A WEEK WENT BY, then another. Working hard and stealing time to scout out new places in the city to explore with Aubrey, Sean found a balance he’d never thought achievable. Not for him.
“Hey,” Sean called, his phone open on the webpage he’d been scrolling through. “I’m thinking of trying this new restaurant someone has opened not far from here.”
It was a little kitsch. Set up to feel like a dinner party, with everyone eating around the one big table. When Sean had read about it a couple of weeks back, just before he’d met Aubrey in fact, he couldn’t think of anything worse than having to make polite conversation with strangers. But Aubrey? It would be her bliss.
So long as he was beside her, his knee nudged against hers, his hand along the back of her chair, good food on the plate, knowing they were five minutes from home, from his waiting bed, he could handle anything.
“Aubrey,” he called, not finding her in his bedroom, though the en suite bathroom door was ajar, the light on.
“What do you think of this?” he said, pushing the door open a smidge to find her, hands gripping the edges of the sink, head slumped. Her bohemian yellow top had slipped off one shoulder, the blade poking out sharply. The veins in her arms struck blue in her pale skin.
“Aubrey,” he said, hearing the thread of dread in his own voice and not liking it one bit.
She looked up, catching his eye in the mirror. And what he saw there made his stomach muscles clutch. Fear, pain, and concealment battled in her gaze. Swimming over the top, like living mercury; her silent pleas that he not ask if she was okay.
For a moment—a heartbeat—he considered backing out and closing the door. Giving her the privacy she clearly wanted.
It was the easier move. The one with the best chance at salvaging some form of self-containment.
But he’d been there. Opted to trust. To respect boundaries.
And lived to regret it.
He pushed the door open with more force than he’d intended. And found himself asking words he’d never wanted to utter. “Aubrey, what’s going on? Are you…sick?”
She flinched. Then, with a stubborn lift to her jaw, said, “I’m fine.”
Sean looked closer, taking in the dark smudges under her eyes. Wisps of her hair curled against her forehead, as if she’d been sweating. And a whole bunch of small signs he’d blithely let slide coagulated into a telling tale.
“The vitamins you claimed to be taking… They’re not vitamins, are they?”
“Have you been through my stuff?”
“Of course not. Have you been lying to me?”
She flinched again. As if she was barely holding herself together.
Her phone rang right at that moment. A picture of a smiling couple, the ID reading Mum and Dad. Without a pause she sent it to voicemail and turned her phone over. Other times, when he’d found her talking quietly on the phone, she’d signed off as soon as she’d spotted him.
He’d thought she didn’t want whoever was on the other end to know about him. Now, he realised, she didn’t want him to know about her.
“Aubrey, you’re so pale I can see through your skin. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
A muscle flickered in her cheek. Her lean shoulders squared. As if she was preparing to take him on. Or run.
But she stayed, catching her own eye in the mirror, shaking her hair off her face, attempting to rally. “There’s plenty we don’t know about one another and that’s okay. We’ve made no promises, Malone. This has all been so lovely. Fun. Light. And I know you’d rather keep it that way.”
It was his turn to flinch, at her assessment of his character. But she was right. Or he would have said so only a few weeks before.
But now, the not knowing, the keeping everything locked up tight, it didn’t sit right. It felt shallow. And it felt untrue.
“My name is Sean.”
She blinked. Her brow furrowing.
He moved deeper into the bathroom to stand beside her, leaning a hip against the bench so she had to look at him directly. Not through the haze of the mirror.
“I was named after my grandfather, the one who taught me woodwork. My middle name is Eric. I had a lisp until I was ten and my front teeth grew in. I didn’t learn to drive till I was twenty-one because I lived in uni housing so had no need. I haven’t spoken to my parents in over a year. Before that I ignored their calls, emails, and carrier pigeons for as long as I could before checking in. Even then the contact was brief, loaded with agony as we’ve known tragedy in our family and the only way I knew how to deal with it was to put it behind me. Literally. And I know why you call me Malone.”
She looked like an animal, trapped, all wide eyes and fidgets.
He knew, as deep down inside as he’d ever let himself see, that she needed this. She dreamt of jumping out of a plane over the desert, swimming with sharks, and already she talked to any stranger who caught her eye. But, he was coming to realise, intimacy, revealing the parts of herself she believed people might not find so charming, scared the hell out of her.
Seeing her tremble and sweat overrode every instinct to turn his back. To not become involved. He held out a hand. “Come with me.”
