Chapter Thirty-Five
They set off down the high street towards the heath, hand in hand, and it was all so odd in the most wonderful way that Bo still didn’t believe it. She kept sneaking glances at Max, who led the way with purpose, and at one point she was so overwhelmed she stopped completely, pulling on his hand.
“But you said I was just a fling. Someone you could never be serious about.”
Max looked back at her, and a flush crossed his cheeks.
“I was in love and uncertain,” he explained slowly.
“I was so absolutely in love with you, and you never . . .” he paused.
“Look, I didn’t think you felt anything for me at all.
I thought you just saw me as an easy conquest over the summer, someone to help you lick your wounds after your asshole ex hurt you the way he did.
I tried asking you to come to Berlin with me — not very well, I admit — but you were so quick to tell me you had other plans that I felt thoroughly rejected. ”
Bo felt a stab of pain. “You wanted me to go with you? I thought you didn’t care about me at all. I thought you were going back to see Raphaella, and I . . . I was hurt and trying to show that it didn’t bother me.”
Max shook his head in disbelief. “Of course I wanted you with me. I always want you with me, Bo. When I got to Berlin, all my friends were asking about the woman I was seeing, and I . . . well, I guess I was trying to mitigate my hurt. So, I told them you were just a fling; someone I wasn’t serious about.
You know that old saying how if you tell yourself something enough it starts to be true?
That’s what I was hoping would happen. That if I told myself and other people that I wasn’t serious about you, I’d stop being serious about you.
” He stopped, wrenching her against him.
“But I am serious about you. From the moment you first invited me into your bed, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. ”
She nodded, smiling up at him, and he planted a kiss on her forehead, before pulling on her hand again.
“Raphaella said you were probably going to get back together,” she admitted as they began walking again. “That night in my garden, when I overheard her. She said it so confidently. I really believed her.”
Max laughed. “Raphaella’s an ex-girlfriend for a reason, Bo.
We broke up the summer I met you. When I came back from London after my night with you, and you were all I could think about, she wasn’t happy.
She spent the next year calling me, and I kept trying to let her down gently.
I didn’t even invite her to the house the night of my party, you know.
She just turned up with some of my friends.
I was quite angry with her. More so when I realized she’d said all she had, and you’d heard every word. ”
“I didn’t mean to listen.”
“No. I know. Happily for me and happily for Raphaella, she’s moved on to someone else. I think when the Jacobien Concerto came out she got the message finally.”
Bo smiled. “You really wrote a whole concerto just for me?”
“I couldn’t not write it,” Max confessed, giving her a sideways glance. “You were on my mind all the time. I had so many performances to give . . . you remember, uh, what I normally do after I’ve performed?”
Bo blushed. She remembered all too well what Max did after a performance. Last summer it had mostly involved her.
“Well, I poured all that tension and energy into the Jacobien Concerto.” He stopped, looking at her intently, running his free hand down her cheek. “There’s been no one else since you, I want you to know that. I didn’t want anyone else but you.”
“There’s been no one else for me either,” she told him, and he nodded.
“I wasn’t going to ask, but I’m glad all the same. The thought of anyone else touching you . . .” Max shook his head. “I couldn’t bear it.”
“I wondered when you wrote it, that concerto,” Bo said. “You told me that aside from your tour, you were going to take a year off to write. But then you had so many performances and tours booked in.”
“How do you know that?” He raised an eyebrow at her.
She reddened. “I stalked your Instagram.”
He laughed. “I did sign up for a lot of work,” Max explained. “Financially I wasn’t in a position to take a year off. So, I wrote it in the evenings, after performing. You remember how I don’t sleep well at night. Writing was a good use of empty time.”
Bo stared at him. “What do you mean? How weren’t you able to take a year off? The whole point of selling Geoffrey’s house was that the money would go towards that year. What happened?”
Max gave her a sheepish grin. “I told you: you drove me crazy, and so I did something crazy.”
“What did you do?” she asked slowly, and Max nodded across the heath.
“That,” he said, and Bo’s mouth dropped open.
They were at Geoffrey’s house, and from his pocket, Max was pulling out the key.