Wishful Thinking (a journey that will change lives forever) (20 page)

That was it!  Happily, Dara hit on the perfect solution.  In order to focus her mind and stop being distracted by Noah’s painfully obvious good looks, she could try and pretend he was simply a client – an ugly, unpleasant client like say … Leo Gardner or someone.  But no, that wouldn’t do either; Leo Gardner was so unattractive, so nauseatingly repellent that she wouldn’t be able to maintain the fiction.  Oh, forget it, there was no chance of her forgetting how gorgeous he was – no woman with a pulse would be able to do that!

Noah was telling her about his marriage.

“It was never right,” he admitted gently. “I met her while travelling around Australia, we got on well, and one day, in a moment of madness, I proposed.” He looked at her directly then, the weight of his gaze almost pinning her to the seat. “I hadn’t really thought seriously about it before but … but we’d been together a while, and I thought I loved her but …” His words trailed off.

Dara felt something then, something that felt uncomfortably close to relief, optimism, hope.  Noah said he’d
thought
he was in love.  Did that mean then that … no, no, don’t even think about it, she told herself silently.  It simply meant that he thought he was in love, nothing more.  It certainly did not mean that he was
actually
in love with someone else, someone like her. 

“We came home a few months later, but almost as soon as we came back, everything changed.  It was weird, but it was as though we’d been living some kind of fantasy life while we were away. There were no responsibilities, no bills to pay, no mortgages.  And once reality hit …” his words trailed off and he shook his head. “It fell to pieces within a few months of our coming home.  We rented a house for a while here – a nice place in Swords, but Maria couldn’t settle.  Eventually, she decided to go back to Manchester, where she’s from. I think deep down, we both knew it was for the best.  We weren’t making one another happy. Chances were we weren’t really in love at all – it was just an impulsive thing, a moment of madness really.”

“I’m sorry,” Dara said, meaning it.  Such a shame to have it all fall apart so quickly.

“Ah, we were foolish to get married in the first place.  She’s a wonderful person, and I still care about her but …” he paused and held Dara’s gaze, those mesmerising green eyes almost boring into hers.  Then, he dropped his eyes to the tablecloth before adding quietly, “It was never the same as …the same as what we had, Dara.”

At the moment, with those words, Dara felt as though someone had taken her heart and danced all over it.  Was he saying …? Was he admitting …?

“That was a long time ago, Noah,” she said, swallowing hard. “And we were young.” She couldn’t get into this, they couldn’t talk about it.  Not now, not after all this time.  And she was
married
now, for God’s sake! 

“I know things were a bit strange between us before I left, but why didn’t you answer my letters, Dara – or return my phone calls?  The way we left things … it was awful.  I knew you were upset but – ”

“I wasn’t just upset – I was embarrassed – mortified!  Even now, thinking back on how stupidly I was behaving, how pathetic I must have looked …” She cringed again, remembering.

Noah smiled. “Look, you were just caught up in Clodagh’s wedding, I know that.  I knew it at the time. But I couldn’t understand why you were so upset that night, I couldn’t believe that you all but cut me out of your life afterwards.”

“
Why
I was so upset?” The shame of it all so clear in her mind, even now, Dara couldn’t help but talk about it. “Noah, we’d been together for years, and then all of a sudden you tell me you don’t want to marry me, that you didn’t see a future together – why wouldn’t I be upset!”  She lowered her voice slightly, afraid that someone might overhear them.

“That’s not what I said,” he countered swiftly. “I never said we didn’t have a future together.  As far as I was concerned you were the one for me, the
only
one for me, and you were my future.  But at the time, I wasn’t ready.  I wanted to do something more with my life, I wanted to see the world, I wanted
us
to see the world together, before we thought about settling down. That’s all it was, Dara.  It had nothing to do with not loving you, or not wanting to marry you. I just wasn’t ready.”

He leaned forward in his chair and lightly touched her hand.  “I couldn’t believe it when you didn’t want to talk to me before I left.  I couldn’t believe that it was over. But when you wouldn’t take my phone calls and reply to my letters, I realised that you were serious, that I’d really lost you.”  He shook his head. “For a long time afterwards, I could hardly function. I was gutted.” Then he smiled slightly. “At one stage, Charlie was nearly giving up on me.  We were in Bangkok, on Patpong Road, and everywhere you looked there were these fantastic-looking women – ”

“You
hope
they were women!” Dara said, amused.

“Nah, it wasn’t like that,” he grinned. “But Charlie’s eyes were nearly popping out of his head, and me … well, I just couldn’t get into it.  I just wasn’t interested.  Eventually, Charlie got sick of my moping around and he told me straight to either cop on or go home.  And I thought seriously about going home, so I wrote you one last letter to see if you’d mellowed at all, or if you’d really just given up on me.”

Dara remembered, and her heart twisted like a piece of rope.  “I didn’t reply,” she confirmed sadly.

“No, you didn’t.”

Dara couldn’t comprehend what she felt just then.  She had made such a mess of everything.  Noah had just admitted that what had happened back then wasn’t the end of the world.  He’d admitted that the ball had been in her court, but stupidly, she’d stuck to her guns.  She remembered thinking back then that if he really loved her, he wouldn’t have gone in the first place.

“And chances are he’s enjoying his new-found freedom!” she’d said huffily to Clodagh, all the jealousy and suspicion she’d found so difficult to handle at the beginning of the relationship flooding back. 

“If you say so.” By then, Clodagh was tired of listening to Dara moaning about Noah. She had a wedding to plan, and had little time for plamausing her heartbroken friend, who – when it came down to it – was so stubborn she was her own worst enemy.