While her innate stubbornness rolled in, like a storm over the ocean, she eventually turned and put her hand in his.
He took her into the bedroom, motioned for her to sit on the end of his unmade bed, the sheets still tangled from a night in her arms.
She sat, tucking her hands beneath her, her pinkie fingers poking out from beneath the hem of her short denim skirt.
From a drawer in his clothes chest—beneath his spare change, scraps of notepaper and passport, as if it were so much detritus—Sean found a small photo album.
His mother had had it made. A copy for her, a copy for his father, and a copy for him. He knew she’d done it in some effort to help. To show them all that the good years had far outweighed the one year of truly bad.
But it had only pressed home how deeply, how unutterably, he’d failed.
Curling his fingers around it for the first time in years, he moved to the bed, sat beside Aubrey. The spine of the album made a cracking noise as he opened it up.
The first picture was of him—kindergarten age—wearing a cowboy outfit for his fifth birthday party, his mum and dad’s faces pressed up to his cheeks. His hair was lighter, his eyes brighter. He looked happy but ready to bolt from the frame to join his friends on their bikes.
Aubrey’s finger hovered over his face. Then those of his parents. “Your mum… She looks like she could eat you up. And your dad’s hot.”
A laugh rose inside, but was quickly snuffed. He knew what she was trying to do. Her humour was her secret weapon for keeping intimacy at bay.
Sean flipped the page. Next came a picture of him at around age eight. A little girl with pigtails hugged him like there was no tomorrow.
“Who’s that?”
“That,” said Sean, running a thumb over a smudge on the page, “is my sister, Carly.”
“Carly. Have you mentioned a sister?”
Her words didn’t have their usual bite. Either she was too exhausted by whatever it was that had her slumped at his side, or she knew him well enough to understand he wasn’t sharing this lightly. That now was not the time to mock.
“I haven’t. I don’t talk about her. Or my family. If I can help it. It’s…difficult. Carly died; a little over five years ago now. Drug overdose.”
“Oh. I… I have no idea what to say.”
And so she said nothing. Simply encouraged him to turn the pages. There he was, throwing Carly in the pool. The two of them at a restaurant somewhere—Carly’s eyes crossed, his cheeks puffed out like a blowfish. The photo of him in the shed felt like yesterday; looking earnestly at their grandfather while they worked on some basic lathing, while Carly lay outside, sunning herself, reading a book.
The last photo had been taken about six months before Carly died. It was a candid shot of the family at a trade show in which one of his chairs—a fluid, sweeping, laid-back cantilever that seemed to defy gravity—had won a big prize. It was during the time Sean had believed she was better. But in the photo it was clear she was not. The light in her eyes was dimmed, her cheeks sallow, her fingers curled into claws as she fussed with her bitten-down fingernails.
Aubrey’s head slowly moved to lean against his upper arm. A warm body at his side. And it was enough to loosen the perpetual tightness in his throat.
“I was the firstborn. A good kid. Always doing the right thing. Making good choices. Good grades. My friends were all honour students, athletes, achievers. Carly was always wild. And brave. A daredevil. A risk taker. It enticed a darker crowd. Kids who craved attention from the shadows. But even as she began to change, to move away from us, to me she was always Carly. My brilliant, bratty little sister.
“When I went away to uni things got bad, fast. Drugs. Petty theft. A guy who didn’t treat her well. Chatting with Carly, she seemed fine. Brushed it off as a little light rebellion. My parents—who are not the kinds of people to show when things are hard—didn’t even let me know how bad things were till the night they came home to find their front window broken, their TV missing. They didn’t need to beg me to come home. I came. Instantly.
“Carly seemed to rally, having me around. I was her ballast. No judgement, with me she could take her time to find her way back. She could breathe. She dumped the guy. She held down a job. We all had dinner at our parents’ place three times a week.
“I got more and more antsy at being home. I’d given up my degree. All my doer friends were off doing and I was playing babysitter. As for the family dinners—the best thing I can say about them is they were polite, three courses, and on time. And Carly seemed better. My business was taking off. I revelled in being busy. I became less available each day.
“I figured my parents would let me know if things began to shift off course. But they, being the kind of people they are, again tried to shoulder it on their own.
“My little sister was twenty-three when she died. OD’d at a party held in an abandoned warehouse on pills she’d robbed from a pharmacy with her junkie ex-boyfriend.”
