Single Dads Collection. Lynne Marshall
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I’m not looking for love any more.’
‘You’ve been hurt,’ he said, and she gave a short, bitter laugh.
‘You can tell you’ve got a Ph.D., the speed you worked that one out!’
Will ignored her sarcasm. ‘What happened?’
He thought at first that she wasn’t going to answer, but suddenly Alice needed to tell him. It was too late to pretend that her life was perfect now. Will’s clearly wasn’t, so he might as well know the truth.
‘I met Tony four years ago,’ she began slowly. ‘I’d had a few boyfriends, but there hadn’t been anyone serious.’
There hadn’t been anyone like Will. Alice pushed that thought aside and carried on. ‘I hadn’t exactly given up on meeting someone special, but I’d decided it probably wasn’t going to happen. And then Tony came to work in my office.’
She paused, remembering that day. ‘He was everything I’d ever wanted,’ she said, oblivious to the wry look that passed over Will’s face. ‘We clicked immediately. We had so much in common. We liked doing the same things, and we wanted the same things out of life. I really thought he was The One,’ she said, with an effort at self-mockery.
‘Tony’s careful,’ she went on, even though she knew Will wouldn’t understand. ‘I felt safe with him. He’s committed to his career, and he makes sure he invests his money sensibly. He thinks before he acts. He doesn’t take stupid risks. That’s why…’
She stopped, hearing her voice beginning to crack like a baby. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to continue. ‘That’s why I found it hard to believe that he would do something so out of character.’
‘What did he do?’ asked Will, part of him still grappling with disbelief at the idea that his lovely, vibrant Alice had decided after all to settle for safe, sensible and boring. He wouldn’t have minded so much if she had fallen in love with someone wild, passionate and unsuitable, but how could she choose a man whose main attribute seemed to be a sensible approach to financial investments?
Alice drew a breath. ‘He went out one day and fell in love at first sight.’
For a moment, Will was nonplussed. ‘It happens,’ he said, remembering that dizzy, dropping feeling he’d had the first time he’d laid eyes on Alice.
‘Not to someone like Tony,’ she said almost fiercely. ‘We were together three and a half years, and I thought I knew him through and through. He was never impetuous. He never did anything without thinking it through.’
God, Tony sounded dull, thought Will. He wasn’t a particularly reckless man himself, but he got the feeling that he would seem a positive daredevil next to Tony. What on earth had been his appeal for Alice?
‘I couldn’t believe it when he told me,’ she was saying. ‘He was very honest with me. He said that he’d thought that he did love me, but he realised when he met Sandi that he hadn’t known what love was. It had taken us three years to decide that we would get married,’ she added bitterly. ‘It took him three minutes to know that he wanted to marry Sandi.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Will, not knowing what else to say.
‘Sandi’s sweet and good and kind and pretty,’ Alice went on. ‘She really is,’ she insisted, seeing Will’s sceptical look. ‘It’s really hard to dislike her, and, believe me, I’ve tried. No one who meets her is at all surprised that Tony fell for her. The only surprising thing is that he thought he loved me for so long. Sandi’s about as different from me as she could be.’
‘She doesn’t sound very interesting,’ Will said, but Alice wasn’t to be consoled.
‘Tony doesn’t want interesting. Interesting is too much like hard work,’ she said. ‘I thought I was making an effort for him, but it turned out I was “challenging” him,’ she remembered, bitterness creeping back into her voice. ‘I don’t know how. I didn’t think I had particularly high expectations, but there you go. Apparently I’m very demanding.’
‘You’re not easy,’ Will agreed. ‘But you’re worth the effort. If Tony couldn’t be bothered to make that effort, you’re better off without him.’
‘It didn’t feel that way,’ said Alice bleakly. ‘We have lots of friends in common, so I see Tony with Sandi quite often. I don’t think he’s regretted his decision for a minute. In fact, I think he wakes up in a cold sweat sometimes, realising what a narrow escape he had!’
She tried to sound as if she didn’t mind, but Will could hear the thread of hurt in her voice.
‘They’re still together, then?’
‘They got married last week,’ said Alice, her eyes on the dull gleam of the sea through the darkness. ‘The day I met you at Roger and Beth’s party.’
Will remembered how tense she had been that day. Alice had always been too proud to show how much she hurt inside. He should have guessed that something more than the passage of time was wrong, but he had been too shaken by his own reaction to give any thought to hers.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘It must have been difficult for you.’
Alice lifted her chin. She had always hated any suspicion of pity. ‘I survived,’ she said curtly. ‘But that’s why I’m doing without love at the moment.’
‘You know, we all get hurt sometimes,’ said Will mildly. ‘Some of us more than once.’
‘Once is enough for me,’ said Alice.
Silence fell. They sat together in the hot, still night, each wrapped in their own thoughts, while the insects shrilled frantically in the darkness and the lagoon whispered onto the sand.
Alice was very aware of Will beside her. It was strange, being with him again, feeling that she knew him intimately, and yet hardly at all. He wasn’t the same man he had been, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time. He was harder, more contained than he had been, and he had grown out of his lankiness to a lean, solid strength.
Her eyes slid sideways under her lashes to rest on the austere profile. She couldn’t see them in the darkness but she knew there were new lines creasing his eyes, a tougher set to his jaw, a sterner line to his mouth.
That capacity for stillness was the same, though. She had often watched him sitting like that, his body relaxed but alert, and envied his ability to withdraw from the chaos and just be calm. She had loved his competence, his intelligence, the ironic gleam in the humorous grey eyes. Even as a young man, he had had an assurance that was understated, like everything else about Will, but quite unmistakeable.
There was something insensibly reassuring about his quiet presence. Whatever happened, you felt that Will could deal with it and everything would be all right. Even now, after everything that had happened, he made her feel safe.
If only that was all he had made her feel! The initial attraction she had felt for the ordinary-looking student had deepened into a dangerous passion that made Alice uneasy. She didn’t like feeling out of control, and the strength of her emotions scared her.
Will had started out a good friend, a good companion, and he had become a good lover, but soon it went beyond even that. Alice was out of her depth. She didn’t like the feeling of needing him, of not feeling quite complete without him. All her experience had taught her to rely on herself, and she had forced herself to resist the lure of binding herself to him for ever.
Because she had been so in love she hadn’t seen that they wanted very different things out of life. The future Will enthused about hadn’t been the one Alice had dreamed of. She had yearned all her life for security, and that had been the one thing Will couldn’t offer. He’d wanted to continue his research, to work wherever he could find a coral reef, to do what he could to protect them. She’d wanted a wardrobe, somewhere she could hang up her clothes and never have to unpack them. She’d wanted a place she could call her