“So…I guess this is goodbye.”
Christa looked up at Devon. After Tony’s arrest, one of the constables had called to say his ex-partner’s niece had been found, and so she asked to come along with him to Brighton.
Now, she saw so many things when she looked at him – the man who’d helped her and Mum, who’d saved her, made love to her. The man she’d come to depend on in so many ways.
The man she’d fallen in love with.
“It doesn’t have to be,” she said finally.
He let out a short breath. “I don’t see it working, Christa. After all, you’ll be gone for months at a time, touring; I’ll be off on stake-outs or surveillance, investigating crime scenes. We won’t have much time together.”
She raised her brow. “I’ll take what I can get.”
He placed his hands gently on either side of her face. “We’re nothing alike, Christa. You’re a celebrity! You’re miles out of my league…”
“I told you, all that celebrity stuff isn’t who I really am.”
“Who are you, then?”
“I’m nobody special,” she told him, her eyes fixed on his. “I grew up on the Mile End Road. I could’ve ended up like any of the girls back then – pregnant at fifteen, married to someone like Tony, strung out on drugs or on the game – but I didn’t, because of my music. I worked so bloody hard to make myself a different life. I did…and it saved me.”
“But I’m not a rock singer, or one of those boy-band singers with his arm around you in the tabs.”
Her eyes widened. “You’ve followed me in the tabs?”
“I might’ve done, once or twice.”
Christa laughed. “Oh, Dev – that’s just publicity. I don’t know – or care about – any of those blokes.” Her eyes grew serious on his. “I told you, all of that ‘pop singer’ stuff is fake. It’s not me.”
“Then who are you, really?” he asked again, and quirked his brow. “Are you the girl who likes The Clash and makes the best curry in Bethnal Green? Or the pop singer on the cover of the Probe, wearing a scrap of a dress that probably costs more than I make in a year?”
“I’m a bit of both,” she confessed. “I do like to dress up. And I do love my Louboutins.”
He leaned forward to kiss her. “You see?” he murmured. “I can’t afford the likes of you.”
“Who I am,” she said softly, “is who I am when I’m with you.”
“Well, then,” Devon said, and kissed her again, “if that’s the case, I think we might just be able to make this thing work.”