As he said the words, Sean felt a fog shift over him. His voice, to his ears, coming from a mile away. Then he felt Aubrey shift beside him. Heard her sniff, before her hand moved to quickly swipe at her eye.
He slowly closed the album. And looked at her. Waited till she looked at him.
“I won’t do that again, Aubrey. I won’t deliberately put myself in a position where I can be sideswiped. Tell me about the pills.”
Her eyes, red-rimmed and wholly devastated, looked deeply into his own. This woman who adored hearing people’s stories, who absorbed them like warmth from the sun, was hurting. For him.
The urge to reach up and cup her cheek, to kiss away her tears, to own her pain, was overpowering.
But he had worked too hard to create a life in which his responsibilities were simple and clear-cut. In which he did not take on more than he could bear to lose.
The wound of losing his sister still burned—open and feral and for ever. And the guilt… The guilt had stripped him bare.
Realising, then, how much he’d let slip these past few weeks, how easily she’d found a way in, he hardened his heart before saying, “Tell me now, Aubrey, or I’ll call a car to take you back to the hotel. And that’ll be it. I won’t see you again.”
“Wow,” she said, the warmth in her eyes cooling, as if she was adding a few new walls herself. “You’re sexy when you’re bossy.”
“Aubrey—”
“Okay! Okay. Okay.”
She pushed herself off the bed, went into the bathroom, rummaged around in her backpack and came back with the little container in which she kept her “vitamins”.
She rolled the bottle in her hand a few times, before handing it over.
A lot of chemical gobbledygook and brand names with angiotensin converting enzyme, ACE, inhibitors written in bold.
From what little he knew of such things an inhibitor reduced or suppressed…something. Was it a thyroid thing? Something as simple as that?
“I’m not a chemist, Aubrey. You’re going to have to translate.”
“Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors relax the blood vessels so that the heart doesn’t have to work quite so hard.”
Her heart? The hardness around his own took a hit. “And why would your heart not need to work so hard?”
She looked down at her hands, her fingertips and thumbs running over one another in a nervous dance. Then she breathed out hard and said, “A couple of years back, right after the music festival in Copenhagen, in fact, I collapsed. I ended up in a Danish hospital for several weeks while they tried to figure out why. They were stuck on believing I’d taken something at the show, you see. That it was an allergic or toxic reaction to some dodgy ingredient cut into some dodgy drug.”
Aubrey shot him a look then, piecing together his story with hers. Her eyes filled with mortification and sorrow. “It wasn’t like that! I promise. I’m not into that kind of thing. A cocktail, yes. But before the collapse I’d avoid even taking paracetamol.”
Sean said, “I believe you. Go on.”
“My parents did what good people do and listened to the doctors. When questioned, as I lay on a ventilator by that stage, they admitted I was headstrong. A little wild. Not so good at following rules. They…believed it was my fault.”
Sean’s fingers curled into fists in the effort to sit still and listen. To not react. Or comfort. Or cut his losses and walk away.
“Anyhoo, since they were on the wrong track, I went downhill fast. Ended up in the ICU. Even an induced coma for a period before they diagnosed me as having myocarditis. My heart, by that point, had taken a beating. I went into heart failure.”
Sean’s eyes felt so gritty, he forced himself to blink.
“My folks… They’ve never forgiven themselves for not trusting me. Not pushing harder, faster, for a correct diagnosis. Then they started blaming themselves. Figured it was something to do with the paint we used at the shop. That they hadn’t provided good enough safety equipment. Or the right size.
“Truth was I’d not told anyone about the shortness of breath, or the occasional missed heartbeats I’d felt leading up to that day, figuring it was down to excitement that I was finally heading off on the trip I’d been saving for since I sold my brothers’ Lego to other kids at school when I was eight years old. I didn’t want anyone to tell me if I was sick I couldn’t go. But turns out I had a virus. The virus caused the myocarditis.
“They pumped me full of all kinds of gear—anti-viral corticosteroids, inhibitors, beta blockers, now the meds to reduce the risk of blood clots forming in my heart. I’m only on a tiny dose now, working towards coming off them, which is great. But—”
After a few long seconds, Aubrey pulled down the top left shoulder of her shirt and he finally understood why she’d never removed her shirt any time they’d made love.
There was a scar, about an inch long, just above her heart. And above it? A tiny tattoo, etched along the top. The zigzag of a heartbeat, looping into a broken heart, then a zigzag again.
