‘After,’ she said, lifting her chin, ‘I’ll decide.’
Silence stretched between them. The theatre seemed to hold its breath.
Jack exhaled slowly. ‘Bridie, I’m trying to help you not make a mess of this.’
Her laugh came out short and incredulous. ‘By taking over?’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘You’re not listening to me,’ she said. ‘You’re already talking like it’s yours.’
Jack’s gaze sharpened. ‘I’m talking like someone who knows how to get things done.’
The words stung because they were partly true. Shedidwant things to get done. She was tired of chaos, tired of things falling apart – careers, relationships, dreams.
Jack softened then, just a fraction. ‘Look,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve got a vision. That’s great. But vision without structure collapses. I can give you that structure.’
She searched his face, seeing the boy she’d loved once, layered beneath the man he’d become. Capable. Controlling. Still infuriating.
‘It’s what you want, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘For things to get done?’
Bridie hesitated. She noticed his eyes drifting to the contract in her hands. It hadn’t been witnessed, she realised. It was just between them. She could still change her mind, rip it up into tiny pieces.
Instead, she nodded.
Jack’s shoulders relaxed, just slightly. ‘Then let me do my job.’
The words echoed louder than he probably intended.She stopped in the middle of
She turned away, walking onto the stage. The boards creaked beneath her feet, but they held. She closed her eyes and imagined it – not the ruin, not the arguments – but light. Music. Voices rising into the rafters. An audience leaning forward, breath caught.
For the first time since she had left London, the thought didn’t make her flinch. It made her feel alive.
‘I’m doing this,’ she said, opening her eyes. ‘With or without you.’
Jack didn’t argue. He just watched her, something unreadable passing through his expression.
‘I know,’ he said finally. ‘That’s why I’m here.’ He held out his hand.
She went to take it, as though they were shaking on the agreement, but instead he shook his head and pointed at the contract. Despite every fibre in her being shouting not to hand it over, she did.
They left the theatre and walked into the foyer together, unresolved tension humming between them like a live wire. Bridie knew she was taking a risk – letting Jack so close to something that mattered this much. They had a history, it was true. But she hadn’t seen him for years before she had bumped into him in the café. Just how well did she really know him?
But as she headed to the door, heart racing with fear and excitement in equal measure, one thing was certain – she was dreaming again of a future on the stage.
She felt Jack’s hand close around hers. ‘Bridie.’
She stopped in the middle of the foyer and was just turning to look at him, her skin tingling at his touch, the look on his face suggesting he was about to say something, when a rap on the theatre door made her jump.
Unlike their last meeting at the theatre, which had gone wrong when Oliver had barged in, this time she’d had thepresence of mind to lock the doors in case Oliver made another surprise appearance.
As she turned around, rolling her eyes in the direction of the door, thinking that she should have texted him with an excuse, she found herself doing a double-take. The face in the window was the last person she’d expected to see standing outside the theatre, hands on hips, shaking her head.
Bridie’s first thought was that she had been caught with Jack, a married man, holding her hand. When she unlocked the door, Oliver suddenly appeared behind Bridie’s mother.
‘It’s not what you think,’ Oliver and Bridie both said in unison.
Bridie glanced over her shoulder at Jack. She knew what she was talking about – herself and Jack. What was Oliver talking about? She looked at her mother, who was shaking her head as she said, ‘So, this is the reason you didn’t meet up with Oliver at the café this morning.’
