Recipe for Love

CHAPTER Twenty-Eight





ASTRID AND ZOE had decided that the launch of the deli should be held in the gastro-pub two doors down from them as there just wasn’t room in the shop to entertain everyone. But of course the shop would be open and people would be encouraged to amble down with their special money-saving vouchers in their hands. The very pretty daughter of a friend of Astrid’s had been bribed to stand behind the counter and serve the Pimm’s-fuelled punters as they arrived.

Astrid and Zoe took a last look round the room at the pub. The trays of canapés were set out along with pitchers of Pimm’s and wine, beer and soft drinks.

‘The trouble is,’ said Astrid, obviously not quite happy with the arrangement even though they had no choice, ‘it doesn’t look like us. It could be any old do down the pub.’

‘It’s a posh pub,’ said Zoe. ‘But I see what you mean. We’re launching the shop and the shop is sort of absent from the party.’

‘Those catering trays with the canapés don’t help,’ said Astrid.

‘I know! I’ll go and get those old plates from the shop, they’re huge. We’ll put the food on them. It’ll make it much more Mediterranean and special.’

‘But they’re on that high shelf,’ Astrid objected. ‘And Tilly won’t be there for another half an hour.’

‘But I don’t mind ladders. I put them up there, I can get ’em down.’

Zoe had it all planned. She placed the ladder so she could pass the plates down into a basket that she had hung on it, and not have to climb down the ladder with precious china in her hands. Astrid had insisted she put her mobile in her bra so she could call for help if she got into difficulties. Only the imminent arrival of her guests stopped her going with Zoe to make sure nothing bad happened.

Zoe had carefully laid two platters in the basket and was reaching for the third, a little further away, when she heard a familiar voice call her name from the door.

Panic made her move up instead of down and she found herself off the ladder, standing on a lower shelf and clinging to the top one. ‘I don’t want to see you, Gideon!’ she said. She was hardly able to speak her mouth was so dry.

He heard him chuckle below her. ‘I don’t think you have much choice.’

Zoe shut her eyes, thinking it was safer if she couldn’t see him. Part of her had wondered, just for a second, if he had been conjured up by her fraught imagination. She’d been thinking of him just as she reached for the second plate, a thought prompted by the olive oil can she now knew had been imported by his firm.

She heard him move so he could face her but she kept her eyes tightly closed.

‘Zoe, please listen to me. Let me explain. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for weeks. No one would tell me where you were.’

‘Good.’ At least her friends and family had done what she’d asked. ‘So how did you find me then?’ While she couldn’t see him she felt safe to ask him questions.

‘I was staying with friends. He’s a food writer and got the press release. I saw the croquembouche on it and knew it had to be you. I rushed straight down here.’

Her eyes still shut, she sighed deeply. How romantic it would have been if they actually had a chance of a relationship. What did he think he could achieve by coming to see her now? He was married! It strengthened her resolve to be firm.

‘Zoe, could you come down from there? It’s hard to talk to your back and your white knuckles.’

‘You can’t see my white knuckles! And anyway, they’re not. I don’t mind heights at all.’ She didn’t mind heights but she was getting a bit stressed by having to cling on to a couple of shelves while she dealt with Gideon. It would have helped if part of her hadn’t been secretly pleased he was here. She knew she shouldn’t be, but her stomach was fluttering with excitement and confusion. Her heart and her body were determined to betray her.

‘Please?’

That sounded quite polite for someone more used to giving orders than asking permission or making requests.

‘No.’ She longed to say yes, longed to get down from her lofty situation – the high ground in every way – but she had to be strong.

She couldn’t see him but she heard him sigh. ‘I’m sorry to be domineering, but I think I need to take control.’

Zoe suddenly felt herself clutched around her knees and pulled backwards. She clung on to the shelves for balance and he turned round so he was facing her. The next second she was hanging over his shoulder.

‘Gideon!’ she said as firmly as she could. ‘Put me down!’ She tried not to sound hysterical but her breathing was restricted. She just hoped no one chose to come in at that moment. It was so undignified. And how dare he manhandle her like this?

‘What’s going on?’

Zoe spotted Astrid’s gold-spangled FitFlops. ‘Help! I’m being kidnapped.’

‘Yes but, darling, have you seen who by?’ She sounded like a bad impression of Leslie Phillips. Why wasn’t she helping her out here? Gideon had obviously had time to get her on his side.

