Pierre had to ask the obvious question. “Forgive me for prying, but if he’s so wonderful, the hours short and the pay generous, why did you leave?”
Millie was thoughtful for a long moment then finally said. “To build this café and make cakes.”
Interesting. Maybe she, too, could find something to build for herself. Then, a memory popped up from a year ago, in Wales when she’d admitted to a stranger that she didn’t know what her dream was. A thought of him, of what might have been had she let him kiss her that afternoon on the harbour wall, if she hadn’t checked her phone. In fact, if she’d thrown her phone into the sea and with it her relationship with Martin.
“Well, if I get the job.” She forced her mind back. “I might put the ‘bags of free time’ to good use creating my own little card business.”
“Good luck,” Millie said, sipping her tea.
“To be honest, at this stage, I think luck has a lot to do with me not answering my phone and not jumping on the next ferry back to England.”
Millie’s eyes went to the spot on the table where Pierre’s phone had lain earlier.
“It’s on the floor,” Pierre said. She’d hidden it under her chair where it sat like a landmine.
Sadness flashed across Millie’s eyes. Yes, she too was dealing with a breakup.
“Do you know that song? Sinead O’Connor?” Pierre asked.
“Nothing Compares 2 U?” Millie guessed.
“Well, it’s like this. Here I am in a fancy restaurant.” Pierre waved at the beautiful surroundings. “Eating delicious cake, and I’m still not free of him.”
Millie’s face crumpled. She blinked several times but couldn’t the stop tears from filling her eyes.
Pierre reached over and gave her a clean napkin. “I’m sorry, did I…”
Millie wiped her face. “Songs. They are like a razorblade you forgot in a pocket. Until you put your hand in, all unaware, and it cuts you.”
“Do you want to talk about it? I promise I won’t tell anyone. And here, have some cake; they’re delicious.” Pierre tried to wink to cheer the other woman up.
“It’s that line. ‘Nothing compares to you.’” Millie checked her watch. “It’s been seven hours and…” she tailed off.
“And fifteen days?”
Millie shook her head. “Seven hours and one day for me.”
“Boyfriend?” Pierre asked gently.
“Not even that. We only had one night.” Millie’s gaze travelled around the bay as if chasing a memory.
“Then he took his love away?”
Millie shook her head. “No, he offered it very generously. And I sent him away.”
Pierre waited. The other woman seemed grateful to have someone she could confide in, but was struggling to put her feelings into words.
“I could call him back; it would be so easy. It’s always so much harder to do the right thing.”
“Oh, you said a true thing there, girlfriend. Why do you think I have my phone under the chair? Except in my case, it’s been seven hours and fifteen days exactly since I saw him whispering into some woman’s ear, a hand on her bottom.At our anniversary dinner.”
Even Millie was shocked out of her tears.
“And it’s not so much that he took his love away,” Pierre continued. “He’d never given it in the first place.”
Now that she’d started talking, she didn’t want to stop. Martin had occupied so much of her life that she had no close female friends. No one who would understand.
Until now.
