Page 29 of Marry Me…Maybe?
Emily felt a smug smile pull at her lips and was glad he couldn’t see her through the phone line. ‘I see. So, you still need me, then?’ she said, forcing as much nonchalance into her tone as she could muster.
He cleared his throat, the sound rumbling down the phone line at her. ‘It would seem so, yes.’
‘Your mother seems to have taken a real shine to me in fact.’
‘She does.’
‘Well, fancy that.’ She couldn’t keep the glee out of her voice this time.
‘So, will you consider it?’ He was clearly trying hard to keep his irritation tamped down.
It was her turn to leave a long pause this time, and she listened to his breathing quicken as she bit her tongue to stop herself from speaking.
‘Okay, Theo, since you went to the trouble of securing the chapel for Lula, I’d be happy to come to one more lunch with your mother,’ she said finally.
She caught his short exhalation of breath before he spoke. ‘Thank you, Emily, I appreciate it.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Another pause.
‘Okay, good,’ she said to fill the gap. ‘Well, I’ll see you at the wedding then.’
‘No, you won’t. I don’t attend the weddings. I let my events manager take care of all that.’
Disappointment trickled down into her stomach but she ignored it. It didn’t matter that she wouldn’t be seeing him then. In fact, it would be better not to be distracted on Lula’s big day.
‘Oh, right. Okay, then.’
‘I’ll be in touch afterwards to arrange the lunch date. Once you’ve had time to recover.’
‘Righto.’
‘So, I’ll speak to you soon.’
‘Sure,’ she replied, moments before he cut the line.
She stared at the silent phone for a long minute, trying to relax her baffled smile.
That had excited her a lot more than it should have done.
Two days later the photo of the two of them ‘canoodling’ outside Theo’s house appeared in her friend’s gossip mag and she got another phone call from him – only this time not such a positive one.
‘How the hell did the gutter press find out about us?’ he growled as soon as she’d picked up his call.
Her heart gave a little flutter of unease. ‘Er… well, I might have mentioned something to Lula about having dinner at your house, and it’s possible she might have let it slip in conversation with a friend of ours who’s a journalist.’
She crossed her fingers and mentally apologised to Lula for the lie at her expense. She knew her friend would take the heat for her if she needed her to, though. They had a long-standing agreement regarding men and dates.
‘That’s a lot of “mights”, Emily.’
‘Look, I’m sorry. I understand why you’d be angry – because they came onto your property and spied on a private moment – but I can’t see how it can be a bad thing generally. In fact, if your mother gets to see it or hear about it, it’ll only cement her faith in our deeply committed relationship.’
He let out a grunt of reluctant agreement.
‘I think you look amazing in the photo, by the way. Very manly,’ she said, hoping a bit of sweet talk would appease him. Not that he’d ever shown any sign of caring about how he looked, but she’d found it was always worth applying a bit of flattery to a situation.
There was silence on the other end.
