Page 73 of Christmas off Script
She grinned. ‘Family heirloom.’
Ella took a step back. ‘I can’t wear that!’
‘Oh, yes, you can. It doesn’t go with the dress I’ve got on, and someone’s got to show it off. Now turn around.’
Reluctantly, Ella faced away from Willow and allowed her to fix the necklace around her neck. The butterflies in her stomach were now fluttering so fast she wasn’t sure if they wanted her to run away and hide, or make a grand entrance. Even though hundreds of people were downstairs, the only one who occupied her mind was Leo. Would he notice the dress? Would he like it? Would he likeherin it?
Shaking her head to try and dislodge the thoughts, she took a deep breath then turned to Willow, who was typing a message into her phone. ‘I’m ready if you are?’
‘Uh-huh, two secs.’ Willow slipped her phone into a hidden pocket of her black dress, linked her arm with Ella’s, and led her towards the door. ‘Time to shine, my friend.’
‘Does Leo know I’m here?’ she asked as Willow propelled her along the corridor.
‘I told him I had a surprise for him and to meet me at the bottom of the stairs.’
‘Oh.’ The butterflies were now thrumming their wings against the inside of her skin. ‘And I’m the surprise?’
Willow gave her a look. ‘Of course you are! He was in such an almighty grump earlier when he thought you wouldn’t be here. He said he couldn’t be bothered to go to the ball at all.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep. Mom made him promise he would show up.’
‘She’s back from LA?’
‘Arrived home earlier than planned this lunchtime.’
Ella’s stomach twisted. Dervla was missing a reunion with her wife to babysit Michelle for her.
‘Don’t worry.’ Willow gave Ella’s arm a squeeze. ‘Mom, Mammy and Dad spent the whole afternoon in their bedroom. They’ve got the sex bit out of the way for at least twenty-four hours.’ She grinned. ‘Now allow yourself to have fun. Okay?’
Ella nodded. She had the sudden feeling she was about to jump out of a plane for the first time with no idea where she would end up or even if she was wearing a parachute.
Willow ground to a halt. ‘Stay here a sec.’ Dashing forward, she peeked over the ornate banister. ‘Don’t move!’ she yelled, then came back to Ella’s side. ‘Right then, off you trot.’
Ella’s heartbeat was now filling her throat. She gazed wide-eyed at Willow, her mouth open but too dry to form words.
‘Shoo! It’s not a grand-enough surprise if I’m with you.’ Willow flicked her fingers as if urging a reticent child forward. ‘Go on! It’s not often I get to surprise one of my top three brothers. I’ll follow on in a bit with the shovel to scrape his jaw off the floor.’
Ella wanted to roll her eyes, but all she could think about was Leo waiting at the bottom of the stairs, not knowing she was about to walk down them. Before she could chicken out and grab Willow’s arm, she turned and forced her feet forward, keeping her gaze ahead on the far wall and Leo’s ancestors staring at her from their portraits.
But when she rounded the corner, her eyes fell to the living, breathing man standing at the foot of the stairs, and the rest of the world faded away. Dressed in black tie, his eyes blazed so brightly she had to blink. Leo was the sun at the centre of her solar system, pulling her inexorably towards him by the force of his gravity. She reached a hand to the polished wood of the banister to steady and anchor herself as her breath came quicker and quicker, her lungs pushing against the confines of the corset.
Ella was floating, her body drawn to Leo as if reuniting with a missing part of itself. And she was also falling, tumbling into a terrifying realisation so profound that she knew the truth of it from the depth of her bones to the edges of her soul.
She was completely, hopelessly, and endlessly in love with her best friend.
13
Leo couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.
All he could do was feel.
As Ella descended the stairs towards him like an angel from heaven, he barely registered what she was wearing. All he saw was her. It was as if he’d been wearing dark glasses for years and now they’d been ripped off to reveal her shining so brilliantly it was blinding.
The love he’d had for her when they were teens hadn’t gone away just because he’d hidden it under a rock, then forgotten where the rock was. It had been growing, maturing, building in magnitude until this precise moment. And now it devastated him.
How did I not see?
