She needed to stop him talking before the stinging behind her eyes became tears, but she hesitated instead.
‘I have to say it. We changed each other and I don’t know how I’m supposed to just stop touching you, go back to being your long-distance friend with all these intense impressions of you that live on my skin!’
Despite resisting his meaning, Toni understood enough that the words sliced through her. Squeezing her eyes shut so she couldn’t see his probing gaze, she extricated herself from his hold.
‘I won’t pretend not to understand what you’re saying – or that I don’t feel it too,’ she began, his indrawn breath echoing in her ears. ‘But thingsaren’tdifferent. Whether you can go back to being my online friend…’ Another twinge. ‘That’ll be up to you. I’ll respect your decision if you feel you can’t write to me any more.’
‘That’s not what I—’ He cut himself off, scraping a hand over his face. ‘I just want you to understand youmeansomething to me and I wish that were enough.’
‘Enough for what? Happily ever after? A wedding on the beach and a son you never wanted? Don’t go there, Gabri. We both know that’s never what this was about. Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed you. When we kiss, I forget… everything.’
With his eyes blazing, his shoulders taut, it was entirely unfair how good he looked. It was lucky she was leaving in two days, or she might stop resisting.
‘I’ll deal with Cillian,’ she continued when he appeared to run out of words. ‘I should have spoken to him sooner. I don’t think there was anything you could have said today to improve the situation, so please let it go. He’s not your responsibility.’
He simply sighed: not exactly agreement.
Toni’s words fled as well. Perhaps she’d said too many already. She should go, get back to her son, but she paused, wondering if she’d remember the shade of Gabri’s eyes in his golden face. Asking herself if her memories of Miro’s green oneswere as clear as they should be and berating herself for the comparison.
He glanced down at his feet. ‘You are stronger than I am.’
‘No, I’m not,’ she said with a huff.
Ghosting a hand down her arm in a stolen gesture of affection, he snatched it back and said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ before turning for the car park.
She would see him tomorrow and it would probably be stiff and awkward, trying to keep her distance. And damn, that felt like another loss she was doomed to bear in her life.
After dinner, Toni cajoled Cillian into a walk along the beach. She didn’t want her mother as a witness to this conversation that she didn’t want to have.
‘I want to check on the turtles,’ he said, taking off at a run for the far end of the beach. When she caught up with him, he’d tumbled to his knees by the tape barrier and was staring avidly at the unassuming square of sand. ‘I wish I could see them hatch. Cristina said there’s a small chance they will, but probably not. Maybe we can come back and see them?’
The spike of discomfort at his words gave Toni a flash of sympathy for Gabri. Children could be a roller coaster.
‘Sweetie, did you have an argument with Gabri today?’
The twist of emotions on his face cut right to her heart. ‘Don’t tell me I’m in trouble – or that I don’t understand. You like him and he doesn’t like you and that’s not fair.’
She plonked herself on the sand next to him, her thoughts in knots. ‘It’s a little more complicated than that.’
‘Oh, he doesn’t likeme?’
‘No!’ she protested immediately. ‘If anything, the opposite. He doesn’t have his own kids and is a bit scared of doing the wrong thing, but I think he likes you more than he expected to.’ It was awful, the necessity of telling the truth to a child. ‘But why do you think I like him? I like the way things are, just the two of us.’
He gave a shrug. ‘You’re organising weddings. Adults are always in a couple.’
‘Not always.’
‘Most of them,’ he said peevishly. ‘Even Andreas has Sophie now.’
The way everyone went on about it, you’d think the laws of physics had changed because Andreas Hinterdorfer had fallen in love.
‘I had your dad, Cilli. I loved him very much and I love you and…’
‘Why did you kiss Gabri, then? You like him.’
‘I don’t know him well enough for that,’ she insisted – weakly, even to her own ears. ‘And besides, he lives here and we live in Weymouth. There’s not a lot we can do about that. It’s no one’s fault.’
‘But he still hurt your feelings.’
