“I didn’t mean to listen.”
“No. I know. Happily for me and happily for Raphaella, she’s moved on to someone else. I think when the Jacobien Concertocame out she got the message finally.”
Bo smiled. “You really wrote a whole concerto just for me?”
“I couldn’tnotwrite it,” Max confessed, giving her a sideways glance. “You were on my mind all the time. I had so many performances to give . . . you remember, uh, what I normally do after I’ve performed?”
Bo blushed. She remembered all too well what Max did after a performance. Last summer it had mostly involved her.
“Well, I poured all that tension and energy into the Jacobien Concerto.”He stopped, looking at her intently, running his free hand down her cheek. “There’s been no one else since you, I want you to know that. I didn’t want anyone else but you.”
“There’s been no one else for me either,” she told him, and he nodded.
“I wasn’t going to ask, but I’m glad all the same. The thought of anyone else touching you . . .” Max shook his head. “I couldn’t bear it.”
“I wondered when you wrote it, that concerto,” Bo said. “You told me that aside from your tour, you were going to take a year off to write. But then you had so many performances and tours booked in.”
“How do you know that?” He raised an eyebrow at her.
She reddened. “I stalked your Instagram.”
He laughed. “I did sign up for a lot of work,” Max explained. “Financially I wasn’t in a position to take a year off. So, I wrote it in the evenings, after performing. You remember how I don’t sleep well at night. Writing was a good use of empty time.”
Bo stared at him. “What do you mean? How weren’t you able to take a year off? The whole point of selling Geoffrey’s house was that the money would go towards that year. What happened?”
Max gave her a sheepish grin. “I told you: you drove me crazy, and so I did something crazy.”
“What did you do?” she asked slowly, and Max nodded across the heath.
“That,” he said, and Bo’s mouth dropped open.
They were at Geoffrey’s house, and from his pocket, Max was pulling out the key.
Chapter Thirty-Six
He ushered her into the kitchen, and it was like walking into the past. There was Geoffrey’s fridge and Geoffrey’s coffee machine, still in the same places. There was Geoffrey’s wallpaper and Geoffrey’s chairs. There was Geoffrey’s table on which she and Max once had sex. And then, outside, she could make out her summer house, still there, just like the day she’d left it. Bo felt herself choke up with tears, and Max wrapped his arms around her.
“You didn’t sell.” Bo realized. “You kept it.”
Max shook his head. “No, I didn’t sell. I remortgaged, in fact. I used the loan to buy your garden.”
“Why? Why would you do that?”
Max pulled on her hands, leading her to one of the chairs. He sat her down and kneeled before her.
“I wanted you to have the freedom I knew that money would give you,” he said softly, “but I also wasn’t ready to let you go. Not in here.” He pointed to his chest. “I did it without really thinking. I remortgaged and then bought your half. Not that I did anything with it. I went back to Berlin and wondered what sort of madness had come over me. My lawyer wondered what sort of madness had come over me. After a few months, I decided I would either move back here and make it a home, or I would sell the lot. And then I got your flowers, and your note.” He paused, gazing at her softly. “I tortured myself, wondering what that note meant. Was it a goodbye? Was it your way of throwing my own message to you back in my face? Or was it meant to give me hope?”
“Hope,” Bo said, leaning towards Max so that their foreheads touched. “I wanted you to know how I felt; how I always felt.”
Max smiled, nudging her nose with his. “After a few months of quite dramatic internal struggle, I came to a decision. I would come back here and tell you how I felt. If you didn’t want me, I would put the whole place up for sale and move on with my life. But if you felt the same . . . well, then we’d have our home.”
“Our home?”
Max nodded. “You belong here, Bo. Geoffrey knew it, and it wasn’t long before I began to realize it too. You belong here, and I belong with you. Geoffrey always wanted this place to be a family home. Well.” Max took a deep breath. “Why couldn’t it be our family home? Maybe Geoffrey never saw children of his own here, but we could fill it with his grandchildren. We’re happy here, Bo. Wewerehappy here. The night of my party, when all my friends were here . . . you have no idea how much I hated it. It felt like they were intruding on us, on our special place. That’s why I never got around to hiring a housekeeper either. I didn’t want anyone else around us. I just wanted you.” He laughed at himself. “Two years ago, if someone had said I would spend the rest of my life living in this house, I’d have thought they were crazy. Now I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life anywhere else, or with anyone else.”
Bo swallowed, wiping at the tears which were freely coursing down her cheeks. “I’m buying my half back,” she told him. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it as equals, okay?”
“Okay.”
