Chapter Twenty-Four
The train pulled into the single-track station, coming to rest outside a red-roofed, white building. Hornbaek was written on a plaque. Darcy disembarked, waiting for a couple with a toddler and a pram to go ahead as she got her bearings. The station sat immediately on the street and it took her only a few seconds to locate the direction of the sea, for the wind was blowing hard: salt in the air, a few gulls wheeling on the thermals high above. An hour further north than Copenhagen, it was bitterly cold and distinctly more exposed. The temperatures had to be several degrees colder than the capital and she was beginning to feel her padded running coat wasn’t quite sufficient. (She had picked it up, along with her bag, from the kayak bar this morning as she returned the wetsuit and lifejacket; she’d told the guy to charge the overnight extra day’s rental to the card Aksel had used to pay the deposit. If he dared to invoice her this time...)
She headed straight for the beach, wishing she had packed a hat. According to Google Maps, Solvtraeer was set along the coast road, just out of the village, and she figured she couldn’t go wrong if she made for the water and took a left. Max had sent through an address but no directions or cab numbers, and had made no offer to come and collect her.
Not that she needed him to. She was a big girl. Here to work and get straight back to the city again.
The town was smaller than she had expected and very quiet. She looked around nosily as she walked down the streets, peering into the low buildings, most of which were painted black on the outside and white on the inside. There were very few people about. It was a seasonal resort, like Cornwall in England or the Hamptons in the United States – heaving in the summer months, deserted for the rest of the year. But she caught glimpses of the high season, pressed on pause: plastic buckets and spades tucked into corners of small gardens, children’s trikes toppled onto their sides from high winds, dinghies and small boats sitting on axels on driveways, covered with tarps. She could tell the year-round properties from the holiday homes by the state of the pot plants on the sills and whether there were lights on in distant rooms. It wasn’t yet lunchtime but light was scant, thick grey clouds rolled out like cotton wool wadding over a wide sky.
Within a few minutes, as she turned right and then left, she could feel the breeze pick up and the tall masts of the boats in the marina came into view above the low roofs. She passed a chandlery and an ice cream parlour, some boarded-up cafes. It always felt poignant visiting a place during its hibernation, as if life had been suspended: Please come back later .
But Darcy wasn’t trying to imagine the town as it would be during its summer peak; she was trying to see it as it might have been a hundred years ago. Had this tree been here? That house? What had Lilja Madsen seen as she walked along the sand, mourning her child, while her own parents were trapped over a distant border? Had she missed her husband, sent abroad to build upon the company’s fortunes while she grieved here alone?
Almost to her surprise, she found herself standing on the coast road. The town ended abruptly, fronting onto a wide, golden beach. Across the water were the distant mountains of Sweden, just purple shadows from here.
To her right she could see the fishing boats in the harbour, sleek yachts, and a large, grand hotel squaring over the marina. It had a modern edge with cafes and restaurants, chalked blackboards and boutiques, and she knew it was the beating heart of summer living here. To her left the beach spun away in a vast arc, empty and timeless, with shallow sloping dunes at its back. Her long hair was blown back off her neck as she watched the white horses gallop over a battleship-grey sea, indolent waves slumping on the shore, long grasses bent low in prostration. It had always been like this. It would always be like this. It was the view Lilja would have known, the one that had restored her – for a time, at least.
Until it hadn’t.
Darcy walked slowly, shivering as she tried to take in her first moments here. She couldn’t say exactly why she had wanted to come, only that she had felt compelled to make the journey. Otto didn’t understand it; his academic stance was dry and factual – dates, places, achievement – but Darcy needed more than that. She had to see the characters she studied as living people; she had to find their pulse to capture their soul. And if Lilja’s likeness was about to be revealed to the world after almost a century in the dark, the very least Darcy could do was shine a light into the deepest corners.
She saw two figures on the sand in the distance and what appeared to be a dog chasing after a ball; they were little more than black dots from here and Darcy watched, seeing them enjoy this simple pleasure as the man threw the ball and the dog chased it. Humans, for all their advancements, were still simple creatures, repeating the same behaviours of their forebears: walking barefoot on beaches, shouting secrets into the wind. It had all been done before. And as she saw, in her mind’s eye, Lilja’s body rolling in the shallows, she knew there was nothing unique in that either. Humans were really quite predictable, when pushed.
