The Secret Path

night apart since.
Within the space of a week (but really, within that first day), he had become her life system – he was her oxygen, her sunlight, her beating heart. Even just the thought of being without him was insupportable. She’d never known passion, yearning, lust like it and sometimes the strength of their feelings frightened her. It wasn’t healthy, surely, to want another person so entirely? He was a drug she simply could not do without. And now she wouldn’t have to?
The excitement escaped her as a little laugh.
‘What?’ he asked, nudging her legs apart with his knee.
‘Mushrooms to a marriage proposal. That was . . . un-expected,’ she breathed as he began kissing her neck.
‘You’re telling me.’ His voice was muffled.
‘So you didn’t plan it?’
He pulled his head up, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright. ‘No. But now I’ve told you my deepest, darkest secret about my love for goats, I’ll have to keep you close. Can’t have that getting out.’ He winked at her, forever teasing.
His mouth was on her skin again, her body already crying out for him. She closed her eyes, sinking into the splendour of knowing she would have this for the rest of her life.
‘Of course you know what this means,’ he murmured, his voice a hot breath on her tummy.
‘What?’ she smiled, eyes still closed.
‘You’ll have to introduce me to your parents,’ he said, that signature wry smile on his lips.
‘Oh God . . . I guess I will.’
He looked back up at her with a bemused expression. ‘Well, you don’t have to sound so unhappy about it.’
‘I’m not. They’ll love you.’
‘But . . .?’ he prompted. ‘What is it? They hate Americans?’
‘No!’
‘Well done. Good no. Forceful. Believable. Emphatic.’
She laughed, exhausted by his verbal games.
‘Is it because no one could ever be good enough for their darling daughter? Are they those guys?’
‘Maybe a bit,’ she conceded.
‘Relax. Parents love me.’
‘Oh? Met many of your fiancées’ parents, have you?’ she asked archly.
It was his turn to laugh. ‘You are the only fiancée I have ever had or ever intend to have.’
‘Fiancée,’ she repeated. ‘It sounds funny even just hearing it.’
‘Wait till we swap it for wife.’ He kissed her tummy again, just once, lightly, as though a butterfly was landing on her, resting his head in one hand. ‘Tell me, what are you more worried about – introducing them to me, or me to them?’
She bit her lip. ‘You to them.’
He pulled a worried look. ‘They don’t have two heads, do they?’
‘No!’
‘Again, very good application of the no there.’
She smacked him lightly on the shoulder.
‘It’s all gonna be fine. They’re gonna love me and I’m gonna love them. You know why I know?’
She shook her head.
‘Because all three of us love you. It’s really that simple.’ He hauled himself up the bed again so that he was nose to nose with her. ‘But I gotta meet your dad so I can do this right.’
She swallowed, feeling tears prick her eyes, the happiness beginning to overflow. ‘You’re going to ask him for my hand?’
‘Ideally the rest of you too. But yeah, we’ll start with the hand.’ He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Anything I should know before I go in?’
She opened her mouth to tell him her secret – not the one she had never told anyone, just the one she had never told him. But staring into his clear eyes, it didn’t feel like the right time. For weeks now she had been waiting for just the right moment to tell him everything, the whole truth and not just a portion of it. But this moment was so pure, so joyous, she didn’t want to sully it with anything crass, overwhelm him with background details that were nothing to do with the two of them.
She shook her head. ‘Not really,’ she demurred. ‘Daddy’s a sweetheart.’
‘What’s a safe topic to start on? Don’t tell me, he’s a golf man?’
‘Actually, he’s big on environmental issues, so I reckon you two will get on like a house on fire.’
‘Yeah? Great,’ Alex shrugged, looking pleased. ‘So then, when can I meet him?’

Chapter Two
Pigeons pecked and strutted a few steps ahead of them in the sandy avenue of Hyde Park’s North Ride, the early morning sun pale and bright as it streamed through the budding horse chestnut canopies. The first crocuses and primroses were already dotting the park with yellow and purple splashes like Monet brushstrokes, the background hum of London traffic on Bayswater Road superseded every few moments by the heavy, rhythmic breathing of runners overtaking them. The mornings were getting brighter, the frosts not quite so furious as they laced the grass.
Tara took another sip of her coffee, the steam swirling in the cold air. Holly was having her signature hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles, the first of her many daily sugar hits.
‘And what did he say then?’ Tara asked, as Holly drew breath. Her friend was in the midst of a protracted breakup with Dev, a radiographer in Oncology. What had started as a drunken hook-up in the Irish bar just down from St Mary’s hospital had become a more regular arrangement, and it had all been going well for several months till Dev had surprised her by clearing a drawer for her. Holly had reacted by walking out. Cue reams of anguished texts and some excellent make-up sex. The drawer had been hurriedly restuffed with mismatched sports socks and the tall can of athlete’s foot spray, but the damage had been done – Dev wanted commitment, and Holly wanted out.
‘He said I’ve got abandonment issues!’
‘Huh.’
‘I mean, please. I said to him, don’t you push your clichés onto me. Not everyone whose mother walks out falls apart, you know. Some of us pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and do even fucking better than we would have done if she’d bloody stayed.’
‘Quite.’
Holly muttered something unintelligible under her breath. ‘I really mean it this time. I told him in no uncertain terms last night that we are done.’
‘Your terms are never uncertain,