Carrie could feel her face going bright red. “Anyway,” she said before her daughter could say anything else incriminating. “You two have fun and I’ll see you later.”
* * *
Carrie couldn’t help feeling a bit nervous over the course of the next few hours. She kept her phone with her the whole time, expecting to have to go and pick Tony and Poppy up fromsomewhere or that they wouldn’t be back by one and she’d end up having to call and listen to his excuses and then probably still have to go out in the car to get them.
But she wasn’t going to let herself be taken advantage of by Tony anymore. If her aunt turning around her failing bookshop to make it renowned by romance readers worldwide had taught her anything, it was that you needed to stick up for yourself and change things when they weren’t working. And things between her and Tony definitely weren’t working.
She went around her little flat, deciding what to take with them until she could work out the logistics of moving everything properly. Scanning the large bookcase in the sitting room, she spotted her battered copy ofPride and Prejudice. She took it down and opened it to reveal an inscription:With love on your sixteenth birthday from Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom. She smiled and flicked through the pages. Elizabeth and Darcy... who she’d always held up as the perfect couple. Things hadn’t exactly gone smoothly for them, but they got over their issues, told Lady Catherine to leave them alone and ended up happily ever after. Surely that could be done in real life. And, honestly, if she and Michael couldn’t work together, there was no hope for her with anyone. She put the book in the box she was filling and decided: she wasn’t just going back to Castle Cove to accept her aunt’s offer of a job and home. She was going back to do her very best to convince Michael that they needed to be together, because them not being together just made no sense when Carrie thought about how the world was meant to be.
* * *
Carrie got everything packed and in the car, including snacks which she popped out to the local shop for. They’d need to take only really brief stops if they were going to make it in time for Layla’s party. How could she have even considered missing it?Layla meant so much to her now and had been so lovely to Poppy.
She was pleasantly surprised when her doorbell rang at quarter to one, heralding Tony and Poppy’s return.
The big grin on Poppy’s face made Carrie smile.
“You look like you’ve had fun!” said Carrie.
“We did!” said Poppy. “We went bowling and Daddy said I was really good.”
“That sounds very cool!”
“And I told Daddy about playing football on the beach so he bought me my own football!” Poppy pulled a blue football out from behind her back.
“Now that is awesome!”
“Thanks for bringing her,” Tony said. “I appreciate it.”
Carrie nodded, not quite trusting herself to respond more.
“Can I come in and talk to you for a minute?” he asked.
Carrie hesitated and then felt bad for doing so. It wasn’t Tony’s fault that she was in such a hurry to get back to Cornwall.
“OK,” she said and gestured to him to go through to the kitchen. “Pumpkin, why don’t you go and check your room to make sure you’ve got everything you want to take with you? Just bear in mind that it all needs to fit in the car!”
Tony sat at the kitchen table, while Carrie remained standing. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Are you not going to sit down? We could have a cuppa?” suggested Tony.
“Maybe another time. I’m sorry but I’ve got something I have to get back to Castle Cove for.”
“Is this party you’re in such a hurry to get to, something to do with this Michael that Poppy keeps talking about?”
Carrie hesitated before saying, “Yes, actually.”
“So you are seeing him?”
“That’s really none of your business.”
“I’m Poppy’s father. Who you spend time with spends time with her...”
Carrie glared at him and found herself snapping, “Then why don’t you redress the balance a little and see her more?”
Tony looked shocked and she couldn’t blame him. She’d never spoken to him like that before. She took a breath before repeating, “What did you want to talk about?”
“The job in Germany with the wrestlers went really well. So well, that I’ve been offered a two-year contract travelling around Europe with them.”
