Patrick looked stunned for a moment before recovering himself. ‘Kerry-Anne,’ he said smoothly, ‘may I introduce you to Rosie O’Malley, owner of this hotel.’
The woman reached forward and shook Rosie’s hand. ‘Kerry-Anne Daly,’ she said. ‘Patrick’s business partner from Boston.’
‘And this is Grace and…’ Patrick appealed to François.
François stepped forward. ‘François Jones.’
‘Jones?’ hissed Grace. ‘I didn’t know you were a Jones. That’s not very French.’
‘My farzzer is Welsh.’ He shrugged. ‘It makes me even more passionate.’
Grace laughed. ‘I like the combination,’ she said, before lowering her voice. ‘It’s quite exotic. And erotic.’
‘Anyway,’ went on Kerry-Anne, ‘I was on my way home from Paris and thought I’d stop by. We have decisions to make.’ She hesitated, looking at Patrick, and Rosie saw something pass between them, something more than business partners. There was a look in Kerry-Anne’s eye that made her wonder what else was going on.
There was the sound of someone walking towards them. It was Kate, peering at them all in the half-light. ‘Ah, there you are,’ she said to Patrick, and then, looking from Rosie to Kerry-Anne to Grace, who was now standing with François, ‘I thought you were coming back to me.’
‘Oh, God,’ said Kerry-Anne, almost amused. ‘Another one.’
‘Annuzzer what?’ said François.
Kate was glaring at Rosie. ‘Is there something going on between the two of you? I thought there was when we all arrived. And I thought you were focused on the wedding, just like I am. God, Patrick, you’re meant to be the best man. Not the best gigolo!’ And she turned and left.
Kerry-Anne was beginning to laugh. ‘Patrick, you have been busy. You remind me of the men in my family.’
38
PATRICK
It was a messy end to a messy day and Patrick tried to make sense of everything that had happened. What had possessed him to ask Rosie to come with him? Why had he done something so reckless? Of course she’d rejected him. She wasn’t going to go with him back then, she certainly wouldn’t now. You couldn’t just pick up where you left off, with a decade in between. They no longer knew each other.
It was just that he felt so desperate to make things right, with her, with him, and that she was the closest he’d ever felt to love and he was sure he could still feel it shimmering and simmering between them. He’d obviously been wrong.
He should have felt humiliated, but instead he was oddly proud of himself. What was the opposite to emotionally constipated? Well, whatever it was, he was it. Maybe he should text Ashley to tell her what he’d done. As he was charging up from the marquee, he’d had just one thing on his mind and that was their future life in Boston and his fantasy of them living together, showing her the sights, loving each other. So, that wasn’t going to happen. And he’d forever miss her. But he was used to that. It was a case of just getting on with it all.
He and Rosie had had their chance and after her refusing to come with him and being told by Lucinda he wasn’t good enough, he had gone back to Boston feeling hurt, insulted, angry. Shame was something he had put on like a cloak. It was time to take it off. He had nothing to be ashamed about and now, all these years later, he was older, and wiser, he was deeply proud of his background and wouldn’t change a thing.
But as he and Kerry-Anne wended their way down the hill, back to Sandycove and her hotel, the sea sparkling in the moonlight below them, him carrying her case, her arm slipped through his as he unburdened himself, it was such a relief to talk to her. Kerry-Anne had always been someone he relied on, someone whose opinion he trusted implicitly, someone’s whose advice he always listened to. But this was the first time he’d ever spoken about what was inside him, the real Patrick.
‘It’s that Rosie, isn’t it?’
‘How do you know?’
‘I could tell. So… what’s going on?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to do. I’ve been this emotional crazy person since I’ve arrived. I’ve already brought in so much of my own drama and… I even begged her to come with me again,’ he admitted. ‘Just now, when you turned up. And she turned me down.’
‘Well, she’s a fool,’ said Kerry-Anne. ‘Who would turn you down?’ She looked at him, half-teasing, half-serious. ‘So, you’re in love with Rosie O’Malley?’
‘I was,’ he said.
‘But you still must be, if you asked her to run away with you?’
He groaned. ‘I must be mad.’
‘Or there’s something there? An ember? A spark? A flame.’
A fireball, he thought. ‘Perhaps,’ he conceded.
