of colour suffused her cheeks. ‘Of course not.’
‘Then perhaps you’d like to explain what this morning’s little episode was all about.’
For a moment he thought she looked panicked.
‘That was a one-off.’
‘Is that so?’
‘It is.’
He arched his eyebrows. ‘And why do you think this “one-off” episode happened?’
She shook her head back, straightening her shoulders. It shocked Malachi to realise that he knew her well enough to know it was a stalling tactic.
Or, more pertinently, it should have shocked him.
‘I don’t know,’ she asserted. ‘Like you said, I probably hadn’t eaten properly, so I was running on empty. I didn’t have a proper breakfast and it’s been a long shift.’
He didn’t know whether to be impressed or insulted that she lied so easily. Straight to his face. And then, without warning, anger surged through him—whether at the way she wanted to exclude him or at the fact she thought he was that blind, he couldn’t be sure—but he quashed it, quickly and effectively.
Never let anyone see they can get to you.
Another life lesson he’d been forced to learn from an early age.
So this was the game she wished to play?
Well, he was just going to have to find a way to play against her.
Not here, not now. Not with Izzy injured in that room. Her mother and sister would need his support more than ever right now. They had no one else, which was what made the centre so vital.
Right now he was here for Michelle and her daughters. Saskia and her lies would have to wait.
But if that was her game, then fine; he would play her at it and he would win. He just needed to take a step back and regroup so he could work out his next move.
‘THIS PLACE IS STUNNING...’ Anouk breathed as she took in the huge sandstone arches reaching up as though in exultation to a breathtaking stone-carved vaulted ceiling.
‘Isn’t it?’ Saskia demurred, following her friend’s gaze, trying to quell the kaleidoscope of butterflies which seemed to have taken up residence in her stomach ever since Anouk had told her she had two tickets to a gala evening and asked Saskia to join her.
A gala evening for a local young carers’ charity.
Saskia had known instantly whose charity it was. Anouk had mentioned something about Sol giving them to her, and something about a patient... Izzy? To her shame, Saskia hadn’t really been listening—she’d been too caught up in her own head.
Tickets to a charity event for Care to Play. As though fate itself was intervening.
Saskia hadn’t even asked how her friend had got the tickets, or why. She just knew that Malachi would be there and that this was her chance to do what she should have done two months ago. She had to tell him about the baby. Whatever he chose to do after that was his business.
‘I feel positively shabby by comparison.’
Anouk was still gazing at the architecture and Saskia laughed, grateful for the momentary distraction.
‘Well, you don’t look it,’ she told her friend. ‘You look like you’re sparkling, and it isn’t just the new dress. Although I’m glad you let me talk you into buying it.’
‘I’m glad I let you talk me into buying it, too,’ admitted Anouk, smoothing her hands over her dress as though she was nervous.
‘You look totally Hollywood,’ Saskia assured her wryly, knowing that it would break whatever tension her friend appeared to be feeling.
‘Don’t.’ Anouk shuddered on cue. ‘I think I’ve had enough of Hollywood to last me a lifetime.’
‘Me, too.’ More than anyone else could ever possibly know, thought Saskia. ‘But still, the look is good.’
‘Maybe I should be in a more festive colour.’
Anouk glanced at Saskia’s own dress enviously—another much-needed boost to Saskia’s uncharacteristically wavering confidence.
In fact, her friend had already waxed lyrical about the ‘stunning’ emerald dress, claiming that it might have looked gorgeous on the rack but ‘on your voluptuously feminine body it looks entirely bespoke’.
For a moment Saskia had been worried that it had been code for, I can tell you’re pregnant and it’s beginning to show. Even though Saskia knew she wasn’t showing at all. There wasn’t a hint of any swell over her abdomen yet, and she couldn’t help wondering if it was this lack of physical manifestation of her pregnancy which had stalled her in seeking Malachi out at MIG International when he hadn’t shown up at Care to Play.
As if a part of her believed he might doubt what she was saying if he couldn’t see it for himself.
‘I think I look like a Christmas tree.’ Saskia made herself laugh again, with a wave of her hand towards the glorious eighteen-foot work of art which dominated the entrance of the venue. ‘Although if I looked that amazing I’d be happy.’
‘You look even better and you know it.’ Anouk replied instantly. ‘You’ve only just walked in and you’ve turned a dozen heads.’
And yet there was only one head she wanted to turn. Supposed rebound or not.
‘They’re probably looking at you—and, either way, I don’t care. Tonight, Anouk, we’re going to relax and enjoy ourselves.’
‘We are?’
‘We are,’ Saskia said firmly, hoping she was convincing her friend even if she wasn’t convincing herself.
She snagged a champagne flute from the tray of a passing waiter, for something to do with her hands, before realising she couldn’t drink it and passing it straight to Anouk. ‘Starting with this.’
‘You still feeling sick?’ Anouk frowned, eying her with a little too much intensity.
‘Yeah,’ she lied, and another stab of guilt shot through her as she tried to suppress the heat flooding her cheeks.
Anouk didn’t look convinced. If anything, her friend seemed to tense, as though she knew.
The guilt pressed in harder. They’d never deceived each other in over twenty-five years. As soon as she’d told Malachi she would tell Anouk. Why hadn’t she told her before? Was it because she’d always known that, much as her best friend had never encouraged her to leave her ex-fiancé, Anouk had never really taken to Andy?