“I had a mechanical pump inserted inside me for a while, until they decided I wasn’t in need of a transplant. Then I went home. Not well enough to drive, work, go out and be in the world for months. Can you imagine? Me cooped up? On bed rest?”
Sean attempted an expression that showed he understood, but he was still attempting to absorb the image of the scar; puckered, pink, and clearly recent.
“So I hunkered down. I ate my veggies. I did my rehab exercises. Saw a psychologist who helped me more than anyone. Dry wit. Honest. Gave me great practical tools. I loved her. Till she told me I can’t have kids.”
Aubrey said the words in the same tone as if she were telling him a funny story about one of her nephews, but her body… She all but crumpled before him. Her face falling into her hands.
Sean’s next breath squeezed from his lungs. He wished he’d never found her in the en suite bathroom. That right now he was booking dinner someplace light. And fun.
And yet…
Knowing this, knowing her truth, having shared his, everything had changed. He felt in it now. Grounded. The urge to keep moving, doing, exploring, to stay out of his own head simply dissolved away.
“Aubrey,” he said. “Sweetheart. It’s okay. You don’t have to say any more.”
“No!” she said, sitting up, her eyes a liquid gold as they held onto his. “I want to. I have to. It’s like an animal trying to claw its way out of my chest.”
“Okay then. Let it out. I can take it.” It was his turn to absorb her story. As best he could with his limited experience. His limited means.
She nodded. Licked her lips. “She told me that having children… They never say never. Fear of getting sued, I guess. She said the chances are infinitesimally small. She gave me pamphlets about freezing eggs, and egg donation, and the legalities of surrogacy. I’m for all that. Whatever it takes for a family to have a kid or a kid to have a family. It’s just… The dream I had of my future was so simple. It didn’t seem like too much to ask. And to be told no. Just no. It…it’s been challenging to see the way forward.”
“Tell me about it,” said Sean. “Tell me your dream.”
Aubrey looked at him anew. Her brow furrowing. As if she was trying to figure out if he was merely indulging her. Then she looked up at the chandelier hanging over his bed, and breathed out a shaky sigh. “You, with your grand life, you’d think it was silly.”
“Not a chance. I promise.”
And so she told him. Travel, a nice guy, house, yard, kids. Weekend barbecues with her brothers and all the nieces and nephews. Grandparents involved every step of the way. That was it.
It sounded…loud, messy and chaotic for a guy who grew up in a house in which there was no running, no dirty shoes. Where the backyard was a showpiece kept by the gardener, with a sister who was glared at any time she burped at the dinner table. The older he’d become, the more it had felt as if it weren’t real, more some halcyon existence people used to sell SUVs and home loans.
“How about you?” she asked, catching him off guard. “Do you want kids?”
His, “No,” was quick. And honest.
Even before the shadow of Carly’s death, trying to carve out a life of his own, one that felt real, and true, had been challenging without a model on which to base it. The thought of bringing kids into that felt unfair.
For Aubrey, he gentled. “I didn’t grow up with the same kind of family you did. Our life was more…structured. Composed. Less barbecue, more dress for dinner. I like kids. I was one once, if you can believe that. But after Carly… I just don’t see how parents do it—live with the fear, every second, that no matter what they did it could still end in tragedy.”
Aubrey blinked. “Hate to tell you, but that’s Parenting for Beginners. My oldest brother still holds a mirror to his son’s sleeping mouth to check he’s breathing before he himself goes to bed.”
“Was that meant to change my mind?”
“No,” Aubrey said, letting go a laugh that was more of a sob.
Then she reached over, and took his hand. Hers was small. Cool. He curled his fingers around it. She waited till he looked her in the eye.
Her eyes were clear. So clear he felt he could see a mile past the surface, right into her deepest depths. To find someone complicated. Searching. Determined. Kind. Empathetic. And drawn to him, still.
“Don’t want kids if you don’t want kids. Just don’t be a fatalist,” she said, her voice no longer wavering. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“Then what does suit me?”
“Linen,” she shot back without pause. “Those jeans, the dark ones, that hug your backside just so. The colour blue. The look you get when you think I don’t know you’re watching me. All hot and simmering, full of ideas of what you’d like to do to me when you next get me alone. I like that on you best of all.”
She nudged him with her shoulder, trying to perk him up.
Sean snuck a finger under her chin, tilted her face till she looked him in the eyes. “What do you need me to do?”
