Santa Margherita, Italy … Three months later
Grace buckled her seatbelt and gazed out of the aeroplane window, barely able to quell the swirl of delight that was building within her. Not long now and she would be back in beautiful Italy with her boyfriend, Ellis, for a wonderful weekend together. Pushing her sunglasses up – she had treated herself to a pair of tortoiseshell Versace ones, just like Nonna Maria’s – not real, expensive ones, but near enough. Grace’s shades were fake and therefore a fraction of the price, from a stall in Greenwich Market. One of the places she liked to wander around on a Saturday afternoon on her way back from an art gallery in London or a dance class at the famous Pineapple Studio. Yes, she loved going out on her own now. She loved the freedom of it. The feeling of doing exactly as she pleased and whenever she liked. Because it had turned out that Cora wasn’t as immobile as she had led Grace and her three siblings to believe.
While Grace had been away, her brother Mikey, outraged and egged on by a still fuming Bernie, because Grace had had the temerity to leave Cora and go to Italy, had installed a secret camera in her bedroom. Mikey had never liked Jamie, his macho ego uncomfortable around ‘gayness’, as Mikey ignorantly called it, and so the camera was installed with the intention of spying on Jamie. Or, to put in Mikey’s words, ‘to make sure the staff aren’t slapping the old dears around like you see on those undercover documentary programmes on the telly’ as he had said that time before in the phone conversation when Grace had called him asking him for help caring for their mother.
But an altogether different scene had met their eyes on watching the film back. Jamie had told Grace all about it when she had first arrived home the day after Ellis had made love to her all night long.
‘There I was, dashing around, making her ladyship a mug of warm milk with a pinch of nutmeg sprinkled on the top, just the way she likes it, when your Mikey, Sinead and Bernie burst through the back door into the kitchen and near scared the life out of me,’ Jamie had said, clutching a hand to his chest at this point. ‘Then the next thing I know, there’s this almighty palaver with Mikey running up the stairs and yelling for Cora to get up. To get her, and I quote, “lazy, selfish, conniving backside out of the bed at once”. Well, obviously I elbowed my way round them and into Cora’s bedroom with the intention of putting a stop to it all, thinking Mikey had seriously lost the plot, figuring all that financial wheeling and dealing he does had addled his brain. And I know your mother can be extremely difficult and controlling but … well, she was in my care and Mikey was absolutely livid. Who knew what he was capable of? But there he was, ripping a camera and a bundle of wires from the top of the wardrobe while Bernie was shoving an iPhone screen into my face! “Watch this!” Bernie had instructed, you know, in that bossy way she has. And so I did. Bold as brass your mother was, Grace, mooching around her bedroom without a care in the world. The camera had caught Cora practically springing out of bed every time I left the room. And to think they installed a camera to catch me out. Flaming cheek. But … and if that wasn’t bad enough … the proverbial cherry on the top of the very mucky cake that Cora had cooked up, was a film clip of her wiggling her ample hips and doing a shoulder-shimmy in time to the Countdown theme tune!’
At this point Grace’s eyes had almost popped right out of her head, barely able to believe what she was hearing, before she had then confronted her mother too, demanding a full explanation, and remembering that time when she had wondered how things had moved themselves around in Cora’s bedroom. Well, now she knew! Cora had been playing her daughter for all that time.
After Grace had watched the film too, Cora had broken down; it had been awful seeing her hard, bitter façade crumble so pathetically as she had admitted that she was scared of her own increasing frailty and what would become of her as she got even older. But rather than be angry, Grace had felt an overwhelming rush of relief, as the revelation had set her free. She was no longer tied to caring for her mother, who no wonder had refused to consider a care home, for she would have been found out to be a fraud right away. So Grace had listened as her mother explained that she knew all her children hated her, but she was lonely, and that, ‘I suppose I wanted you to stay with me when you came back home’, to which Grace had told her mother that she would have done so anyway if she had just been honest.
But that was in the past now. A week later, Cora had had a modest win on her scratchcard and so given Grace the money to enrol on a part-time performing arts teacher-training course to make up for having used her as an unpaid carer for all that time. And after many evenings of chatting things through, Grace had come to understand that her mother was scared and lonely, and so they had organised some things to do together, too, and had already enjoyed cinema visits and trips to the garden centre café. Cora had also taken it upon herself to join a slimming club in a bid to lose some of her bulk and had already teamed up with a couple of other ladies her age and now that she had the mobility scooter, she regularly went to the bingo with them.