It was the same, but different. The sea lay at Darcy’s back, closer than she had imagined, as she stood at the brick pillars and looked in at the garden that had become so familiar to her eye in recent days. Of course, the trees were stiff-fingered and bare of their leaves, no flowers in bloom at this time of year, but the dense clusters of narrow silver birch trunks – affording glimpses of the land and house beyond – were still the same. The estate sat a short distance from the town, enclosed within woodland. She imagined the villagers and tourists gathering here to admire the famous gardens, the bow-armed orchard trees heady with blossom, flower beds thick with scent and colour, butterflies weaving through the long meadow grasses speckled with poppies and clover and drifts of forget-me-nots.
She saw the gracious curve of the drive meander left and up towards the house, a sleek dark grey car sitting in front of a garage to the left. It wasn’t the car Christoff had driven her home in, or in which she’d travelled with Max the day of the Christmas market; this was sportier, smaller, low-slung.
She took a few steps in, feeling herself caught in a tension between now and the past. Her mind wanted to stay on Lilja: what she must have seen and felt as she walked barefoot and bereft on the grass. Had she been happy to see Lotte, her sister-in-law, as she looked up from talking with Old Sally, that day on the lawn?
But there were lights on in the house, and Darcy couldn’t pretend she wasn’t distracted knowing that Max was in there. Was he waiting for her? Was he looking out?
The house came into view as she moved past the trees. It was a handsome red brick, diagonally strapped with black timbers and topped with a thick thatched roof with five humped gables. Smoke was puffing sedately from a chimney, another sign someone was inside. It was a large, substantial house, yet it had a comforting feel too. It was homely, not grand. She could see exactly why Lilja would have loved it here.
The car, she saw now, was an Audi R8. What had sat here in its place when Lotte and Henrik had come to stay, or when Casper had returned from London? She remembered a pony trap that had just edged into view in some of the pictures. Had Lilja enjoyed going out for rides on that?
A door opened – not the front door, but one at the side – and Max appeared. Saturday Max. Jeans, another cashmere jumper. Socks.
‘You found it, then.’
No hello. Obviously.
‘Yes. I had a nice walk along the beach,’ she said, drawing closer.
‘Nice? If you say so,’ he said, looking out at the dreary weather. ‘...Were you warm enough?’ He looked sceptically at her short jacket.
‘Yes,’ she lied.
‘You should wear a hat.’
‘...Okay, Dad.’
She stopped in front of him and there was a moment in which they both hesitated as the tension – from the meeting last night, the other morning, last weekend – lingered. Then he allowed a reluctant half-smile.
‘You’d better come in.’
She followed him in, through a brick-floored boot room with deep blue-grey wainscoting – coats hanging on pegs, welly boots on sticks – and into the kitchen. It had pale wooden strip floors that looked to be original, black wooden cabinets and open shelving. The walls were lime-washed and a large black range that looked like an Aga, but wasn’t Aga, dominated the back wall. There was a large old prep table in the middle of the space with copper pans underneath, but unlike in Max’s Copenhagen house, here there was only a small round dining table, set before double doors that opened onto the garden. No island. No bar stools. It managed to be somehow both a period room and contemporary at the same time.
‘Oh,’ she breathed as her gaze cast around. ‘...It’s so lovely.’ Instinctively she walked over to the doors and looked out. The lawn swept down and away from the room, like a bridal veil fanning from a tiara. The deep flower beds flanked the doors, pushing out in ergonomic curves as if jostling for more space.
Ah, that’s what it is, she thought to herself.
‘What?’ Max was standing by the back counter, watching her, one ankle crossed over the other.
She realized she’d spoken out loud. ‘I was just thinking about how there are no straight lines out there. Everything’s curved and natural...It’s what makes the garden feel so soft.’
‘Soft?’ Max considered her words. ‘...I guess so. I’ve never thought of it that way before.’
She turned back into the room, embarrassed by her observation.
‘...Coffee?’
She nodded. ‘Sure. It’ll warm me up.’
‘So you are cold,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘Go and stand by the range.’
She did as she was told, watching as he poured water into a Bialetti moka pot.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘...Yes,’ she fibbed.
He looked back over at her. ‘You’re an appalling liar.’
‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’
He made no comment. In his world, it probably was.
She watched as he made the coffee just the way she liked it. He knew that about her now. She didn’t know it about him, though. Everything was one-sided. His terms. His coffee. His homes.
‘Thanks for letting me pop by today. I appreciate it.’
He shrugged.
‘I had no idea Solvtraeer was yours.’
‘And I suppose if you had, you wouldn’t have come?’