Her mouth opened, and closed. “Not a single thing. This has been perfect. Lovely. Magical. You, Sean Malone, have been an antidote.”
Sean’s fingers slid around the edge of her chin. His thumb tracing her jaw. “That’s right, you’re using me.”
“I’m totally using you. And don’t you forget it.”
Something shifted in the air in that moment. Like an invisible string curling around them.
“The thing is though, Aubrey, I know you like to take on the world as if daring it to even try and stop you. But you’re not invincible. None of us are. It’s okay to make mistakes. To take a day. It’s okay to slow down.”
A smile flickered across her full lips. “I know. I do. Just—”
“Just?”
“If you treat me differently after this, Sean, as if I’m some fragile flower, I’m not sure I’ll handle it.”
“Never.”
“You sure? First time I saw you I thought, Hot damn. First time you saw me you thought, She’s gonna be mugged.”
That was true. But hot damn had followed right on after for him too.
“I will never treat you as if you are a fragile flower,” he said. “I promise.”
She swallowed, her eyes locked onto his. Fierce and damaged. Wary but warm. The most beautiful contradiction he’d ever known. And those eyes—those brimming oaken whisky eyes—drank him up. He’d never in his life had anyone look at him the way she did.
And Sean felt the last vestiges of the protective shell around his iron heart shudder and shift, dissolving in places, floating away in others, not sure if he’d ever be able to re-forge them again.
Then she straightened her spine, leaned into him, and lifted to gently press her lips against his. She kissed him softly, again and again, until he had no choice but to kiss her back.
It was an elixir. She was an elixir. A giver of life. But he had been empty for so very long, his well dry, he did not want to deplete her.
So he broke the kiss. Pulled away.
She rested her forehead against his chin. “That was intense.”
“Little bit.”
“Let’s say we don’t do that again for a while.”
“What’s a while?”
A single shoulder shrug, her shirt falling a little further down her arm. “Not sure. A bit longer. Maybe. If it’s still okay with you.”
“Sure. Why not?”
“That’s the spirit.” She moved up onto her knees, straddling him. Both hands on his shoulders, she gave him a shove, pushing him back onto the bed. Then she leaned over him, lips hovering just over his. “You and me, we are both allowed to make mistakes. We are both allowed to take a day. And we could both do with a little fairy dust.”
Another kiss, deep this time. Her warm body melting into his.
Sean’s arms went around her, his hands sliding beneath her loose top and up her bare back to find her hot, lush and a little sweaty.
She pulled away, panting slightly, her eyes dark and determined.
“Let’s agree, here and now, to be one another’s fairy dust. To keep this thing easy and light. A holiday fling. No promises, no debts. No knight-in-shining-armour concern for my busted heart. Trust me when I say I’ve got this. I’m all over it. I’m fine. Is that okay with you, Sean?”
“It’s okay with me.” Heaven help him, as he said the words he’d half believed them.
Till she had to go and call him by his name.
Not Malone. Sean.
He slowly rolled her over, till they were side by side, legs intertwined. “Show me your tattoo again.”
“What? No.”
“No promises. No debts. But no more secrets either. Show me.”
Nostrils flaring, eyes brimming with vulnerability, she slowly pulled down the neckline of her shirt to reveal the tattoo. And the scar.
His heart, now unprotected, beat hard against his ribs. “Does it hurt?”
She shook her head, not meeting his eyes. “It can pull a little. Can be tender when it’s cold out.”
And while the thought of why it was there tore at him, his anger was stronger still. That someone so lovely and kind and bright could be so struck. Could feel untethered for so long.
Breathing deep, he leaned down and kissed her, just above her scar, on the tattoo she’d been too afraid to let him see lest he treat her as if she was breakable. Right on her broken heart.
She shuddered.
When he pulled back tears were streaming down her face. Emotion so raw and real it was more than he could hope to name. And while it felt light years beyond easy, beyond light, beyond a holiday fling, he drew her to him, anyway, losing himself in her.
They never made it out to dinner.
* * *
The next morning, Aubrey woke to find herself alone in bed.
Mind you, it was nearing ten in the morning, after an emotionally exhausting night, followed by the most wonderful, tender, glorious make-up sex.
The sound of whirring machinery told her there was work afoot deep below the villa.
She stretched herself out to the four corners of the bed, groaning as bits and pieces of The Conversation came back to her. For all the lovely that had come after, it had been so hard admitting the truth of her condition to Sean.