Grace smiled to herself as the lush mountainous terrain came in to view. The pine trees and sunshine glittering over the Ligurian Sea as the aeroplane landed at Genoa Airport. She couldn’t wait to see Ellis, who was arriving from New York a few hours after her and coming straight to the powder pink villa to meet her there. Having kept in touch with Tom and Georgie, they had squared it with Nonna Maria for them all to be allowed to stay in the villa for the weekend. And Grace couldn’t wait to see inside the home where Connie had lived and had been so happy with Giovanni.
Stepping out of the taxi that Grace had hopped into at the airport, not fancying another long, hot walk up the windy mountain road to the powder pink villa, with a suitcase in tow, she was happy to see that Georgie and Tom were already here.
‘Hi Grace,’ Georgie smiled, looking radiant in a white floaty sundress as she walked towards her with Gypsy tucked under her arm.
‘How was your journey?’ Tom said, kissing her on each cheek and then taking her suitcase from the boot of the taxi and wheeling it off towards the metal gates at the entrance to the villa.
‘Hi Georgie, it’s so good to be back here in Italy,’ Grace said, giving her a hug. ‘And the journey was fine, thanks, Tom,’ she added, walking alongside Georgie as they followed Tom down the long driveway and up three stone steps to the door of the villa that was framed by an array of exotic vermilion red begonias.
‘You can take it from here,’ Tom said, opening the door and placing Grace’s suitcase inside.
‘Aren’t you coming in too?’ she asked, baffled that they were leaving her on her own when she had only just arrived.
‘Oh, we have some things to do in Portofino,’ Georgie said vaguely, fiddling with Gypsy’s little collar before kissing the cat on the head.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Tom chipped in, putting his arm around Georgie. ‘But you’ll be fine. Ellis will be here before you know it and so why don’t you go and have a look around and make yourself comfortable. There are drinks in the bar off the dining hall and snacks in the kitchen if you’re hungry.’ And then, before she could ask more, they had both practically scarpered back down the driveway and disappeared out of sight. How odd, Grace thought, but in her anticipation to see where Connie had lived, she let it go from her mind.
Inside, and Grace was completely overcome as she imagined Connie closing the huge oak door behind her and walking across the marble tiled floor and into the vast sitting room which had two sparkling chandeliers and an array of sumptuous patterned silk sofas dotted around. Magnificent floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto a wraparound veranda that gave a panoramic view of the dazzling Italian Riviera. Then, leading off the sitting room, was a dining hall with a long table that could seat twenty people, at least, comfortably. An opulent mural covered the whole of one wall – beautiful Renaissance women draped in fabric and lounging around a table laden with food – grapes, cheeses, bread and flagons of wine. Grace stepped closer and saw Giovanni’s initials in the bottom right-hand corner. She crouched down to gently touch an index finger there, knowing that Connie would have done exactly the same for sure.
Standing up, Grace closed her eyes for a few seconds and imagined Connie and Giovanni, in happier times, Frank Sinatra music playing, or Dean Martin, or Pavarotti perhaps, as they entertained their friends in here with fabulous feasts followed by cocktails on the veranda, for there was another veranda just through the opened wooden doors. She could hear voices floating in from outside and went to investigate. Maybe Georgie and Tom were still in the grounds.
As Grace walked down the path, tilting her face up to the gloriously warm sun, inhaling the scent of frangipani, the sound of birdsong all around, she could hear a man’s voice. Ellis. And her heart lifted in anticipation of seeing him. But what was he doing here already? And she could hear female voices too. Three of them, if she wasn’t mistaken … laughing and then shushing covertly as if they were embroiled in some kind of conspiracy. She kept on walking and, as she reached the little rose garden in the far corner, with the pine-tree-clad cliffs for a backdrop, Grace could see Ellis. Her pulse quickened as she ran towards him, keen to give him a big hug as she had missed him so much. They had spoken every day since they were last here in Italy together, but it just wasn’t the same, and as she reached him and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close, she could feel tears of happiness bubbling up inside her.
‘Hey, darling,’ he said softly, as he pulled back to see her face. ‘This is supposed to be a surprise, a happy one I had hoped … please don’t cry.’
‘And it is,’ she laughed, wiping her eyes, ‘I’m just a bit overwhelmed, I guess. I thought you weren’t arriving until later. I’m so pleased to see you …’
‘And me you. Let’s have a proper reunion later when it’s just us,’ he grinned, giving her a kiss on the lips.
