“Yes. Although there’s more.”
The wary look came back into Lisa’s eyes. “Okay.”
“Do you remember Sir Geoffrey?”
“Yes. I ran his obit because of you, didn’t I?”
Bo nodded. “He left me a gift in his will.”
“What sort of gift?”
Bo took a deep breath. “Half of his estate, actually. It’s a sizeable chunk of London real estate worth around three million pounds.”
Lisa’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Nope.”
“Bo . . . but what about the nephew? You said there was a nephew? Was he cut out of the will or something?”
Max. Bo pressed her lips together. “No. He, umm, inherited the other half of the estate.”
“Bloody hell, Bo.” Lisa sat back, clearly amazed. Suddenly, she leaned forward. “God, don’t tell your mother about your inheritance, will you? She’ll be at you day and night for that money.”
Bo nodded. “Yeah, I figured. Don’t worry. I’ll keep it to myself.”
“See that you do.” Lisa drank another mouthful of coffee, pondering Bo for a moment. “So, you still managed to squeeze in some man trouble amongst all that other news, did you? Still don’t want to tell me?”
Bo picked up her coffee. Her hands felt shaky, and she knew it was a mixture of tiredness, jetlag and hunger, as well as a lingering bewilderment that she was here, and Max was out of her life. “I don’t want to talk about him,” she told her sister. “I just want to rest for a while, if that’s okay? A couple of weeks, a little space and I’ll be fine.”
“Bo . . .”
“I’ll be fine,” Bo said again, but she wasn’t sure if she was lying to her sister or herself.
* * *
For two weeks, Bo mostly hid from the world in her sister’s place. She burrowed under blankets, sleeping and feeling sad, but not, she was proud to remind herself, sobbinguncontrollably. In fact, she only cried twice. Once was when her sister dragged her out to a restaurant, and the pianist in the lounge played Beethoven. At the opening notes ofAdagio un poco mossoBo felt her eyes mist with tears and Lisa had looked at her like she’d grown a second head.
“Are you all right?” Lisa had asked, and Bo had nodded, before quickly decamping outside to suck in big mouthfuls of harbour air. When she’d returned, somewhat composed, Lisa gave her a long look.
“Still don’t want to tell me?” she’d asked wryly, and Bo blushed, but wouldn’t say a word.
The other time was when she’d been rifling through her backpack for a something to wear and came across Max’s lurid purple shirt. Bo had held the garment to her face, breathing the smell of Max in, and couldn’t help the tears from coursing freely down her cheeks, missing him so much it hurt. She fell asleep wearing the shirt, and the next morning dumped it in with the washing, so that she could never do that to herself again.
Lisa handed her the shirt back two days later, clean, dry and ironed, and gave her another long look.
“Still don’t want to tell me?”
When the two weeks Bo had allocated for her broken heart were nearly up, she opened her phone and was immediately assaulted by paparazzi pictures of Ida’s shop all over the news and Instagram. She quickly dialled Willa, who answered sleepily.
“Why the fuck have you been working in Ida’s shop?” she asked, and Willa cleared her throat.
“Because you left Ida in the lurch, running off the way you did, and she needed someone to help her for a few days,” Willa explained. “Don’t worry, I explained everything to her.”
“What did you explain?” Bo asked warily.
“Oh, you know, about Max, about your falling out with him, pretty much everything. She totally understood why you needed some time out. She’s set up a room for you above the shop, by the way. You won’t have to go back to your summer house now. Say the word and I’ll start moving your stuff over.”
Bo paused. She’d fled London and Max so quickly, she hadn’t yet considered the reality of her return. She’d assumed that when she returned, she would go back to her summer house; assumed she would live there until the place was sold. But then, could she live so close to Max? The answer was no.
