“And will I be watched?” I asked, holding onto my patience.
“You’ll have Maia with you.” His hand rested on my thigh, thumb rubbing circles as he tried to soothe my annoyance away.Maia. The woman who’d lied to me for over a year. I hadn’t seen her in months. “I’m just trying to keep you safe,” he said, before I could argue that Maia wasn’t a person I wanted following me around.
“Safe? I’ll be in my hometown for God's sake! Nothing's going to happen to me there.”
“You were attacked by Adam in your hometown. Your mother was killed by a drunk driver there. Anything can happen to you anywhere.” His jaw ticked with his obvious worry. He took a breath. Patience. He was attempting patience. “I won’t suffocate you, I promise. I’ll just feel better being away from you all week if I know where you are. You can stay in Harrington too, if you like.”
That got my attention. Alfie had re-started renovations on the site ever since I’d called him out for neglecting it. “It’s ready for guests?”
“Aside from a few touches. It’s finished enough on the outside to be filmed and it’s ready enough inside for you to stay there.”
Staying in a huge historical house would be pretty cool.
“And our Evergarden?”
Alfie’s eyes softened. The garden I’d designed just for him had been left to rot but over the last year it had finally started to become a reality.
“Riley’s been working on it.”
“Good.”
“Good?” He gave me a hint of a smile. “Does that mean you’re not angry with me anymore?”
“Yes. Fine. I’m not angry anymore.” I allowed him to pull me into his lap and I pressed as close to him as I could. I could never get close enough to this man. If I could crawl under his skin it still wouldn’t be enough. “It’s only a month, Alfie.”
He nodded but I could see he didn’t like it. He’d gone out of his way over the last few months to avoid travelling and being away from me. I understood it, I hated being away from him too, but this wasn't healthy. It felt like he was trying to make up for lost time. Always holding on too tightly, afraid that he would lose me. Didn't he see that the only way he could lose me was if he broke me again?
“How do you know our producer anyway?”
“Julia? I know her through the club.”
My stomach dropped. There was only one club he could have been referring to. The Never Tell Club. The den of debauchery he’d founded at only eighteen and was still going strong nearly twenty years later. My mind immediately leapt to just how intimately he likely knew this woman.
“Oh,” I muttered. I didn’t relish the idea of working with someone he’d slept with.
“I’ve never had sex with her,” he said, answering my unspoken question. “Our personalities clash in that area.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what that meant, then I changed my mind. “I don’t think I want to know.”
The tea arrived and I poured us both a cup that neither of us touched. Alfie’s brows were drawn into a line, his mouth set in that way that told me he was deep in pensive thought. It was tempting to ask what was bothering him but with Alfie, it was always better to let him talk in his own time.
I sat in his lap, kissing him from time to time. His thumb ran over my naked ring finger.
“Why won’t you announce our engagement?” He'd asked me that question a hundred times and I still didn't have a solid answer.
“Why won’t you introduce me to your mother?” I'd asked him that question a hundred times too and he gave me the same answer he always gave.
“I don’t want you around things that will hurt you.”
“She can’t hurt me.” I wasn't afraid of Carolyn Tell. This woman that I had never met and yet still somehow despised. She had never laid a hand directly on Alfie, but she had stood by and done nothing as he'd suffered his father and brothers brutality. Yes, I hated this woman, but it should be her that feared being hurt, not me.
Maybe that was what Alfie secretly feared. That I would take vengeance on her on his behalf. Maybe he just wanted those ghosts left locked away and he was worried that I would bring them out into the open again. I didn't blame him for that worry, he'd seen me let my temper get the better of me more than once.
“I'm not afraid of her but I have to meet her eventually. And your sister, Grace, I need to meet her too. You can't keep us apart forever.”
“Not forever, I just want to keep you to myself for a bit longer.” He adjusted me in his lap, sliding one hand up my thigh. “Why won't you marry me, Lola? You said yes, you accepted my ring even though you won’t wear it. You told me you loved me, you've given yourself to me again. Why are you holding back now?”
“I’m just scared,” I said softly.
