Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Orla woke a while later and smiled when she remembered where she was, wrapped in Shay’s arms.

She looked up at him and saw he was awake. He smiled at her and stroked her hair. Their lips were mere inches apart – if she leaned forward just a little, she could kiss him. His eyes fell to her lips and she knew he was thinking about that too, but he didn’t make that move this time. She had said she just wanted to be friends and he was respecting that, although stroking her hair was probably blurring the lines a little, but so was lying on top of him.

‘Hey, how are you feeling?’ Shay said.

‘Still tired.’

‘Yeah, me too. But the doctor said that’s to be expected with concussion and we just need plenty of rest. I thought I was OK since I didn’t bang my head or get knocked out, but she said concussion can occur just from severe jolts to the body. Crashing the car headfirst onto the beach after a two-hundred-foot plummet down the cliff was definitely a big jolt.’

‘Yeah, it was. Do you hurt anywhere?’

‘Yeah, my back, legs, arms.’

She nodded. ‘Me too.’

‘I am sorry. Although I’d never want to hurt any animal, I’d never rank the life of a deer more important than yours.’

‘What could you have done? If you’d just ploughed straight into it, we would probably have been killed anyway. He was huge, that coming through the windscreen would not have ended well for us. Besides, maybe we should be thanking him.’

He frowned. ‘How so?’

‘He’s given us the opportunity to talk honestly with each other for the first time in… well, probably forever.’

Her stomach gurgled, reminding her they hadn’t eaten since their bacon sandwich at midnight, probably thirteen or fourteen hours before.

‘Let’s get something to eat and then we can talk.’

She tried to get up but found the blanket that was wrapped around her was stuck round her feet. She glanced round to see Ivy fast asleep upside down, legs akimbo, tongue hanging out as she lay on the bottom of the blanket. Orla laughed as she tried to surreptitiously drag the blanket out from underneath the dog in an imitation of the tablecloth trick.

‘I think she wanted to be part of the cuddle party,’ Shay said.

‘And she’s very welcome, at least you know where you stand with a dog’s affections.’

Shay didn’t say anything and she winced. ‘Sorry.’

‘No that’s fair.’

She finally freed the blanket and climbed off him. Ivy opened one eye to look at them and then carried on sleeping.

She wandered into the kitchen and he followed her.

‘Mum left enough food to feed a small army. I watched her cramming it into every nook and cranny, but at least we don’t need to cook anything, just a quick reheat.’ Shay opened the fridge. ‘Ah, Christmas has come early, these are her famous roast turkey sandwiches. Shall we take these in the dining room?’

Orla peered over his shoulder. ‘Yes, and let’s grab some of that cheese and crackers too.’

They took a few minutes to grab some cheese, crackers, grapes, crisps and the delicious smelling turkey and stuffing sandwiches. They also grabbed some glasses of water as well.

They walked into the dining room and she couldn’t help smiling at the table. ‘Why did you buy this?’

‘I made it.’

‘What?’

‘Remember that four-week course I took with the White Cliff Bay furniture company, when I was sixteen or seventeen? Well, we were all tasked with making a dining table, any size or shape we wanted, and I made this. They had this huge slab of raw, untreated oak propped up inside the factory and they had planned to chop it up and make coasters or something. I asked if I could use it and they said yes. They weren’t particularly keen on the idea of not shaping the wood and leaving it like this, narrow at one end, lumpy in the middle, fatter at the other end, but I loved it. And I spent a lot of time sanding down the top and sides so it was smooth and so there was an even surface to eat off, but I kept the raw shape of it. And I was really proud of what I’d achieved at the end. This was the first thing in my life that I’d done that I was proud of.’

‘It’s beautiful, I love the raw wood effect.’

‘I do too. But it’s massive, I think it’s about twelve foot long. There was no way I could take it home and it certainly wasn’t going to be the easiest thing to transport. I told them they could sell it for me. It took over a year for them to find a buyer but eventually they did, although I had no idea who or where it had gone. They gave me five hundred pounds for it. The irony was I used that money to pay for our weekend here and when I walked in here and saw it, I couldn’t believe my table had ended up here, of all places.’

‘You made love to me on the table you built?’

He grinned. ‘Yeah, I did. There was something poetic about that. It made me feel so proud seeing it again and there you were looking at me like a god and for a while – I felt like one. When I realised Antonio had bought it off the previous owner, I had to have it when I bought the house. And if we’re being completely honest, making love to you on this table was probably the highlight of that weekend. The whole weekend was utterly spectacular but for some reason this table ranked pretty high.’

She bit her lip. ‘For me too.’

