“Your fish pie is the best I’ve tasted anywhere.” She ate half the soup and then put the spoon down. “I still have to call my mother back.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
“I’m not in a habit of putting off difficult and uncomfortable tasks. It’s not responsible.”
“Says the woman who dived into the ocean known for its rip tides.” He shrugged. “My point is that the right decision isn’t always the one that is the most responsible.”
“If I don’t call her, she’ll be displeased.”
“Maybe that will be a first for her. And it’s good for people to experience firsts.”
Even the way she was feeling, he could still make her laugh. “She’s already displeased, so it won’t make much difference, will it? You’re right. I’m going to switch my phone off and I’ll call her tomorrow in my lunch hour. That’s if Evie still wants me to work at the hotel. I suppose today might have been my last day.”
“Evie told me she’d give you a job if she could, so I would think the job is yours for as long as you want it.” He loaded the bowl back onto the tray. “Will your mother want you to go straight back to Boston?”
“I have no idea.” The thought of it depressed her more than it should.
He stood up and picked up the tray. “If you decide to hangaround here for the summer you can stay here. Maybe take some time to decide whatyouwant for once.”
His offer surprised her and also touched her.
What did she want?
She had no idea. It wasn’t a question she asked herself.
But she was asking it now.
16
Evie
“Ifeel terrible.” Evie scrolled through the report on her laptop. Beyond her kitchen window the sun was setting over the cliffs, but for once she wasn’t looking. She’d had one of the worst days at work she could ever remember having, and it showed no signs of improving. Even the glass of red wine by her laptop wasn’t helping. “I feel officially terrible.”
“Why?” Luca put a pizza on the table between them, along with a couple of plates.
She glanced at it and then at him.
“Pizza?”
It wasn’t true to say the day had been all bad. Luca had insisted on coming home with her and making her dinner. Pizza. Her favourite comfort food.
“I can’t believe you made that out of what I had in the fridge.”
“I didn’t. I went to the shop for ingredients.” He sliced the pizza. “You were engrossed in that report and didn’t notice.”
“You went to the shop? The local shop?”
“They have excellent mozzarella and surprisingly good tomatoes.”
“Was it Richard or his daughter Alice serving?”
“Both of them.”
Her heart sank. “And no doubt they asked what you were cooking, because they always do. When I was growing up they always knew what Dad and I were having for dinner. It was unsettling.”
“They did ask.”
Of course they did.“And you told them to mind their own business? You said you were making yourself a lonely mozzarella and tomato salad for one, which you were planning to eat while staring out of the window of your equally lonely apartment?”
