Grace guessed they’d reached the stage in their discussion where Vaughn was going to break up with her, very gently, very nicely and with her pieces of plastic and computer chips in his custody. She kept a good metre of bed between them as she sat down and looked at him from under her lashes expectantly.
‘I’m paying off your debts,’ he said evenly, and it was the last thing Grace expected him to say. ‘My accountant is contacting all your creditors and he expects to have all the loose ends tied up by the end of next week. And I got you this.’
He pulled something out of his trouser pocket and placed it on the bed between them.
Grace didn’t dare touch it because this had to be some bizarre game and she wasn’t sure of the rules. Or if there even were rules. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a credit card, Grace - one of those Black Amex numbers that you’ve always been so taken with. I thought you’d have recognised it immediately.’
‘I mean, why does it have my name on it?’ Grace pushed it away from her with the tippy tip of one finger, because she didn’t trust herself not to grab it and run off into the night to the nearest place where she could exchange it for goods and services. The restraint was fucking killing her.
‘Because it’s yours,’ Vaughn said with just a hint of gritted teeth, like he couldn’t believe she was being so obtuse. ‘I’m only going to give you £200 a month in cash for incidentals from now on. Everything else you put on the card. If you have to buy a dress or a birthday card or knitting needles, you put it on the card. I’m not going to pore over the statements but please run any big purchases past me first. Speedboats, tiaras and such.’ Vaughn took Grace’s shell shock as permission to carry on. ‘You’re not to touch your wages: they go into the bank and stay there earning interest.’ He picked up the card and pushed it into Grace’s hand. ‘Think of this as a set of training wheels.’
Grace looked up at him. ‘But why . . . I mean, why would you . . .’ Vaughn seemed very soft-focus and was getting blurrier by the second, and as Grace blinked her eyes, she realised that tears were streaming down her face. She tried to scrub them away with an impatient hand, but more appeared to take their place.
‘Don’t cry,’ Vaughn warned but it was too late.
Grace bent forward so her forehead was almost touching her knees and started to cry. Not like the crying Vaughn had seen before, when she was trying to hold back her sobs; this time she could feel her body shuddering and shaking as it birthed out each howl. At the periphery of her senses, she was vaguely aware of Vaughn shifting, but then his arm was around her shoulder and he was scooping her on to his lap and holding her while she cried, softly murmuring words as he stroked her hair but didn’t try to stop her until finally the sobs began to diminish in ferocity and volume.
Slowly Grace felt herself begin to emerge from the dark place she’d disappeared to, back to the here and now where she was clinging to Vaughn, her face buried in the warm hollow where his shoulder met his neck, shirt soaked with tears and . . . God, she couldn’t even cry properly. Her nose was running as she sat up and wiped it with the back of her hand because she was disgusting. Vaughn wasn’t recoiling with horror but still smoothing her hair with steady, even strokes.
‘I’ve never met anyone who cries as much as you do,’ he said, brushing his fingers over the last few tears trickling down her hot cheeks. ‘I wasn’t trying to upset you. I thought I was doing something nice.’
‘You were,’ Grace hiccuped, and she thought about wriggling off his lap, trying to regain some tiny semblance of dignity, but it was so comforting to just be held without any kind of expectation. ‘But I don’t deserve it. It’s my own fault that I got into such a mess, that I owe so much money.’
‘We’ve been over that. I told you there was no way you could live on what you earned, especially when you had to fund yourself for—’
‘No, not that.’ Grace scrunched up her face as she tried to summon up the courage that she always had in very short supply. ‘Those credit cards . . . when you asked me why I bought all that expensive shit and I got angry, it wasn’t at you, it was at myself. I just feel like, like . . . I’m just not good enough, not ever. I’m not worth anything. And sometimes I feel it so much, like there’s this big hole inside me and I don’t know how to fix it so I go and buy all this stuff because if I have these pretty, expensive things then it must mean that I’m worth something. But when I get them home, I realise it’s not going to work and I can’t bring myself to look at them and then I feel even worse and it’s just this never-ending loop that I can’t break. Do you know what I mean?’
It was a garbled explanation and Grace wasn’t even sure if it was particularly coherent as she was still crying a little bit. Vaughn didn’t say a word because why should he? It was a lame excuse for something that Grace was only just starting to figure out, but then he kissed her on the cheek. ‘Yes, I know exactly what you mean,’ he said softly. ‘But I’m giving you the chance for a do-over. Because I also know how rarely those come along. Don’t fuck it up.’
‘I won’t,’ Grace assured him. ‘And I’ll pay you back. We can sort out a schedule and it will take me a while, a long while, but . . .’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Vaughn said quickly, and Grace could feel his muscles tensing.
‘But I want to - I should. It’s the right thing to do,’ Grace insisted, and she thought that now it probably was time to slide off his lap, but Vaughn’s arms tightened around her as soon as she tried to move. ‘It’s so much money.’
‘It’s just money, and money only matters when you don’t have any. I have lots of it and it’s up to me what I spend it on,’ Vaughn said. ‘Besides, I didn’t pay back the full amount, I negotiated. I made them take off all the interest and the penalty fees, and really what I was giving you in allowances wasn’t enough. In the past - well, let’s say I had different arrangements. Let this be a lesson to you to never accept the price on the ticket.’
‘What do you mean, in the past?’ Grace asked, curiosity triumphing. ‘What did you do for your other . . . ?’
‘We don’t talk about our others,’ Vaughn snapped, before he softened his voice again. ‘We’re talking about you. Really, Grace, what you’ve earned me in commissions on Christmas Eve completely cancels out what I’ve just paid several loan-clearing companies, so I don’t want you to feel that you’re beholden in any way.’
