Interesting.
‘Wait,’ I say, carefully, like I’m approaching a live bomb. ‘Sheisa relation.’
Lucy’s cheeks flush, but it doesn’t read like embarrassment, and I notice her jaw twitching as if she’s clenching her teeth. I want to tell her that it doesn’t matter, that she doesn’t owe me any answers, but I don’t. Something about her reaction has me intrigued. I might not have known her very long, but this seems absolutely out of character, and God help me, I’minvested.
‘She’s my mum,’ Lucy says quietly, just at the moment I think she isn’t going to say anything at all, and I nearly fall down dead where I stand.
Well,moredead.
Millie Partridge isn’t just famous. She’s a megastar. Even I readThe Captive Rose. And no, I didn’t cry at the treehouse scene.
Ok, I cried a bit. Whatever.
‘I, um…’ My brain feels like it’s short-circuiting– like I literally have no idea what to do with this information. ‘Wow,’ I say finally, and I cringe internally at how pathetic it sounds. I’m not the kind of person to get starstruck, generally, but this is so left-field that I’m shaken down to my roots.
Not to mention that Lucy doesn’t exactly look thrilled by the whole reveal. She clearly loves books, so you would think that being the child of an insanely successful author would be a dream come true. But that’s not how her body language is reading at all.
She tries to smile, but it’s half-hearted at best. ‘Yeah,’ she says eventually. She doesn’t even sound like herself. There’s a small tug in my chest when I meet her eyes, so slight that I almost don’t notice it. It feels like an invisible thread has just been tied to my ribcage, and it’s pulling me towards her– pulling me in.
God, maybe I should put this book down. I’m beginning to sound likeI’min a romance novel.
‘It’s complicated,’ Lucy grits out, her eyes darting away from mine again. There’s a finality in her voice. ‘I’m not ready to talk about it.’
I’m almost relieved when she says it. It feels a little like we’re standing on a precipice, and the smallest of movements might send us both tumbling deep down somewhere we’ve really nobusiness being. Her words are a firm hand on the chest pushing me back from the edge.
‘Ok,’ I reply, steadier now, and I smile in a way that I hope comes across as polite and unintrusive. I’m interested in the story, who wouldn’t be, but I don’t want to pry.
I’ll let her have her secrets. God knows I’ve got mine.
Chapter Thirteen
LUCY
I’m mortified.
Very few people make the connection between Millie and me, and even fewer ask outright, so Bram’s question caught me completely off guard. And what can I say? I panicked. I don’t even know what made me tell him the truth, but it’s out there now, and there’s no taking it back. I thought he might probe more, people usually do, but I said that I wasn’t ready to talk about it, and he listened.
I’m beginning to learn that is what he does.
It isn’t that I’m not desperately proud of Millie and everything she’s achieved– of course I am– but when I looked up and saw Bram there, clutching that damn book to his chest like he’d birthed it, it knocked the wind clean out of me. Because whatever pride I feel always seems to be matched by the wave of grief I feel when I think about her. When I remember that she chose her career over me. That I was never quite enough to make her stay.
It crushes me every time.
‘I need a minute,’ I say, and I dart out of the shop before Bram can stop me. The street outside is packed, but I manage to tuck myself into a recessed doorway nearby and try to catch my breath. There’s a puppeteer out on the cobbles in front of me, and I watch as he makes his sinister marionette dance, tracking his path across the stone.
It’s a trick I learned from researching self-help articles for a story. Find something external to train your focus on so that it isn’t focused on your problem or on your panic. A haunted puppet wouldn’t be my usual choice, but I can feel it working already. The race of my pulse steadies, and my breathing begins to ease.
By the time Bram appears next to me, I’ve calmed down enough that there’s room for embarrassment at what just happened. There’s a line of concern drawn between his brows when he looks at me, and I smile, hoping it appears less weak than it feels.
‘Sorry about that,’ I say, but he shakes his head, the action making his hair tumble over one eye.
‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ he replies simply, and then he tucks himself into the doorway next to me, a comforting presence beside me. The scent of him surrounds me, leather and sea salt, the subtle warmth of his aftershave, and something else. Something dark and undefinable. My eyes start to flicker closed, but I force them back open, staring at him maybe a little too intensely.
It’s then that I realise he isn’t holding the book anymore.
‘You put it back?’ I ask, surprise making my voice hitch almost into a squeak, but he just smiles quickly, blowing out a breath of a laugh.
‘Don’t worry about it.’