‘That would be lovely,’ she says.
He drops her hand and steps toward her, putting one hand to her cheek, then the other.
‘It’s good to see you, Christina O’Flynn,’ he murmurs, and her nervousness intensifies.
Will he or won’t he?
Then he does, his lips meeting hers, his hands properly cupping her face.
She puts her hands on his waist to let him know that it’s okay, that she wants this, and she does, because he’s an excellent kisser – better than any actor she’s had to kiss, better than her LA boyfriend.
As the kiss deepens she feels herself yielding to him, and vaguely wonders just how far she should go with this man she knows and who knows her. This feels safe – he feels safe – and it’s been so long since she’s felt that. In this phase of her life, with everything that’s happened, it’s a narcotic. Which means it could be too much for her to handle right now. She should pull back, she thinks dimly, before she goes under.
Except he’s the one who stops, and her lips remain parted as she blinks up at him in surprise.
‘See, I was right,’ he says and she frowns, questioning. ‘Youareglorious.’
He kisses her once more, quickly, then lets her go.
‘I’ll call you about our next dinner,’ he says, then steps away. To give her the distance to say goodnight, she thinks.
‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she says breathily, still giddy from the kiss.
He smiles before he turns to go, out the front gate, back to his car.
She waves goodbye as he drives off, then opens the door and walks quietly past her mother’s room.
Once she reaches her room, she flops on the bed, touching her lips, knowing that even if she wanted to say no to him, she can’t. She’s already gone under.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
There was a not-very-nice conversation at home when Lucy asked her mother if she could take the sewing machine to Daphne’s charity shop.
‘Why would you want to do that?’ her mother said.
She looked angry, but she could have just been upset. It can be hard for Lucy to tell, because this sort of reaction has been happening a lot and she doesn’t know if her mother is generally miserable or specifically angry.
She knew this question would come, though, and she’d tried to find an answer that wouldn’t make her mother so upset, but it was hard to figure out what that might be.Russell scares mewas the truth, but if that got back to her father – or, worse, Russell – Lucy could be in even more strife.
I don’t have anywhere else to gowould be another unacceptable answer, she knew, so she’d decided on a version that sounded self-sacrificing. She’s spent enough years as a teenager, seeing how the world works, to understand that everyone likes it when girls and women sacrifice themselves. So even though she needs to sew at the charity shop for her own safety and peace of mind, she knows that framing it as something she’s doing for others would be the way to get what she wants.
‘I know I’m in everyone’s way here,’ she told her mother. ‘And the machine is noisy.’
‘It’s not that noisy.’ Her mother now looked less angry. But was she really going to make Lucy have to say that it was Russell who’d complained she was too noisy?
‘Um …’ Lucy smiled quickly, apologetically.
Her mother sighed. ‘What’s at this shop that you like it so much?’
‘There’s space for me.’
That was the phrase she hadn’t rehearsed, and it was the one that changed her mother’s mood back to anger.
‘I can’t believe you’d say that! There’s space for you here!’
Lucy chewed the inside of her cheek. She wasn’t prepared to compromise on being at the charity shop – sheneededto be there. But she didn’t want home to be harder than it already was, which it would be if her mother was angry at her.
There was a stand-off for a few seconds, then her mother sighed again.