‘I can’t wait,’ she grinned right back.
‘But first … come on, there’s someone else here who can’t wait to see you.’
‘Who?’ she asked, intrigued as she glanced over his shoulder.
But Ellis didn’t say … instead he took Grace by the hand and led her over to where three women were sitting in the shade underneath a pergola, a flurry of yellow butterflies floating around the nearby honeysuckle.
‘Grace,’ he said, stepping forward towards the oldest of the three women who was standing up now, the two younger women on either side of her. ‘This is Lara.’
‘Lara?’ Grace couldn’t believe it and her mouth dropped open and her eyes nearly popped right out of their sockets.
A short silence followed as she stood, dumbfounded.
Then after quickly recovering herself, she swallowed and blinked and took another look at the woman, as if checking for real that she was actually here. Grace saw the impish green eyes, like emeralds … just as Connie had described. Her hair was still curly, but a silvery grey now with age. And there it was too, a look of Connie, when she was standing by the boats in the picture taken in Portofino back in 1952. Grace could actually see Connie, Lara’s mother, looking back at her. And she caught her breath.
‘But how? How did you find her?’ She swivelled her head to look at Ellis and then back to the woman standing before her. ‘And why did you keep her a secret until now?’ she said, half laughing and half chastising as she batted his arm with her hand.
‘Your boyfriend knocked on my front door,’ Lara said, in a refined New York accent, smiling as she took both of Grace’s hands in hers. ‘And I can’t thank you enough for giving him my address.’
‘Your address?’ Grace echoed, laughing harder as she tried to figure it all out.
‘That’s right. The one on the postcard from Italy,’ Ellis grinned.
‘You still live in Aunt Rachael’s house in Manhattan?’ Grace asked, still stunned. The address on the postcard was where she had asked Ellis to start the search, imagining someone there might, by some miraculous chance, have known where the previous occupants had moved to, or a neighbour perhaps might know of Aunt Rachael and her relatives from England and what had happened to them … if the young girl who had moved to America all those years ago was even still alive? But what were the chances of Ellis actually finding Connie’s daughter, Lara, living right there … in plain sight for all this time? It was truly remarkable.
‘Well, it’s my house now,’ Lara said. ‘My Aunt Rachael died when I was a child and left the brownstone to my parents and—’ She paused, abruptly. ‘Oh dear, please excuse me,’ she then added, and turned away as she tried to correct herself, ‘the house was left to my, um … grandparents, I guess, and then in turn to me. I’m so sorry, I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. Not here in this wonderful place …’ she finished, fishing in her bag before pulling out a hanky and dabbing her eyes.
‘It’s OK, Mom.’ One of the other women moved forward to put her arm around Lara as she steered her towards a white wicker sofa, then introduced herself to Grace. ‘I’m Patty, Lara’s daughter, and this is Ellen, my sister,’ she said, and Ellen gave Grace a hug, and then after settling their mum in the seat, Patty explained, ‘It’s been quite overwhelming for her; you see Mom didn’t know …’
And so as they sat in Connie’s picturesque garden, drinking ice-cold lemonade, Lara’s daughters told Grace what had happened all those years ago. It turned out that Lara had indeed grown up believing that Connie was her older sister, and with only a faded memory of seeing her occasionally during the war in England, so she had no real recollection of her. Although Lara did remember her bat mitzvah party ending abruptly when Connie turned up in the middle of it and a very strained atmosphere ensued. Lara remembered being told to take her beloved dog, Lady, out into the garden and to stay there with Aunt Rachael and all their friends. It stuck in her mind as she had been allowed to eat chocolate cake before tea and that was never normally allowed. Lara didn’t recall ever seeing Connie again after that day, and her instinct, at even such a young age, had told her not to ask about Connie or indeed mention her name ever again … and so through the mists of time her ‘sister’ had faded from her thoughts completely.
‘And so thank you for not giving up the search, Grace,’ Patty said, finishing the last of the lemonade in her glass. ‘It means the world to Mom to be here and to see where her actual mother, Connie, lived. Ellis has been so kind in helping us sort out all the travel arrangements; he even drove us to JFK airport yesterday—’
‘Yesterday?’ Grace smiled, shaking her head. ‘Is that when you got here? I thought he was coming today.’
