Even though she couldn’t possibly have heard it from outside, she spun around at the mention of her name and hit me with a sultry smile. My stomach lurched, and I glanced away.
“What do you mean it washeridea?”
“Exactly what I said. She came up with the whole pitch to Ma and Pa. I’ll go back to uni and finish my doctorate if they lay down a path for me. She told them I work better when I have an incentive to pull me along.” He chuckled. “She’s not wrong.”
I clenched my jaw. I didn’t want to think about the sort of incentives Francesca might offer Jeremy to get him to do what she wanted.
“Why did Iget brought into it?”
Jeremy leaned in close. “I think it’s a peace offering, Trusty. She’s sorry for how things ended between us all. I am too. It’s all water under the bridge now though, right?”
My mind whirred into overdrive. I swallowed, trying to wet my parched mouth. I grabbed one of the glasses of wine Jeremy had poured and took a large gulp.
Jeremy’s eyes bulged. “Oh, that was for… never mind.”
The wine tasted bitter and wrong, and now my mouth was too wet.
“Trusty, are you okay? You’ve gone awfully red.”
My face burned. “I, er… I just need to…”
I turned, rushing out of the room and back through the house until I was outside again. The heavy evening air felt too dense for my lungs. Gasping, I tugged at the collar of my blouse, undoing another button. Then came the soft press of a hand on my back and her honeyed voice in my ear.
“Take it easy, just breathe.” She rubbed the space between my shoulders.
I stood, and her hand fell away.
“What are you playing at, Francesca?”
She tilted her head, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“Why did you suggest that the Daltons pay for Jeremy and I…” I gasped for air again.
She stepped toward me, gripping my shoulders until I looked into her dark eyes. “Calm down, will you. Breathe.” She took slow breaths herself, drawing the air in and out, in and out. I copied her until my racing pulse calmed and my lungs remembered how to do it by themselves.
“There, that’s better.” Looking into my eyes, she tuckeda strand of hair behind my ear and touched a cool palm to my cheek. “Walk with me,” she said.
Even after all this time, rage bubbled up inside me. I didn’t want to walk with her; I wanted to slap her hand away and launch myself at her. I wanted to scratch her insanely beautiful face and tear the luscious hair from her scalp. But, as if enchanted by her siren song, I complied. I hated my feet for going along with her, but our steps fell into sync until we reached Jane’s beloved rose garden. I’d spent many afternoons out here pruning and preening these flowers.
Only the distant chirping of birds punctuated the silence between us, which felt as heavy as the air I’d been struggling to breathe.
I risked a glance at Francesca’s profile, the sharp angle of her jaw, the way her lip curved up in a half-smirk. She looked composed, amused even. It was infuriating. I wanted to see her fracture with the pain that had broken me.
She stopped and hovered her hand over a vibrant crimson bloom. I thought she was about to pluck it from its stem; instead she turned, her eyes meeting mine, and gestured towards a low stone bench.
“Sit with me.”
My brain was outraged that my body yielded to yet another of her commands without protest.
Francesca closed her eyes and tipped her face to the sky, where streaks of pink stretched across it like long,slender fingers.
It was my voice that cracked into the moment. “Why did you plant the seeds about a practice?”
She turned to look at me. “I’ve missed you,” she said.
“What?”
Her wry smile triggered an involuntary reaction that had me no longer wanting to scratch her face but kiss it. I shook my head to recalibrate.