He watched her, his eyes going dark with need.

‘Stop thinking about making love to me again on this table,’ she said.

He laughed. ‘I can’t help it, you brought it up.’

‘We need to talk first.’

‘First? So there will be an opportunity to do that later?’

‘I guess that depends on this conversation.’

He sat down quickly and she did too. She took a bite of her sandwich and he spread some cheese on a cracker.

Orla looked at the food. ‘Let’s just eat for a while. I feel like this conversation is going to upset me and I don’t want to get too upset to eat.’

‘OK.’

They tucked into the food for a while, but Shay kept on passing her worried looks. She felt that way too; this conversation had the potential to change everything. But while they ate, she thought she could at least manage some polite chit chat until they got onto the heavier stuff.

‘What are your plans for Christmas?’ Orla asked.

‘Oh, probably the same as always. Mum, Theo, Fern and the whole menagerie. Although as much as I love them, there’s only one person I want to spend Christmas with.’

She smiled. ‘Well Carrie has already invited me along to the menagerie as always.’

Most Christmases were spent with Carrie, Shay and the whole family. Sometimes she’d see her parents if they were in town but mostly she’d enjoy the day with her second family.

‘Will you see your own parents this year?’

Orla shook her head. ‘Mum is in Mauritius with her new husband. My dad’s fourth wife has just had a baby, so they want a quiet Christmas with just the three of them. Not that I really wanted to go, wife number four is twenty-three.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘I wish I was. I know age is just a number, but it still feels weird when Dad’s nearly sixty and she’s seven years younger than me.’

‘Yeah, it is a bit.’

‘And it’s hardly likely to last with my dad’s track record. Every relationship he’s had so far, girlfriend or wife has ended because he was unfaithful, so it feels more like he’s just sowing his seed rather than actually falling in love.’

‘Yeah, some people are just not cut out for relationships. They always think they can get something better.’

And wasn’t that the truth. Almost every relationship she’d had had ended because she was always looking for someone who made her feel what Shay had, not just sexually but emotionally too. He’d set the bar impossibly high and no one else could match that. Maybe Roo was right, if she did get together with Shay and it didn’t work out, maybe she needed this time with him for closure, to finally move on once and for all.

Ivy came in the room, dragging one of Shay’s boots with her, making them both laugh. She knew Shay had spent a long time puppy-proofing the place so anything chewable was out of reach, cushions put away in cupboards, things like cables hidden away behind screens or cages he’d attached to the walls so she couldn’t chew through a cable and get an electric shock, but it was easy to forget that things like toilet roll or boots were hugely tempting to a five-month-old puppy. She looked so proud of her little self as she thrashed it around.

Shay grabbed a bag of treats and offered one out to her, signing the word ‘drop’. He had started teaching her various words in sign language so he could communicate with her, but it was going to be a long road. Fortunately, she was very treat driven and was more than happy to swap the boot for a treat. She ran off with a big smile on her face and came back a few seconds later dragging a roll of kitchen roll.

Orla laughed. ‘She’s so full of mischief.’

‘Oh, she’s like this all day. Thankfully I can bring her to work with me and she loves greeting all the guests. I normally take her for a walk in the mornings and that wears her out, but with all the sleeping and recovering we’re doing, she’s missed out on that today and now we’re paying the price of unspent energy. I’ll take her out for a walk later.’ He repeated the sign for ‘drop’ and offered out a treat and she took it. He followed her out to the lounge and Orla watched as he grabbed a few toys and engaged her with dragging them across the carpet for a few minutes as Ivy chased them. She pounced on a long fluffy octopus toy and started chewing that and while she was distracted with that, he came back to finish his food.

Finally, they finished their meal and Shay took all the plates back to the kitchen before returning to the dining room. Her heart fluttered with nerves about what they were going to talk about, but she was going to be brave and take this step with him – she would always regret it if she didn’t.

She looked at him as he sat back down. ‘Yesterday, I said I just wanted to be friends because I’m scared of losing you. Cutting you out of my life was the hardest, stupidest thing I’ve ever done and I never want to go through that again. I would rather have you in my life as just my friend than not have you in my life at all. So you have to promise me that no matter what happens, we’ll be OK.’

He didn’t hesitate. ‘I categorically promise. There is nothing that will stop us from being friends. I don’t want to lose you either, not again. This, whatever it will be, it won’t change us. First and foremost, you will always be my best friend.’

‘OK. I have to know something and it’s going to kill me if you say yes, but I have to know. Did you love me? That weekend, when I told you I loved you, did you love me?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry, I wish the answer was different, I wish my feelings for you only developed in the last few years and I could have a clean conscience, but I did, I loved you so much. I have always loved you.’

