When I next stir it’s because the smell of Arabica beans is pricking my nose, and I open my eyes to find Lando crouching next to me.
He puts a tray of pastries down beside me and smiles. ‘I’m sorry I took so long; I bumped into my cousin. He’s bought a group of islands and a fortress in the Outer Hebrides and wanted to talk through the conservation implications.’
‘Before breakfast?’ I give a yawn.
Lando laughs. ‘It’s never too early to network. He was sounding me out about a residency.’
The intrusion from the outside world is jarring and the last word jolts me awake. I sit up and pull on my party dress, then he slides his jacket around my shoulders and passes me a tall coffee.
‘How’s your head? If you need paracetamol, there’s some in the jacket. Right-hand side, with the rescue remedy.’
‘I feel pretty good considering.’ I close my eyes and think of all the sex and so little sleep. Then I open them, look past the shrubbery to the castle roofs etched against the early morning skyline and ask myself what the hell happened to all my resolutions.
I give a sigh. ‘I never made it back to your turret.’
His lashes are dark as his eyes narrow. ‘We got caught up in better things here. I may have said if you didn’t try you’d never know, and I was more than happy when you decided to go for it.’ He pauses. ‘Am I sensing “morning after” regret?’
I’m trying to make sense of the jumble of doubts that have come flooding into my mind in the seconds since I woke.
‘I might be having a post-party crash.’
‘That’s allowed.’ He bites his lip. ‘Hopefully pastries will help. Is it better or worse than a raging hangover?’
I try to nail it down. My body is pulsing with waves of well-being and satisfaction and rainbow clouds, and yet I’m simultaneously terrified.
‘It’s like I’ve lost last night’s champagne wings and landed back in real life. And it feels very wobbly.’
Lando bites back a smile. ‘Would it help to talk about that? I could do you some questions to pull out of the ice bucket.’
I’m too preoccupied to laugh or sip my coffee. ‘If I’m starting to love you, and it’s this incredible after one night, how would I feel if it ever stopped?’
Lando’s face lights up, then he readjusts and studies me calmly. ‘We’d both do our best to make sure it never would.’
I screw up my face as I consider. ‘You’ve been here just a few months; it’s still so new it hasn’t even become a novelty. How can I know we’ll be enough for you? That with the first offer of a castle on Harris you aren’t going to drop us like a hot muffin and leave?’
Lando’s voice rises in frustration. ‘I told you about the islands because he wouldn’t stop talking when all I wanted to do was come back and snog your face off. It’s not because I want to move there.’
I blow out a breath. ‘You’re always going to have offers we can’t compete with. If it wasn’t this, someone you knew would inherit a rainforest or a savannah grassland or need someone to look after a herd of penguins.’
Lando looks perplexed. ‘Penguins usually live in a colony or a rookery not a herd.’
I despair for a moment. ‘You’re very exacting.’ And he’s so much like Nemmie, it reminds me this is not just about me. ‘I have to protect Nemmie’s heart too. I can’t take the same gambles I would on my own.’
Lando is shaking his head. ‘We’ve got past my family and my wealth, why are you holding back?’
I can’t believe he’s having to ask when I’ve waved the flag so many times. ‘I daren’t trust you, because you knew about Nemmie for nine whole years, and you didn’t ever come to find us. I know you were hurting, but you didn’t care enough to fight for us. You chose to stay away.’
For a second his face crumples, then his mouth turns into a straight line, and he pushes himself up to standing.
‘I’d dared to hope we could be together, but I can’t do this on my own, Maeve.’
Feeling his emotional withdrawal is like the sun going out on my world, but I’ve made my decision, and it’s the only way I can do this.
I clear my throat. ‘It’s best we don’t see each other going forward. It’ll be too hard otherwise. I’ll manage the outstanding weddings on my own. I’ll arrange with Mum to let you see the children.’
It’s the strangest sensation; like I’m pressing the self-destruct button and saving myself all at the same time. I’m hearing the words coming out of my mouth, but it’s like someone else is speaking them.
For a second he pleads. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this, Maeve.’
