The ball dropped. The music cut out. Darkness enveloped him.
Kieran gasped awake.
His chair scraped loudly against the floor. His heart pounded so hard it made him dizzy. His mouth tasted of metal, sharp and unpleasant.
The cottage was unchanged. Lights on, laptop open, cursor still blinking at the end of a line of code.
‘It was just a dream,’ he whispered.
Prom lifted his head from the windowsill, blinked slowly at him, then turned round and went back to sleep.
Kieran swallowed. Deep inside him, something stirred.
Not a voice.
Not a laugh.
Just the unsettling certainty that whatever he’d seen wasn’t done with him yet.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Beth had burned the onions. Again. The air smelled rancid, the extractor fan failing to eliminate the stench.
She stared at the blackened pan and sighed. For someone supposedly good at cooking, she’d had some spectacular fails in the past few days.
‘You’re thinking about snogging, not sautéing.’
She didn’t jump this time. Gigi’s presence was both infuriating and comforting. Right now, it was the former.
‘Go away,’ she muttered under her breath.
‘I am away. Technically, spiritually and emotionally.’ Gigi lounged against the industrial oven, dressed like a low-budget 1940s film star with a paisley-patterned silk scarf round his neck. ‘I’m just … observing.’
‘You’re haunting my kitchen.’
‘I prefer the termsupervising.’
Beth scooped out the onions and started afresh. Butter, this time, with a sprinkle of sugar. Gentler. Kinder. She needed gentle and kind today.
Her phone buzzed on the side. She wiped her hands and flipped it over. Diana. She read the message.
Morning, oh enigmatic one. Did you ask him out? Slip your tongue down his throat? Blink twice if yes xx
Beth huffed and typed back:Might have. I’m wrangling burnt onions right now. Later xx
A second later:The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Not sure burnt offerings count.
Beth smiled despite herself.
The pub kitchen warmed as the lunch crowd began to turn up. Steak and ale pies slid into the oven. Soup simmered. Pastry cases lined up like obedient little soldiers. This was her rhythm: this was safe. And yet…
Her thoughts kept drifting.
Kieran’s hesitant smile in the doorway. The way his hands had hovered, as if he was afraid to touch her and afraidnotto. The warmth of him, solid and careful.
It scared her. Not because it felt wrong. Because it felt right.
‘You’re doing that thing,’ Gigi said, leaning over the prep table. ‘The frowny thing. The “I like him, but the universe will punish me” thing.’
