The First Time We Met: An utterly heart-warming and unforgettable love story Read online

  ‘Izzy, thank you so much but I’m afraid I can’t. I’m getting married today.’ Sam’s dark eyes were serious, looking into hers. Izzy sensed him move his hands towards hers and then drop them back to his sides.

  She couldn’t speak. She was stunned. This was just awful. She couldn’t work out what was worse, the mortification or the misery. How could she have been stupid enough to read the signs so badly that she’d asked someone out on their wedding day? And also, he was her One. Except he obviously wasn’t. He was getting married to someone else. Today. He loved someone else. It was actually really hard to process the information. It was so wrong. She took a deep breath and wrinkled her face, trying to get her mouth to work and form some words.

  ‘It’s my wedding day.’ He said it very gently. ‘The wedding’s this afternoon. I was having a pre-wedding, calm-the-nerves, greasy spoon breakfast moment to myself. You know.’

  Izzy nodded. She didn’t know. But she could imagine. Ish.

  ‘Congratulations.’ It was surprising that she was managing to work her voice now. ‘I hope it goes really well. Nice weather for it. No rain forecast.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘Okay. Well.’ Weirdly, she didn’t want to end the conversation, even though it was truly gut-wrenching and embarrassing. She didn’t want to break the contact. But obviously she should. She shivered, suddenly aware that it was really bloody freezing and she had no coat on, just her tiny elf costume. ‘Congratulations again.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He was looking at her like he knew what a terrible moment this was. Tears were pushing hard against her eyelids. She needed to walk away right now.

  She nodded and, with a big effort, turned round and started to re-trace her steps back to the café. This was so bad. So wrong. So awful. In the same way that she’d known that he was The One, she knew it was going to take far longer than it should do to recover from this. And not just the humiliation. Which was ridiculous. She’d ‘known’ him for the length of time it took to be served and eat a large breakfast at normal speed and walk the length of an averagely long road. She knew no actual facts about him other than his name. But she honestly felt truly bereft.

  Terry was yelling and gesticulating at her from the door of the café. Izzy bent down and picked up her elf hat from the pavement. It must have fallen off as she ran. She plonked it back on her head and carried on trudging towards Terry.

  Two

  Izzy

  Eleven months later

  Izzy looked at her watch. Yep, just about time to grab a Pret sandwich before her first afternoon appointment. The last one had run on beyond its scheduled finish time but when you were helping someone with a stammer, hurrying them was obviously not the way forward. Wow, the temperature had dropped since this morning. She wrapped her scarf more tightly, huddled into her coat and pulled her gloves out. And then stopped dead in the middle of the pavement and dropped the gloves. Someone behind her bumped into her and she apologised on autopilot.

  Sam, actual Sam, was walking up the steps into Chelsea Old Town Hall maybe fifteen feet in front of her. So close to her. She’d be able to cover the distance between them in seconds. It was definitely him. She’d thought about him so much, fantasised, compared – negatively – every man she’d met since then to him. She’d imagined several times over the past few months that she’d seen him in the flesh, but it had never actually been him. But this time it was. No question. He was dressed a lot more smartly than he had been for his wedding day greasy spoon breakfast: charcoal grey overcoat, suit and tie, smart shoes. Presumably his working uniform. She wondered what job he did.

  Izzy’s heart was going unbelievably fast, thundering in her ears, and her scarf was suddenly scratching her neck and making her feel claustrophobic. She’d been imagining this moment for so long. She should do something. Say something. Go and speak to him.

  No. She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t.

  He obviously hadn’t been fantasising about her, measuring every other woman, unfavourably, against her, wondering about her for eleven months. He was married. Probably very happily. He probably didn’t even remember her. Actually, he might do. It probably wasn’t normal for a girl you didn’t know to ask you out on your wedding day. But he certainly wouldn’t have remembered Izzy’s name, or thought about her again.

  Yup, she should just walk on past. He was nearly at the top of the steps now, about to go through the double doors at the top.

  And then he turned round. And looked right at her. Properly at her. They locked eyes for a second or two. Sam hesitated for a fraction of a moment. Izzy was sure that he recognised her. And then he dropped his eyes, turned his back on her, pushed open one of the doors and took a step forward.

