Chapter Thirty-one
After all that, it’s no surprise that I have a terrible night’s sleep. I must have woken up five times, irrationally aware of every sound in the night. Every sound that might be coming from next door.
Knowing Llewellyn didn’t want Nora in his apartment, she would have thrown herself at Osian’s mercy. Why not? Now she’s single, Nora is the perfect one-night stand.
It doesn’t help to tell myself that if it’s not her, it’ll be some other woman sooner or later.
A moment later, Osian’s door opens and he comes out on the balcony, hastily pulling on a tee-shirt over some kind of yoga bottoms. It’s the way a man who sleeps naked would need to pull on pyjamas before answering the door.
Except I haven’t knocked, so he must have heard me and hurried out.
His hair is ruffled, and God, it looks even better like that. Even the unshaven jaw.
Stop. Stop. Stop right now.
“You’re early.” He pads, barefoot, towards the table.
My eyes can’t help scanning past him through the open French windows and into his apartment. Déjà vu. Haven’t we been here before? Searching for a woman, or a trace of one, the agony of not knowing what might have happened inside?
“How did it go last night?” he asks, making me jump.
My face burns, and my mouth opens but no words come.
“I could hear the shouting from the kitchen.” Stifling a yawn, he rubs both hands over his face. “So I guessed you were caught in the middle of it.”
Oh, that.
Relieved, my heart slows back down. “Yeah.”
“They were quite loud. I didn’t want to hang around and went upstairs. Sorry I didn’t wait for you.”
“You didn’t see them?”
“No.” He pushes his fingers through his hair, mussing it even more.
My relief is so strong it makes me forget my decision to avoid him. “Coffee?” I ask.
“Thank you. Yes, please.” He pulls out a chair and settles into it.
I’m my own worst enemy. I go inside and find my favourite blue mug – the one that’s the perfect size for a double measure. I take extra care with his coffee, making sure the machine is properly primed so it produces lots of creamy foam.
When I bring him the mug he takes his first sip and closes his eyes. The only way to really appreciate good coffee; I should know. “Heaven,” he says, rewarding me with a beautiful smile that melts what’s left of my mental resistance.
No. No. He doesn’t want me. It’s him who turned me down. I have to repeat this to myself a few times until I can make myself turn away from him, walk over to the railings and look at the garden, drawing support from the beautiful shapes below.
“It’s really taking shape.” He comes to stand beside me. Placing his forearms on the wrought iron edge, he too studies the view below.
This close, I can smell him – that male slept-in scent: warm, sexy and feels like home. Just one step, and I could bury myself in his embrace.
It takes a minute before I can focus on the grounds, but eventually my mind starts working properly. The rolled-up turf pieces look like hundreds of short, fat cigars, lined up at regular intervals.
“Are you turfing today?” he asks.
“They were delivered yesterday, so yes. They need to be laid before the grass starts to discolour and dry out.”
“How can I help?”
“You can’t.” I smile quickly and just as quickly turn back to the garden. “Laying turf is a specialist job.”
“Don’t tell me you’re doing it all yourself. That will take…” He scans over the grounds, trying to estimate surface area and days of work.
“I’ve hired professionals. We’ll get it all done today.”
He whistles softly.
“It’s okay. I’ve budgeted for this. Some corners can’t be cut, and laying turf is one of them. Besides, the free labour from your Perllans has saved me hundreds of pounds.”
“What kind of grass did you get?”
A happy feeling, like an iridescent soap bubble, rises from my chest and breaks into a grin on my face. This is one of my favourite features and my joy and anticipation replace all my anxiety of the night before.
This is why gardens are so rewarding; the best love affair I’ll ever have.
“These are standard rich lawn.” I point directly below the balcony, where lines of tiny Union Jacks flutter in the morning breeze.
“But where the EU flags are is clover. The Welsh flags tied with string are wildflower mixes. I’ve been researching native wildflowers.
But it takes time to plan something permanent. So this year I’m taking shortcuts.”
He turns to stare at me. “You play your cards close to the chest, don’t you? This is the first I hear about it.”
I try not to simper… well, not much. “I wasn’t sure they could supply all this until yesterday afternoon.
So as you can see, I’ve sectioned the land.
Since the original design seems to have been a sequence of curves, I’ve drawn curves in the land and we’ll have swirls of different wildflowers alternating with grass or clover.
You remember the blue wall below the terrace? The one that looks like a comma?”
He leans further down to see the mosaic wall I discovered in my first week here. “Yes, of course. Don’t tell me.” He looks up at me. “You’re creating commas of grass and flowers.”
His excitement feeds mine and I almost clasp my hands together against my chest and dance around. “It goes with the trees. You see how they’re planted in ones and twos?”
His eyes narrow. “Tell me. Tell me.”
“I can do better than tell you, I can show you. But we’ll need to go downstairs on the terrace.”
“The terrace is perfect. Leonie opens in an hour, and she can make us breakfast. I’m craving her bacon sandwiches.”
At the mention of food, my stomach makes a loud whizzing noise that curls like a corkscrew.
Osian laughs. “My thoughts exactly! Give me fifteen minutes to get decent.”