‘Yes, that’s right. Don’t be hard on him, he wanted to surprise you and we thought it would be nice for Mom to meet you here first before we travel on to London.’
‘Wow. Does this mean you are coming to Cohen’s? That’s the storage place where Connie’s belongings are,’ Grace asked, hopefully, for she wanted so much for Lara to see exactly how Connie had carefully stored all that she owned for her.
‘Yes, that’s right, we need to take care of some legalities around the paintings and pieces of jewellery. And then we are hoping you can take us to where Connie ended her days. We would also like to find out where she is buried, so we can pay our respects … And to Franklin Street in Deptford to see where Mom’s father, Jimmy, lived. Mom really wants to visit Blackheath park too, and the heath where Connie met him at the funfair. Ellis has talked us through the whole love story she wrote about in her diaries. About how Connie and Jimmy met and fell in love, and how she never forgot him. Her first truelove. It’s so incredibly emotional and bittersweet.’
The conversation flowed for a few hours more until Ellis’s mobile rang and he stood up.
‘Awesome. I’m coming now,’ he said, before slotting his phone back inside his pocket and going to walk away.
‘Hey, where are you off to?’ Grace asked.
‘Come with me,’ he said, slipping a hand around hers. ‘There’s someone else who wants to meet you too …’
When they got to the gate, there was a silver mini-coach parked up and a group of people milling around chatting to Georgie and Tom.
‘What’s going on?’ Grace said, lifting her shades to get a better look at the group. There were two older men, in their sixties perhaps, and two women of about the same age. A younger couple and three small children too, who were dashing around excitedly, teasing each other by seeing who could flip the other one’s sunhat off first. ‘Are they more of Lara’s family?’ she added, grinning at Ellis.
But before he could answer, one of the men came over to them.
‘Hello, you must be Grace,’ he said in English with a London accent, taking her hand and shaking it enthusiastically.
‘Um, yes, that’s right,’ she said, intrigued. He wasn’t American, so these people couldn’t be part of Lara’s family from New York. So who were they?
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Grace. I’m Terry, and this rowdy bunch here is my wife, June,’ and one of the women waved over enthusiastically. Grace waved back, bemused. ‘And that fella over there is my brother, James, and his wife, Audrey, and then you’ve got my son, Dougie, and my daughter-in-law, Steph, and their three kiddiewinks, Ben, Bobby and little Kitty.’
‘Nice to meet you all,’ Grace said, and then in a daze added, ‘Did you say Kitty?’ What a coincidence, as Grace remembered mention of a woman called Kitty in one of Connie’s earlier diaries; she was her best friend and had been with Connie at the funfair when she met Jimmy.
‘Yep, that’s right. Named after her great-granny she is, God rest her soul.’ And he crossed himself before looking skywards. ‘But come on, you had better come with me and meet the old fella himself.’ And Terry led her round to the other side of the mini-coach where a very frail and elderly gentleman was being helped into a wheelchair.
Stanley!
The man in the wheelchair must be Jimmy’s friend. Stanley had been at the funfair too. Grace couldn’t believe it. How wonderful. Terry had just said the little girl was named after her great-granny so it all made sense. Stanley was Kitty’s sweetheart and so they must have gone on to get married. And so Grace smiled as her heart soared on realising that this gentleman would have actually known Connie, his wife Kitty’s best friend all those years ago. He would be able to tell Lara about her mother when she was young and carefree and happy at the funfair, and then when she was courting Jimmy before he went away to fight, and before he ultimately lost his life for his country. It was incredible after all this time. And then Grace wondered how on earth Ellis had managed to find Stanley? And, more importantly, did Lara know that her father’s best friend was going to be here in Italy at Connie’s home? Or was this a wonderful surprise for her too?
Grace glanced at Ellis and squeezed his hand before stepping forward.
‘I’m so pleased and honoured to meet you, Stanley.’
Silence followed.
‘Stanley?’ the old man repeated, a look of confusion spreading across his papery face, and Grace’s heart sank for him on realising that he must have dementia if he didn’t know his own name. With a rush of compassion, she bobbed down in front of him and held out her hands which he took in his.
Another silence followed.
Grace could sense Terry moving alongside her and then kneeling down too.
Then, after handing the elderly gentleman a sprig of wild flowers tied in a jaunty yellow ribbon, she turned to look at Grace and said,
‘This isn’t Stanley. This is my dad, Jimmy!’
Grace gasped.
