The Guest List (7 page)

Oh shit . . .

‘Everything all right?’ she inquired nervously, still glancing at his hands. His fingers were now tapping the wood of the table, as if he was looking for a piano but would instead make do with pounding out a rhythm with whatever surface was provided.

‘What?’ he replied, bringing his attention back to Cara. He looked briefly at his fingers as if he had previously been unaware of what they had been doing. ‘Oh sorry, I just need to order another drink.’ He picked up his empty glass and his hand shook and rattled the leftover ice.

Cara was now seriously worried. First off, Shane was never jittery. Second, he was never impatient. And third, he wasn’t a big drinker and certainly not some kind of addict who started to shake while he waited for his next fix.

‘Shane, are you all right?’ she asked, her internal radar screaming at her that something was up. Oh God, she
knew
she should never have mentioned that whole marriage thing this morning. Now he was spooked.

‘Yes, why do you ask?’ he said, offering up a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

‘You’re just acting sort of weird all of a sudden.’ Cara glanced around at her fellow diners, looking for clues. She wondered if he had perhaps seen someone he knew but didn’t want to meet, and that was what had set off the nervous behaviour.

‘Really Cara, I’m fine, I’m just . . . I’m just hungry. I didn’t get lunch today. Speaking of which, did you end up cancelling with Kim earlier? You mentioned this morning that you might.’

Her thoughts temporarily distracted, she shook her head. ‘Actually, I did see her. I completely forgot that I was planning to cancel and she showed up at the office so we ended up going out anyway.’ She smiled. ‘I’m glad – it turns out she had some news.’

‘Really? Tell me all.’

‘Clancy baby number three is on the way. I’m the first in the family to know.’

Shane smiled and he looked like himself again. ‘Well that’s fantastic,’ he said happily. ‘I bet is Ben is over the moon.’

Cara nodded her head. ‘They both are. I feel really chuffed that she told me first though. She really is like a sister to me.’

A waitress appeared to take their drinks. ‘What can I get you?’

Shane picked up the wine list and pointed to his selection. ‘Let’s have a bottle of the Veuve Clicquot.’

She smiled. ‘Good choice. I’ll be right back.’

Cara looked at him, somewhat shocked at the champagne order but at the same time relieved. He couldn’t be planning to break up with her if he was ordering champagne. Unless he was so desperate to be rid of her, he wanted to celebrate when it was over . . . ‘What’s with the champagne?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Ah why not? We’re a long time dead after all.’

Cara didn’t understand. A second ago, Shane had looked like he couldn’t wait to get out of here, now it seemed he was settling in for the night.

The waitress returned with an ice bucket, flutes and the bottle of champagne. She opened it and poured both Cara and Shane a glass. When she was finished, she looked at Shane. ‘Would you like to order food now?’

Cara started to speak up but Shane shook his head. ‘Let’s have a glass of this first, and give us a few more moments.’

‘Not a problem,’ the waitress said, taking her leave.

So much for being hungry . . .
Now Cara was thoroughly confused. ‘So, seriously, what’s the special occasion?’ she inquired, holding up her glass of champagne and glancing at the bottle.

Across the table, Shane cleared his throat. He hadn’t yet picked up his glass and he looked to be holding on to – no, clutching – the edge of the table. He pressed his lips together and seemed to be considering his next words.

Finally, he spoke. ‘It’s just, I . . .’ Suddenly his words were cut off by a sharp cry from the other side of the restaurant, and their attention was immediately directed to where the sound came from. Across the room, a woman was crying what appeared to be happy tears as her dining companion, down on one knee at the side of the table, seemed to be sliding a diamond ring onto her left hand.

‘Aww,’ Cara said, smiling. She started to clap with the rest of the diners as the woman stood up and encircled her fiancé in her arms, covering his face with kisses. ‘That’s so sweet.’ She turned her attention back to Shane. His pallor had changed to an even more ghostly shade, and the confident, calm smile that had graced his face earlier was gone. In truth, he looked like someone who was about to be sick at any moment.

Oh God
, Cara thought, panicking.
He really is afraid of marriage.

