew up in the village?” Luke queried. “I take it you did too?

“Oh goodness, no. Can’t you tell from the accent? I’m a true-blue Dub.”

“I just assumed you two were childhood friends and your accent isn’t particularly noticeable.”

“No, we used to work together in Dublin. But my husband Eric is from here. That’s how we met actually – he’s a school-friend of Tara’s and she introduced us.”

“I see.”

Luke hadn’t met the husband yet, but he remembered Liz saying something about him working in Dublin. Lucky bastard, having a lovely wife and kid like that. At thirty-six, and having done the run of nightclubs and speed-dating and what have you, Luke had just about given up on finding himself a decent prospect, let alone a half-decent woman. Well, at least until now.

“So,” he began, trying to sound offhand, “does she get down to visit you all that much or …?” He let the rest of the sentence trail off, as at this Liz smiled knowingly, a bit too knowingly, he thought, reddening a little.
Damn, had he made it that obvious?

“She comes down to visit her parents a lot,” said Liz, “so yes, we do see her quite a bit.”

“Still, I suppose she’s busy in Dublin with her job and everything – she told me all about it when you were away,” he said casually, afraid that he was revealing too much interest in Tara’s life. 

“Well, she is busy, but as I said we do get to see her a lot.” Liz met his eyes , her look, conveying to Luke that she was very much aware of his reasons for asking. “Why? Are you worried that you might bump into her again? And that she’ll castigate you about your job?”

“Well, if she does, I’ll have an answer for her,” Luke replied, feeling cheered by the fact that Liz hadn’t mentioned anything about Tara having a boyfriend. With her good looks and seemingly fun-loving personality, he’d thought there might have been someone on the scene. But Liz, who clearly knew he was fishing for information about her, hadn’t said a word about Tara being attached. This was good news.

“Yes, you two seemed well
able for one another that night,” Liz laughed.

“Hello there.
”

Luke and Liz were so busy laughing about Tara that they hadn’t noticed the man come out of Liz’s house. The guy had such a look of suspicion on his face that Luke immediately twigged it was the husband, evidently wondering who it was that was making his wife laugh like that. And so he might.

“Oh Eric, hi – you’re home!” Liz cried. “Come and meet Luke, our new next-door neighbour.” She turned and looked questioningly at Luke. “You two haven’t met yet, have you?”

Eric stepped forward. “Nice to meet you – I hear you moved in recently. Sorry I haven’t bumped into you before now,” he said amiably, holding out his hand. 

But as Luke went to shake the other man’s hand and got a proper look at his face, he realised that Eric was correct in saying that they hadn’t met but was wrong in his assumption that they hadn’t bumped into one another. 

They had, Luke thought, as he studied his new neighbour’s husband, but at the time Eric had been sitting on a park bench
by the lake, deep in conversation with a woman who was definitely
not
his lovely wife.

“I just don’t know how to thank you!” Natalie gushed down the telephone line to Tara. It had been over three weeks since her trip to Paris with Jay, and the two had been inseparable since. 

“Well, I’m still not happy that you broke your promise not to sleep with him,” Tara reminded her briskly, “but I’ll admit that had I been in your situation, I would probably have had problems keeping it too.”

“Ubercalm and controlled you? I don’t believe it for a second!” Natalie joked.

“So things are still going well then?” said Tara, although any fool could tell from Natalie’s elated tone that things were going very well indeed.

“He’s wonderful, Tara, and we get on so well. We have the most amazing chats that last for hours, and at the end of it all, we can barely remember what we’ve talked about.  I’ve never felt so …” she seemed to be struggling for the right word, “so on a par with a man before. I’m not always worried about how I’m putting myself across or what’ll happen next – I’m just being myself. And yes, I know it sounds corny, but it’s true!”

“I’m thrilled for you, Natalie – I really am. Jay sounds terrific – almost too good to be true.” He did sound wonderful – sensitive, thoughtful, romantic – and seemed to treat Natalie the way every girl would like to be treated. Tara sorely hoped that the man was everything he seemed to be. Having genuinely fallen for someone this time, it would just be Natalie’s luck for him to turn out to be married, or something. 

“He is! Oh, Tara, you’d love him – you really would.”

“I’m sure I would. So tell me, do you want to continue our sessions for a little while longer? Or are you happy enough to keep going on your own now? To be honest, I don’t think there’s a whole lot else I can help you with. You seem to be doing just fine on your own.”

“Well, there is one more thing,” Natalie said. “I’d really love for you to … I don’t know … observe us together.”

“Observe you?”

“Yes, I’d love to hear your opinion – not only on Jay, but also on how the two of us interact. You know, just to be sure that it is as good as I’m making it all sound!”

Tara smiled. “Don’t be silly – you certainly don’t need my blessing – not at this stage anyway.”

“But I’d really love for you to meet him, Tara – I mean, it’s all because of you that we’re together in the first place.”