  And he was gone. Just like that. Either he hadn’t recognised her, or he had and he had no interest in talking to her. Well, of course he hadn’t. They didn’t know each other and he was married. Izzy was, frankly, a complete loser to have been hung up on him, on an idea, for nearly a year.

  Okay. This was it. She needed to move on. It was beyond sad to have been thinking for so long about someone she didn’t even know. It was worse if that person was married and utterly, utterly off limits. And even worse if thinking about him prevented her from living her own life properly. She needed to become a new woman. A new woman who dated properly, fell in love, lived her life.

  Izzy took one step inside the club and immediately wanted to turn right back round and walk out again. It was your classic sticky-floor, sweat-dripping-off-the-ceiling, dive venue. Total meat market. It looked like everyone was already pairing up with strangers, and it was barely 10 p.m. She could murder a good night’s sleep. If she left now, she could get the bus and wouldn’t even have to fork out for a taxi.

  ‘Remember—’ her best friend Emma spoke very firmly into her ear ‘—you’re a new woman. Goodbye Sam, hello the rest of your life.’

  Izzy sighed and then nodded. Emma was right. As of this lunchtime outside the town hall, she was a new woman.

  Bloody hell, the music was loud. She was going to have a headache within about five minutes.

  ‘New woman,’ Emma instructed again.

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Izzy slapped a smile on her face. ‘I’ll get the drinks in.’ Everything would probably feel better once she had a couple of very alcoholic cocktails down her.

  Obviously actually buying the drinks was easier said than done. Everyone else around the bar was so bloody tall.

  ‘This is going to sound like a really bad chat-up line, but for someone so pretty you’ve got very poor bar presence. I’m Dominic. Can I buy you a drink?’ Dominic was good-looking in a classic, boy-next-door kind of way. If he were American, he’d be preppy. He wasn’t American, though, and Izzy was not going to think about Sam.

  Dominic actually had a very nice smile. Open. Pleasant. It wasn’t doing anything tingly to her, but that whole love-at-first-sight thing was obviously total crap, and she was a New Woman. As far as she was concerned, Sam might as well not exist. Dominic did exist and he was right here, and he might well be the perfect man for her. It felt like a little piece of her soul was shrivelling up and dying, letting go of Sam. But she’d never had him. And never would. Maybe that part of her had to die so that she could actually live like a normal person.

  Izzy gave Dominic her best smile. ‘I’d love a drink.’

  Three

  Izzy

  March, six years later

  Izzy heaved herself and her shopping out of the supermarket. Why did people like being pregnant? Why did people talk about pregnant women blooming? Izzy was not blooming. She had bags under her eyes from nightly 4 until 6 a.m. insomnia. Her skin was stretched unpleasantly taut over her water-retention-huge feet. She was wearing flip-flops even though it was only about five degrees, because her feet were too fat to fit into any of her shoes. Her toenails looked like total shit because she’d tried to paint them herself when she realised that she was going to have to wear flip-flops but she couldn’
t reach properly and then it had felt like too much hard work to reach down there to remove it. She couldn’t breathe because the baby had its feet up, squashing her lungs. She needed to go to the loo all the bloody time because its head was on her bladder. Nine months was an eternity.

  Her right flip-flop caught on the corner of a pavement stone and she tripped, in weird slow motion. She was going to fall right over. Or drop her shopping. She let go of the bags and put one arm out to catch herself on the wall of the shop and the other around her stomach to protect the baby. It might get hurt if she fell. No, panic over, she was still upright on her uncomfortable feet.

  She looked down. Her bags were not upright. Her groceries were scattered all over the pavement. Bloody hell. Now she was going to have to bloody bend over. Like that was possible.

  ‘Hey, that doesn’t look good. Can I help?’ The man was already gathering up her shopping, working about a billion times faster than she could have done. He reminded her of someone. The man she’d once asked out on his wedding day. Sam. Same dark-blond hair, same wide shoulders, same gorgeous New York accent. He looked up over his shoulder at her and smiled. ‘All done.’

  It was Sam.

