He stayed still for a long second, his eyes still fixed on hers, their expression unreadable.
And then he took a step back. The sudden space between them was a yawning chasm. ‘Goodnight, Lawrie. I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t be late—there’s a lot to go through.’
Lawrie suppressed a shudder. It was suddenly so cold. ‘I’m never late.’
‘Good.’
She stood by the gate, watching as he turned and began to stride down the path, ruthlessly suppressing the part of her that wanted to call after him, run after him. Yet she couldn’t ignore the odd skip her heart gave as he stopped and looked back.
‘Oh, and, Lawrie... Happy Birthday.’
And then he was gone. Swallowed up by the velvety blackness like the ghost of birthdays past.
Lawrie sagged against the gatepost, an unwelcome mixture of frustrated desire and loneliness pulsing through her. If this was how one night with Jonas could make her feel, how on earth was she going to manage a whole summer?
She forced herself upright. She was vulnerable right now, that was all. She would just have to toughen up even more—harden herself.
And stay as far away from Jonas Jones as she possibly could, boss or not.
LAWRIE WAS DETERMINED to be early.
‘Don’t be late’ indeed.
Even if she had gone to bed long after one a.m., and even if she had spent half the night lying awake in a frustrated tangle of hot sheets and even hotter regrets, there was no way she was giving him the satisfaction.
Besides, she might be in Trengarth, not Hampstead, and in her old, narrow single bed and not the lumbar-adjusted super-king-size one she had shared with Hugo, but it was nice to retrieve a little of her old routine from the wreckage of the last week.
She’d been up at six sharp, showered and ready to go by seven.
So why was she still standing irresolutely in the kitchen at ten past seven, fingering the scarf Jonas had bought her? It looked good teamed with her crisp white shirt and grey pencil skirt, softening the severe corporate lines of her London work wardrobe, and yet she didn’t want to give Jonas the wrong idea—come into work brandishing his colours.
She began to unknot it for the third time, then caught sight of herself in the mirror. Face drawn, anxious.
It’s just a scarf, she thought impatiently, pulling the door shut and locking it behind her. Not an engagement ring. She looked down at her left hand, the third finger bare—bare of Hugo’s exquisite princess cut diamond solitaire, of Jonas’s antique amethyst twist.
Two engagement rings before turning thirty. Not bad for someone who had vowed to remain independent. Her mother had been married three times before thirty; maybe Lawrie wasn’t doing so badly after all.
It was another beautiful day, with the sun already shining down from a deep blue sky completely undisturbed by any hint of cloud, and the light breeze a refreshing contrast to the deepening heat. This was Cornwall at its best—this was what she had missed on those dusty, summer days in London: the sun glancing off the sea, the vibrancy of the colours, the smell of grass, salt and beach. The smell of home.
Don’t get too used to it, Lawrie told herself as she walked along the lane—a brighter, far less intimate and yet lonelier walk in the early-morning light. This is just an interlude. It was time to start focussing on her next step, giving those recruitment agencies a quick nudge. After all, they’d had her CV for nearly a week now. She should have plenty of free time. How much work could organising a few bands be?
* * *
Five hours later, after an incredibly long and detailed hand-over by the sofa-bound Suzy, Lawrie was severely revising her estimate of the work involved. Just when had Wave Fest turned from a few guitars and a barbecue on a beach to a three-night extravaganza?
Walking back into Jonas’s office, files piled high in her arms, her head was so busy buzzing with the endless stream of information Suzy had supplied that Lawrie had almost forgotten the ending to the night before—forgotten the unexpected desire that had flared up so hotly, despite thinking about nothing else as Fliss drove her through the narrow country lanes to Suzy’s village home.
But walking back into the Boat House brought the memory flooding back. She had wanted him to kiss her.
It wasn’t real. This was Jonas Jones. She had been there, done that, moved on. Besides, Lawrie told herself firmly, she couldn’t afford any emotional ties. She was already mentally spinning this volunteer role into a positive on her CV. This could be the way to set her aside from all the other ambitious thirty-somethings hungry for the next, more prestigious role.
Volunteering to manage a high-profile project raising money for charity—an environmental charity, at that—would add to her Oxford degree and her eight successful years at an old City firm and she would be a very promising candidate indeed. She might even have her pick of jobs.
Only, Lawrie thought as she clasped the large, heavy files more firmly, negotiating contracts was a very different skill from organising a festival. She was used to representing multiple companies who thought they had first dibs on her time all the time, but at least there was uniformity to the work, making it simpler to switch between clients. This was more like running an entire law firm single-handed, handling everything from divorces to company takeovers.
There didn’t seem to be an aspect of Wave Fest that Suzy hadn’t been in charge of—that Lawrie was now in charge of—from budgets to booking bands, from health and safety forms and risk assessment to portaloo hire.
And there was a file for each task.
Jonas was hard at work as she staggered into the office, but he swung his chair round as she dumped the heavy pile on the round conference table with a bang. His face was guarded, although she could have sworn she saw a fleeting smirk as he took in the large amount of paperwork she had lugged in.
‘Changed your mind now you know what’s in store?’
It was said lightly, but a muscle beating at the side of his jaw betrayed some tension. Maybe he wasn’t as indifferent to her as he seemed. Or maybe it was another dig at her lack of commitment.
Stop trying to second-guess him, Lawrie. It was probably just a throwaway comment.
‘No, but it’s more daunting than I imagined,’ she admitted honestly. ‘This lot—’ she gestured at the files behind her ‘—is just invoices, purchase orders, health and safety certificates, insurance documents. The actual work is being emailed as we speak.’
‘Can you do it?’
‘It’s different to my usual line, and my secretary would have taken care of most of the admin-related work—but, yes, I can do it. I’ll need to spend a couple of days reading this lot, though.’
‘Here?’
‘Sorry?’