‘Yes! Gideon! Put me down! We have a party to organise. I’m working!’

‘I’m giving you the day off,’ said Astrid, the traitor.

‘Has he bribed you?’ demanded Zoe. ‘How will you cope? It’s ridiculous!’

No one paid any attention to her. She found herself being carried out of the shop into the street. She was already red in the face so she couldn’t blush any more. She’d given up struggling. It would only make her look even more ridiculous.

Fortunately, Gideon’s car was parked right outside. She heard him unlock the door with his fob. Then he tipped her on to the back seat. She sat herself upright.

‘Do up your seatbelt,’ he said. ‘Please.’

Zoe sighed deeply. The car smelt wonderfully familiar. She did up her belt.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she said crossly.

‘Somewhere we can talk.’

She sighed again and settled back into the worn leather. What could he possibly have to say to her that would make it all better?



She thought about asking him to stop so she could sit in front next to him; she felt a bit weird on her own in the back. But then she decided that being near him was not a good idea. If she got too close she might not be able to resist if he tried to seduce her again. She mustn’t give in. She’d taken some small steps towards getting over him. If she tumbled into his arms at the first opportunity she’d be worse off than before. But what if he’d come to tell her he was sorry, he’d enjoyed their time together but it was over and he hoped she didn’t feel bad about it? It would be gentlemanly of him to come and tell her in person but she wished he hadn’t.

After about fifteen minutes of silent driving, Gideon pulled into a clearing by the side of a wood. There was a ford and a seat visible a little way up the track. The trees came down almost to the water and a patch of sunlight tinged the area with gold. It looked impossibly romantic. How ironic, thought Zoe.

‘Here we are.’ He opened her door and let her out of the car.

Zoe’s resolve to be strong wavered and then strengthened. In the silence of the car she had decided the best way to handle the situation was to keep it light. She wouldn’t let him know the effect he had on her, or how much he’d hurt her.

‘This is where you produce a bottle of champagne or a picnic basket full of starched napery and quails’ eggs,’ she said, aiming for flippantly but not quite making it.

He shook his head. ‘Sorry. I haven’t got anything up my sleeve or in the boot. I didn’t know if I was going to see you and when I saw the flier, well …’ He paused and smiled. ‘I flew.’ He seemed nervous all of a sudden, as if unsure of himself or her. Zoe was gratified to see this at least.

Then his familiar quirky smile sent her stomach into free fall and her emotions into the sky. The combination made her feel slightly sick and weak at the knees with longing and confusion.

‘Let’s walk,’ he suggested. ‘I like your dress,’ he added.

The compliment threw her rather. She was wearing a simple scoop-necked sleeveless number designed to look good under a pinny. It wasn’t anything special. She suspected him of trying to make up to her. ‘Do you?’

‘Yes!’ He held a hand out to her which she studiously ignored, shrugged and then said, ‘Come on.’

‘I can’t go far. These shoes aren’t suitable for mud.’ She sounded like a petulant child, but that’s how she felt. She had a deli to help launch. She didn’t have time for walks in the woods.

‘The path is good and we’ll stop when we get to the seat. I’ve got so much to tell you.’

‘I should be helping Astrid. There’s a lot still to do. I can’t just run off.’

‘I’m sure Astrid will cope and you didn’t run – you were carried.’

Zoe could do this. She’d hear him out. She was getting used to being with him again and her sense of humour was coming back. ‘That’s true and she did see it happen.’

‘She seemed positively encouraging!’

‘I know! She’s such a romantic.’ Zoe shook her head. ‘She just let me be carried away like a Sabine woman.’

He paused as if remembering. ‘I’m not sure it was quite like that. According to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers the Sabine Women were carried off in bulk.’

‘Well, you know what I mean.’

He stopped and looked down at her, his eyes narrowed as if trying to read the small print of her mind. ‘What I can’t quite work out is whether or not there was any sort of willingness on your part when I abducted you.’

Zoe caught her breath, hoping he didn’t realise that despite her resolve, she was as utterly and hopelessly in love with him as she had always been – and she was his for the taking, if only he were free. She mustn’t let him know that. Somehow she must prevent him from touching her. But there was a diffidence about him that made her hope. She wasn’t even sure what she hoped for: that he’d leave her alone for ever? Or that he’d somehow stopped being married – in love – with his childhood sweetheart?

‘I don’t know what to say.’ She didn’t know what to think or how she felt either, and she certainly didn’t want to admit to anything.

