Undertaking Love Page 0,5
there was to this? That she was simply being squeamish? Unfortunately for Marla, he chose that moment to smile at her again and temporarily robbed her of the ability to speak.
‘Look. I promise you won’t be suddenly seeing dead bodies all the time or anything. Scout’s honour.’
He was trying to make light of it. The need to clarify the situation burned in Marla’s gut until she finally regained power over her vocal chords.
‘Gabe, I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. This,’ she spread her hands to encompass the building around them. ‘This is a wedding chapel. It’s a happy place.’
Trouble seeped slowly into his dark eyes, but he held his tongue and let her speak.
‘It’s a place where people come to celebrate love, and life, and to enjoy the best day of their lives, you understand?’
He nodded, and for a second he looked as if he really might. Maybe there was hope, after all. Marla crossed her fingers underneath the table and waited.
‘Okay.’
Okay? Even in her wildest dreams, Marla hadn’t expected him to give in that easily.
‘Okay. I can see that our businesses are very different, but I’m also pretty sure we can work something out. A little give and take, you know?’
Damn it. Either he hadn’t listened, or he was being deliberately evasive.
‘Give and take? Give and take?’ She couldn’t hold her voice steady as it helter-skeltered up several octaves. ‘Gabe, people won’t book to get married here if they see a dirty great hearse parked up in the street or a wailing family outside.’
His brows knitted together at her harsh words. Gabe, in turn, watched pink spots burn on Marla’s cheeks.
‘Look, that probably sounded heartless, and honestly, I’m really not, but I … I just won’t let this happen.’
His expression was unreadable as he stared at her across the table. She went for broke.
‘The bottom line, Gabe, is this. Your business will kill my business.’
Gabe steepled his fingers in front of him, and any trace of merriment had died in his eyes when he looked up.
‘Then we have ourselves a problem.’
Marla’s stomach flipped over.
‘Because here’s the thing, Marla.’
His voice was soft enough for her to have to lean in close in order to hear him.
‘People come to me to celebrate love too, it’s just at the other end of life’s spectrum. It might not be happy, or frothy, but my services are just as important as yours. More so, probably.’
Distaste dripped from his every word, and pure steel underscored his deceptively soft tone.
‘You’ve made it very clear that I’m not your ideal neighbour, and trust me, I’ll make every effort to minimise the impact I have on you.’
He shook his head with a look of derision and scraped his chair back. He crossed the tiny kitchen in a couple of paces, before turning in the doorway to deliver his parting shot.
‘But make no mistake. Whether you like it or not, in a few weeks’ time I absolutely will be opening for business next door.’
Emily slid down the bathroom wall, slumping to the floor, her back pressed against the radiator to ease the all too familiar ache. She hurled the unopened pregnancy test across the room. At least the tell-tale scarlet streak on the loo roll had saved her the bother of wasting eight pounds this month – not that she’d expected much else, given that she and Tom had barely even seen each other, let alone made love.
What had started out as a crazy, exciting plan to make a baby had steadily turned into a monthly cycle of failure and heartache, that, month on month, was ripping the heart right out of their marriage.
Seventeen months, to be precise. Eighteen, including this one.
They hadn’t expected to score a homerun on their first month, of course not. Hoped maybe, but not expected. Nonetheless, Emily had passed that first month daydreaming of ways to tell Tom their happy news. Would she buy him a card? Spell out ‘daddy’ in Alphabetti Spaghetti? No, Tom hated tinned spaghetti. And anyway, he’d want them to do the test together, wouldn’t he?
In the end, they’d perched side by side on the edge of the bath and passed the upside down stick between them as if it might singe the skin off their fingers.
‘You look. No, you! Please, you do it, I can’t …’
In their defence, they had every reason to feel hopeful. Hugh Hefner himself would have been impressed with the way they’d dedicated themselves to their task over the month, but all they