She swallowed at the sarcasm. ‘What I mean is – I didn’t know if this house was even still here.’
‘Where would it have gone?’
‘I don’t know. It might have been bulldozed,’ she shrugged. ‘Torn down for some mega glass cube in the noughties.’
He seemed bemused by the thought. ‘We’re not really that sort of family.’
‘No.’ She watched him, understanding that meant the house had always been in their possession. ‘I also had no idea you were a Madsen.’
‘It’s not something I tend to lead with,’ he muttered. ‘Besides, I’m not. I’m a Lorensen. My great-grandmother, Lilja, was the Madsen.’ He glanced over at her, as if checking his words had registered.
‘Lilja was your great-grandmother?’ she echoed. She remembered his shocked reaction when Lilja had first been identified. He had looked stunned, in fact. But even when she had learned he was a Madsen, she had presumed he was a distant relative. Madsen Minor.
‘And her daughter, Emme, my grandmother – she was a Madsen too, until she married a Lorensen and had a son, my father. And here we are.’
She was quiet for a moment, absorbing this news. ‘I feel like I should have been told this sooner.’
‘Why? How is it relevant?’
She looked around the room again. ‘I don’t know. I just feel like it is, somehow. Like maybe that’s why you’ve been so...’ But her words trailed away as he set the pot on the gas and turned back to her.
‘So – what? Interested in what you’re doing? It’s my job.’
‘Actually, I was going to say aggressive.’
He looked surprised. ‘You think I’m aggressive?’
‘Professionally, yes. Not...’ She stopped herself, not wanting to stray into what she thought of him personally. ‘But maybe that’s the wrong word.’
‘What’s the right one, then?’ he challenged.
She stared back at him, seeing the vast expanse of space between them. He couldn’t get any further away from her without leaving the room. ‘...Defensive.’
‘How have I been defensive? I’ve given you unrestricted access to our archives. I’ve let you come up here.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m making you coffee .’
She swallowed, knowing he was right – and yet, she wasn’t wrong either. He was frustrating to argue with. ‘I don’t know,’ she sighed, trying not to show her frustration. He could twist words. ‘I just feel like you’re always very...watchful. Like you’re watching me closely.’
‘Yes, I know what watchful means, thanks.’
She rolled her eyes, not quite sure how serious he was being. His humour erred on the extremely dry side. Brut .
‘Well, now that you’ve confirmed, once and for all, that the portrait is of my great-grandmother, I guess I’m going to be even more interested. Aggressive. Defensive. Watchful...Delete as appropriate.’
She looked down. Without Otto or Margit’s mitigating presence, she was no match for his careless sarcasm. An awkward silence grew between them.
He cleared his throat as if seeing her retreat. ‘...If I’m watchful of you, Darcy, it’s only because I think you’re beautiful,’ he said quietly. ‘Nothing more sinister than that.’
She looked up, taken aback by the unexpected compliment – his honesty could be disarming at times – but he had already turned away and was reaching for some cups.
Neither of them spoke again until the coffee was poured.
‘So what is it you want to see here?’ he asked, coming over and handing her a cup. Closing the gap.
‘I’m not entirely sure. I just had a feeling that I should see it.’
He looked sceptical again. ‘Is your work often directed by “feelings”?’
She ignored the sarcasm this time. ‘Not usually. But I have some questions my mind keeps snagging on. I thought it would help to come here.’ She had no intention of mentioning to him the various discrepancies she had noted.
He watched her, as if he could read her every thought. ‘Well, you’re welcome to look around, I guess.’
‘Thanks. Are there any photo albums here?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Only more recent ones. Nothing that concerns the Foundation’s work or needs to be in the public eye.’
She nodded, wondering if this defensiveness concerned his brother. ‘...Do you come up here often?’
‘Pretty often. I like it best at this time of year, when it’s quiet. The crowds get a bit much in the summer.’
‘Yes. I can imagine.’ She watched as he wandered over to the fridge and pulled out a stock pot. He couldn’t seem to stand still, or certainly he couldn’t stand near her. For the first time, she wondered if her presence here made him nervous.
‘Soup. Which I didn’t make,’ he muttered, as if to deflect any intended compliments. He put it in the range, in the oven beside her. It was funny, somehow, seeing him with oven gloves on. Domestic Max.
‘Will you come up here over Christmas?’
‘Yes. I always do.’ He pulled off the gloves, tossing them casually onto the counter. ‘You? What are your plans?’
‘Working through.’
He frowned, seeming surprised. ‘You’re not going home?’
