‘So impressed,’ he writes back. ‘Are you around tomorrow?’
I decide to play ignorant. ‘Yes. Why?’
‘I’m here but whacked. Been up talking to Ty and about to hit the sack. Brunch?’
‘I’d love that.Welcome home!’
‘Thanks.Blue Bar? 10 am? I’ll pick you up.’
‘Can’t wait.’
He sends me a thumbs-up emoji and I sit staring at my screen for another twenty seconds.
Have I made a mistake, keeping him at a distance?
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Brit Easton is one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen. The photograph I picture when I think of her was taken on the pink carpet at the Billboard Women in Music Awards earlier this year. She’s dressed in smart black trousers and is wearing a black crop top that exposes her perfectly flat caramel-brown midriff. Her hair falls to her shoulders in glossy black braids secured with golden beads, 1940s red lipstick graces her full lips, while eyeliner flicks and what I hope to God are false eyelashes – because no one can bethatlucky – accentuate her piercing green eyes.
When I saw this photograph, I felt ill. Finn had been working with her for one month.
So it should come as no surprise to anyone that I’m keen to try to make myself look as nice as possible on Saturday morning, but despite my best efforts, I look drawn and tired. My sixth sense has kept me awake half the night.
I’m wearing a midi dress in classic green – Finn once told me that I looked beautiful in green, so my attention was drawn straight to this item in my wardrobe.
I’m leaning against the waist-height stone wall that runs alongside the stream outside my house when he pulls up, and I notice through the glass that he has a strange look on his face. His lips are pressed together in a straight line and thereare creases between his brows. As he peers out the windscreen at me, his expression seems tormented.
But his lips tilt upwards into a reasonable-sized smile when I open the front passenger door.
‘Hey!’ he exclaims, leaning across the centre console to give me a hug. It’s brief – just enough for me to get a hit of cold sea air on his skin – but the way he clutches me for those two seconds feels almost … desperate.
‘You’re a sight for sore eyes,’ he comments casually. ‘Nice dress. You looked like something out of a fairy tale, leaning there against the mossy wall amid all those ferns.’
I let out a laugh, tickled by his description.
‘Thanks. You look nice too,’ I say, studying his appearance.
His dark hair falls at its longest lengths to the nape of his neck, but around his face it’s slightly shorter, caressing his jaw and cheekbones in a windswept look. His eyes are as lovely as ever, but they carry an emotion that I’m struggling to make sense of as he gazes across at me. It’s almost wistful, edged with longing. I’m hyperalert.
‘Is Michael working today?’ he asks, and to anyone else he’d sound normal.
But not to me. To me he sounds strained.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘I was just wondering about doing it the other way around: parking at Chapel Porth and saying hi, then walking to Blue Bar from there.’
‘That’s a good idea.’
‘Are you very hungry?’
‘No, I’m not actually.’
I don’t have an appetite at all, but I’m sure I’ll feel better once I know what’s going on with him.
Or maybe I won’t.
The drive to Chapel Porth isn’t long, but we manage to cover his flight and I also get an update on his UK family. Tyler, Liam and his grandparents went to LA for Christmas again last year. I had already had this relayed first-hand by Trudy, who was so proud to say when I bumped into her that Finn had flown them all over, but it was nice to hear it from Finn’s perspective. It sounds as though they all had a good time. It must be a relief for them to spend Christmas together away from St Agnes and the memory of what happened all those years ago.
