Alex pulled a face. ‘No, but I don’t think I’ll ever be.’
She sighed. After Liam had made her life a living hell for the last eighteen months of his life, she had been desperate to finally move on after he’d died but something had held her back. She knew Violet and Quinn were part of it. She adored Liam’s mum and brother and she never wanted to do anything to hurt them. She also worried how Zara would feel about having a new man in her life. Whoever she ended up with had to be right for Zara too, someone who would love her as much as Alex did. But it was more than that holding her back. There was fear of falling in love and putting her trust in someone else after Liam had let her down so spectacularly. And there was guilt that moving on and falling in love would mean benefitting from Liam’s death. She carried enough guilt over his death not to want to add to it. But it had been four years since he’d died and Immy had decided that it was time Alex started dating again. Over the weekend, Immy had sat with her and helped her create an online dating profile. And since then Alex had received messages from several men, andshe was meeting one of them for coffee at lunch that day. She felt a bit sick at the thought.
Immy was watching her closely. ‘I know you’re nervous, and rightly so after the hell Liam put you through,’ she said. ‘But you’re a wonderful person, you deserve to find happiness again.’
‘I am happy,’ Alex protested. ‘I have you and Zara, a job I love, I live in the most beautiful part of the world. I don’t need anything more than that.’
‘I think you’d be a lot happier having a hot man take you to bed.’
The thought of that made her stomach clench with need, although whenever she thought about sex, there was only one man she could imagine that with.
As if Immy had read her mind, she smirked. ‘This dating malarkey would be a lot easier if you just told Quinn how you feel and let him take you out on a date instead.’
And there was the crux of it. How could Alex even think about dating someone else when she was head over heels in love with Quinn?
‘He doesn’t feel that way about me.’
‘He’s round here every day,’ Immy pointed out.
‘To see his niece.’
‘He moved here to Lovegrove Bay shortly after meeting you at Liam’s funeral.’
‘To get to know his niece and spend time with her.’
‘He moved his art studio into the Wonky Tree Studios when you moved in there.’
‘Well, that was because the arrangement that Luke and Flick were offering was such a good deal.’
‘His studio is next to yours.’
‘There isn’t a lot of space there.’
Immy gave her a look. The truth was there had been many times when Alex had questioned whether Quinn saw her as more than a friend: the way he looked at her or touched her felt like something more than just platonic. But she had kissed him once, a few years ago, and he’d stopped her. If he’d changed his mind about how he felt, surely it was up to him to make his move. She couldn’t keep putting herself forward and getting rejected.
Upstairs, she could hear Zara singing in the shower. Her daughter loved having a shower and always used way too much soap so the shower cubicle looked like she’d had a bubble bath, but Alex figured too much soap was better than not enough. According to Zara, some of the boys in her class were really stinky.
‘I can’t date Quinn,’ she said, returning her attention to Immy.
‘Why the hell not?’
She bit her lip. Dating Quinn, if he even felt that way about her, would be huge and significant and life-changing. There was no way it could be anything casual and she wasn’t sure if she was ready for something like that, not after what happened with Liam before he died. But there was another reason.
‘You know why,’ Alex said, quietly.
Immy sighed. ‘Because you have stupid misplaced guilt over Liam’s death.’
‘He would still be here if it wasn’t for me. It’s my fault he died.’
‘He died because he drank a bottle of whisky and then got in his car and drove into a tree. You have nothing to feel guilty about.’
Alex winced at the blunt summing up of Liam’s death but then Immy had never liked Liam and she liked him a hell of a lot less once she found out how bad it had been in the eighteen months before he died.
‘It’s still my fault and if Quinn ever found out, he would never speak to me again. I couldn’t cope with losing him too. I could never have a relationship with him and not tell him the truth about his brother’s death. I should have told him years ago but I was always too scared to. But if we were together I’d have to do it, I couldn’t live with the lie.’
‘You’re making it into a much bigger deal than it is. You need to let go of this guilt. Liam was an adult, he made his own choices. And Quinn will understand that.’
Alex shook her head, knowing he would hate her. If it wasn’t for her, his brother would still be here.
