‘I wasn’t much of a friend, was I?’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘What? You were kind and honest. You brought me colour, and you showed me that however hard things are there’s always time to celebrate the good things. I wanted...’
He fell silent suddenly, and in the warmth of his gaze Marie knew what he’d wanted. He’d wanted her. She’d wanted him too. Honesty was good—but this was one place they couldn’t go.
‘I wanted to be like you.’
His smooth refusal to face that particular fact was a relief, because Marie couldn’t face it either. She’d never really moved on from wanting Alex.
‘Will you do me a favour?’ she asked.
‘Anything.’
The look in his eyes told her he meant it.
‘You’ve got a lot you can give to the anti-bullying programme. All those feelings and the things no one ever said. I want you to get more involved with it.’
He laughed suddenly. ‘Don’t underestimate me by giving me the easy option, will you.’
‘You want me to underestimate you?’
‘No, not really. Keeping me honest is what you do best.’ He held his hands up in a gesture of smiling surrender. ‘Yes, I’ll do it. And now we really should be getting back to our visitors.’
CHAPTER SIX
YESTERDAY HAD BEEN a success. The flood of people who’d wanted to be first to explore the new clinic had subsided into a steady but satisfying trickle. Alex had received a couple of calls from local doctors, enquiring about referring patients to the clinic, and he’d shown a consultant from the nearby hospital around. She had a young patient whose family were currently travelling an hour each way to get to a hydrotherapy pool, and was pleased to find a closer facility that would meet the girl’s needs.
Today there was a new challenge.
Alex assumed his best trust-me-I’m-a-doctor smile, and when he looked down at Marie he saw a similar one plastered uneasily across her face.
‘Oh, really, Alex.’ Sonya Graham-Hall flapped her hand at the photographer from the local paper, indicating that he was to stand down while she gave her clients a good talking-to. ‘Can you try not to look as if you’ve eaten something that doesn’t agree with you? You’re supposed to be welcoming. And stand a little closer to Marie. You’re a team...’
Marie was looking a little overawed by Sonya. Alex took a step towards her, feeling the inevitable thrill as her shoulder touched his arm. He bent towards her, whispering an old joke from medical school, and she suppressed a laugh. He couldn’t help smiling, and heard the camera click rapidly.
‘Wonderful!’
Sonya beamed at everyone, and Alex stepped forward to shake the photographer’s hand and thank him. Then Sonya marched across the reception area to where the local reporter was standing, leading him towards the front doors.
‘What’s she doing?’ Marie looked up at him. ‘Can’t he find his own way?’
‘It’s Sonya’s modus operandi. She’s making sure he knows what he’s meant to write. Although he probably won’t realise that’s what she’s done until after he’s filed his story.’
Alex knew Sonya’s husband from school, and knew she was the best PR representative in London. She was so much in demand that it was usual for her to interview clients, rather than the other way round. Alex had been lucky, though, and a phone call had not only managed to secure Sonya’s services, but they were on a pro bono basis, because she loved the idea of the clinic. There was something to be said for the public school network.
‘She’s formidable, isn’t she?’ Marie’s smile indicated that she thought formidable was a really good thing. ?
??I’m a little scared of her.’
Alex couldn’t fathom what Marie would have to be scared about. If he’d been asked to define ‘formidable’, the first person who would have come to mind was Marie. But not quite in the same way as Sonya, who relied on killer heels, designer jackets and an upper-class accent that would have sliced through concrete.
‘She knows so many important people...’
‘It’s her job to know people. Anyway, don’t we prefer to think of everyone as important?’
Marie frowned, nudging him with her elbow. ‘Of course we do. You know what I mean.’
Alex knew. Marie had already told him that she felt like a fish out of water with the great and the good, but they were exactly the kind of people who had the money and influence to help them make this project grow into a whole chain of clinics in different parts of the country. He wished Marie would stop thinking of them as somehow out of her league, because she was just as good as any of them.