Heartbeats in Moonlight

Chapter 22

When Ella returned to the kitchen, they were kissing once again. She deliberately made rough notes about the rooms, took hasty photos, just to leave quickly. Instead, she stumbled on to another situation. Querulous and morose she thought, what was wrong with the world? Had she kicked any puppies or babies? What had she done to incur the wrath of future? Perhaps she shouldn't have stayed in bed today. When she gets back to home, she is going to go back to bed, via the freezer just to retrieve ice-cream, pull her duvet over her head and is going to tuck into tub of chocolate ice-cream until she gets a brain freeze.

With that plan firmly in her brain, fretful and cross, Ella clenched her palms, inhaled, and walked into the kitchen with a false smile on her lips. Ella knew they would have heard her approach, yet neither of them looked like they were going to stop. David had his eyes closed, however when Ella entered the room, he opened his eyes. And though his lips were on Loretta's lips he looked straight at Ella. Annoyance swamped her. Sheer indignation.

For a second Ella didn't move. Words raced through her mind: Arrogant, conceited, smug, complacent jerk! There was no point in ranting at him. He knew exactly what he was doing, and why.

Ella squared her shoulders with umbrage, raised an eyebrow in resentment, kept her smile in place albeit with hostility. She thought about the next few seconds and prepared for David's reaction. Ella's reaction was a mixture of seething, frustration and sadness, and she kept those feelings to herself. She was on an emotion-rollercoaster ride: One second she was fuming, the next second she was really miserable, followed by annoyance, followed by depression, just a pity it was always negative sensations.

David gently moved Loretta, and muttered in a rancour pseudo whisper, "Company." He nearly rubbed his palm on his lips to remove the traces of that kiss. Instead he stepped away from Loretta. It was her idea, but he was an adult, he could have stopped that kiss from the start. Some of the tension eased out of him as he put distance between him and Loretta.

Ella's eyes all but flashed at him for a second. Jerk, jerk, jerk. 

"Done?" David asked Ella as if finding him in a lip lock with another woman was irrelevant to either of them. He picked up his glass and took a long sip. He was irritated with himself, again. Irritated by the fact that he was trying to make Ella jealous, yet again. Irritated that he was using Loretta to make a point with Ella, yet again. Irritated by the fact that she, Ella seemed totally unmoved, yet again. Irritated by the fact that he'd stooped so low, and had reduced himself to using someone else in his quest to get a reaction, yet again. In the space of a few desperate minutes his integrity was shot and he didn't like it one little bit.

He also realised that kissing had no impact, if you are kissing the wrong woman. No real brand, no stamp, no mark beyond the surface. A physical, insignificant connection. Just trivial. He remembered the kiss with Ella: it left a substantial, important, imprint. It left a crucial watermark on his heart. He recognised the inscription on his heart, it was her name, albeit written with unrecognised emotions.

"Yes." Ella avoided eye contact as she tucked the book back into her bag, and willed her voice to remain steady. When she thought she had herself under control she lifted her face to make eye contact with him, "I'll be in touch to run a few ideas past you. You might want to think about it too. In case there is something you'd like to include." For the first time since she'd stepped into the room she looked across at Loretta and Ella kept her false smile in place. "Sorry to have disrupted your evening." She said quietly, but failed to bank her animosity.

"No problem."  Loretta ignored Ella's mood and winked as if she was sharing some girly secret. "The evening is young." She picked up her glass and basically lifted it to challenge Ella. The winner gets all the prizes, and I have the prize today, her eyes told Ella.

The muscle in his jaw started to throb. This was a disaster, he thought as he saw Loretta's eye: she was gloating. Why he wanted to protect Ella was a new sensation. He was tempted to curb Loretta's wallowing. It was his fault. He had initiated this state of affairs. Time to halt this situation. David turned "I'll show Ms Jones out." He shepherded Ella toward the front door before Loretta could respond.

"So, what happens next and when?" He asked as he opened the door, as if the last few minutes, actually the whole of this meeting was normal practice for him. What had just happened was inconsequential. As David escorted Ella to the front door he thought that perhaps he'd failed to see past the surface.

But there was something about her reaction that made him apprehensive. Outwardly she didn't appear to be flustered, but for a few brief milliseconds, he'd caught glimpses of distress. Yes, she seemed calm. Her voice and tone were well modulated and devoid of emotion. But her eyes gave her away, if you watched her very carefully. She wore a mask for much of the time and it was, just on the odd occasion, when she lets her guard down. He knew he should apologise to her. The glimpses he'd caught a few minutes ago suggested his actions had hurt her. He knew there was a big difference in scoring points to support his position, but wounding someone was not part of his nature. What surprised him was the fact that winning points with Ella had not ok for him. Scoring points were hollow winnings.

"I'll give you a call." Ella kept her voice quiet and calm. "We'll need to meet to go over options and preliminary ideas. If you like it, then we set a timeline once you agree on exactly what you want, identify a reasonable budget. I'll organise the work, you pay for it." She didn't look at him as she spoke, and just rattled it off as if it was a script. Best not to look at him, best not to rant for the debacle of this meeting, best to ignore the feelings racing through her blood, otherwise she would blubbered in front of him.

"Sounds simple enough." He tried to tease.

"Yes." She said, reading his statement as another put down.

"We need to talk." He said quietly, he could see she was upset. Clearly kissing Loretta in front of Ella was stupid; something an adolescent would do. He hadn't realised how much it would distress her, because he had simply assumed she was immune to him. But something in her manner suggested that what had just taken place in his kitchen had caused deep hurt.

She looked pointedly at his foot, "Some other time. I have another appointment." She opened the door. "Good bye, David." She used his first name despite the fact that he addressed her by her surname earlier.

"Bye." He closed the door and as he shut it wondered why after nearly ten years, his pulse still raced when he spoke with her.

Kissing Loretta was fine, but he did it when he knew Ella would see. Deliberated. He wanted to score points, and that is exactly what he had done. He wanted her to react. But she hadn't. Not even batted an eyelash. Or so he thought, until he'd walked her to the door, when he'd caught those glimpses of distress. So she hadn't been as untouched by seeing him kissing someone.

He wondered why he had resorted to childish games. His mother would scolded him, he was better than this. He leaned his forehead against the door and wondered why Ella still had the power to unsettle him, ten years on, and with only one shared kiss between them recently. Pushing off the doorway he knew he was going to send Loretta home after dinner having shared nothing more than the couple of kisses. That was normal for him, at least for the last two years. He was determined not to go on living like a monk. He just needed to shift Ella from his mind and heart, and get on with his life without Ella!