“I was thinking maybe three weeks. If you think we can find a replacement for me that quickly,” she said.
Sam felt as though he’d been kicked in the belly. Three weeks? Three measly, cotton-picking weeks?
“What do you think?” she asked, and Sam realized that he hadn’t responded to her suggestion, and that he’d pressed his foot down on the gas and was now speeding.
Easing back on the accelerator, he tried to sound casual.
“We’ll have to advertise straight away. It probably depends on notice periods for the new person, how soon we can get them.”
“Of course. I won’t leave you high and dry, don’t worry,” she said.
Sam wanted to turn and tell her that that was exactly what she was doing. But he didn’t. Belatedly he saw that perhaps their weekend together hadn’t cleared up any of the problems between them at all. Maybe, in fact, it had made things worse.
“I was thinking that we—I mean, you, sorry—could start training Sukie up into an assistant sales role. You could assign her some of our smaller advertisers, start her up slowly. That will leave the new person plenty of time to build relationships with our major players,” Delaney said.
Sam forced his mind away from the dark place that had opened in his soul and tried to concentrate on what she was saying.
“That’s a good idea. Sukie’s great on the phone,” he said.
“That’s what I thought. And I kind of get the feeling that she might be getting a little bored with admin work. If you train her and give her a pay rise, she’ll stay with you for longer.”
They talked about the magazine the rest of the trip—careful, emotionless conversation about future planning and things they’d been putting off that Sam would need to do on his own now. Every word seemed to hammer home to him just how much he didn’t want things to change, how much he was going to miss Delaney.
But he was slowly beginning to understand that this was really happening. She was going. She wanted to go, worse. And there was nothing he could do to stop her.
They were both calm but a little withdrawn by the time he pulled into his parking spot beneath their apartment block.
“Thanks for driving,” Delaney said, flashing him a small smile. “I should have offered to drive us back, since you took us out.”
“I like driving, you know that.” Sam shrugged, hating the awkwardness. Definitely things were worse now than when they’d left.
And it wasn’t about sex or lust or desire or guilt. It was about their friendship. He could see that now. The certainty that he’d felt last night in the bathtub evaporated and he realized there was a very real possibility that they would never recover from this seismic shift in their relationship.
The thought of it made him dizzy, as though someone had just told him that gravity was a myth and he was suddenly floating free, with nothing or nobody to tie him to the earth.
The feeling only got worse when he followed her up to her apartment and stood beside her as she listened to her answering machine messages.
“Delaney, it’s Harry from the real estate office. We’ve been trying you on your mobile but you’ve been out of range all weekend. You’ve had an offer on your apartment. Spot on your asking price—I think you’ll be very happy. Call me as soon as you get in.”
Sam felt as though his legs were made from solid granite as he crossed to the sofa and sat while Delaney made the call. She talked quietly and briefly for a few minutes, then put the phone down. The expression she turned to him was completely blank.
“Wow. That was fast.”
“You’re going to take it?” he asked flatly.
“It’s right on the money. They don’t even want to haggle. And they want a three-week settlement. It’s like it was meant to be,” she said.
“Yeah.”
If he were a more generous person, he’d be leaping up now, offering to go buy champagne to celebrate her news. But he wasn’t that generous. He’d just been delivered two stunning blows, one after the other—he had only three weeks left of Delaney in the business, and about the same before she moved out. Despite all the reassurances he’d been making to himself, change was coming like a freight train along the tracks, and he was standing squarely in its way, about to get squashed and shredded.
“I don’t suppose it would do any good if I asked you not to go?” he heard himself ask. If he thought it would make him look any less pathetic, he would have punched himself in the face.
Delaney’s hands found one another and she gripped them tightly at her waist.
“This is a good offer, Sam. And it’s time to sell the apartment. Time to move on.”
Sam stared at her, deeply, mortally afraid that there was a deeper message for him in her words.
“You’ll just have to put up with me hanging out at your new place all the time. Better get that spare bedroom up and running,” he joked weakly.
“Which reminds me—I can put an offer in on the place in Camberwell now,” she said.
Sam brooded darkly as she made another phone call, only tuning in again when he noticed her checking her watch.
“In half an hour? That would be great,” she said into the phone. “I’ll see you then.”
She ended the call and was about to make another one when Sam spoke up.
“What’s going on?” He was starting to feel a teensy bit irritated at the way he seemed to have been shoved into the corner and forgotten. They had just spent the whole weekend away together, most of it lost in each others arms. He didn’t expect a brass band and ticker tape parade, but a little bit of attention wouldn’t have gone astray.
“What? Oh, sorry. The agent has offered to get me through the house again tonight. The owners are really keen to sell,” she said vaguely, obviously itching to get back on the phone.
“Who are you calling now?” he asked, hating the fact that he sounded jealous. He wasn’t. He was just…interested.
“Claire. I need a second opinion before I start seriously thinking about making an offer.”
Sam flinched. A second opinion. What was he, chopped liver?
Maybe Delaney read that she’d hurt his feelings, because she seemed to hesitate a moment before putting the phone down.
“Would—would you like to come, Sam?” she asked.
Sam stared at her a long moment, wanting to ask why she hadn’t thought of him off the bat. Hadn’t he always been her second opinion? Wasn’t that the way they’d always worked, each having the other’s back?
“Sure. I’d love to come,” he said, making an effort to sound normal.
“Cool,” Delaney said, and for the life of him he couldn’t work out if she meant it or not.
Scooping up her car keys, she led the way down to the underground parking garage. Sam sat silently beside her as she eased out into the twilight, her MINI zipping smoothly out into traffic.