She stood up and turned to Ellis who, after giving her a kiss on the cheek, gently guided her forward again before stepping back to allow her to take it all in.
Grace could not believe it.
Connie’s first truelove. Jimmy. The man she had never stopped loving. The father of Connie’s darling baby girl, Lara.
Was it really him?
She crouched down again in front of the man’s wheelchair and looked again into his eyes. And then she knew. The impish green eyes. The same green eyes as his daughter, Lara, who was waiting in the garden to meet him for the very first time, she presumed.
‘Jimmy, it’s …’ Grace gulped back a tear and felt her face move into a massive smile instead. ‘It’s such an honour to meet you.’
‘And you, my love,’ he said in a raspy voice, patting the top of her hand. ‘Thank you. Your fella here,’ he broke off to nod in Ellis’s direction, ‘went through it all with me on the phone. He told me how you kept going to find out the truth for our Connie.’ He stopped talking, seemingly overcome with emotion as he pulled a hanky from his breast pocket and gave his nose a quick stoic blow, before putting it away again and lifting the flowers up. ‘These are for her, my first truelove, Connie,’ he said. ‘You see, I never got to give her the last lot. Her parents wouldn’t have it.’ And he shook his head, a smile mingled with sorrow set on his face.
‘I know,’ Grace said softly, helping to tuck the blanket, which Terry had passed across, around Jimmy’s knees. ‘But I can’t wait to hear all about it from you.’ And she stood up and looked at Terry. ‘Thank you so much for bringing him here.’
‘It’s my pleasure, Grace. We can’t thank you enough for this. Dad never stopped loving Connie, you know,’ he said, quietly, as he moved around to take charge of the wheelchair.
‘I can hear you, son,’ Jimmy chortled. ‘I might be getting on, but I’ve still got my faculties intact.’ He looked up at Grace and then added, ‘But he’s right, you know. I never stopped loving our Connie.’
‘Right, are you ready then, Dad?’ Terry asked, smiling and shaking his head. ‘To go and meet your daughter?’ And he wheeled Jimmy off towards the powder pink villa.
Grace listened to Ellis as they walked up the path, holding back a bit to allow the family to go first.
‘Are you sure you’re not mad at me?’ he asked, for the third time. ‘It was a huge gamble, not telling you about Lara and Jimmy right away, but I wanted to take the chance … to do a wonderful thing for you, Grace.’
‘Of course not, and it is a wonderful thing. I’m so overjoyed that Connie’s daughter can meet her father. It’s the next best thing to Lara being reunited with Connie. And here in the very place where Connie was actually happy,’ Grace said, shaking her head in bewilderment as she went over everything he had told her: how Connie’s parents had lied in telling her Jimmy had been killed in the war, presumably to put pressure on her to give Lara up for adoption. But Jimmy hadn’t died; he was missing for a while, presumed dead, until he made it back home having survived in a POW camp. He was in very bad health on his return and spent the last part of the war in a sanatorium, believing Connie had forgotten all about him as she hadn’t replied to any of the letters he had sent when he’d first enlisted. And this broke Grace’s heart all over again, to know that Connie’s parents must have deliberately withheld Jimmy’s letters from Connie. Then, when Jimmy saw Connie in the crowd on VE Day, saw how radiant and clearly blissfully happy in love she was with the GI, with a diamond ring on her finger, he knew that he had to let her go. But, even though he later went on to marry her best friend, Kitty, after her Stanley didn’t make it back home from the war, Jimmy never let Connie go from his heart completely.
‘And I still can’t believe Maggie kept all this from me,’ Grace sighed, incredulous. ‘I only spoke to her yesterday and she never said a word … Did Larry and Betty know too that Maggie had managed to find out all this about Jimmy?’
‘Yes, but only for a short while, I promise. It all happened so quickly, Grace, and we all wanted to surprise you … to do something really special for you, and well … you do agree that this is much more meaningful than me just phoning you from New York to say that I had found Lara, and then Maggie calling in to Cohen’s to tell you that she had discovered Jimmy was still alive?’
‘Hmm, I suppose so,’ she teased, ‘but I can see that I’m going to have to keep a close eye on you from now on, because we have spoken on the phone at least a trillion times in the last few weeks and I never once suspected you were planning such a momentous surprise as this.’
‘And it killed me, it really did, Grace, but I promise it was done with the best intentions.’