Finding out could have easily been a tipping point for him. The man was a grown-up. With strong opinions. And limits as to what he would accept. And she’d pushed those limits pretty hard. Regards his staff. And the people in the laneway. And his family.
She groaned, flinging her arm over her eyes.
What a fool she’d been.
Not only to assume his greatest benefits were his pretty face. And clever hands. But to suggest they agree, out loud, to keep things easy and light, no promises, no plans.
When her feelings for Sean Malone had grown to be anything but easy. Anything but light.
Because last night she’d finally seen into the man’s heart. And what a massive beast of a thing it was. Deep, soulful, caring, steadying, protective, understanding. And forgiving. During The Conversation, that strength had more than made up for the restraints of her own faulty ticker.
Despite his own pain, his own self-confessed limitations—and what sounded like some deeply held survivor’s guilt—he’d listened, he’d respected, he’d held her close.
Because he cared. For her. Not because she was the kind of girl who’d always had the ability to convince people to do things for her, but because he wanted to. Wanted her. More than he wanted the peace and quiet of the lifestyle he’d carved out before she’d stumbled raucously into his life? Maybe. Just maybe.
Holding tight to that thought, she rolled out of bed feeling…airy. As if a huge burden had been lifted off her shoulders.
After showering and changing and repacking her backpack—having picked up a couple of changes of clothes from her hotel the day before—she opened the bedroom door to find Ben slowly pacing the floorboards as if he’d been doing so for some time.
“Ah, hello?”
He flinched. “Aubrey. Hi. Morning.”
“You’re not Sean.”
“I did mention you might notice that.”
Mention. Meaning Sean knew he was there.
Aubrey moved to sneak around Ben, only to have him lean to block her. She held out both hands. “Whoa there, partner. What’s going on?”
“Um, Sean has to work today. Commission deadline. Admin. All piled up. I thought… I offered to show you some stuff today. Around town.”
“Did you now?”
“Yep.” Ben looked up and away, classic sign of lying.
She’d have felt sorry for him if all the lovely, warm, exciting, new feelings she’d been revelling in not that long ago weren’t now caught up in a massive messy jumble.
Aubrey slid her phone from the outer pocket of her backpack and called Sean. What would she say when he answered? Are you avoiding me? Because I’m sick? Did the cold light of day bring all we said into sharp, all too real relief?
She swore she could hear the faint shrill of the ringtone from downstairs, yet the phone rang out.
So she typed in a text. Showing it to Ben. “Too much?”
Ben shook his head, then nodded, all while looking as if his eyes were about to bug out of his head.
She hit send.
What’s the haps, Malone? You seem to have shrunk. And your hair changed colour. And when I kissed you, you tasted different.
Sean texted right back as if he’d been waiting for it.
Funny girl. I have to work. You have to play. That is how it is written. So I’ve given Ben the day off to show you his Florence.
Aubrey felt the air leave her nostrils in a frustrated steam. She showed Ben his boss’s response. He looked so pale she might have worried he’d faint if she weren’t feeling so furious.
“Next time, do a better job of keeping your stories straight, okay?”
“Okay,” said Ben.
Aubrey scrunched up her face in chagrin. “Sorry. This isn’t on you. Not your fault your boss is a stubborn so-and-so. And I’d actually love to see your Florence. I’m imagining less walking, less opera.”
Ben laughed, then ran a hand up the back of his neck. “I was thinking food and a vinyl-record store I haven’t had a chance to check out.”
It was enough for her to refrain from showing Ben her next message.
You do remember what happens when men show me their Florence, right?
A few long, heavy beats slunk by as Sean took that one in. His eventual response?
I remember.
As she imagined the word in his deep intimate voice, Aubrey’s belly filled with butterflies. Goose bumps skittered all over her skin.
They had something. It was deeper than either of them would admit. And clearly, considering he was giving himself some space, Sean was struggling with it as much as she was. Could she blame him? Should she call him on it? Or give him a day? Give him whatever time he needed?
Sean filled the gap, texting.
Dinner. The best fettucine of your life. I’ll tip the waiter to serenade you. You can even pick the song.
Aubrey coughed out a laugh.
And she closed her eyes as she told her heart to stop fussing and settle down.
Sean was a grown-up. With strong opinions. And limits as to what he would accept.
But so was she.
She ducked around Ben and darted down the stairs to the workshop where she found Flora and Sean arguing. Arms flailing. Boisterous Italian bouncing off the ancient stuccoed walls.
