Chapter Eighteen
858 Words
‘Not any more. Rory wasn’t happy with his blood work, but maybe tonight...’ Hugh yawned and then looked at her swollen eyes. ‘You know, if I was a friend, instead of someone you tolerated because you’re paid to, you could talk to me about this morning.’
Emily didn’t want to talk about that morning but she was glad of the chance to address Friday night. ‘Hugh, I really am sorry about that. It came out all wrong. I just don’t want to mess up our friendship...’
‘You nearly did!’ Hugh said, his voice serious, and Emily nodded. ‘So what was this morning about? I know that it’s hard when a relative comes in.’
‘She’s not a relative, though,’ Emily said, with more than a dash of bitterness, and then decided it couldn’t hurt to explain. ‘When my parents’ marriage broke up my dad moved down here and moved in with Katrina, Jessica’s mum. I used to come down once a month, half the holidays...’
‘How old were you?’
‘Twelve,’ Emily said. ‘I didn’t like Katrina at first but I was always nice to her and my dad made sure to let me know she’d be my stepmum once the divorce was through and that this was my new family. I loved Jessica from the start, though. When I was there we shared a room. She was only little but we used to have such a laugh and then one weekend I came down to stay and found out that Katrina and my dad had split up.’
‘Did you not see them after that?’
‘Nope.’ Emily shook her head. ‘I asked where they were, but it didn’t matter apparently, and clearly I didn’t matter enough to Katrina to stay in touch...’ Emily closed her eyes as she recalled how easily people that she had been told to love, to treat as family, to care for had been removed from her life. ‘It was just the start of it. After Katrina, Dad met someone else and then someone else, then it was Donna and the twins...’ She gave a tight smile, as she recalled that Hugh knew about that. ‘You get the drift.’ She didn’t want to go on but Hugh persisted.
‘Your dad’s getting married again?’
Emily nodded.
‘Do you see the twins?’
‘Not really. I send them presents and things and they might be there at the wedding but Donna has majority access and...’ She shook her head. ‘I’m over talking about it.’ Emily looked around the staffroom that was emptying as everyone headed back. ‘I’d better go...’
It was very possibly her last shift—Emily didn’t know if she’d be coming back and if she did she wasn’t sure if her notice would be served out here or in Theatre.
It was very possibly the last time she would sit chatting to Hugh.
‘I really am sorry for what I said on Friday night...’
‘If you’d just told me the truth then it would have been fine.’
‘Yeah, well, don’t buy me champagne and then demand common sense.’
The opportunity to ask her out was there again.
He could ask her, they both knew it, except Hugh didn’t go for a second try. Instead he gave her a thin smile and Emily walked off.
What was it with Emily that had Hugh pondering calling her back and asking her out again?
In that moment he took a very honest inventory of himself and maybe Olivia had been right to be concerned. No, he’d never have cheated but there was something about his feelings for Emily that sat in a place marked unresolved.
There were many women he fancied and he had many women who were friends.
Sometimes the boundaries merged but never more so than they did with Emily. Hugh considered her a friend, though Emily had kept it pretty much at colleague level, yet there was no one he spoke more readily with, no one who got what he was saying even before the sentence had finished...
As for attraction.
Always.
Absolutely.
Yes.
He saw the tension in Emily’s shoulders as she headed out of the staffroom and, no, he wasn’t going to call her back and make an i***t of himself again.
* * *
Emily knew that too.
She’d left things on such a bad note that she’d probably lost her friend anyway if she quit working here, Emily realised. It was a terrible way to end three years of working together, but Hugh would be a very silly reason to stay.
- Writer