They reached the path that led down to where Lara and her daughters were now embracing Jimmy and all his family. Grace stopped walking.
‘Do you mind if we join them later … there’s something I want to do first.’
‘Sure,’ Ellis said. ‘Would you like me to come with you?’
‘Could you come and find me in a few minutes?’ she smiled, letting go of his hand.
Grace made her way into the villa and went upstairs to the place in the photo where Connie had been standing in the doorway of the veranda with Giovanni’s Venice Salute painting on the wall behind her. She stood in the exact same spot and thought of Connie, telling her:
They are here for you, dear Connie. Your first truelove, Jimmy, and your darling Lara, together at last, here in Italy, the place where you found happiness. They’ve come back to you and will remember you for always. And I will too.
Grace walked out onto the veranda, the scent of lemon from the fruit trees filling the warm air all around her as she gazed across the breathtakingly beautiful Italian Riviera. She stood silently and thought of everything that had happened over the last few months. How her life had changed beyond recognition and how Connie, even after her death, had played a part in that. For if she hadn’t chosen Cohen’s Convenient Storage Company to look after her precious belongings, then Grace might never have discovered them and ultimately never have met her own truelove. For that’s what Ellis was. Grace had known it right from the moment when she first met him. But hadn’t allowed herself to even dream of a different life with him at that time. How things change … And talking of whom, she felt his hands gently touch her shoulders. Ellis was there now, standing behind her and wrapping her in a hug as he placed his arms around hers. She leant back into him, resting her head on his chest, savouring the moment here with him in this glorious place.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked softly, his lips warm on the side of her neck.
‘Mmmm,’ she murmured, nodding her head. ‘I was thinking about Connie and how her legacy has changed my life.’
‘How come?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t have met you if it wasn’t for her.’
‘True. And I have her to thank for that too. I can’t imagine my life without you in it, Grace,’ he told her.
‘It’s the same for me,’ she said, drawing his arms tighter around her as she snuggled further into his chest, wishing they didn’t live so very far apart. She couldn’t bear the thought of parting from him again at the airport in a few days’ time. Maybe she could move to America? But what about her mother? There was a time when Grace would have jumped at the chance to escape the burden of caring for Cora, but it was different now. She actually enjoyed spending time with her, and the others were visiting more often too … Bernie had even been talking of booking a spa day for her and her mother … Grace had overheard her on the phone to the hotel when she had last come to see Cora. And Grace would miss her best friend, Jamie, terribly, unless he came to America too, as he had joked about on the phone that time.
Grace and Ellis stood together for a while, just enjoying and relishing each other’s company as they soaked up the romantic atmosphere there on the hilltop, until eventually Ellis gently turned her around until she was facing him.
‘Grace, I have another surprise,’ he said, kissing the side of her neck again.
‘Oh?’ she smiled, her eyelids fluttering as he traced a path up her neck to her mouth with his lips.
‘Are you sure you can handle another surprise?’
‘Um, I think so,’ she grinned. ‘It depends what it is?’
‘Well, what would you say if I told you I wanted to be able to see you, and hold you, laugh with you, watch a movie, hang out, shop for groceries, make love to you … like all the time?’ He pulled a silly face.
‘All the time?’ She lifted one eyebrow, teasingly.
‘Yes,’ he nodded and smiled suggestively and then promptly clarified, ‘in the evenings, of course … and weekends too. When you’re not busy doing other stuff, like working, or doing all the other things you enjoy … oh jeez, this is coming out all wrong. I’m making myself sound like a crazy, possessive jerk. I mean, I’d like to be with you more, not that I want you to only see me and have no life away from me.’
‘It’s OK, I know what you mean,’ she laughed gently.
‘Phew. That’s a relief.’
‘Oh, why is that?’
‘Because … I’ve been offered a job at Sotheby’s …’
‘In London?’ she murmured, excitement bubbling inside her, but caution too – she didn’t want to get her hopes up, in case he wasn’t saying what she truly hoped he might be.
‘Yes … if you’ll have me?’ he asked, his toffee-brown eyes searching hers. And, as it sank in, she nodded, slowly at first, until she could bear it no longer and threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight.
‘Yes please, I’d love to have you,’ she gasped, letting him go momentarily so she could look at his gorgeous face again. He smiled, resting his forehead gently on hers, his fingers caressing the tops of her arms.
‘Grace Quinn, I love you.’
And as she moved her lips onto his, Grace knew that she absolutely loved him too …