in the morning. How was she going to endure the next few hours without going mad?
The buzzer on the intercom in the hall brought her eyes widening and her heart thudding. She suddenly had a mental picture of a policeman standing at the front door with the news that Nick’s car had crashed and he was dead. He had driven like one of the Formula One drivers he admired so much on the way back from Barnstaple.
She rushed to the hall, flicking the switch on the intercom with trembling hands. ‘Yes, who is it?’ she croaked.
‘Cory?’
The relief she felt in hearing Nick’s voice almost made her faint. Somehow she managed to say, ‘Nick? What are you doing back here?’
‘I’ve asked myself the same question.’ It was dry and sardonic, but there was none of the furious rage of earlier. ‘Can I come up?’
‘What? Oh, yes, yes.’ She pressed the switch to open the front door almost numbly, unable to believe he was here. That he was back. And then it suddenly swept over her. She had to tell him. This was her moment. She didn’t know what had brought him back but she couldn’t miss it again.
She opened the flat door, stepping out on to the landing just as he reached the top of the stairs. ‘Nick!’ She flung herself at him with enough force to have taken them both down the stairs if he hadn’t braced himself at the last moment. ‘Oh, Nick, Nick. I didn’t mean it. I was stupid, crazy. I don’t want us to finish, I don’t.’ The tears which had been on hold all night had burst forth in a torrent, her voice a wail.
She was aware of him picking her up when she continued to cling on to him like grim death, also that Arnie was barking again downstairs and the flat door above had just opened. Nick carried her into the flat, kicking the door shut behind him and walking over to the sofa, where he sat down with her on his lap. She still had her arms round his neck in a stranglehold, terrified he was going to leave before she could say what she had to say. The only trouble was, she couldn’t get anything out with the tears blocking her voice and her nose streaming.
He let her sob for a minute or two against his chest before prising her arms away and reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief. After wiping her eyes, he held it to her nose. ‘Blow.’
She blew, gulping and then saying, ‘Nick, oh, Nick.’
‘Whatever I expected, it wasn’t this.’ There was a thread of amusement in his voice but she didn’t care. He was here.
‘I was so stupid.’ She tried desperately to stop crying but now she had started she didn’t seem able to control the tears. ‘And I didn’t mean it. It’s just that with you not wanting commitment and all that, I thought it was for the best. But it’s not.’
‘Slow down, love, slow down.’
Love. He had called her love. Suddenly she could see a light at the end of the tunnel again.
‘What’s all this about me not wanting commitment?’ he asked softly, getting her to blow her nose again.
She must look a fright. Cory became aware of her tearravaged face and runny nose at the same time that it registered that she was wearing the most un-sexy pair of pyjamas in the world. It helped stem the tears. Shakily she said, ‘I look awful; these are my oldest pyjamas. I bet none of your other girlfriends ever wore anything like this, did they?’
‘Cory, none of my other girlfriends have been remotely like you,’ he said very drily. ‘None of them refused to have anything to do with me until I had to resort to blackmail to get a date; none of them viewed me with suspicion and downright dislike; none of them had me walking the floor at night and having cold showers like they were going out of fashion, and none of them nearly took my nose off with one of my own doors. Having said that—’ he adjusted her more comfortably on his lap, stroking her hair back from her damp, blotchy face ‘—none of them were as sweet as honey without a trace of malice in the whole of their bodies; none of them cared about struggling families and folk who couldn’t do a thing in return for them, and certainly none of them would have thought about clearing up