‘It’s just, last night you said you were the only man in a family of girls, but when we first met you mentioned a brother.’
She noticed that he pushed his hands into his pockets, his glance making her wonder if she shouldn’t have asked. When he didn’t answer, she tried to fill the silence by apologising, wishing she’d never said anything in the first place. She knew first hand what it was like to be asked uncomfortable questions, and she should have known better.
‘If it’s too personal, I completely?—’
‘No, it’s fine,’ he said, clearing his throat, his voice sounding huskier than before. ‘It’s not a secret, but it’s just been a long time since anyone asked me about him, that’s all.’
‘You’re not close any longer?’ she asked.
Joe took a deep breath and walked a little closer to her, so that their arms almost touched, and when he spoke, he lowered his voice as if his words were only for her.
‘Mia, my brother took his own life five years ago,’ he said. ‘There was a long time when I couldn’t talk about it. My whole family spoke about him as if he were still here, and we nevertalked about what happened. We continued with life as if he was going to walk through the door at any moment.’
‘What changed?’ Her heart beat a little faster as she immediately thought of her own loss, and how hard she was trying to move on. She should have told him how sorry she was, and she cursed herself for not saying that first.
‘Well, I came to realise that I was never going to accept he was gone if I didn’t start talking about him and being honest about what happened. But sometimes it’s still hard, like thinking about him not being at lunch today.’ Joe looked away for a beat before finding her eyes again.
Mia watched the way his face changed. He was still smiling at her, but it wasn’t quite reaching his eyes this time.
‘He would have loved this little charade, although I think he would have seen straight through it,’ Joe said. ‘He was the life of the party, and everyone loved him. I was always happy to be his shadow.’
She couldn’t imagine he could be any more attractive than Joe, or light up a room any more brightly than he did, but she didn’t say anything.
‘My, ah, my fiancé passed away a few years ago,’ Mia said, her voice cracking a little as she struggled to find the right words, feeling emotional after hearing Joe open up about his brother. ‘So I do understand the pain of loss, and how hard it is to talk about it. I know what it’s like to pretend that person is still here, because it’s easier pretending than facing the truth.’
Joe slowed his walk, and she smiled when he took her hand, palm to palm. But this time when he touched her, it was a gesture born of comfort, from one grieving person to another, and she welcomed it just as much as she’d have welcomed his kiss the last time they’d been together.
‘Do you still find it the hardest thing in the world to talk about?’ he asked, keeping hold of her hand as they walked. ‘His passing?’
‘I’ve barely told a soul or talked about him at all since,’ she admitted. ‘Sometimes it’s easier to just keep the pain inside.’
‘Well, now you’ve told me,’ he said. ‘Which means the next person will be that little bit easier. Or at least, that’s how I’ve found it to be. But some days are easier than others, and we have to be gentle with ourselves on those days, because you’re right, it’s always easier to keep it inside. But it’s not always the right thing to do.’
Mia would have told him more, suddenly not scared about sharing with him what had happened, but before she had the chance, his hand was pulling gently away from hers.
‘You’re sure you want to have lunch with my family?’ he asked. ‘I can whisk you away and take you to a café instead, and we can compare notes on how sad we’ve been these past few years. Now that we know we have something of a shared past.’
Mia laughed. It was a terrible thing to joke about, but it made her feel lighter somehow. ‘Your mother is too nice to do that to,’ she scolded, feeling oddly at ease with a man who should still feel like a stranger to her. ‘But if you don’t tell her that we only met this week, I will.’
Joe gave her a wicked grin as he pressed the buzzer for the apartment block they were standing in front of. ‘Oh, I’ll let you tell her. It will soften the blow coming from you.’
Mia swatted at him, but Joe just laughed and reached for her hand before she could connect with him, catching her completely off guard.
‘You’re nothing short of a surprise, Mia from London.’
She didn’t even try to tug her hand away. ‘Straight back at you, Joe from Paris.’
He leaned in a little closer then and her breath hitched, their fingers moving and linking just as the door clicked to signal it had unlocked.
‘I just want you to know that I’m not, well, I’m not ready for?—’
Joe leaned closer and his lips touched her cheek before he whispered in her ear. ‘We’re just pretending, remember? Two lost souls helping each other to make life a little easier.’ A second passed, and then another. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’
She let him tug her through the door as she willed her body to listen to the words that he’d spoken and stop wishing this was something it wasn’t.
Besides, she barely remembered how to kiss, let alone do anything else. As far as she was concerned, her body had closed for business years ago. Even if the staccato beat of her heart was trying to tell her otherwise.
Mia stood in the foyer of the apartment and tried not to let her jaw drop. It was nothing like she’d expected. The ceilings seemed to reach for the sky and light filled the entrance and the living space ahead of her, with furniture so thoughtfully placed it was like standing in the pages of a magazine.