Desperate for conversation, he scanned the interior of the car.
“Still running well?” he asked, patting the dash.
“Like a dream. Best car in the world,” Delaney said, echoing his gesture and patting the dash as well.
They promptly fell into awkward silence again. Sam wracked his brains for something to say, but he was too busy trying to work out what was going on with Delaney. Did their weekend away mean so little to her? She was seriously behaving as though they had been fishing or hiking, not devouring each other at every given opportunity.
In just fifteen minutes, they were turning into one of the oak-lined streets that Camberwell was famous for. Dense green boughs reached over the street from either side, meeting in the middle to form a leafy archway. Delaney leaned forward with excitement as they came up on a house with a For Sale sign on its front fence.
“Here we are,” she said brightly. “Isn’t it nice?”
Sam glowered at the wide porch and the diamond-paned windows and the charming heritage color scheme. It was nice. He just didn’t want to acknowledge it right now. This was the house that could potentially steal Delaney from him. He intended to hate it on principle.
They were exiting the car when a slick real estate type pulled up in a late model Porsche. Sam did a mental eye roll. Could the guy be more of a cliché? And he was wearing a suit at eight o’clock on a Sunday evening. What a slimy shark.
Sam was about to warn Delaney to tread carefully when she strode out across the road to shake Mr. Slick’s hand.
“Thanks for this, Matt. I really appreciate it,” she said.
“Not a problem. As you know, the owner has moved into a nursing home so I knew I could get you through easily enough.”
Sam noted that there was a definite glint in the other man’s eyes as he gazed at Delaney, despite the fact that he only looked like he had twenty-five years under his belt.
Not going to happen, pal, he felt like saying. Never in a million years would you have a chance with a woman like Delaney. Instead, he had to be satisfied with crossing to stand behind her and placing a territorial hand on her shoulder.
To his chagrin, Delaney shot him a surprised look and twitched her shoulder, indicating she wanted him to let go. Teeth gritted, Sam complied. But he wasn’t happy.
He didn’t get any happier as he followed Delaney and Matt up the cutesy-wutesy garden path. It was a clear night with a full moon, and he could see that flowering plants and shrubs framed the brick walkway, the epitome of a charming English garden.
“The owner was a keen gardener, as you can see. The gardens are very well established and give the house good street appeal,” Matt said.
“Lots of maintenance,” Sam said, keen to offset Captain Slicko’s patter. “Probably get over-run really easily.”
“The old lady’s family are using a gardening service to maintain it at present. I believe they’re very affordable,” Matt countered.
“For a few weeks, maybe. But not on a long-term basis, I bet,” Sam said repressively.
Delaney shot him a look that plainly told him to shut up. But he wasn’t going to. He felt as if he were fighting for his life here, and he was going out with a bang, not a whimper.
The agent ignored his last comment as he opened up the house and started walking through, flicking on lights.
Sam found himself blinking in a wide entrance hall with a doorway on either side and another straight ahead. The walls were a dull putty color, the timberwork heavy in its original dark stain from the 1930s, and the floor was covered with a truly repellent speckled carpet in shades of purple and brown.
Sam pulled a face and relaxed a notch. There was no way Delaney was going to buy this place. Her apartment was perfect—state-of-the-art kitchen and bathroom, soaring ceilings, great views, all the mod cons. She couldn’t go from such urban perfection to this suburban hell.
Delaney waited till the agent had moved off before she spoke.
“Isn’t it great?”
Sam did a double take and stared at her. “Great? It’s gloomy, it smells funky, and I’m expecting one of the Munsters to pop out of a cupboard any minute now,” he said. “And this carpet? Do you have any idea how many nylons died to make this carpet?”
To prove his point, he rubbed his feet up and down until he’d generated a decent static charge, then touched his finger to Delaney’s arm.
“Ow!” she squealed, jumping from the static shock she’d received. “When are you going to grow up, Sam?”
It was something she’d said to him about a thousand times over the years, but it had never sounded so dark and damning before.
“Just demonstrating,” he said defensively.
“Well, I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” she said, moving away from him.
Feeling her slipping through his fingers, Sam grabbed her arm, desperate to understand.
“Tell me what you see, then,” he asked.
She hesitated, then shrugged. “Okay. It’s got great ceilings. Nice and high, and see the period detail?” she asked, craning her neck and studying the ceiling rose. Sam followed suit and grudgingly admitted to himself that it was a pretty cool Art Deco ceiling molding.
“So…the carpet comes up, the floorboards are polished. I get rid of that junky old 1970s light fitting and find a 1930s replica. Paint the walls a nice clean neutral to bring out the timber trim and the floorboards. It’ll be lovely,” she said.
Sam blinked, for a moment able to see what Delaney saw. And she was right—it would look great. The entry hall was wide and welcoming as it was, and with the few cosmetic improvements she was talking about, it would shine.
Loathe to give the house anything, however, Sam just lifted a shoulder dismissively. Delaney moved toward the first door on the left.
“Come and see the living room,” she said.
They walked into another high-ceilinged space, long and broad, with two diamond-paned windows along the side, and one looking onto the front of the house. It was empty of everything except the hideous carpet, dusty mud-colored drapes, and an Art Deco era fireplace.
His heart sank as he took in the rounded curves and fluted columns of the fireplace surround and mantle. This was a great house—despite his burning desire to find fault with it. It was a bit faded and curled around the edges at present, but Delaney would lick it into shape. She had great taste, and endless enthusiasm, and she would get stuck into it and have it the way it should be in no time.