Emotion clawed at her throat and tears filled her eyes. Tears for them, for him. It was all so needless.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Shay said. ‘I hurt you and I can’t ever take that back. I’ve done a lot of crappy things in my life but the one thing I regret more than anything is looking you in the eye and telling you I didn’t love you, especially when it wasn’t true. I ruined everything between us.’

‘No, I did that, I was young and so in love. It was so black and white to me back then, I couldn’t be with you so I couldn’t see you again.’

‘I broke your heart.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, you did. And I’ve had several relationships over the years, the break-ups never hurt as much as ours did. Love never felt like how I felt for you either, not even close. But I should never have pushed you away.’

‘I get why you’re wary of getting involved with me again. I broke your heart once, why would you trust me not to do it again?’

‘Because you’re a good man, the very best. I’ve always seen the good in you. Even when you couldn’t see it yourself.’ She reached out and took his hand. ‘Why did you say you didn’t love me?’

He shook his head and absently stroked the grains of the table with his other hand. ‘My birth mum always said she wished she’d never had me, that things had started to go wrong between her and my birth dad when she got pregnant with me. Apparently, my dad used to hit her when I cried as a baby, because he was annoyed with the noise, or he’d hit her when there was a mess in the house or when she was just too exhausted for sex. She blamed it all on me. One of the first memories I have was falling over in the garden and cutting my knee and crying and her shouting at me saying she hated me and wished she’d never had me.’

Tears filled her eyes and spilled over her cheeks. ‘Shay, I’m so sorry.’

‘As I grew up, she was always telling me Dad hit her because of me, it was my fault. She said I was poison and that everything I touch, everyone I came in contact with would be ruined. She said no one could ever love me because I was such a vile, horrible child. You get told it enough times, you start to believe it.’

He pushed his hand through his hair. ‘I never felt I deserved to be loved. When Carrie adopted me, I thought she must be stupid because why the hell would she want me? Even after the adoption papers came through and it was all final, I still kept thinking she’d change her mind when she realised what kind of person I was. Fern and Theo were different, they’d both been through crappy childhoods too, so I can understand why they bonded with me, but you, I never understood why you wanted to be my friend. I felt like I was contaminating you just by being near you. You always saw the good in me, no matter what. I yelled at your parents, swore at them actually, and you kissed me on the cheek and hugged me. I punched your ex-boyfriends for laughing at you over you freaking out over sex and you held the hand that was bruised from fighting and stroked it. I always felt like I was ruining your life by being with you, that I was dragging you down, holding you back.’

He sighed and looked at her. ‘When you asked me to sleep with you, I couldn’t get out of my head that I was… sullying you with my filth. That’s why I originally turned you down, but then I thought about you having your first time with someone who wouldn’t treat you with the respect and care that you deserved and I thought maybe for the first time in my life I could do something good, that I could make your first time something lovely.’

‘You did, it was completely perfect. All my friends at the time said they never really enjoyed sex – even Fern said her first time was pretty rubbish – but you made it so special for me, not just the first time, every time.’

‘I got carried away that weekend. When I originally said yes, it was only going to be a one-time-only thing. I only booked the weekend to give you time to relax and be comfortable with it and if you freaked out, we would have time to try again. I never envisaged a whole weekend of sex, or that you would want that. But our first time was so utterly glorious that I wanted more. And when you wanted that too, I couldn’t turn that down. That weekend you looked at me like I was some kind of god and for a brief moment, I started to believe that maybe I was worth something. You’re smart, brilliant, kind and I thought if someone like you liked someone like me, I must have something good going for me.’

He shook his head. ‘When you told me you loved me, it was honestly the happiest moment of my life and then all that fear and doubt and self-loathing kicked back in. I was never going to be good enough for you, I could never give you the life you deserved and if we were to go down that road of marriage and children, I would ruin your life and probably our children’s life too. So I said I didn’t love you and I have regretted it every day since.’

Orla wiped the tears away. ‘You put me on a pedestal that was impossible to reach.’

‘Funnily enough, my counsellor said the same thing.’

‘Tell me about the counselling.’

‘I was so angry after you left. I’d lost the best thing that ever happened to me because I couldn’t get past all that fear and hatred. It was a huge wake-up call for me. I looked at all my relationships, especially those with my family and realised they weren’t where I wanted them to be. I couldn’t just tell myself what I was feeling was nonsense, it was too ingrained for that, so I asked my mum to help me get some counselling. Mum being Mum, she never asked why, she just sorted it out for me. My counsellor helped me realise that what I have is a pretty good package.’ He smiled. ‘I told her I wanted to be a better man for you and she said I needed to work on being a better man for myself first.’

