“Were you together long?”
“Six years,” he said. “We split five years ago.” His head thunked back against the tree, and he looked up at the sky through bare branches. “I can’t believe I wasted so much of my life when all I needed to be free of him was to tell him to fuck off.” He looked sideways at me. “Except it doesn’t work like that, does it? I needed that time to become the person whocouldtell him to fuck off.”
He bashed his head against the tree again, and I curbed my instinct to curve my hand around his skull to protect it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Listen to me bleating on. Why did you come out if not for a smoke?” He drew in a swift breath. “Have you found out something more about their plans?”
I shook my head. “Just wanted to check you were okay.”
He didn’t rip up at me even though I was way out of my lane.
“I am,” he said, certainty in his voice.
I couldn’t think what to say in the silence that followed.
“D’you think we should buy Mr Taylor a bottle of something to apologise for the way we keep messing up his evenings?” I asked eventually.
“That’s a good idea. Speaking of whom, I suppose we’d better get back before he locks up for the night. Charlie and I—” He paused. “Once, he forgot his key, and at four in the morning, we thought it was a good idea to climb up to the balcony to get in. Thank God Ella heard us before we broke our stupid necks.”
“I’m assuming there was alcohol involved in your spectacularly bad decision-making.”
He laughed and got to his feet, holding out his hand to pull me up. My foot caught on a tree root, and I stumbled into him. It was too good an opportunity to miss, so I breathed in deeply and filled my lungs with Nate’s scent, even though it was a little tainted by river water.
He clasped my arm to steady me, and for an instant, I thought he would draw me even closer, that we might kiss. Instead, he patted me, as if I were a horse he was vaguely fond of, and let me go again. “We should get back.”
Yeah. Trying to kiss him now would have been the worst possible timing. Better to let this final break-up with Charlie settle. I didn’t want to be the rebound guy again. But this wasn’t a newly splintered relationship. This sounded like it had been the long-overdue shutting of an almost-closed door, and I thought I’d heard that in the way he’d laughed. He’d sounded freer, somehow.
Maybe now, everything would change.
Chapter Fifteen
NATE
I was at breakfast early, looking forward to seeing Alex. I still couldn’t believe he’d come after me last night and that he hadn’t judged me for taking five years to tell my cheating ex where to go. He was like no one I’d known before. I didn’t want to think about returning to my lonely life in London. It would be empty without Alex’s perpetually amused gaze and easy, undemanding warmth.
Mrs Fortescue was at the table when I arrived, and we at last had the chance to talk properly. I didn’t have much to tell her about the last five years as my life had consisted solely of work and hookups, but she’d recently set up a charity for at-risk youth and wanted to tell me all about it. The next fundraising dinner was only a month away. “You must come,” she said. “I’ll tell Charlie to add you as his plus one.”
This definitely wasn’t the time to mention I’d told her beloved son to fuck off. “Thank you, but I’ll be back at work by then. I doubt I’ll be able to get away.”
“We’ll see,” she said, rising and laying her napkin beside her plate.
I stared after her as she left the room. What had she meant by “We’ll see”? Did she know about James’s almost offer of a job?
Because I was watching the door, I saw Alex’s arrival. He was talking to one of the younger Teagues, but he glanced in my direction. His resulting smile had my heart doing something strange. He was smooth-shaven this morning, unusually, and I longed to touch him.
He sat opposite me, his plate piled high. “D’you want to find the shop where Jane Austen’s aunt was busted for shoplifting?”
“Wherewhat?”The outrageous claim jerked my attention away from how much I’d like to kiss him. “You’re screwing with me, aren’t you?”
“Swear to God. Says it on the internet, so it must be true.”
So, after breakfast, we set out on a millinery-shop hunt—though we did have to look up what one was beforehand. We didn’t find the shop, but we had fun searching, not least because of the scandalised look from the woman in the Tourist Information Bureau when we asked.
*
As the days passed, I grew to know Alex Teague. We spent hours in our favourite coffee shop, with the owner, Sheila, bringing us countless refills as we read about Regency society. The rest of the time, we talked. I’d never found anyone this easy to talk to other than Rufus.
I learned about his family. He was close to his parents and his aunt, Margaret. He lived alone in a small cottage owned by the Teague family, paying rent as and when his work allowed. He didn’t have a full-time job and took whatever local work was available in the winter, while each summer, he was employed as a tour guide at a King Arthur-themed attraction near Tintagel.
“Do you tell the people you show around about your family tree?”