‘Things are in rather a muddle,’ he said.

‘That’s one way of saying you’re married,’ she murmured.

They’d reached the bench and although in some ways Zoe would have liked to go on walking her shoes were getting muddy and it was too late to tell him she didn’t care about them.

‘Let’s sit down,’ he said, pulling her gently down next to him.

They both gazed at the river. It was so wide and shallow it could almost be forded without wellies. Swallows skimmed the surface catching flies and wagtails went about their business reminding Zoe of a poem she’d learnt in childhood. From deeper in the woodland a bird sang. Zoe would have loved being here if she weren’t so full of confusion and anxiety. He had come to find her, but why? Even if he told her he loved her it would do no good.

‘I was married, but I am about to be single,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘My divorce comes through next month.’

Zoe sighed deeply in reply. The couple she had seen at the wrap party didn’t look on the verge of divorce. They had looked like a couple who still loved each other.

‘I knew you’d find it hard to believe,’ he went on. ‘Because, as you threw at me before storming off, it’s what every married man cheating on his wife says: “We’re married in name only,” or “She doesn’t understand me.”’ He paused. ‘But it’s true. You rushed off without giving me any time to explain.’

Zoe felt a tiny flicker of hope. Did he really mean it? He sounded sincere but sophisticated, but wasn’t this what sexy men always did when they were trying to paint themselves in a good light and get what they wanted? She shifted a little further away from him. It was agony sitting so close.

‘Zoe, what’s the matter? You seem terribly nervous.’

‘I am!’

‘Why? Are you frightened of me?’ He sounded horrified.

‘Of course not! Not of you exactly …’

‘Of what then?’ It was a whisper. The concern and tenderness in his voice almost made her cry.

She shut her eyes and tipped her head back, trying to focus on the birdsong. ‘I’ve spent every second of every minute of every day since we last saw each other trying to forget you.’

‘But I don’t want you to. I want us to be together.’

Zoe turned on him in frustration. ‘But you’re married, and despite what you say about your divorce you looked on very good terms with your wife!’

‘We are on good terms. She’s a very tactile person—’ He stopped, realising that he was probably making things worse. ‘What I’m trying to say – in a very clumsy way, I know – is that we’ve always had a very easy relationship but there is absolutely nothing between us now, hasn’t been for ages. She’s been living in the States for years now. What can I say to make you believe me?’

‘Why did she come over to see you?’ Zoe said.

‘She wanted me to go to America to front a cookery competition. She’s a TV producer over there. Remember when I went to New York in the middle of the competition? That was to talk things through with her and the team over there. She came over here to see if—’

Zoe broke in before he could finish. ‘So why didn’t you go?’

He bit his lip. ‘I wanted to see if there was a job for you as well. There wasn’t. It took a little while to find that out. I tried really hard. But if you couldn’t go I didn’t want to either. Rosalind came back to try and persuade me to go anyway. She said I was throwing away the chance of a lifetime, but I just couldn’t leave you.’

‘Oh.’ Zoe closed her eyes, trying to will back the tears threatening to seep through her eyelids and down her cheeks.

‘You might not have wanted to go anyway but I had to know.’

Zoe still didn’t dare look at him. Everything he was saying was giving her more and more hope but she had to be sure. ‘Why didn’t you get divorced before now? I mean when you realised you weren’t happy in your marriage?’

Gideon sighed. ‘I need to tell you everything really. We were very young. We met at university – in fact we were almost the first people we met when we got there. We fell into it really. It was companionship and lust and at the time it felt like love.’

‘Isn’t that what love is?’

Gideon looked at her intently. ‘I don’t think so. Love is when you can’t contemplate life without that person, when you think about them obsessively, when you’d happily, without even thinking too hard about it, cut off your arm if it would benefit them in any way.’ He made a sound, half laughter, half desperation. ‘Pretty much how I feel about you really.’ He picked up her hand and kissed her wrist as if he didn’t know he was doing it. She didn’t pull it away.

In her heart Zoe recognised every word as true. That is how it is! That is exactly how I feel about you! she wanted to say. But she couldn’t afford to let him know how she felt until she’d heard everything. He still hadn’t explained why they’d stayed married for so long. ‘But why did you get married if you didn’t feel … weren’t truly in love?’

