My dad’s face shadowed. “Do you think it’s a good idea for her to get a bodyguard – one that’s not you?”
“She has one – a discreet one anyway. Roe’s sorted it out for her, or the firm he works for has.” I knew of a bit of what Roe’s second job involved. He worked as a coder as his main job, designing apps for companies or the odd one that he made for himself and then sold, but on the side he was a white hat, a good hacker. His cousin’s husband, Killian, owned a security and cyber security business with his brother, Nick, and Roe consulted for them, which was how he put it. I’d done some work for Killian and Nick when I’d been at university and wanted some extra cash, penetration testing when it wasn’t the online stuff, which sounded dirtier than it was. I’d been sent into businesses at their physical site to see if I could breach the security they’d set up – labs being the main ones where their owners wanted to check that their security was infallible. It’d been fun and an interesting way to earn extra cash while I’d been studying for my PhD, and a completely different world to my marine one.
“Good. Try not to get involved.” My dad side-eyed me. “At least pretend to try.”
I wasn’t sure what sort of involved he was referring to.
“Were you surprised I never moved away from Puffin Bay?” It was an odd question judging by my dad’s surprised look.
“No. Not really.”
“Why?”
He took a drink of his beer and continued studying me. “You were at home as soon as you came here. I think it was just where you were meant to be. I did wonder if you’d want to go to a university in a bigger city for a few months, but I wasn’t surprised when you stayed.”
“I wanted to study here even before you came here to build the hotel.” My dad ended up in Puffin Bay when he came on business to project manage the opening of the big hotel half a mile away. He’d met Amelie and stayed, giving up a bachelor lifestyle that he’d been soldered to because of the woman who was now my step-mum. “Don’t think I moved here for you – it was the fish.”
He grinned, not buying any of my bullshit. “Yeah, okay. Why are you asking? Are you thinking about moving away now?”
We’d had this conversation before.
“No.” I shook my head, emphasising my point. “I think I need to buy my own place and stop living like a student.”
“I’d agree. I can offer you a competitive loan rate.” He nodded at Finn Holland who’d just entered the pub with a crate of gin.
Money hadn’t ever really been a problem for my dad. His parents hadn’t been short, and he’d started making money from just after leaving school, taking risky investments that’d paid off and grafting his backside off, a self-confessed workaholic. I hadn’t known him until I was fourteen, the product of a brief relationship and my mother hadn’t thought to tell him that she was pregnant. She had swallowed her pride when I was diagnosed with a condition that meant I needed a livertransplant, tracking him down and explaining he had a son.
He hadn’t flinched when he first saw me, and there hadn’t been any of the expected awkwardness. We’d gotten on from the start, talking about football, sport, what was in the news and just life in general. It’d been like I’d known him forever and it’d stayed that way since. He and my mum had gotten along okay, I knew he’d helped her out financially when she’d followed me to Puffin Bay, bringing my little sister with her and settling in a tiny cottage that she was still in, my sister now away at university in Manchester. My dad had paid her tuition fees, just like he’d paid mine, even though he had no obligation to.
I was lucky. He was a decent bloke.
“I’ll take you up on it.” I wasn’t stupid enough to say no, even though it was kind of a handout because the interest rate would probably be buying him and Amelie a meal once a month, more of an excuse to spend time together because he didn’t need the money. He would’ve just bought me a house if I’d asked, but there’d been an unspoken agreement years ago that he’d let me make my own way.
“Should think so. If I tell Amelie you’re looking to move out, she’ll start packing for you.” He cleared the rest of his pint and stared at the empty glass. “She’ll also start planning a wedding when I tell her about yours and Zoey’s fake relationship.”
I groaned, knowing full well that would be exactly what would happen.
October, Twelve Years Ago
We had forty-five minutes until the car arrived to pick Zoey up and we were still in my bed, tucked around each other, undressed and neither of us making any move to suggest that we were going to move anytime soon.
She’d packed, not that she’d brought much with her, and everything was ready to go, to head back to London and the commitments she had in the next week. I had an essay due for college, and a shift at the Puffin Inn after my seminars. The essay would have to be done tomorrow, on the last minute, because there had been no way I was prepared to sacrifice being in bed with Zoey last night and the early hours of this morning.
We’d spent Sunday morning practicing, as she put it, her confidence growing as we got to know each other in a different way than we had before. Then we’d taken a shower together, another first for her, before a long walk to one of the nearby villages for Sunday lunch because I wanted a break from Puffin Bay and to not worry about someone recognising the look on my face when I was looking at Zoey.
We shouldn’t have done it.
I shouldn’t have agreed to it.
I knew both of those things when she’d asked and still I’d said yes and I didn’t regret it even though I was well aware that I’d self-inflicted a wound to my chest that I wasn’t sure would ever heal.
“I wish I could stay.” She turned over in my arms, too soft and too relaxed to be leaving in forty-something minutes.
“I wish you could stay, but then it’d be even harder when you leave.”
Her eyes widened; surprise etched there. “I would’ve thought you’d be desperate for me to go and then you can meet up with one of the hundreds of girls who’ve been messaging you since Friday.”
She’d found it hilarious that three girls I knew from college were sending flirty texts. I was nice back, never responding quickly, because I had no intentions of anything happening with them, but I didn’t want to just ignore them.
