With a start, I realise my attention had drifted for a minute. “Sorry, what?”
“Doesn’t it seem strange that you would walk away from a great job in TV, working with big names, to dig up an unknown patch of land in the middle of nowhere?”
“No stranger than you walking away from a glittering tennis career to suddenly start planting carrots and cabbages.”
Osian stands up so fast, I don’t see him move. He was sitting down, relaxed, a book in his lap, and now he’s on his feet, rigid and bristling with anger.
“Is this some reality TV stunt? Trying for the inside story, cashing in on my—” His mouth clamps shut on whatever word he decided was too aggressive. But his jaw works as if chewing on a whole string of aggressive words.
How the hell did we get here?
And why is he so suspicious, for goodness’ sake? He’s hardly the only ex-sportsman in the country. Does he really imagine I’d go to such lengths to get him?
“You think I’ve been planning this since I was a teenager? Somehow contrived to go to your school to claim a connection with you fifteen years later so I can scam you into filming a documentary? Oh, wait. No, I was already at Hampton Mannor,so I must have used my psychic powers to make your family send you to my school.”
“No need. The internet has a list of all my schools. I’m sure you can use Google.”
The contempt in his words finally filters through and I take a step back.
Seeing this, he suddenly checks himself, draws in a long breath. “I’m sorry. I’m coming off very rude. It’s just odd… you have to see it’s an odd coincidence. And the fact remains that I don’t remember you.”
“Well, you should. You asked me on a date once. To a pre-Christmas party at your club. Before you went to Argentina.” I give him the facts, proof. Evidence.
He’s shaking his head slowly. “All this is public knowledge. Everyone knows I went to Argentina. And it’s no secret that I dated a lot of girls.”
Beneath my anger, a sadness slips between my heart and diaphragm and sticks there like a splinter. He really doesn’t remember me. He’s completely forgotten our encounter by the school gates, his thoughtful gift, the words he wrote in a card, and our cancelled date. None of it seems to have registered with him. While I, the deluded dreamer, spent years – my late teens and my early twenties – thinking about no one else.
“You can look me up too. I’m not on Wikipedia, but please call Hampton Mannor and ask them if I was a student there. Unless you think Styler TV bribed them to lie too. I mean, you must have a serious case of conspiracy theory—”
I stop taking. This is going to end in a slanging match unless we walk away, so I turn around to place my barely drunk coffee on his table, go back inside my apartment and close the doors.
The man is arrogant beyond belief. And paranoid.
Chapter Twelve
Dark, angry words boil in my head as I walk downstairs to the big kitchen. He can keep his bloody coffee; there’s a perfectly good kettle in the big kitchen. Instant Nescafé might not be politically correct but it’ll do until I buy a coffee maker.
Down in the kitchen, only Raff is there, standing by the Belfast sink, filling the kettle. “Morning!” He smiles at me over his shoulder.
“Good morning,” I manage. But it’s not a good morning. It’s one of my worst. Now I’ve had time to absorb what happened, I feel like I’ve been punched and kicked.
“Tea?” he asks, as the kettle starts to hiss.
“Coffee.”
Something in my tone or perhaps my face makes him look at me more closely. “You okay?”
Raff is Leonie’s other half – a new relationship since Christmas, according to Rhian. I’ve hardly exchanged more than a greeting with him because Leonie is easier to chat to. So his unexpected concern makes me wonder if Osian’s attack is written all over my face.
“Of course.” I paste on my brightest smile. “I can’t wait to start on my garden exploration.”
I don’t know if he believes me but he makes a mug of coffee, hands it to me, then starts rummaging in one of the cupboards. “You didn’t see a large hot water urn, did you?”
I shake my head and pop a slice of wholemeal into the toaster and watch it while my thoughts tick.
None of this makes sense. Why is Osian so suspicious? It nags at me. The incongruousness of his suspicions. Even if I were a sneaky interview chaser, all he has to do is say no. Why the big reaction?
How can someone be so sweet one minute and hostile the next? Yesterday he helped me through a panic attack and seemed to almost read my mind and offer to help me with my huge garden worries.