‘Shane, are you all right?’ she asked, all her fears from before suddenly returning. Regardless of what he’d said earlier about having no issues with marriage, no man should react that badly to someone else’s engagement.

‘Sorry, I just lost my train of thought there.’ He shook his head as if hoping to shake off the memory of what had just taken place across the dining room.

‘Talk about a cliché, huh?’ Cara joked, indicating the couple and hoping to once again lighten the mood.

But Shane now looked positively green, and seemed to be having a hard time swallowing. He looked around as if he was trying to figure out where the nearest exit was.

Even more thoroughly confused at this point, Cara had no idea what to say next. She glanced at her glass of champagne and fought the urge to grab it and throw it back in one gulp. Searching her mind for a way to extricate them from this situation, she remembered that Shane had been about to make a toast.

‘So,’ she said with an easy-going smile, ‘what were we about to toast to?’

Shane searched her face, and his eyes nervously moved back and forth in his head. ‘Right . . . a toast, yes, right,’ he stuttered, seemingly at a loss for words.

He stopped for a moment and cleared his throat again. ‘Right, you know that, um . . .’ Faltering, he looked down at his lap and seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. Then he grabbed his champagne glass in one hand and offered it up. ‘Cheers to Ben and Kim and their soon-to-be new addition,’ he said resolutely, smiling a weak smile. Cara didn’t move to greet the gesture, so Shane leaned forward to clink her glass instead. Then he sat back in his chair and took a deep drink from the flute.

Cara sat across the table, feeling bewildered about what had just transpired.

Had he really bought a bottle of champagne worth nearly a hundred quid just to toast to family members who weren’t even present at this dinner? she thought to herself. Not to mention that he’d only just learned the news about Kim and Ben’s new baby. Cara felt a growing unease in the pit of her stomach and couldn’t seem to organise her thoughts. All she knew was that something very important had happened – literally in the last few moments – that had greatly changed the tone of the evening.

For some reason, the relaxed mood from before they’d seen the other couple’s proposal never returned, and Shane spent much of the meal in sullen silence. Cara was relieved when the bill was paid and they were finally able to leave.

Walking out on to the street, Shane seemed lost in another world and Cara hoped it wouldn’t take long for them to find a taxi and just get home.

He turned to Cara suddenly. ‘Actually, you go ahead. I need to go back to the office. I just realised I forgot something.’

Cara frowned at him. ‘But it’s after nine o’clock at night, Shane. Can’t it wait till morning?’

‘It really can’t,’ he insisted, signalling an oncoming taxi. ‘Look, why don’t you take this and go on home. I just need to go grab this . . . file and I’ll be back in no time.’

Cara nodded glumly. Something was definitely wrong and she didn’t know how to fix it; she just knew that for some reason Shane didn’t want to come home with her. He wanted to be away from her. She cursed the newly engaged couple who had given rise to all the fears that she had thought she had put away. She had vowed not to mention the idea of marriage again tonight and, somehow, the notion had still followed her in to the restaurant by way of a third party. And now her boyfriend was looking to avoid her.

‘All right,’ she agreed lamely. ‘If this file is so important, go ahead.’ ‘Hey,’ Shane said, pulling her close and raising her chin so she would meet his gaze. ‘I won’t be long I promise, just go home and get settled, and I’ll follow on shortly. Really, I promise I won’t be long.’ He kissed her, and there was something in it that made her anxiety ebb away a little.

‘Shane, are we OK?’ she couldn’t help but ask. ‘It’s just that scene in there and the couple with the engagement . . . and then your mood and . . . just the way everything felt . . .’ She blurted the words out, feeling all of the worries that had been piling up since last night suddenly cresting and overflowing around them.

‘Hey, hey – what did I say this morning?’

‘You said a lot of things . . .’

‘And all of them were true. Look, I just had something on my mind tonight, that’s all. Just go home and don’t worry about a thing, OK? I’ll see you soon.’

She nodded and got into the waiting taxi, not sure what else there was to say.

Later that night, Cara woke suddenly. She sat up in bed, turned to the alarm clock and looked at the time.
12
:
15
a.m. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she looked down at the other side of the bed. She reached a hand out: it was empty and cold. Shane was not beside her. She had left him hours ago at the restaurant and he still hadn’t returned home.