‘And she said you’d put me on a pedestal?’

‘Yes, which pissed me off because at that point I thought you were perfect.’

She smiled. ‘You don’t anymore?’

He grinned. ‘We all have flaws and baggage; my counsellor helped me to see that I could love you with all your warts, not pretend they didn’t exist. She made me write a list of all your bad qualities, which was hard, let me tell you – that took many weeks to even come up with five. But once I did, I could see that me and you were similar in many ways, the good and the bad. She made me see that if I could love you with all your flaws, which were so similar to mine, then why couldn’t I love myself?’

She smiled at that. ‘I like your counsellor.’

‘It wasn’t an overnight change. I had counselling for five years until I finally reached a place where I felt like I didn’t need it anymore. But yeah, the self-loathing is gone.’

‘I’m pleased you’re in a better place now.’

‘But?’

‘No buts. I think that moment when you said you didn’t love me has had an impact on our friendship ever since. I’ve always held myself back from getting too close, not wanting to come here to your house because I didn’t want to face the memories of that perfect weekend and how it ended. And I think in my mind I never let go of the boy who turned me down, even all these years later. I never gave the new improved Shay a chance. But now I think I’d like to.’

He watched her carefully. ‘What does that mean?’

She got up and sat on his lap. ‘I’d like to be more than friends.’

Then she kissed him.

Feelings erupted in him as soon as their lips touched and he wrapped his arms around her. Pure joy exploded in his heart. He was going to get a second chance with her. Christ, this kiss was something else. In the shower it had been a desperate need to feel she was alive, a kiss born of relief and shock. But this was a kiss of love and desire and need, of years of missed opportunities. She tasted divine. He stroked her face, ran a hand gently down her arm, then slowly traced his hand round her waist. She was definitely more woman than the girl he’d made love to when she was eighteen, and he loved it. He wanted to touch her all over, rediscover her body all over again, but he knew he had to take things slow. Just because she wanted to give them a chance, didn’t mean she wanted to jump straight into bed with him. They should date first, do it properly. She pressed herself up closer against him and as he moved his hand to her neck, he accidentally grazed her breast. She gave a little soft gasp against his lips.

‘Sorry, believe it or not, that was an accident.’

She giggled, took his hand and placed it firmly back on her breast before kissing him again. So much for going slow. He ran his hand across her breast, feeling her nipple press through the thin fabric of his t-shirt she was wearing. She gave a soft moan and desire and need for her flooded through him at that sound.

He stood up and lifted her onto the table, cupping her face and kissing her hard. She pulled at his t-shirt and he stopped kissing her for just a second as she yanked it over his head. Her hands on his chest was the most incredible feeling in the world.

He pulled on the drawstring on the tracksuit bottoms she was wearing. They were done up so tight to stop them falling down it took a few moments longer than he wanted to undo them but finally they were undone and she lifted her bum to help him pull them off. He didn’t waste any time and dragged the boxer shorts she was wearing down her legs too, then he kissed her again, sliding a hand up her legs. The feel of her was wonderful and she moaned softly as he touched her. He pulled back slightly, watching her. Her breath was heavy, her eyes were dark, she leaned her forehead against his, clinging to his shoulders.

‘Shay.’

His name on her lips as he sent her over the edge was such a massive turn on, as were the moans and whimpers of pleasure. He needed to be with her now. He pulled off her t-shirt and kissed her neck, running his mouth over her breasts as he pushed his jeans and shorts off.

He moved between her legs, but she suddenly put a hand out to stop him.

He looked at her in concern, was it moving too fast for her?

‘Sorry, I’m not on the pill anymore.’

He let out a little sigh of relief. ‘I have condoms in the downstairs bathroom.’

‘Then why are you still standing there?’

He quickly raced from the room, glanced at Ivy who was fast asleep on top of her octopus toy, ran into the bathroom, grabbed the box and ran back through the lounge to get to the dining room, he suddenly stopped as a thought occurred to him. He grabbed a cushion off the sofa and ran back to the dining room to find her perched naked on the side of the table, exactly where he’d left her. She looked in confusion at the cushion.

‘Well, the doctor said you need to be gentle, no sudden head movements. I figured banging your head on a hard table might not be the best thing for it.’

She smiled and wrapped her arms around him. ‘How did I get so lucky to find someone so kind and thoughtful?’

‘I’m the lucky one.’

She reached up and kissed him and the kiss was so sweet, that he put the box and cushion down, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back.