‘My sister’s travelling on her gap year, so my family are going to join her for ten days in Asia. I’d go, but I’m really behind on my thesis. I can’t afford to spend ten days on a beach.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where’s home for you?’
‘Berkshire. Sort of west of London.’
‘I know it,’ he nodded. ‘I’ve played golf at Sunningdale.’
Of course he had. She sighed, looking out at the garden, knowing her father – a resident there for thirty-eight years – would give his eye-teeth for an opportunity like that.
‘That wasn’t intended as a name-drop. It’s just my only reference,’ Max muttered, seeing her irritation.
She looked back at him but he was crossing to the far side of the room again, running his hands through his hair with a sigh. They were talking at cross purposes again, it seemed.
‘Look, it’s your Saturday and I’m intruding,’ she said, putting down her coffee. ‘I’ll just do what I came to do and get out of your hair. Do you mind if I wander around the garden?’
‘No...But you’ll need to put on a better coat.’
‘I’m fine in mine.’
He ignored her, walking back to the boot room and bringing back a padded Canada Goose parka. Men’s.
‘That looks enormous.’
‘Yes, well I don’t have any women’s things up here. But at least it’s warm,’ he argued, holding it open for her to slide her arms into. ‘I’m not sure if you realize it’s trying to snow out there? This is Scandinavia, not Surrey.’
‘Fine.’ She slipped it on, the shoulder seams coming to halfway down her biceps, the cuffs dangling several inches past her hands. ‘Who does this belong to? The Hulk?’
He grinned, that rare half-smile. ‘It’s warm. ’
‘Mm-hm,’ she sighed wryly. He opened the back doors and a frigid block of air fell in. He shivered, but she was protected in the coat. ‘...Is there anywhere you don’t want me to go?’
He looked at her, shaking his head. ‘Access all areas.’
Their eyes met briefly. She noticed that he had golden flecks in his, and faint – really faint – freckles on his cheeks. Was it through him that she sensed Lilja?
‘Okay, thanks.’ She stepped out, pulling the coat around her as she walked around the flower bed off to the right. She looked into it, remembering the profusion of texture and colour in the photographs – such as she could make out in a black-and-white image; but there was nothing to see today except mud and sticks, a few bamboo canes and some chicken wire around what looked like the skeleton of a hydrangea. She lifted her gaze to the sweep of the land, admiring the way it undulated gently, as if the sea rippled beneath the grass.
The woodland that bordered the lawns grew thicker around the back, standing darkly with a carpet of mulched leaves, mushrooms popping up everywhere like little white thumbs. She walked around the perimeter of the lawns, stopping as she saw several small wooden crosses in a scattered area by some trees. One looked to be reasonably recent – certainly from within the past ten years, the word Bella still distinct – but the others were weathered, the names almost eroded from sight, the wood rotting and flaking. Pet graves?
She walked through the trees, her hands trailing on the trunks as she wove her way around the perimeter, looking back up at the house from all different angles. There was an outbuilding with a ride-on lawnmower beside it. She wandered up, peering in and finding an impressive arrangement of garden tools inside, hanging on the walls and arranged on shelves – shears, a leaf-blower, rakes, spades, some plastic trugs. It smelled of grass cuttings and she wondered how many gardeners it took to maintain the grounds. Just from what she could see, there had to be five acres here, maybe more.
She came out again. Beyond was the greenhouse. It was huge and appeared to be original, with a sharply steepled roof and a metal fretwork. She walked up to it and looked in. The smell of moss, mud and tomatoes was immediate. There was an old waxed apron hanging from a hook, elbow-length gloves and a tatty, nibbled straw sunhat. On the shelves lay countless flower pots and seed trays, but they were empty; there was a terracotta rhubarb forcer in the far corner.
She closed the door carefully again, feeling frustrated. She had wanted to somehow feel what Lilja had felt here, and she could sense flickers of energy, like glimmers of light, but she couldn’t quite catch hold of anything. She was visiting at the wrong time of year, she knew. Life was dormant. On hold. There was nothing to see here after all.
Everything was still hiding below the surface.
‘Well timed, I was about to call you,’ Max said, looking up as she came back in through the back doors. He was carrying two bowls over to the small table. There were already plates set out, with buttered rolls and water glasses. Napkins, too. It was all distinctly more homely than the Geranium lunch they’d shared in his townhouse. ‘Any luck?’
‘No. The garden is sleeping,’ she said, pulling off her muddy boots.
‘One way of putting it.’
