couldn’t. She was also finding it hard to stifle a laugh. She knew giving a job as prestigious as the Hanborough restoration to a muppet like Guillermo had been a mistake, but not even she had imagined it would come to this. Talk about karma.
‘I need you to take over.’
‘You still have the job?’ Flora was incredulous. ‘After that?’
‘For now,’ Graydon admitted grudgingly. ‘And at vastly reduced rates, I might add. But what could I do? If this were to get out and go around the industry it could devastate our reputation. Everybody knows we have the Hanborough Castle commission. To lose it now would be disastrous. Henry Saxton Brae’s got me over a barrel and he knows it.’
Flora tried not to visualize the divine Henry Saxton Brae having Graydon James over a barrel.
‘I’ve told him I can’t oversee it personally, not full time. I had to draw the line somewhere,’ Graydon huffed.
Flora let the full import of this statement sink in. She allowed herself a short but intense moment of deep, personal satisfaction.
‘You want me to take over the project?’
‘What? Of course I want you to take it over!’ Graydon barked. ‘I’m not flying you to England for a fucking vacation, Flora!’
Vacation.
The Bahamas.
Mason.
For a moment a dark cloud of foreboding hovered ominously over Flora’s happiness. They did need a vacation. And Mason really was her priority.
But she and Mason had their whole lives together to look forward to. There would only ever be one chance to restore Hanborough Castle.
‘I’ll catch a flight to London tonight,’ she heard herself telling Graydon. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Good,’ Graydon said gracelessly, and hung up.
Mason Parker gripped the steering wheel of his Tesla Model S tightly and gritted his teeth, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.
‘You’re mad,’ said Flora.
‘No, I’m not,’ Mason grumbled. ‘I’m disappointed.’
He was driving her to JFK, something he’d hoped to be doing tomorrow, en route to their long-planned Bahamas vacation.
‘I’m disappointed too. But what was I supposed to do?’ Flora asked plaintively. ‘Turn down the job?’
Mason shrugged sulkily.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Flora. ‘If you’d been asked to work on some deal at the last minute, or to fly to meet an important client, you wouldn’t say “no”.’
‘That’s different,’ said Mason, taking the exit for the airport and immediately running into a solid wall of traffic.
‘How is it different?’ Flora bristled.
‘Because my job actually pays the bills,’ Mason snapped, in a rare loss of self-control. ‘Our bills. I’m sorry, Flora, but I’m done pretending our careers are on some sort of an equal footing.’ He paused meaningfully before the word ‘careers’, putting it in audible quotation marks. ‘I work really hard and I don’t think it’s too much to ask that when I plan, and pay for, an expensive vacation, my goddamn fiancée comes with me.’
Flora opened her mouth to speak then closed it again.
I work really hard?
What, and I don’t?
She was angry, but at the same time she knew that she was the one who had let Mason down. She was the one who’d changed their plans at the last minute. It was only natural that he should be disappointed.
Reaching out, she put a conciliatory hand on Mason’s leg. ‘We’ll do it another time, honey. Soon, I promise.’
‘I’m doing it next week,’ said Mason.
‘You’re still going?’ Flora failed to keep the surprise out of her voice. ‘On your own?’
‘Sure. Why not? The villa’s already paid for and I closed my deal. The Coateses are gonna be out there, so I won’t be on my own. And Chuck and Henrietta.’
Flora’s stomach lurched unpleasantly. Charles ‘Chuck’ Branston was Mason’s best buddy from Andover, and would be best man at Mason and Flora’s wedding next year. His sister Henrietta had always held a torch for Mason, and made no secret of her dislike for Flora, although Mason claimed not to see it.
Oh God, Flora thought miserably. He’ll be mad at me, and drunk half the time, and she’ll be all over him like a rash. In a tropical paradise.
What am I doing? What am I doing?
Mason pulled over and turned off the engine. How had they gotten here already?
‘Please don’t be mad,’ said Flora, this time with tears in her eyes. ‘I love you so much.’
‘I love you too.’ Mason softened, pulling her to him, inhaling the sweet, gardenia scent of her Kai perfume. ‘I’m only mad because I miss you, Flora. I want you with me. Now. All the time.’
‘I want that too,’ Flora whispered, relief flooding through her. He wasn’t going to run off with Henrietta Branston. She would get things started at Hanborough, then fly back and make it all up to him. Everything was going to be OK.
They both got out and Mason lifted Flora’s case out of the trunk.
‘Maybe we should bring the wedding forward?’ he said, setting it on the ground.
‘Bring it forward?’
‘Sure, why not? We could do it at Christmas.’
‘Christmas?’ Flora stammered. ‘This Christmas?’
‘I know it’s quite soon.’ Mason grinned, slipping an arm around her waist. ‘But just think, by this time next year we’d already be married and settled. How great would that be? You might even be pregnant.’
Flora forced herself to smile, shutting out the clang, clang of prison doors closing.
‘OK, well, let’s think about it.’ She kissed him. ‘I’d better run. Don’t want to miss my flight.’
‘Don’t talk to any boys on the plane!’ Mason yelled after her.
‘I won’t,’ Flora called back, waving and smiling till he was out of sight.
By the time the plane finally took off, engines roaring as it shook and juddered its way up into the clouds, Flora was so physically and emotionally exhausted she fell instantly asleep.
When
