The Party Starts at Midnight

‘Yes, well, I’m happy,’ he said, and he was, because the thought of what the night hopefully held in store was truly delightful.

Not that his mother needed to know the details.

Half expecting her to probe further, when she didn’t Leo glanced at her, saw that her eyes were shining a bit too brightly, and he wordlessly handed her his handkerchief, just about resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

However, the tears, unfortunately, didn’t stop there. Jake’s speech, which began by thanking Elsa Brightman—radiant and beaming in green—Abby—gorgeous, wonderful, and he hoped very shortly to occupy his bed—and everyone who’d worked so hard to make tonight a success, became suitably sentimental.

His brother, who’d never had his kind of trouble with emotion, had virtually everyone reaching for their tissues. There were sounds of noses being blown across the marquee. His mother spent the entire five minutes the speech lasted alternately sobbing and laughing. He’d caught his father surreptitiously dabbing his eyes with his napkin. At one point, to his absolute horror he’d even felt a quick tightening of his own throat.

But that had passed swiftly enough, as had the video, which had had part of him wallowing in nostalgia, part of him cringing with embarrassment.

And after a sublime, appropriately red-inspired supper of silky smooth gazpacho, lobster thermidor and raspberry and champagne jelly he was even persuaded to hit the dance floor. To a string of seventies hits he danced with his mother, his aunts and, after much cajoling, his ninety-eight-year-old grandmother.

But not Abby. Leo didn’t trust himself to dance with her, even if she had been around to ask. As she’d pointed out, he wasn’t centre of attention tonight, and as the clock ticked he increasingly became wound so tightly he knew that if he held her in his arms he—they—might well become the star attraction.

By the time the guests started wandering outside to let off balloons and watch the fireworks, gently corralled by an ever-efficient party planner, Leo could hardly stand the tension inside him.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, felt desire punch him in the stomach and something else wallop him in the chest—anticipation most likely—and thought, Not long to go now.

* * *

Standing to one side of the group of guests, just outside the marquee, Abby dropped her head back and watched one hundred and twenty red heart-shaped balloons drift off into the moonlit night.

She was still there smiling gently and her thoughts similarly drifting when five minutes later the sky lit up with rockets, star bursts and a heart-shaped Catherine wheel before climaxing in a wonderful finale consisting of a giant four zero that crackled and fizzled and bathed everything in soft golden fire.

Forty years, she thought wistfully. Forty years. What would it be like to spend that long with one other person? To live with them, love them, argue and make up with them...

It was a lifetime, and she simply couldn’t imagine it. Or maybe she could. With someone like Leo, only not so emotionally closed off. Someone strong, loving, supportive and loyal. Someone who’d tease her, cherish her and not be afraid to let go in front of her.

Definitely not Leo, then.

Although, come to think of it, he hadn’t seemed all that emotionally distant tonight, had he? She might have been flat-out busy, but that hadn’t stopped her noticing him chatting to the guests, smiling, even laughing a little. She’d seen how he’d responded to Jake’s speech, and the film—which when she’d first seen it had made her all soft and gooey inside—and how he’d tried to hide it. And she’d seen how he’d danced with most of his female relatives and, as she hadn’t caught even the hint of a grimace, he’d clearly enjoyed it.

So maybe there was hope for him yet.

She hoped there was. She really hoped there was. Because if that were the case then maybe they had a chance. Of something more than a fling. Of a relationship, perhaps. Maybe even one that lasted forty years...

She smiled dreamily at the thought of that for a lovely moment or two, and then the truth behind it hit her and her smile vanished. As if she’d been punched in the stomach, she gasped for breath. Reeled. And then wobbled, her knees shaking and feeling as if they were about to give way and she suddenly went icy cold.

Oh, no.

Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no.

She didn’t just want someone like Leo. She wanted him. For ever, because—oh, crap—she was in love with him. Head over heels in love with him. With every inch of him, with everything he was and everything he wasn’t.

Why else had she forgiven him so quickly for the diabolical way he’d behaved over the St Jude’s visit? Hadn’t she even thought she was utterly mad for still wanting him after what he’d done? She had because even back then she’d loved him.

How the hell had it happened? she wondered frantically as everyone around her oohed and ahhed with delight and her world collapsed. When? And why? She couldn’t work it out. She couldn’t work anything out. Her head was a jumbled mess, a

fuzzy, blurry, tangled mess.

The only thing she did know, as certainly as she knew her own name, was that she was completely and irreversibly in love with him, and she was therefore doomed.

Because Leo wasn’t in love with her. And he wouldn’t ever be. So she’d thought he might have been softening this evening, might have been allowing a little emotion into his life.

But that didn’t mean anything for her, did it? Of course it didn’t. She wasn’t making that mistake again. And how could she possibly forget the conviction with which he’d told her last night that absolutely nothing would persuade him to change his stance on relationships? She couldn’t.

But nor now could she possibly embark on a fling with him. It would destroy her, knowing that she was in it hoping for for ever and he was only in it for as long as she held his interest. She just couldn’t do it.