Chapter 40
40
Holly stepped back to look at Giles. It wasn’t just that his arms were folded across his chest. His jaw was locked, his eyes were blazing and there was even a little vein pulsing on his forehead; he was absolutely fuming.
‘Giles—’
‘Uncle Giles!’ Before Holly could get a word out, Hope was out of the living room, her arms tight around Giles’s waist. For a split second, he allowed his anger to drop as he looked down at her.
‘Hopey bear, could you do me a massive favour and go into Aunty Jamie’s? I just need to have a word with your mum.’
‘I’m watching Descendants . I think we’re going to watch Descendants Three . You can watch with Mum and me if you want. Mum really likes it, don’t you?’
Giles smiled at her, but Holly could see the way his lips were twitching, the tightness trembling in the expression.
‘That sounds good. Maybe another night, but right now, your mum and I need to have some grown-up talk. And it really would be a massive favour to me if you could just pop next door. I know that Jamie was saying she wanted your help too.’
Hope shifted her gaze between Giles and Holly several times, but she didn’t move.
‘How much do you want me to go next door?’ she asked. ‘Enough to pay me?’
‘Hope!’ Holly said in shock. ‘Your Uncle Giles just said he needed you to go next door, so do it, please. Or there’ll be no film.’
‘Fine,’ Hope said. A moment later, she was out the front door, knocking on Jamie’s. It wasn’t until Holly heard her disappear inside that she looked back at Giles.
‘I’m guessing Sienna said something about the slight misunderstanding we had at the beginning of the weekend,’ she said. There was no point denying it; after all, she’d been planning on telling him, anyway. ‘I was going to tell you when we got a chance to speak alone,’ she added, stepping into the house. ‘Actually, there are a few things I wanted to talk to you about. A few things to do with Sienna.’
Nerves churned within her. This wasn’t the way Holly had planned on having this conversation. She had wanted time to work out how to word things. Not to mention make a comprehensive list of all Sienna’s snide comments, so she didn’t forget anything, but she was just going to have to wing it.
‘Do you want a cup of tea? Or something stronger?’ she asked.
Giles didn’t speak; he hadn’t said a single word since he’d sent Hope out of the house, and the silence was even more unnerving than yelling.
‘I asked you…’ he said finally. ‘I asked you to be nice. To get to know her. She arranged this for you?—’
‘I know, Giles, but?—’
‘And if half of what she’s told me is true, then?—’
‘Half? What do you mean? I said one wrong thing at the start of the trip and apologised.’
‘Really? What about demanding everyone went to the pub because you refused to eat another juice?’
‘What?’ Holly’s jaw dropped. ‘That’s not what happened at all. And I’m not sure you can eat juice but?—’
‘And what about calling her, what was it, a narcissistic bitch?’
That one Holly couldn’t deny, but he still hadn’t got it right.
‘It was actually a manipulative, narcissist—’ Holly began, before clamping her mouth shut.
‘You are a piece of work,’ Giles said, his voice rising.
‘Me? You don’t know the half of it. She’s not right for you, Giles. You don’t understand?—’
‘What I don’t understand is why I actually thought you might be happy for me. That you might see that this is what you want.’
Though she wouldn’t have thought it previously possible, Giles was even more angry than he had been when he arrived.
She stepped forward and, despite the rage that filled her, softened her voice as much as she could.
‘I get that you want to settle down, Giles. I know you want to find someone to spend the rest of your life with. But not her. If you’d just let me tell you?—’
‘Stop it, Holly. Please, haven’t you already caused enough hurt? Sienna was in floods of tears. You know that? She was devastated.’
‘No, she wasn’t,’ Holly said. It was obvious Sienna had portrayed her as this massive villain, and she wasn’t having it. Not when she had actually spent the weekend making an effort. ‘She was hurt, yes. But only immediately after the incident. Afterwards, I went straight down to the pool. You can ask Faye. She was the one who told me I should go and speak to her. Apologise.’
‘My sister had to tell you to apologise for calling my fiancée a bitch? Great going there, Holly. Brilliant.’
‘Will you just listen to me!’ The calm Holly had tried to portray was gone. ‘I apologised to her. I told her how difficult this is for me. How difficult you moving on, and everyone moving on with their lives, is for me. We got past it, okay? And everyone wanted to go to the pub. We’d had nothing but juice for over a day! Ask Faye. You know me, Giles. You know I wouldn’t be like that. That I would never deliberately hurt anyone.’
‘I don’t know what to believe right now, but the fact you would say anything that horrible to her makes me think I don’t know you, Holly. Not like I thought I did.’
The words felt like a knife in her chest. Never for one second had Holly believed Giles would take Sienna’s word over hers.
Tears filled her eyes. ‘Don’t say that. It’s not true.’
‘People change, Holly.’
‘But you said we wouldn’t. You said nothing would change between us.’
No one was shouting now. Instead, it was a painful silence that gripped the room.
‘Maybe I was wrong.’ His throat rose and fell visibly as he swallowed. ‘I have to choose Sienna. She has to come first from now on.’
‘Please, Giles…’ Holly couldn’t tell him what kind of person Sienna really was. He wouldn’t believe her. Not now. She could feel it. And so, rather than speaking, she stepped forward and placed a hand on his chest. She had made the motion hundreds of times in their friendship, just like she’d held his hand hundreds of times or rested her head on his shoulder. But something about it felt different.
‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘What do you want me to say, Holly?’
She didn’t know. There wasn’t an answer she could give. They were incredibly close now, only inches apart, and her eyes tried to lock on his. But for some reason, they kept flickering down towards his lips. Why couldn’t she stop looking at his lips?
‘We’ll get through this,’ he said finally. ‘It’ll just take some time. I promise.’
‘I don’t think you can promise that,’ she whispered. ‘I think things have already changed. For both of us.’
There was a strange buzzing on the surface of her skin. A static-type feeling. Was Giles sensing it, too? By the way his pupils filled his irises as he looked at her, she had to believe he did.
‘Life has to move on at some point, Holly,’ he whispered.
‘I know. I know it does.’
She was moving onto her tiptoes, although she wasn’t exactly sure why.
‘I don’t know how I’d manage without you in my life, Holly.’ His voice was a breath so warm against her skin, she wanted to breathe it all in. She needed to.
‘You won’t ever have to find out. Like you said, we’ll get through this.’
‘We will?’
‘We will.’
Then, in a heartbeat, before Holly could work out what was happening, the space between them had closed entirely, and for the first time in a decade, Holly Berry and Giles Caverty were kissing.