  He was still stop-the-traffic handsome. Despite being a happily married woman, she might even still fancy him a bit if she weren’t too pregnant ever to have or even think about sex again.

  ‘Hi, Sam.’ Now that was an example of speaking without thinking. He wasn’t going to remember her. He was going to be completely freaked out that she knew his name. Think she was some kind of insane stalker. She should just gloss over it. ‘Thank you so much. Really kind of you. I’m not great at bending down at the moment. Thank you.’

  ‘Hi, Izzy.’ He remembered her name too. Wow. Wow. He must have a freakishly good memory, given that she’d clearly meant nothing to him. His smile was still gorgeously infectious. Her own lips were widening in response. ‘Not a problem. Can I carry your shopping somewhere for you? Where’re you going?’

  ‘That’s actually a very good question.’ She hadn’t thought things through when she’d gone into the supermarket. She’d come out to wander around the shops for a bit, because when your husband and all your friends were at work and you were too unbelievably fat and uncomfortable to do, or enjoy, anything you might normally do, maternity leave was actually extremely boring. She’d finished work ten days ago and was now having to kill time every day. She was actually looking forward to the week of intensive ante-natal classes that she’d booked for Monday so that she had something to do.

  The gooseberry yoghurt had called Buy me to her from its shelf and she hadn’t been able to ignore it, and once she was in there she’d realised that there was a lot of other food she needed, and now she had to carry it all. But she didn’t want to go home yet because it was only about two o’clock and Dominic wouldn’t be home before seven, at best, and she might actually die of boredom sitting on her own in the house for five hours again. Okay, she was going to go to a café and read her book for an hour or two with a cup of uterine-wall-strengthening, labour-shortening raspberry leaf tea and some cake. And then maybe get a cab home because she was never going to be able to carry all her groceries.

  ‘I’m thinking a café,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind carrying my bags for me?’ It was okay being a pathetic accepter of male bag-carrying help when you were eight and a half months pregnant. ‘It’s just round the corner on Kenway Road.’

  ‘Definitely not a problem. Late pregnancy always looks like very hard work to me. How long do you have to go?’

  ‘You think I’m pregnant?’ This very weak, it had to be said, joke was the best bit about late pregnancy, possibly the only good bit. Sam did some serious eye contact avoidance before squinting down at her tummy again.

  ‘Erm?’ he said.

  Izzy waited a few seconds before sniggering. ‘Sorry, bad joke. Obviously. It’s fun winding people up though. On behalf of pregnant women everywhere suffering from the “You’re huge, is it twins, ha, ha ha” and “Eating for two enormous ones, I see” type comments.’

  Sam laughed. ‘You got me good. Genuine moment of panic there. So how long do you have to go?’ He bent down and gathered the bags up.

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Izzy gestured at the bags and started walking in the direction of the café. ‘One week and six days until my due date. Not that I’m obsessively counting down the days or anything. I mean, I’m very pleased to be having a baby but I’m really not enjoying my third trimester. Do you have kids?’ He probably did. He’d been married for over six years. Sadly, the date of his wedding was engrained into Izzy’s mind pretty much as strongly as her own. She should really have managed to forget it by now.

  ‘Twins. They’re nearly six now.’ His wife must have been pregnant on their wedding day.

  ‘Wow. That must be hard work.’

  ‘Yeah. They’re amazing but yes, definitely also hard work. But worth it, you know. Obviously.’

  ‘The café’s just along here.’ Izzy pointed. ‘Why don’t you join me?’ Yes, she’d embarrassed herself hugely in front of him several years ago, but it had to be obvious to Sam that she’d very much moved on given that she was married and pregnant, and he seemed very nice, and Izzy was bored. ‘I owe you for the bacon.’ Oops, stalkerish again. Though surely she could be forgiven for remembering. Unless, of course, she looked like someone who’d ask so many men out that she’d forget if one of them had been getting married that day. ‘If you remember. Forty quid. That’ll buy you a very nice coffee and I could even throw in some cake.’

  Sam paused for a second and then smiled and said, ‘Yeah, great, why not. I’m working from home today and I awarded myself a lunch break, which I never normally get in the office. I can do coffee.’

