looked up, confused. Where else would she work?
Her eyes caught his. Held them. And for several long seconds she was aware of nothing but the intense blue, the flicker of heat at the heart of his gaze. She caught her breath, an ache suddenly hollowing in her chest, need mingling with the excitement clenching at her stomach. She dragged her eyes reluctantly away, loss unexpectedly consuming her as she stepped back, self-consciously pulling at a folder, looking anywhere but at him, doing her best to ignore the sudden flare of desire, her total awareness of every inch of him.
His shirt matched his eyes, was open at his throat, exposing a small triangle of tanned chest; his long legs were encased in perfectly cut charcoal trousers.
She smiled at him, making it light, trying to keep her sudden nerves hidden, her voice steady. For goodness’ sake, Lawrie, you’re a professional. ‘I was planning on it. I could work at home, but it will be easier to get answers to my questions if I’m on site.’
He nodded shortly. ‘I agree. That’s why I thought you might be better off based at the hotel.’
‘The hotel?’ For goodness’ sake, she sounded like an echo.
‘Coombe End. I appreciate it’s not as convenient as here—you won’t be able to walk to work—but as it’s the venue for Wave Fest it makes a lot of sense for you to spend most of your time there.’
His smile was pure politeness. He might have been talking to a complete stranger.
Lawrie shook her head, trying to clear some of the confusion. ‘You hold the festival at Coombe End? Your parents let you?’
She knew things had changed, but if Richard and Caroline Jones were allowing rock music and campers through the gates of Coombe End then she hadn’t come back to the Trengarth she remembered. She had entered a parallel universe.
‘No.’ His eyes caught hers again, proud and challenging. ‘They don’t. I allow it. Coombe End belongs to me. I own it now.’
She stared at him, a surge of delight running through her, shocking her with its strength. So his parents had finally shown some belief in him.
‘They gave you Coombe End? Oh, Jonas that’s wonderful.’
He shook his head, his face dark, forbidding. ‘They gave me nothing. I bought it. And I paid handsomely for every brick and every blade of grass.’
He had bought Coombe End? Lawrie looked around at the immaculately styled office, at the glass separating them from the café below, at the smooth polished wooden floor, the gleaming tiles, the low, comfortable sofas and designer chairs and tables. The whole building shouted out taste, sophistication. It shouted investment and money. She knew things had grown, changed, but how much? Whatever Jonas was doing now it was certainly more than serving up coffee and cakes to friends.
A lot more.
‘That’s great,’ she said lamely, wanting to ask a million questions but not knowing where to start.
Besides, it wasn’t any of her business. It hadn’t been for a long time.
‘I was planning to head over there this afternoon, so I could show you around, introduce you to the rest of the office staff. It’ll probably be a couple of hours before I’m ready to leave, though, is that okay?’
Lawrie shook her head, her mind still turning over the ‘rest of the office staff’ comment. How many people did he employ?
‘No problem. I want to go through this lot and make some notes, anyway.’
‘If you’re hungry just pop downstairs. Carl will make you anything you want.’
And he turned back to his computer screen, instantly absorbed in the document he was reading.
She had been dismissed. It shouldn’t rankle—this was hard enough without his constant attention. But it did.
Lawrie sat down at the table and pulled the first file towards her, groaning inwardly at the thick stack of insurance documents inside. Deciphering the indecipherable, crafting the impenetrable—those were the tools of her trade and she was excellent at it—but today her eyes were skidding over each dense sentence, unable to make sense of them. She was trying to focus all her attention on the words dancing on the page in front of her but she was all too aware of Jonas’s every move—the rustle as he shifted posture, the tap of his long, capable fingers on the keyboard.
Despite herself she let her eyes wander over to him, watching him work. She tried to pull her gaze away from his hands but she was paralysed, intent, as his fingers caressed the keyboard, pressing decisively on each key.
He had always been so very good with his hands.
‘Did you say something?’
‘No,’ she lied, hoping he hadn’t turned round, hadn’t seen her blush.
Please, she prayed silently, she hadn’t just moaned out loud, had she? For goodness’ sake she was a grown woman—not a teenager at the mercy of her hormones. At least she’d thought she was.
It was coming home. She had been away too long and this sudden return at a time of stress had released some sort of sensory memory, turning her back into the weak-kneed teenager crushing so deeply on her boss that every nerve had been finely tuned to his every word and movement. It was science, that was all.
Science, but still rather uncomfortable.
‘I’m thirsty,’ she announced. ‘I’ll just go and get some water.’
His satirical gaze uncomfortably upon her, she slid out of the door, heading for the kitchens beneath, relieved to be released from his proximity. If she didn’t get a handle on her hormones soon then she was in for a very uncomfortable few weeks.
Walking down the stairs, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, automatically checking it for messages. Just the simple act of holding it created a much-needed sense of purpose, of control.
Nothing. Not from her old colleagues, not from her friends in London, not from Hugo. It was as if they had closed the gap her absence had created so seamlessly that nobody knew she had gone. Or if they did they simply didn’t care. Yesterday had been her thirtieth birthday. She was supposed to have been having dinner with twenty of their closest friends. Other professional couples. How had Hugo explained her absence?
Or had he taken his secretary instead? His lover. After all, they had been his friends first.
This was the year she had been going to get around to finally organising their wedding.
This was the year they’d been going to discuss children. Not have them yet, obviously, but start timetabling them in.
They were supposed to have been spending the rest of their lives together, and yet Hugo had let her go without a word, without a gesture. Just as Jonas had all those years ago. Just as her mother had.
She just wasn’t worth holding on to.
Lawrie leant against the wall, grateful for the chill of the tiles on her suddenly hot face. Don’t cry, she told herself, willing away the pressure behind her eyelids. Never cry. You don’t
