Adam lifted his finger to his lips. I nodded and tried to silently smooth my hair back into a bun that was now only half there.
Sunshine filled the pantry once more. This time, however, Adam and I were ready. We were standing as far apart as we could in the confined space. My hands were clasped firmly in front of me, and Adam’s were in his pockets. Didn’t do us much good, though. I reckon Marcus rumbled us from the guilty expressions on our faces. Something had to have given us away.
If being caught alone together in a darkened panty wasn’t enough, of course.
‘Well, well, well…’ Marcus said, taking every last detail in. I tried not to squirm, but to hold my head high and mimic that supercilious thing Robert did with his eyebrows. ‘I thought you two were supposed to be brother and sister? How delightfully naughty.’
Adam grabbed my hand and pushed past Marcus into the passage. ‘No,’ he replied, giving the other man a stern look. ‘Not brother and sister. Not in a million years.’
And then we escaped down the passageway into the unyielding brightness of the football pitch-slash-conservatory, where it seemed the sunny Sunday morning had been trapped and held to ransom.
The ancient woods on the fringes of the Chatterton-Joneses’ estate were full of twisting oaks, fresh green glades, dappled sunshine and the kind of quiet that normally got on my nerves. The earth was springy underfoot, carpeted with a layer of old dried leaves and fallen pine cones. Adam and I walked slowly through it, side by side.
These were the same woods Izzi had marched us through only yesterday, but I’d been so focussed on Nicholas up ahead of me that I hadn’t noticed how beautiful it all was, how perfect the stillness and quiet could be. I was starting to realise this wasn’t the only thing I’d failed to see as I bulldozed my way through life.
Izzi’s iron-clad timetable said we should all have some time to wander off on our own and meditate on the identity of Lord Southerby’s killer before we met back in the drawing room for the big finale. Adam and I hadn’t done much of that. We hadn’t done much talking, full stop.
Breathless kissing? Hand-wandering? Yep. There’d been plenty of that going on.
It was so easy to be with him. To be like this with him. And that astounded me. I couldn’t quite get my head around how our relationship seemed to have morphed seamlessly from one thing into another, and I had a horrible feeling it was all a shimmering mirage.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Adam. While everything about him was comfortable and familiar, at the same time everything was new too. I’d never noticed the grace in his easy stride before, had never found myself staring at his sexy little dimples and marvelling at their perfection. That twinkle in his eye I’d always loved? Now I realised it was only for me. When it glittered at me I felt conspicuously giddy.
Why had I never seen any of this before? Why hadn’t I let myself see any of this before? Each time this question wriggled through my thoughts and snuck its way to the front of the queue I sent it packing to the back of the line again. I didn’t think I’d like any answer I could come up with.
I must have been frowning, because Adam stopped walking and turned to face me. ‘What’s up?’ he said, his voice soft and low.
‘I’m a little…freaked out by all of this.’ I pressed my lips together and shook my head gently. ‘I don’t know. It’s all so…’
His expression became serious and he reached for my hand and squeezed it. ‘I know you, Coreen Fraser.’ The warmth in his eyes made my nose do that stinging thing again. ‘I know just how much heartache you’ve had in your life—down to the very last ounce.’
I looked away, unable to look at the truth of what he’d said in his face. He waited while I sucked in air through my nostrils and attempted to quell the stinging. I didn’t cry in front of people. Ever. Not the real kind of gluey, soggy tears that puffed my face up and ruined my eyeliner. I’m not proud to admit it, but I have squeezed a few perfect beads of moisture from the corner of my eye when the occasion demanded it, when it would help me get my own way. But I measured out my tears. I decided how many fell and when. I stayed in control always.
He carried on talking as I fixed my gaze on a holly bush and didn’t turn back. ‘I understand why relationships are something you’ve either deliberately avoided or sabotaged when they threatened to get too serious.’
Did he? I wished he’d tell me.
And I wished Adam couldn’t see past the polka dots and lipstick. I wished he couldn’t look inside me as if I was made of glass and tell me what the writing on my heart was when I couldn’t even decipher it myself. I couldn’t be mysterious and unpredictable with Adam. Those two things were my best weapons for keeping a man on his toes, for keeping him off balance while my stiletto heels were firmly anchored to the floor. And there wasn’t even a fair trade-off with Adam. He knew everything about me, and I had missed even the most obvious things about him.
I turned my head back, but focused on one of the buttons on his shirt instead of looking him in the face. ‘Do you think we’re doing the right thing?’ I asked. ‘Whatever is going on between us could spell the end of our friendship.’
He held my chin softly between thumb and forefinger and tipped my face up. ‘We’ve run from this for long enough, Coreen. I’ve loved being your friend, but I’ve finally admitted to myself that I want more, and I can’t keep pretending that I don’t. Don’t ask me to go back.’
The force of his honesty sent me searching for that nice, safe button to fix my gaze on again. My instinct was to gloss over this difficult topic by doing any one of the hundred things I usually did in similar situations—like blowing a kiss and sashaying mysteriously away without answering—but I found myself disarmed. In the literal sense. The only thing I had left in my arsenal was candour.
I took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know if I’m ready for this.’
He stepped forward and closed his arms around me. Even in his dull grey vicar’s suit he smelled amazing. I pressed my cheek against him. The shirt button was so close now I went cross-eyed trying to keep it sharp and in focus.
‘You won’t know unless you try, and I think you’re ready for more than you give yourself credit for.’
My eyes started to ache and the button became blurry.
‘How do you know? And how come you know when I don’t know it myself?’ I knew I sounded a bit sulky, but I couldn’t help myself.
He leaned forward and kissed me. His lips were warm and soft and teasing. I made a noise that was suspiciously like a purr.
‘Not fair,’ I said, but I smiled at the same time.
I arched the top of my back so I could look at him. He wasn’t smiling, but looking grave. ‘When you started mooning over old Nicholas, I knew it wasn’t just another fleeting crush. I knew this time it was different for you.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh? Did you?’
‘Yes, I did. And I decided it was time to explore whatever has been simmering under the surface between us for years. That thing we’ve always pretended wasn’t there. I realised I didn’t want you to want Nicholas. I wanted you to want me.’ One corner of his mouth twisted a little. ‘That’s why I agreed to come on this weekend with you. I had to do something to make that happen.’
I gave him a disbelieving look. ‘So you’re telling me you had a plan while I had none?’
‘Sort of.’ And then he grinned at me. That caught-you-out-this-time grin I knew so well.
Even though my upper arms were pinned under his more muscular ones, I wiggled a hand free and thumped him on the chest. ‘Insufferable big-head!’
‘Minx!’ he whispered, then shut me up with another heart-stopping