‘Let me help you.’ Gisele went to assist with the robe.
Sabrina pulled away. ‘No! Get off. I have to go.’ Hurriedly pulling her t-shirt back up, she reached in her bag for her purse. And without another word, she threw eighty pounds on the side and ran to her car as fast as her legs and newly bruised heart would carry her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sabrina was thankful of the parking space outside Number One Ferry View Apartments. She was also happy to see theHappy Hartin the harbour but with people still on it. The last thing she needed was to have to explain to Conor why her hair was soaking wet and covered in bleach. And worst still, why her face was streaked with tears. She searched on her phone for the code to the key safe, then, leaving her cases in the boot, she grabbed her handbag and took the stairs two by two to reach the first floor, and the door to her new home for the next three months.
Her face fell as she pushed it open to a Niall Horan track blasting out of the small Bose speaker on the dining room table and the smell of garlic wafting from the kitchen.
Conor, wearing just a pair of joggers and oblivious to what she looked like, gave her a massive grin and started to dance towards her singing along to the lyrics– something about not getting complicated and enjoying the view.
Head down to avoid his eyes, she rushed towards the bedroom, but it was too late. Before she had a chance to shut the door on him, he had already turned the music off. ‘Dickens, what the Dickens? Your hair fecking stinks.’ She looked at him with her big blue eyes tinged with red and burst into tears. ‘Jesus, here I was minding my own business, cooking my signature dish, listening to my boy Niall, and all of a sudden we have a hysterical woman on our hands.’ He drew the sobbing Sabrina to his hairy chest.
‘You’ll get bleach all over you,’ Sabrina gasped.
‘I don’t fecking, care. What’s happened, Dickens?’
She immediately pulled away from him. ‘I really do need to wash my hair before it falls out!’
‘OK, OK, you go and do that. How about I pour you a nice glass of cold white wine and we sit out on the balcony and put the world to rights.’ Sabrina nodded and made her way to the bathroom.
Half an hour later, Conor smiled at her as she walked out on to the balcony, her hair wrapped in one of the fluffy white towels that Kara had left for her. He had put on a grey hoody and even through her sadness, Sabrina noticed how effortlessly cool he looked.
‘Tell me his name, I’ll get him for ya.’ The Irishman put up his fists in jest.
‘If it was just the one, I could maybe deal with that.’
‘Jesus, lady. I’ve only got the two hands.’
Sabrina plonked herself down next to him and took in the beautiful vista in front of her. The sun was a bright orange fireball disappearing behind the cliffs over Penrigan Head. The yachts full of late holidaymakers were making their leisurely way home to harbour. Seabirds soared and dived for their suppers. The water was still and calm, unlike Sabrina’s mind.
She had assumed Lowen Kellow was no angel where women were concerned, but she hadn’t suspected for one minute that he had a girlfriend. And it sounded like he’d handed her three-hundred-pound deposit over to Giselle, too, which meant he could quite possibly have conned her– and, well, that was a whole new level of deceit.
It was awkward to chat on the small bench. Conor clearly felt the same way, because he stood up and leant on the railings, facing her. ‘So, whatisyour story, Jilly Dickens?’
‘A sorry tale of love, loss and fucking up.’ She replied dramatically. ‘But, in short, I was engaged and got jilted at the alter under three weeks ago. I decided to come to the honeymoon cottage we had booked. And I don’t want to talk about the rest.’
‘I think I’d be crying too at just the first bit.’ He smiled warmly at her. ‘When you’re ready, you can tell me more, eh? These big Irish ears were made for listening.’ He pushed his hair back to reveal one of them. ‘And what’s going on with the hair?’
‘Oh, I felt a bit sick so had to rush off from the hairdressers.’ She really couldn’t go into detail about Lowen, not now, it was still too raw. ‘I just hope it doesn’t fall out– it feels like wire wool at the roots now.’
‘Aw, bless you. Are you feeling better now?’
‘Physically yes. But slightly poco loco in here.’ She pointed to her head.
‘Poco loco eh? That’s a new one on me.’
She ran her hands through her hair. ‘Oh God. At my age you’d think I’d know better.’
‘About your hair or your situation.’
Sabrina laughed slightly manically. ‘Both, I guess.’
‘And just look at you– you’re no age?’
‘Thirty-eight and holding– that’s what I say now.’ Sabrina smiled weakly.
‘Depends what you’re holding on to, I guess? But you’re looking good for it, girl. Us late thirties dudes are still in our prime, I say.’
