Four a.m.
I woke with a jump, heart pounding, cold sweat sheening my skin. The unfamiliar room closed in around me, and it took far too long for me to remember the shadows belonged to my brother’s house, and not mytainted Paris apartment.
Idiot.
I blamed Luke. Without him haunting my thoughts, my dreams were simple—nightmares I understood. But my racing heart didn’t come from fear alone, and it washimmy mind drifted back to as I hauled myself out of bed. How was it that even his imaginary self made my blood sizzle?
Girl, you need to get laid.
It was true. My sole attempt at a revenge fuckhad ended in half a sad orgasm and a panic attack, and I hadn’t bothered since. Until I’d barrelled into Luke Daley’s broad back in the crowded chip shop, sex had been the last thing on my mind.
Now it was the only thing on my mind, even as I shivered through the residual disquiet of the rest of my dream.Fuck my life.
Still fighting with Luke, I piled my hair into a knot on top of myhead and jumped into the shower, turning the water as hot as I could stand, my go-to method for waking myself up when I had a predawn delivery to see to.
The prospect of opening day sent another shiver of dread through me. For weeks my focus had been on this moment, carrying me through as I’d convinced myself that nothing else mattered. Was I ready for what came next? For when the challengesof running a business became mundane? Boredom had never suited me, and I’d learned to fear it.
Twenty minutes later, I parked my car outside the shop and opened the back door for the delivery man. He loaded the refrigerator with fresh-cut blooms.
“Nice shop,” he remarked on his way out, and I couldn’t help feeling thankful that he hadn’t been here a few days ago when the ceiling had threatenedto cave in.Thankful to who, though?
Dear God, did this never end?
The driver left. I shut the door behind him and set to work fulfilling the advance orders for the courier to pick up. Then I picked some prime blooms and took them to the shop window to create my maiden display. For a while, the familiar work kept me busy, and the shop came to life. Stark white paintwork warmed as I punctuatedit with dusky pink and faded orange, and the green of the fresh stems brought a vibrancy I’d missed while I’d been surrounded by dust and holes in the roof that apparently only my nemesis was qualified to fix.
The scents were off the hook too. I breathed deeply and took a moment to sit back on the floor and gaze around the shop. I was feeling pretty smug until the window caught my attention.I’d left last night with a mental note to ask Gus to check out the spreading damp surrounding the splintered frame. Replacing the window was low on my list until my income stabilised, but I’d been hoping there’d be something he could do to slow the damage...damage that had miraculously healed itself overnight with a brand-new window and fresh paint job. How on earth had I missed it when I’d walkedin this morning?
Probably because it had still been dark and despite my best efforts, my mind had been on other...things, but still. To the best of my knowledge, Gus had been asleep in bed when I’d crawled home last night. If he’d snuck out to do this while I slept, I was going to pretty much kill him, because it was far more than I deserved.
I stormed to the back room to retrieve my phonefrom my bag. It wasn’t there, and in the ten minutes it took to locate it under the service counter—seriously, when had I put it there?—I ran out of time to be a bitch about a nice thing. Tuesday was market day in Rushmere and goddamn it if I didn’t have a business to run.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I glared at Gus over our snatched dinner of cheese omelettes and appletart—sooner or later he was going to figure out they were still the only edible things I could cook. “Don’t give me that. Look, I’m grateful, okay? But that window must’ve cost a bomb, and I don’t have the money to pay you back right now.”
“So don’t pay me back. I’ve told you it wasn’t me.”
He’d always been the worst liar. Even now with his wide, earnest eyes and spread hands, he was foolingno one. “Fine. Have it your way, but don’t think I won’t get you back somehow. Maybe I’ll send an engagement bouquet to the next dude you bring home, eh? See how you like that?”
“How does harassing my imaginary boyfriends equate to someone stealth replacing your rotten window?”
I had no answer to that.
Later that night, Gus went out. Despite his protests that he was single, I wonderedif he had a date, and found myself hovering at the window as he left, peeping around the curtain as he jumped into...
Luke’s van, obviously.
Cursing, I let the curtain drop and retreated to the kitchen to clean up the kind of mess me and Gus both were usually happy to live with for days, but even that kept my mind on Luke.
“Leave it. I’ll do it in the morning.”
Luke rolled hiseyes and gathered the pizza box and beer bottles. “No, you won’t. Your mum will.”
“She won’t mind us drinking the beer. It’s why she brings all those little bottles back on the ferry.”
“Doesn’t mean she should clean up after us.”
The earnest neat freak in him had been endearing back then, but it irritated me beyond belief now. I cleaned Gus’s kitchen with far more force than necessary,banging plates and slamming cupboard doors. Luke had been a conscientious teenager because his mother had been at first too flighty, and then too caught up nursing his dying father to look after him. He’d been so independent and ridiculously sensible, it was only a bit of booze and getting naked that had ever tempted him to relax. And God, he’d been glorious naked—
