Usually by now the group would have begun to loop back, but today Hugh just kept on riding and riding, heading from busy roads to country lanes, losing track of time. Eventually he reached the Surrey Hills and their punishing inclines, relishing the burning of his lungs and the satisfying ache of his thighs and calves.
But midway up Box Hill, with his brain full of no more than his own thundering heartbeat, he stopped. On a whim, abruptly he violently twisted his cleats out of his pedals and yanked hard on the brakes until his bike was still. Then, standing beside his bike, he surveyed the rolling green patchwork of the Dorking valley as it stretched towards the South Downs beneath a clear blue sky. Out here, amongst woodland and sheep-dotted fields, London was thirty miles and a world away.
What was he doing?
He didn’t have to check his watch to know he’d missed his morning teleconference. He’d miss his early-afternoon meetings too, given it would take him another two and a half hours to get home again.
Reception would be patchy up here, he knew, but still, he should at least try to email his assistant—who worked remotely from Lewisham—and ask her to clear his calendar for the rest of the day.
But he didn’t.
He hadn’t planned to ride this far, but he’d needed to. He’d needed to do something to ease the discontent that had kept him awake half the night—much of it spent pacing his lounge room floor.
Hugh didn’t like how he felt. All agitated and uncertain.
He usually lived his life with such definition: he knew what he was doing, why he was doing it, and he always knew it was the right thing to do. Hugh made it his business to plan and prepare and analyse everything. It was why his business was so successful. He didn’t make mistakes...he didn’t get distracted.
His mother’s house had always been the exception.
When she’d died he’d considered selling it. He’d been living in his own place in Primrose Hill, not far away.
But back then—as now—he just hadn’t been able to.
For a man who prided himself on being the antithesis of his mother—on being a man who saw no value in objects and who ruthlessly protected his life from clutter—his attachment to the house was an embarrassing contradiction.
But he knew how much that house had meant to his mum. He knew exactly what it had represented.
For his mother it had been a place of love, after so many years of searching.
And for Hugh it had been where his mother had finally lived a life free of clutter—a life he had been sure she’d lost for ever. For more than a decade she’d been happy there, her hoard no more than a distant memory.
And so he’d kept it.
He’d ended up hoarding his mother’s hoard. There was no other way to explain his three-year refusal to dispose of all that junk.
Even now, as April Spencer attempted to clean out his mother’s house, he couldn’t let it go.
A stranger—April—had seen that.
Why else would she be going to such lengths to save sentimental crap unless she’d sensed that he wasn’t really ready to relinquish it?
And she was right. The original ‘Hugh’ box still remained as April had left it, cluttering up his coffee table in all its ironic glory.
He just hadn’t been able to walk to the skip behind the house and throw it all away. It had felt impossible.
How pathetic.
Yesterday he’d helped April move those boxes in an effort to normalise the situation: to prove to himself that his visceral reaction to them could be overcome. Except he hadn’t considered April. He hadn’t considered his visceral reaction to her.
He hadn’t considered that, while he might be able to dismiss his attraction to her as nothing when he spent only short periods of time with her, more time together might not be so manageable.
Because more time with her meant he’d seen another side of her: a mischievous forthrightness that really shouldn’t have surprised him, given her refusal to follow his original instructions.
And he liked it. A lot.
He’d also liked it—a lot—when she’d got tangled up in that shirt.
He’d liked being so very close to her—close enough to smell her shampoo and admire the Australian tan revealed below her bunched up T-shirt. Close enough to feel her shiver beneath his touch. To hear the acceleration of her breathing.
In those long moments after he’d helped her out of the blouse it had been as intimate as if he’d actually undressed her.
It had felt raw and naked—and incredibly intense. As if, had he touched her, they would’ve both lost control completely. And for those long moments he’d wanted nothing more than to lose control with April Spencer.
But Hugh Bennell never lost control.
And so he hadn’t. He’d taken a step back, even though it had been harder than he would’ve liked.
He’d assessed the situation: April worked for him.
His priority was cleaning out his mother’s house, not fraternising with his employees.
Besides, he suspected his reaction to April was somehow tangled up with his reaction to the boxes. Because it wasn’t normal for him to have such a magnetic pull towards a woman. He was generally far more measured when he met a woman he liked. In fact he always ‘met’ the women he dated online.
It allowed for a certain level of...well, of control, really. He could set his expectations, as could the woman he was speaking too. There was never any confusion or miscommunication, or the risk of having anything misconstrued.
It was incredibly efficient.
But starting with physical attraction...no.
Although it had been difficult to remind himself why as he’d paced his parquet floor at three a.m.
His mind had been as full with thoughts of April as with his continued frustration over the house and all its boxes.
Mostly with April, actually.
The softness of her skin. The way her lips had parted infinitesimally as they’d gazed into each other’s eyes. And that urge to lean forward and take what he knew she’d been offering had been so compelling it had felt inevitable...
No.
And so his bike ride. A bike ride to clear his mind of the clutter his mother’s hoard and April were creating.
It had been a good plan, Hugh thought as he got back on his bike.
A total fail, though, in practice, with his brain still unable to let go of memories of warm skin and knowing blue eyes as he rode back down the hill, alongside the song of a skylark caught up in the breeze.
Mila: OMG Gorgeous!
April: That’s one to save for his twenty-first! :)
April typed her instant messaging response to Ivy’s gorgeous photo of her son, Nate, covered in bubbles in the bathtub. It felt like for ever since she’d spoken to both her sisters together.
April: How are sales going, Mila?
Mila had recently started mass-producing some of her ceramic work to keep up with sales at her small boutique pottery business.
Mila: Pretty good. I’ve experimented with pricing a bit. I’m still not sure how much people value handmade. So far it seems that the hand-glazing is the key, because...
Mila went into quite a lot of detail—as Mila always