  ‘Fab. I’ve got to be honest. My own grumpy-pregnant-woman company isn’t that enthralling. I’m starting ante-natal classes next week but until then pretty much every single person I know’s at work.’

  ‘Pleased to be of service.’

  They’d arrived at the café. Izzy pushed the door open with her back and held it for Sam while he manoeuvred her four full bags-for-life inside. The café was on the ground floor of a Georgian townhouse and there was a log fire at one side of the room, which was always appealing. Today Izzy was desperate to sit in front of it, to start to defrost her feet. It was extremely physically unpleasant when your top three-quarters was boiling to the point of under-boob sweatage, while your bare lower legs and feet were freezing. She made straight for the sofa next to the fire, thank goodness it was free, lowered herself down onto it with difficulty, took her coat off and stuck her feet out. The warmth on them was good. Her nails looked atrocious, but whatever. It wasn’t like the rest of her looked great. And Sam probably wouldn’t notice. It probably wasn’t normal to study other people’s toenails.

  Sam arranged her bags in the corner of the room, away from the fire. ‘What can I get you to drink?’ Bugger. Izzy was going to have to stand up again and go over to the counter so that she could pay.

  ‘I’m buying.’ She put her hand out to support herself and started the process of rolling herself off the sofa. It was far too squishy to get out of easily. Maybe she needed to roll left instead of right and use the sofa arm to hoist herself up. If she, specifically her backside and tummy, carried on increasing at the rate she had recently, she’d need a crane to get out of a comfortable seat by the time she actually gave birth.

  ‘I’m already on my feet. What do you want?’

  ‘Okay, thank you very much.’ Sometimes you had to admit defeat and let a nimbler person do the walking. ‘But you have to let me pay. And you have to let me buy you lunch. They do some great sandwiches.’

  ‘Deal.’

  ‘I’ll have a raspberry leaf tea, please.’ She took two twenties out of her purse and gave them to him. Their hands brushed as he took the notes, which felt a little stomach-droppingly weird. ‘A cheese and onion toastie. And a slice of lemon drizzle.’ She
could get a brownie afterwards. Or maybe some carrot cake. Maybe both.

  ‘And if they don’t have raspberry leaf?’ Evidently he wasn’t finding it weird that they’d touched hands, because he obviously hadn’t thought about her like she’d thought about him.

  ‘They do. I’ve been here quite a few times.’ She’d been here a lot during her pregnancy. They did very good tea and even better cake. ‘It’s quite a fancy café.’

  Izzy studied Sam’s back as he waited for their drinks at the counter, sharing a joke with Delia, the very lovely middle-aged owner. He had a very nice laugh. Rumbly. Was she in danger of finding him attractive again? She was, and she wasn’t. He was definitely now firmly in the past. A memory. The man she’d asked out on his wedding day and who had then featured heavily in her dreams for months. In a few decades’ time it might even be an anecdote that she could bear to tell someone other than Emma and Rohan.

  Now, the present, in her actual real life, she had Dominic. She was very happy with him. They were friends. They had fun together. They had some shared interests. They had good sex. When she wasn’t massively pregnant. She’d fallen in love with him gradually, rather than on the spot, and it wasn’t always mega passion, but that was real life, wasn’t it? Real life was not seeing The One, getting together with them on the spot and living happily ever after. Real life was mundane.

  ‘They’ll bring it all over.’ Sam folded himself into the armchair opposite her. ‘So you’re on maternity leave. What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a speech therapist, specialising in stammers.’

  ‘Interesting job. And so worthwhile.’

  ‘Yes, it really is. I love it. As you say, both interesting and worthwhile, and there can’t be a lot of jobs like that. There’s a lot of variety in the people I see, and it’s so good when you can truly help someone, because a stammer can be so debilitating. And it shouldn’t be, of course. Society should accept people the way they are. Sorry, I’m sounding militant. But you see children being bullied for it, or people with so much to say losing the confidence to communicate effectively, and so on, and that’s so wrong. So, anyway, yes, I do love it but at the moment I’m struggling to imagine coping with both a baby and work, but I really don’t want to give up my career.’ Realistically, Dominic wasn’t that likely to be able to be a very hands-on dad, given that he was extremely work-addicted.