He shook his head. ‘We talked about this recently, and decided it was a combination of family pressure, the fact that we got on so well, and that we were both very ambitious. She had the offer of an amazing job. We knew we couldn’t go to America together unless we were married. Let’s just say it seemed like a good idea at the time.’ He paused. ‘And then time passed and we went our separate ways. But we stayed friends, and we sort of forgot about getting a divorce. It never mattered before. In fact – and I am being honest here although it doesn’t reflect well on me at all – it was sometimes useful to be able to say I was married.’

Zoe shuddered to think how many hearts had been dashed on the rocks of his indifference.

‘But now …’ Gideon paused.

‘But now what?’

‘Now it matters because I’ve met you. So when I went to America I told Rosalind I wanted to start divorce proceedings. And that was one of the other things she came over to tell me: that we’d both soon be single.’

Zoe’s heart had begun to sing, but then it jolted again. ‘Someone I met – Sylvie, you probably don’t remember her – Sylvie said she thought you were really in love with someone else, someone in your past.’

‘I do remember Sylvie. I’m not that much of a Casanova. But she was wrong about the lost-love thing. I was just always looking for the one.’ He looked at her, and Zoe noticed that uncharacteristic hint of diffidence again. ‘Does that make me sound like a teenage girl?’

Zoe smiled, biting her lip. ‘It does a bit.’

‘Sorry. Not good for my image.’

‘Your image is fine.’

‘Well, that’s something. But I want everything else to be fine too. In particular, I want you to trust me again.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘And if you still fancy me – well, we can go from there.’

Zoe found she was smiling too and the smile went from a twitch at the corner of her mouth to a full beam in seconds. She flung herself into his arms and a second later they were hugging and kissing and laughing. And then he gripped her so tightly she couldn’t breathe.

‘I’ve missed you so much! I would have found you much earlier if I hadn’t felt I had to get everything settled between Rosalind and me before I looked for you.’

‘Where would you have looked?’ she said to his shirt, which now had a couple of buttons undone.

‘I’d already tried Somerby, your house—’

‘I made them promise not to tell you where I was.’

‘And they didn’t! Your mother was really sweet.’

‘You charmed her?’ she said accusingly.

‘I did but she still wouldn’t tell me. Took her out to lunch and everything.’ He paused, laughing at her sideways. ‘I checked her out. If you end up looking like she does you’re a good long-term prospect.’

‘Oh, am I? And have you a father I should check out?’

‘I certainly have! And he’s got almost all his hair so you’re on to a good thing.’

She nestled into his chest and sighed happily.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked her after a few moments.

‘I’m wondering if I’d still love you if you were bald,’ she said.

‘Monkey! Of course you would!’

It took them a little while to settle the argument but as they walked back to the car, arms entwined, he said, ‘Oh, and I got some other little bit of unfinished business sorted out.’

‘Oh? What?’

‘Cher and the photographs.’

Zoe felt a flutter of anxiety. Those wretched photographs, she’d hoped to never hear them mentioned again.

‘I can’t imagine she gave them up easily. I’ve been worrying about them, on and off.’ She didn’t want to say, even now, that her thoughts had been so full of him that Cher’s attempts at blackmail seemed almost unimportant.

‘It was quite easy actually. I took her for a drink. She was very happy to accept the invitation. And then I put it to her if she did anything with the photos the television show wouldn’t be aired and her big break would be lost for ever.’

‘So did she delete the photos there and then?’

‘Yup. And from her laptop too.’

‘But she might have backed them up?’

‘I’m afraid I was very underhand. I found out that she isn’t remotely techie. So it’s possible, but unlikely. And even if she has, I think the threat of not starring on a primetime cookery show will keep her quiet.’

‘Thank God. I do regret throwing the competition but at the time it felt as though I didn’t have any choice – for both our sakes.’

‘I know you were thinking about my career – that was one of the things I was angry about. But, actually, the show has been shown to a few select people and you come across very well. I’m sure someone will back you to open a deli if that’s what you still want.’

‘It is. I’ve had such fun with Astrid. And talking of which, I must go back.’

He kissed the top of her head. ‘And I’ll go back and bring my friend to the launch. He edits a very upmarket food magazine and will be a good contact for Astrid. And then I’m going to book the most luxurious hotel bedroom in the Cotswolds to take you to after the launch. And there I will tell you and show you exactly how much I love you …’

‘And let me count the ways?’ She giggled.

‘You’re shocking! Do you think of nothing but sex?’

‘But that was poetry! And sometimes I think about cooking.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. And I’m happy to attest that you’re very good at both.’