She stepped into the kitchen, slipping off the jacket. ‘Are those pet graves down in the trees?’
‘Yes. Various dogs and one guinea pig.’
She turned back to hang the jacket in the boot room, but he took it from her and did it himself. ‘...Thanks.’
‘Sit.’
They sat together at the small table and she felt aware of his legs near hers as he began tearing at his roll and dunking it in the soup.
She smiled, amused.
‘What?’ he asked after a moment with a suspicious look.
‘Nothing.’
‘...You’re smiling when there’s nothing to smile about.’
She shrugged. ‘I just didn’t take you for a soup-dunker.’
‘Soup-dunker?’
‘Is it considered polite over here to dunk your bread in your soup?’
His eyes flashed up to hers. ‘There’s a time and a place for etiquette. This isn’t it.’
‘Ah.’ She tore off a piece of her bread and dunked it too, remembering he had dined with royalty. ‘But you wouldn’t do this sitting beside the Queen?’
He paused, his hand almost at his mouth. ‘There are many things I might do with you that I wouldn’t in front of her.’
The comment took her by surprise but he carried on eating without a wink or a smile, no moody stare, seemingly wholly unaware of any innuendo.
‘You know, while we’re on the subject of that night—’
He shook his head, once. ‘Don’t.’
She looked at him. ‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t thank me. I already told you, it was a freebie. Veronique arranged it.’
She watched him eat, so determined not to be thanked. ‘And if I don’t believe you?’
‘Then you don’t believe me.’
She was silent for a moment. ‘Well...then will you please thank her for me? I’m incredibly grateful. What she did was so kind and wholly unexpected. I don’t really know why she would go to such trouble when, to be honest, she’s never given any indication that she even likes me—’
He paused eating again, stopping her with a mutinous stare. He knew exactly what she was doing.
‘I’d text her myself but I don’t think she’d read anything from me.’
‘Enough.’
She bit back a smile. ‘I also didn’t realize she was your girlfriend. I thought it was Angelina. Or was it Natalia?’
‘Yeah? And how long have you been with your boyfriend?’ he hit back, tearing apart his bread roll. ‘Because he wasn’t the guy waiting for you on the steps the other week.’
He remembered Erik? She fell quiet. Aksel was the last person she wanted to discuss.
‘Hm? Cat got your tongue?’ he asked, looking up at her, satisfied to have scored a point.
‘He’s not my boyfriend. Never was.’
Max’s eyebrow arched as he heard her abrupt tone. ‘What happened? Weren’t you with him last night? Kayaking .’ He made no attempt to disguise his scorn.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She looked back at her soup.
He frowned then, seeing that she wasn’t joking any more. ‘...Something obviously happened.’
‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me.’
She looked at him. ‘You know, you’re very nosy. I don’t pry into what’s going on with your girlfriends – plural.’
‘Because they’re not my girlfriends.’
‘What are they, then?’
‘You know what they are.’ His eyes flashed. ‘I don’t date. No one’s under any illusions.’
She looked away but he crouched lower, catching her eye. ‘What did he do?’
‘How do you know it was him at fault and not me?’
‘Call it a hunch.’
She sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to let it drop. Now she could see why he was a lawyer – and why lawyers were called sharks. He had an instinct for blood in the water. ‘It turns out he has a temper and...he took it out on me yesterday when I told him I had to leave early.’
She saw his expression change. ‘Took it out on you how?’
‘He just shouted at me and said some stuff and then he sort of struck at my kayak and almost sent me into the water—’
‘ What? ’
‘But he didn’t,’ she said quickly. ‘Someone else stepped in, and the marshals saw and they got me out. And that was the end of it. I’ll never have to see him again.’
A silence pulsed. ‘I should have punched him when I had the chance,’ he muttered, the anger glittering in his eyes.
‘Because that would have really helped things.’
‘He couldn’t kayak so easily with a black eye.’
‘Then it would have happened another time,’ she shrugged. ‘Listen, I’m fine. It’s done.’
He sighed, looking stressed. ‘And that’s when you came to the Academy, straight afterwards?’
‘Yes. Why?’
He watched her, giving a small shake of his head. ‘I thought you were quiet. I just didn’t realize.’
‘Well, why would you? It’s not your problem.’
He was still for a moment, before dropping his spoon onto the plate and sitting back in his chair with a sigh. ‘Fuck, Darcy,’ he said, staring at her hard. ‘How could you be with someone like that?’
