“Some of them for web design and marketing, but most of them are friends and acquaintances—the ones my dad hasn’t pissed off over the years. They’re not interested in fancy websites and social media campaigns. Right now, they need help just to stay above water. Farming isn’t what it was twenty years ago, and if you’re not producing artisan hipster crap, you just can’t survive without help.”
Dylan made a noise of agreement, and Angelo glanced between him and Emma, absorbing their shared enthusiasm all over again and finally allowing himself to contemplate what it actually meant. If Dylan had a project in Cornwall—a project he cared about as much as his work in London, could it be that—
“Hey.” Dylan kicked Angelo gently under the table. “Did you have a stroke?”
“What?”
“You’re going allWalking Deadon your lips again.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. What are you thinking?”
Angelo shrugged. “I’m wondering if this means you’re actuallywantingto quit your job in London and move down here instead of doing it for my sake.”
“Aaaand, that’s my cue to go and annoy Joe.” Emma abandoned her paperwork and slipped noiselessly from the room.
Leaving Angelo mauling his bottom lip again.
Grinning, Dylan rescued it. “We’ve been over that a million times. Even the cats must be fed up with it by now, but to answer your question... yes. There’s a lot to do to get this project off the ground, and it’ll take a few months to wind down my work in London, but I’m really fucking excited about it. I think what we want to do—the service we can provide—could make a real difference to the farming communities around here.”
“I love it when you talk dirty.”
“Shut up.” Dylan laughed and drew Angelo closer. “I want to ask you about something, though. Emma said Harry offered you a permanent job at the clinic. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Angelo shrugged. “Because it’s an amazing opportunity for me, and I didn’t want you to make any decisions based on that. That’s how it started, anyway. Eventually, I just couldn’t find the right moment.”
“And me having a meltdown every time we talked about it didn’t help, I bet.”
“You didn’t have any meltdowns.”
“On the outside, maybe.” Dylan tapped his temple. “But to be honest, it seems like we’ve been chasing this solution for months, and I feel a hundred times lighter now we’ve got this idea on the table, even though there’s still so much to do.”
Lighter.Angelo turned the word over in his mind and it fit. “We don’t have to literally live on the farm if you don’t want to. Harry always planned for the biggest chalet to be for on-site staff, but it doesn’t have to be me.”
“We don’t have to make any decisions about that right now.”
Calmness that had been missing for weeks laced Dylan’s gorgeous gravelly voice.
Fuck, I love his voice.
“But,” Dylan went on. “It would make sense to live on the farm with me and Emma working together too. I don’t want to live in a chalet forever, but it seems like a sensible place to start.”
“What about the flat?”
“We can rent it out. Sam and Eddie mentioned coming back to London next summer. Maybe they can live there.”
“Orgy BFF? Got it.”
Dylan flicked Angelo’s ear. “Stop it. I’ve never fucked Sam, and I haven’t fucked Eddie in years.”
“Not that many years.”
“What’s your point?”
Angelo grinned. “That I’m horny?”
Dylan ran his tongue over his full bottom lip, untouched by anxious, renegade teeth, but his retort was cut off by Harry coming in from a long day of hardcore farm work.