Pushing aside the worries about their disastrous dinner earlier, she tried to figure out what had woken her up. She’d waited up for him as long as she could, but the events of the day had drained her and she had eventually fallen asleep.

Just then, Cara’s phone chirped from the nightstand. She reached out to grab it, and fear entered her heart as she immediately had visions of the police calling telling her there had been an accident and that Shane was in the hospital.

‘Oh God,’ she breathed, preparing herself for the worst.

The screen came alive but it wasn’t a call coming through. There was a lone text message. It was from Shane.

She swallowed hard. What if he wasn’t coming home? What if he had decided that he didn’t want to be with her . . . what if . . .?

She opened the message. It simply read

Sorry to wake you. Meet me in the living room?

The message was new and delivered a few seconds ago. Once again, confusion reigned. Shane was here in the apartment? But why was he texting her from their living room? She got out of bed and pulled her robe on.

Then suddenly, her senses, acute in the dark, were met with something unexpected.

A sweet, rich smell.

Cara began walking across the room and her bare feet came into contact with something on the floor. It was cold and velvety soft. Reaching to the wall to turn on the overhead light, she realised that the floor was covered in a trail of petals, rose petals. They led to the door.

A tentative smile rushed to her face, and something that felt like hope mixed with excitement bloomed in her heart. Her feet moved lightly across the room and she opened the door to find the hallway bathed in what seemed like soft candlelight.

What the . . .?

She continued to follow the trail of rose petals down the hallway, past the kitchen and, finally, into the living room, where Shane stood. He had his back to her, and was looking out through the glass patio doors that showcased the night, lit only by the stars overhead.

‘Shane? What are you doing? What’s going on?’ Cara asked hesitantly.

She knew he had heard her, but he began speaking without turning round.

‘I knew I was doing something wrong in the restaurant earlier, you know. I wanted to do something special, but it went completely against who we are, as a couple. However, it is now officially a new day.’

She started to breathe easier. He seemed to be apologising for his strange behaviour earlier – mind you it was a slightly odd apology, but she appreciated it just the same.

‘Shane, really, it’s fine. I’m sure that when you saw that couple and after what we talked about this morning . . . I understand, there is a lot of pressure about the whole marriage thing, and it’s all coming from me. I’m sorry, I should never have mentioned anything about it, and never would have, only for that stupid invitation . . .’ She started to walk towards him.

Shane turned around then and met Cara’s gaze. A smile was on his face, a truly genuine one. The kind she was used to.

‘You really don’t know, do you?’ he said, chuckling a little.

‘Know what?’ She was at a loss. Her eyes were round as saucers as she tried to figure out what she had seemingly been missing.

Shane crossed the distance between them in three steps and pulled her into his arms. ‘You make me so happy, you are my whole world, and I love you and I want you with me always. I don’t want to share our special happy moments with a room full of strangers. I want this to be all about us. I was going to tell you all that in the restaurant tonight and then give you this . . .’ He pulled a small black velvet box from the pocket of his jacket and sank to one knee in front of her.

Cara’s breath caught in her throat and her heart started to beat wildly.

‘But the time wasn’t right, not then, and I wanted this moment to be special for you, for us, and I then realised that making a big show of it,’ he continued, ‘a big public proposal in some restaurant, wasn’t right for us, and thankfully that bloke beat me to it and forced me into shutting up. I didn’t want anything to ruin or spoil this moment.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Cara I love you, I have never loved anyone the way I love you. Please do me the honour of becoming my wife. Will you please make me the happiest man on the planet and marry me?’

Before Cara, still trying to recover from what he’d said, could say anything, he opened the ring box to reveal a perfect princess-cut diamond on a white gold band. Two smaller diamonds on either side of the bigger one also graced the band. It was simple, beautiful and classic. And it was perfect.

His eyes met Cara’s as it finally dawned on her what was going on. He had been planning to propose in that restaurant . . . and of course – what was it she’d said at the time? Something about restaurant proposals being a cliché? She had taken everything that had happened and, thanks to her insecurities, had completely spun it out of context. She laughed at the silliness of the past few hours. When would she learn not to let her imagination run away with her?