‘Because I didn’t realize he was like that till it was happening! He was perfect on paper and I ended up missing a few red flags.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I let myself turn a blind eye because he’s kind to animals.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Kind to animals?’ Max frowned.
‘He’s a vet.’
‘Oh.’
‘But don’t worry. I’m going to follow your example and swear off dating for a while. I’m too busy with work anyway.’
‘Right. So then you get it,’ he said, picking up his spoon.
‘Yeah. Hookups are the answer.’
He looked sharply at her. ‘No!’
‘Why not? It clearly works for you.’
‘That’s not funny.’
She wanted to laugh. It actually was funny. It appeared that what was good for the gander was in fact not good for the goose.
At least they’d moved out of the awkward stage, she supposed.
‘Just let me eat in peace,’ he muttered.
‘I didn’t know I was disturbing your peace.’
‘You’ve been disturbing my peace since we met, and you know it.’
She was quiet for a few moments. She did know it. But she also knew something that would really disturb his peace; something he had a right to know. ‘Are you aware we’ve gone viral?’
‘...I wasn’t aware we’re a “we”.’
‘I’m afraid so. You haven’t seen it on TikTok?’
‘I don’t have TikTok.’ He’d stopped eating now, a look of mild alarm crossing his face. ‘What’s gone viral?’
She swallowed. ‘...Someone filmed us in the ladies’ at the fundraiser.’
‘What?’ The word was a bark, breaking through his carefully controlled composure. ‘ Why? What was there to see? You’d got wine on your dress! Why is that interesting to anyone?’
‘It’s just social media nonsense. This is what happens. I’m not happy about it either.’
He stared at her, looking stunned. ‘Show me.’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t—’
‘Darcy, show me! I have a professional reputation to consider.’
She brought it up on her phone and stared at the table as he watched. He played it through several times before flinging himself back in his chair, his hands in his hair. He clearly understood the intimation upon them. How the caption was casting him: the way he’d held her as he called for his driver; how he’d kissed her hair; the protective body language as he’d turned for the door...He was no longer Max Lorensen, corporate law titan, but the poster boy for If he wanted to, he would .
‘Four million people have watched this?’ He was incredulous. Mildly panic-stricken.
‘If it makes you feel better, it’s probably just ten teenage girls who have watched it four hundred thousand times.’
To her surprise, he gave a small laugh. ‘...Fuck,’ he groaned.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Why are you sorry? You didn’t film it and post it.’
‘No, but if I hadn’t—’
‘If you hadn’t been flirting with that guy, your dress wouldn’t have ended up ruined and I wouldn’t have had to go after you?’
‘You didn’t have to go after me. And besides, I wasn’t flirting with him. We were talking.’
He shrugged. ‘Looked like flirting from where I was standing.’
‘I wasn’t aware you were even looking.’
His eyes flashed. ‘I’m watchful. Remember?’
‘...Ha-ha, very clever.’ She looked away, feeling her heart pound. The conversation between them could veer from awkward to intense so quickly, it made her head spin.
They were quiet for a few minutes, drinking and eating, but from the way his eyes kept going to her phone, she knew he was preoccupied with what he’d just seen. Would he be professionally embarrassed?
She sipped another spoonful but slightly over-rotated the spoon so that a bit of soup dribbled down her chin.
‘Oh God,’ she muttered. ‘Can’t take me anywhere.’ She went to grab her napkin but he was faster, instinctively reaching over and smudging it away with his thumb, his hand pausing on her face as his eyes locked with hers.
In that single, unguarded moment, she saw his secrets – emotions he usually managed to hide so well shining back at her as if they’d been caught in the sun. It was as if time itself slowed. She had thought all along he had been calling the shots – deciding where the boundaries were; everything on his terms. Only now did she realize the power lay with her. He was running from her , fighting this.
But surely he knew he couldn’t run for ever? She leaned slightly into his hand and felt the pressure from his fingers increase, holding her—
He pulled away, as if only just realizing what he was doing. ‘Darcy.’
‘Max.’
A silence bloomed and this one felt heavier. Loaded.
‘Darcy...’
‘Yes,’ she breathed, hearing how his voice cracked on her name. He heard it too and looked away, as if he’d betrayed himself somehow. He hesitated and she felt her heart pause with him. ‘...There’s something I want to ask you.’
She swallowed as she watched him, waiting. ‘Okay.’
He looked back at her, but she saw that in that moment of reprieve, the shutters had come down again. The sun had gone back behind the clouds.
‘...Do you really think I should get a dog?’