When Flora saw Aubrey she stopped, her face reddening. Muttering, only slightly less loudly than she’d been shouting, Flora threw up her hands and turned away.
Sean spun, his dark eyes catching on hers.
Her heart fluttered, coughed, caught on the look in his eyes. The caution. The concern. Before he blinked and it was gone. His face clear. His expression blank.
“Problem?” Aubrey asked.
“We were just arguing over…the shape of a table leg,” Sean assured her.
Flora snorted. And the concerns Aubrey had pushed out of her mind came back with a vengeance.
“Okay, so I just wanted to check in before Ben and I head off. We’re going to have the best time! Right Ben?”
Ben, hovering on the bottom step, muttered, “Um, sure. We’ll have a nice time. Average nice. The regular kind.”
“Sure you don’t want to play hooky and join us, Malone?”
Sean’s cheek twitched at her use of his last name. His eyes dark, unreadable. No smile. No mocking come back. No sign of the man who’d held her so close the night before.
“Okay then, bye,” Aubrey said, backing away before the tickle in the backs of her eyes turned into something.
As she ducked out of the workshop doors into the light of day, she wished she’d never caught the look in Flora’s eyes. Full of sorrow and regret. As if she’d seen this version of Sean before.
* * *
Sean followed Aubrey to the double doors leading out to the drive. But even while a thousand words crammed into his throat—from Wait, I’ll take you to I am a damn fool—he said not a word.
He watched as Ben helped her into his Fiat. Watched as she smiled up at the lanky kid. Said something that made Ben laugh. And blush. And run a hand up the back of his neck.
Aubrey did not wave as the car drove away. Or even look back. He could picture her jaw, tight and strong. Her shoulders back and fierce. Her clever brain ticking over all the reasons he might have sent her off without him.
“Dammit,” he muttered, the word tight in his throat.
Part of him wanted to message her, to ask if she had the answer. Because he sure didn’t. Not with any real clarity.
All he knew for sure was that from the moment he’d seen her gripping the edge of the sink the night before, her face pale, sweat dappling her brow, something huge had shifted inside him, and was still shifting. Knocking, crushing, rearranging him at the cellular level.
After hours of it, he felt a bruising ache. All over. Every breath hurt. Every feeling stung. The thought of holding her, agony. The thought of letting her go even worse.
She was right. He had sensed it—her fragility—that first day. For all her strength, her confidence, her determination, it was something she’d carry with her always. The same way he’d carry Carly’s death.
A shadow. A ghost.
Being with her, letting her light warm him when he’d been in the cold for so long, he’d been sure he was inured against her like. That his experience had tempered him to a point of invulnerability.
Aubrey was something he’d never counted on.
“Sean?” Flora’s voice called, flatly. “Malone.” Then, “Boss?”
Sean turned.
“If you’re done mooning, can you please give me the instructions you simply had to give me this morning, the ones that were so important you sent Ben in your stead? Or can I go back to doing what I already do perfectly?”
“I… Sure. Maybe.”
Flora moved to him, smacked him in the arm. “Focus. If she messes with your head, boss, we all suffer. We need the work, just as you do. So pull yourself together.”
“Flora!” Angelina exclaimed, while Hans furiously cleaned the crevices of a turned table leg with a toothbrush.
“He needs to be told!” said Flora. “For his own good! As he looked after us when we needed it most, now it is our turn to look after him.”
Sean looked at her, then at his crew, all bar Ben, who was hopefully driving safely down the hill with his precious cargo in tow.
To think, only a few weeks before they’d all been so polite. Yes, boss. No, boss. Three bags full, boss.
Flora would never have punched him, much less roused at him, or sassed him. Now they were all at it. Ribbing him about Aubrey. And castigating him if they thought he could do better. Coming to him with ideas, telling jokes, and sharing their own stories.
Giving him space if he needed it. And a knock to the head if he needed that too.
As if they were family.
Aubrey, he thought, her name a clutch in his belly. Aubrey had done that. The seeds had been there. In the good people he’d chosen to be around. The wish, on their behalf. She’d yanked them all together in a way he’d not had it in him to allow before.
Aubrey, with her scars. Far more literal than his own.
Aubrey, with her already badly broken heart.
He was the one who had to find the strength to let it in. To let her in. Fully. None of this light, easy, no-promises guff.
He had to give this thing a chance, or his actions would be truly unforgivable.