‘But it can’t be that simple,’ Grace protested. ‘Nothing is ever that simple. It shouldn’t be.’ But it was if she remembered back to Christmas Eve and why Vaughn had gone to such lengths to get her to that lunch. ‘But I thought . . . when you said we needed to talk, I thought you were going to end things. God, I can’t believe you’d still want me around.’
‘You do love to jump to conclusions. Your bank manager didn’t break up with you - he was under strict instructions that he was only to deal with me - and I’m not breaking up with you either. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I’ve grown very . . . fond of you.’
‘You have?’ Grace knew she sounded sceptical but she didn’t really think she’d done very much to warrant any fondness on Vaughn’s part.
‘Well, when you’re not driving me to the very end of my tether. Though you seem rather less fond of me,’ he pointed out, even though Grace was on his lap and resting her head on his soggy shoulder. ‘You said you hated me.’
‘You were vile to me that day,’ Grace reminded him, sitting up so she could look him in the eye. ‘But most of the time I like you. When you’re nice to me, I like you. It’s that simple.’
‘So you like me right now because I’m being nice to you?’ Vaughn clarified.
‘Super-super nice, but I don’t know why because I don’t deserve it. I spent money that wasn’t mine when I knew I couldn’t pay it back, and there should be consequences. My grandparents are always going on about consequences. You have to let me pay you back somehow because I can’t—’
‘Grace, all the reasons why we started this are still there. I need a hostess and God knows, I need your help with Noah. You’re about the only person he bothers to be civil to. And after your quite miraculous shepherd’s pie, I expect you to make me dinner one night a week.’
‘It was just a shepherd’s pie.’
‘It was the first home-cooked meal I’ve had in years,’ Vaughn said, jiggling Grace to make his point. ‘And I want you to promise not to mention the money again. I think you’ve been torturing yourself enough over it the last few years and I really don’t see what purpose it would serve to keep bringing it up. It’s over, Grace. Clean slate.’
For a moment Grace thought she might start crying again, out of sheer relief, because no matter how much Vaughn might protest, she knew she’d got off lightly. Too lightly. Not just because she didn’t have to pay him back but because he knew all her grubby little secrets, but his arms were still around her and he was looking at her with concern, not condemnation or judgement like she expected.
Grace cupped his face in her hands so she could kiss him softly on the lips. ‘Thank you,’ she said. And she wanted to dress it up, make it sound more fervent, but she didn’t know how. ‘Thank you so much. I know you say it doesn’t mean anything, the money, but what you’ve done, it means the world to me.’
‘I can’t cope with any more tears tonight, Grace. You’ve already ruined one shirt,’ Vaughn sniffed, but Grace could tell he was faking.
‘I think I’m all cried out for the rest of the month,’ she said, finally tipping herself out of his lap so she could flop back on the bed, her hand reaching out to touch his back because she didn’t want to lose this lovely connection they had tonight. ‘God, I’m exhausted.’
Vaughn grunted in agreement and lowered himself so he was lying next to her. ‘Tomorrow, you should unpack,’ he said casually. ‘You might as well stay here. I have all these empty rooms and I can’t bear the thought of you finding another fetid pit and immediately starting to skip the rent payments.’
There was no point in Grace trying to deny it. Well, the first part anyway. ‘I’m not going to skip any type of payment ever again,’ she said fiercely. ‘But my intern says she might have a spare room in her house soon, and—’
‘It’s easier for you to stay here where I can keep an eye on you,’ Vaughn said, rolling on to his side so he could rest his arm on Grace’s belly, as if he was going to anchor her to the spot in case she planned to leave there and then. ‘Really, we’re going to be so busy in the next few months, and it’s silly for you to come back here for an hour or so, then get a car home.’
It
was
silly and again, everything Vaughn was saying made sense, except now that Grace wasn’t quite so overwhelmed by gratitude and the threat of tears, she was beginning to feel as if she’d been taken over by a conquering army. ‘But this time last week, I was on the outs and now you want me to move in.’ She hoisted herself up on her elbows so she could see the discomfited look on Vaughn’s face.
‘Well, that was last week,’ he said obliquely. ‘Everything’s changed now.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely positive,’ Vaughn stated firmly. ‘I think as long as I don’t get drunk again and bare my soul, we should be fine.’
Grace lay back down on the bed. She wished she could take Vaughn at his word, but he seemed to come with so many disclaimers. ‘But you like your own space,’ she reminded him. ‘And I’ve never lived with a boyfriend before.’
‘Well, you’ll have to stay in one of the guest rooms because you’re the most impossible person to sleep with, you fidget so much,’ Vaughn complained, brushing Grace’s fringe back so he could catch her rolling her eyes.
‘I don’t fidget that much - you’re a very light sleeper.’ Just the mention of the word was enough to make Grace yawn. It had been the most intense, emotionally draining two hours of her life.
‘We’ve hit the highlights, shall we save the small print for the morning?’ Vaughn suggested as he peeled back the duvet. ‘You’re tired, you should get into bed.’
Grace crawled under the quilt, pleased when Vaughn spooned against her back. ‘Nobody’s ever been this good to me,’ she whispered, when he’d snapped off the light on the nightstand. ‘Or had this much faith in me. I don’t want to let you down.’
‘You won’t. Now shut up and go to sleep.’
Although she’d insisted she never fidgeted, Grace couldn’t help but wriggle uncomfortably as Vaughn hissed in annoyance, which actually was strangely comforting. ‘I hate going to sleep with my clothes on. When I wake up I feel really grungy.’
Grace could have sworn she heard his jaw clench. ‘Well, take them off then.’