Noah was going on with his story. “So I gave up.  I let it go.  And after a while, Charlie and I were enjoying ourselves so much that we decided to stay away a bit longer.  We picked up part-time jobs here and there to keep us going and, eventually, I came to terms with the fact that you and I were finished.”  He paused then, and his eyes twinkled humorously. “And seeing as you seemed so anxious to get married, I thought you might have moved on, and replaced me.” He shrugged. “And so you have.”

Dara sat back in her chair and tried to take it all in.  This was, crazy, unbelievable, surreal – no, in fact there wasn’t a suitable word to describe how she felt now.

“And after a very long time, I eventually moved on myself.”  He laughed when Dara’s eyes widened. “Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t exactly live like a monk.  But when I met Maria, it was different.  We got on so well, had a good laugh and I don’t know, as I said, life is different, easier, more carefree when you’re away.  So, we were together for a while, things were good and so we got married.”

“I know.” Dara remembered the crushing disappointment she’d felt when she found his wedding photograph on the internet.  When she told him this, his face fell.

“Oh.”

“So, why Rome?” she couldn’t help but ask.  She’d been hurt so much by that in particular, by the fact that he’d gone off and got married in what was supposed to have been
their
place.  Not that she had any right to feel that way, but still she couldn’t help it. It had been the deepest cut of all. “Why Rome, when it was supposed to be …” she shrugged, embarrassed all of a sudden, “you know.”

Noah studied her. “To be honest, it was Maria’s suggestion.  We were in Italy at the time, and it was easy to arrange. One of her mates at home put her in touch with this wedding company …”  He shrugged uncomfortably. “Then again, maybe, deep down … I don’t know . . . ” 

“I did something similar,” Dara revealed, and told him about her honeymoon there. “I suppose I needed to get it – get
you
– out of my system.” She didn’t mind divulging the truth to him now, and it was strange, but despite not having seen Noah in so long, she still felt as easy and comfortable with him as if they had never been apart.

But things were different now, she thought, feeling more than a tinge of sadness as she wiggled the gold band on her finger, things were very different.

Noah had known instantly that Dara was married – he’d spotted the ring on her finger at the office earlier.

“So what’s he like?” he asked. “Are you two married long?”

Dara’s stomach dropped.  Had it really been that short a time? “Nearly six months,” she told him, almost ashamedly. “But he’s wonderful.”

And he was.  The problem was that however wonderful Mark was, he wasn’t the one who gave her butterflies in her stomach, who made her go weak at the knees. No, Mark Russell wasn’t the man who did that. 

But the man who
did
was just then sitting directly across from her, and as they both tried to make sense of how it had all gone wrong for them, she felt an aching regret.  

“I’d better go back to the office,” she said eventually, realising that they couldn’t go on talking like this.  It was way too dangerous.  Things had changed, and while it was difficult seeing him in the flesh, and even more difficult hearing how she had ruined it all for them, she knew she couldn’t travel any further along this road.   Too much time had passed.  They were both very different people with very different lives. Chances were they had nothing in common anymore, other than their shared past. 

“I’d love to see you again sometime,” Noah said then, his tone neutral and his expression unreadable.

“I’m sure we will bump into one another at some stage,” Dara replied as airily as she could.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Oh God no, she couldn’t do this.  Much as she was tempted, she couldn’t start meeting Noah behind Mark’s back, like that.  With the way things were going, it would end in tears, there were no two ways about it, and she wasn’t so naïve as to think they could start seeing one another just as friends.  There was still too much electricity, too much spark – any fool could see that.

“Noah, I really don’t think it would be a good idea,” she said, refusing to meet his gaze.  She picked up her handbag, and slung it over her shoulder.  “It was wonderful seeing you again, and I’m … I’m sorry that things didn’t work out for you and your wife.”

“Sure.” Still his expression was unreadable.

“But Paul is a good solicitor, and I’m sure he’ll do a good job for you.”

Just then she realised that they could all too easily bump into one another again, seeing as Noah was now a client of the firm.  And deep down, something that felt dangerously close to excitement raised itself within.

“I’m sure he will.”

She smiled tightly. “Right, well, thanks for lunch and … all the best.  Take care.”

“You too, Dara.”

With that, she left the café, and as if in a trance made her way back to the office. She was going to forget every single word of that conversation and forget every detail of Noah’s face, his smile, his incredible presence. 

Yes, it had been a shock seeing him again after all this time and hearing the things he said, but things were different now. She was married to Mark now, and Noah was just an old friend, just a distant memory.  A memory that she had to erase from her mind once and for all.

But that hadn’t gone well so far, had it? Dara thought now, as the train pulled into Pearse Street station.  She
hadn’t
been able to erase the memory, otherwise she wouldn’t have been dreaming about him.  And she still couldn’t stop thinking about him this morning, when by rights she should be thinking about her husband. 

Then, the frightening but all-important question she had spent the last twenty-four hours trying to bury, rose to the surface with a vengeance.

Why had she done it? she asked herself finally.  Why had she
really
married Mark? Was it to get back at Noah somehow? To prove to him, or even to herself that she wasn’t going to sit around waiting for him to come back to her?  Yet she had convinced herself – she had
really
convinced herself that she had lost her chance with Noah – that he was out of her life for good.

She went over her list of reasons once again – all of which had seemed perfectly valid at the time. Time was moving on, she was sick of being single, sick of being made feel like some sort of social pariah because she was the only one who wasn’t married.  Tired of making excuses to her mother, tired of feeling embarrassed for being independent, and finally beginning to wonder if she might end up alone. There was the question of children too, wasn’t there?  She had always wanted a child but didn’t relish the prospect of raising one on her own.

So she’d decided to settle for the next best thing and marry a man she enjoyed being with.  Someone for whom she had great affection, but didn’t
really
love – not like she loved Noah anyway.