‘They don’t speak anymore, apparently.’
‘That’s a bit sad. They both want the same thing but are so divided on how to achieve it.’
‘Bitter rivalry. Makes a good story and Karel isn’t above using it for marketing purposes.’
‘It’s a shame because Jakub has no other family. I think he’s wedded to the brewery because he’s lonely.’
‘It is sad. And what about you? Are you still lonely?’
Anna blinked, surprised by the unexpected turn of the conversation. ‘Who says I’m lonely?’
‘You’ve always been lonely.’
‘No, I haven’t,’ blustered Anna, suddenly realising that Leo was right. Shehadalways been lonely. Ever since her parents died. Hard as she’d tried, she’d never fitted in with the Talbot family and this week had confirmed it once again. Steve had been a crutch, helping her to belong, but she never had, even with him at her side. If anything, this week had emphasised how much of an outlier she was. They all supported him rather than her. He was more family to them than she was.
Leo simply folded his arms and looked at her.
Anna glared at him. How come he always knew her better than she knew herself.
‘Have you heard from him?’
She shook her head. ‘No, but I have heard from Becs. She’s not impressed. She thinks I should go back home and give up my place on the scheme. She reckons if I do that and apologise properly to him, he’ll forgive me.’
‘And what do you want to do?’ asked Leo.
Anna glanced down at her phone and his gaze followed hers. The red dots were on her WhatsApp, her voicemail and her message app symbols.
‘Let me guess, they’re not messages of support.’
She shook her head and met his grave expression with one of her own. ‘No. I stopped listening to them. I kept hoping Becs might be on my side.’
‘What do you want to do?’ he asked gently.
She wrinkled her nose but pressed ahead because with Leo she had always been able to be honest. ‘I want to stay put. I’ve lived my life trying to live the Talbot family way. I’m never going to get it right because I’m not one of them.’ Her voice broke, defeat flooding in. She had tried. She really had.
‘No, you’re not one of them. You’re you.’ As always Leo homed in on the issue and as always he was on her side. ‘You’re Anna Love and you should be who you want to be.’
‘Easier said than done, when you owe everything to other people. If it wasn’t for them I’d be in an orphanage or foster home.’
‘They might have taken you in as an orphan – but you are still family. Just because they brought you up, you shouldn’t feel beholden to them for the rest of your life. In most families, parents accept that their children become their own people. and let them go their own way. Parents love their children but that love shouldn’t be conditional or a burden.’
Anna thought of all the messages sitting on her phone. ‘I’ve been avoiding their calls,’ she admitted.
‘I’m not bloody surprised. You should delete them.’
She stared at him. ‘I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can. Do you think you’ve done anything wrong?’
She gave a half shrug. ‘Not precisely. I should have told Steve but I lied by omission and yes, it was cowardly – to avoid explaining things. But funnily enough they’ve all forgotten thatthey’venever mentioned that I was once married. It’s almost as if they thought I was soiled goods and it might damage my prospects with Steve. So they’re just as bad.’
PartII
ChapterSeventeen
On Saturday morning Leo bounded into the kitchen clutching a carton of milk and a bag of pastries. Anna still in her dressing gown because it was only seven in the morning, looked up from her phone where she was perusing the headlines on the BBC news website, deliberately avoiding the sports news because she no longer felt she had to keep up with rugby and football scores – which, she decided, was actually quite liberating.
‘How do you fancy going mushroom foraging?’ he said. ‘I’ve bumped into Michaela downstairs and she and Jan are going to Krívokslátsko, a national park. They’ve invited us to join them. It’s a bit of a drive but apparently the conditions are perfect after yesterday’s rain. And it would be nice to get out of the city.’
