Summer Seaside Wedding by Abigail Gordon

heading.
    He’d never given much thought over the years towhat those he met saw him as, had been carefree and popular wherever he’d gone, but had always been on his guard.
    Then along had come Amelie, younger than him and on her own due to the selfishness of others. He’d been jolted out of the life he’d led and was having to take a long, hard look at himself.
    He supposed meeting her might not have led to so much soul-searching if he hadn’t the example of Harry and Phoebe’s love for each other always in front of him, along with the other man’s comments about what he saw as Leo’s empty life, a situation that would have lingered on if he hadn’t met Amelie.
    So what had he done? He’d called a halt to the wonderful thing that had been happening between them before it had had a chance to take hold because he was discovering that her happiness was very important to him.
    For her to be hurt again by him would be unthinkable if he couldn’t forget Delphine, so he’d been prepared to end it, hadn’t slept a wink afterwards, and the result was she hadn’t been prepared to stop on seeing him there by the roadside until he’d waved her down.
    He wasn’t to know that the desire to pull in beside him had been there but not the certainty that it was the right thing to do after what he’d said the night before, so she would have driven on if he hadn’t signalled for her to stop.
    When she went to stand beside him in a lay-by at the road edge, with a reluctance that didn’t go unobserved, he was almost done and ready to be off, but lookingdown at his hands, which were decidedly oily, it seemed as if it was the right moment to say, ‘I flagged you down to ask if you have any wipes with you to get my hands clean. I usually have some in the glove compartment but must have run out.’
    He’d been so desperate to have a moment alone with her that he’d come up with a trite excuse to get her to stop, and as she fished a packed out of her bag and handed it to him he thought that it had been all he could think of at that moment, and hoped that in the near future Amelie would have no reason to look in the place he’d described as being empty of them.
    As he wiped the grime off his hands the silence she was hiding behind continued, and wanting to end it he asked, ‘So how has it gone, doing the rounds on your own?’
    She spoke at last and her voice sounded stiff and formal. ‘All right, thank you. Dr Balfour explained it was on your advice that I was doing some of the rounds on my own, and I felt quite sure that it was all part and parcel of last night’s dumping.’
    ‘That’s an ugly word. I hate it.’
    ‘But you don’t hate what it stands for. You’d already put your plans into motion for getting rid of me with regard to our shared visits to the patients, and followed it up by preaching the gospel according to you. But as I’m used to the role of cast-off, it wasn’t such a shock. Though there is one thing that puzzles me, Leo.’
    ‘And what is that?’ he asked bleakly.
    ‘You’ve never made love to me or even kissed me. So why did you warn me off, unless you thought thenondescript French doctor at the surgery might fall in love with you and mess up your pleasure-loving private life? ‘If that was the case, you need no longer concern yourself. You are just one of those who have found me surplus to requirements, so fret not.’ And, wanting to make a statement, she strode across to her car with a graceful leisured step until, with her hand almost on the door handle, she was swung round and found her face only inches away from his.
    ‘Did you listen to a word I said last night?’ he demanded. ‘Or were you so full of your hurt that it didn’t register with you that I was trying to save you from more of the same kind of thing?
    ‘No, I’ve never kissed you, or made love to you, and you think it’s because I don’t want to, do you? Well, how about this for an introduction?’ Taking her face