Chapter Seven #2
‘I don’t know,’ she murmured. ‘We never got that far. He just always said there would be something out there for me. I’ve always been cautious, I suppose. Always needed to know I’d find a way to cope, and having Isla and Rory really brought that home to me.’
‘You’re amazing, and so are they,’ Raf muttered. ‘Never doubt it, and Ewan was so lucky to have you.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. She tried to make herself believe it, when mostly she felt so much less. She raised her head as he removed his arm, restoring the distance between them, one bare foot tracing a pattern in the sand. ‘Before the band, I used to think you wanted to make a home like we did.’
‘Once, maybe, but then I thought that kind of life wasn’t meant for me.
’ He slid lower and Cassie was aware that sitting here was altering them again, shifting the ground beneath their feet.
But she couldn’t leave now and risk losing the chance to restore their friendship.
He hadn’t often shared much of his private life with her.
Pippa sometimes brought it up, usually when she was worried about him.
But even she hadn’t been certain why he’d suddenly stepped away from modelling.
‘So Ewan never told you why I joined the band?’
‘No. He just said it came at the right time, and you were ready to give music a go. That you’d had enough of modelling.’
‘Right.’ Raf exhaled, his breath a whisper brushing her skin. ‘So in the spirit of sharing the truth, I’m guessing you didn’t know I was supposed to be getting married and that there was a baby on the way?’
‘Seriously?’ Cassie gasped. ‘Are you talking about Mia?’ She could think of only one person about whom he could have been so serious. The only woman he’d ever brought home more than once.
Mia had been a model too, and she and Raf had been a gift for tabloids and online gossip.
Her life had felt as far away from Cassie’s as the stars were from the sea, and she’d seemed like the perfect fit for Raf, her cool blonde beauty a match for his own looks.
They’d been madly in love, and so the break-up had come out of the blue.
Afterwards he’d crashed with her and Ewan, refusing all offers of work beyond those he was already committed to.
Cassie had been preoccupied with her family and her own career as Ewan’s star continued to rise.
She’d looked after Raf as much as he’d allowed, slotting him into her home as Ewan helped take care of him too.
‘Yeah. I found out that the baby wasn’t mine a couple of weeks after we got engaged,’ Raf said bluntly. ‘We hadn’t told anyone else at that point. Mia wanted to wait.’
‘Oh, Raf,’ Cassie whispered. She shuffled onto her knees to face him, pulling him close.
She felt him tense in her embrace before he relaxed, his forehead resting on her shoulder.
His arms went around her too, and despite the comfort she meant to offer, she was utterly aware of his chest pressed against her breasts.
She closed her eyes to hold this moment close before slowly drawing back, letting him go before she let herself go. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’
‘I didn’t tell anyone except Ewan and my dad. Not even Pippa.’ He leant back, arms propped behind him as she settled beside him. ‘She was busy with her family too, and I didn’t want her worrying about me again. Everyone bought it when I said we’d broken up because we were too busy to make it work.’
Cassie drank in his profile as he stared ahead.
There was such strength and beauty in his face, and it was obvious why he’d been so successful as a model.
She was shocked by the longing to comfort him still, to hold him in every way possible.
His T-shirt was all that was warming her now they had separated, and she never wanted to take it off.
‘I don’t think even Ewan knew how scared I was about the band.’ Raf tilted his head, a thoughtful smile tugging at his lips.
‘Scared?’ The word was a whisper. ‘I never think of you that way. You’ve always been so strong and taken care of everyone you love.’
‘That was the easy part.’ His troubled gaze found hers, and she understood they were on the edge of a conversation they’d never had before. At least she could be his friend and try to help him. Whatever else had occurred between them, he deserved this from her.
‘Scared of what, Raf?’
‘All of it. Letting Dad down, messing up playing, my voice not being good enough. The attention, the commitment. The stammer coming back.’
‘I’m sorry you felt that way. I didn’t know.
The fans adore you, and your dad loves you no matter what.
’ She was falling into that bottomless brown gaze again, sadness gripping her at the uncertainty in it.
‘Have you found a way to acknowledge your success and how brilliant you are?’ Sometimes even the truth staring you straight in the face wasn’t always easy to accept.
‘Yeah, a bit.’
She’d seen him on stage often enough to recognise he was a superb musician.
Raf played with a raw passion and boundless energy that the fans idolised.
He’d gone viral after posting a video of himself rehearsing topless, sweat glistening on his body, lost in the music as he drummed.
Cassie understood that Raf was a stage persona he’d created, and she realised now it had been necessary to him, a means of keeping his private, wounded self hidden in plain sight.
‘If I can help at all…’ She instinctively laid a hand on his shoulder. The tide was slipping away from the shore, the sun a fading orange glow reflected in the sea above the outline of distant mountains bruising the sky.
‘I know. Thanks. Before I knew the truth about Mia, I thought the baby was my chance to have a family of my own. And then…’ He eased out a breath as she removed her hand. ‘It wasn’t. So I walked away from almost everyone and took off with the band.’
‘You did what you had to do to protect yourself, Raf,’ she told him gently. ‘Everyone deserves that when they’ve been let down by someone they love.’
‘I guess. I haven’t been big on committing to a relationship since then.
It wasn’t easy with the travelling, and the band was the perfect excuse.
I was scared of getting caught out again.
Scared of giving my heart away and having it smashed up again.
’ He stared at her, tears glittering. ‘I wanted kids, and maybe it’s too late for me now.
So that’s the price I pay for keeping my distance, never getting in too deep.
Isla, Rory and Harriet, they mean the world to me, and I won’t stand by and let anything happen to them. ’
Cassie’s heart ached and she understood him in a way she never had before.
She recognised the strength he’d had to draw on to perform, when as a teenager his stammer had sometimes left him struggling to communicate.
She found his hand, winding her fingers between his.
The moments moved on, and she wanted to hold on to this one forever.
‘Thanks for listening.’
‘Anytime.’ And she meant it; she couldn’t avoid him if he needed her.
‘I wanted to tell you about the house in Hartfell, and I’m sorry you found out the way you did.
’ Raf was staring at their entwined fingers on the sand.
‘I heard today that Allegra’s managed to get the vendor to agree to my renting it for six months while I make up my mind about buying it.
’ He paused. ‘And now you’re not going to be here for the summer, I thought that maybe you might like to spend it in Hartfell instead? The house is big enough for all of us.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Cassie laughed, because what other reply was there? ‘Spend the summer in your new house? With you?’
‘Is that such a terrible idea?’ He smiled and she was searching for a way to refuse without revealing the truth. That she simply couldn’t put herself in his way for weeks on end and constantly disguise feelings that were growing day by day.
‘Isla can see Harriet, help with the horses. And I’d be around to ride with Rory, and we could do some stuff together, the four of us.’
‘That’s so generous of you, Raf,’ she exclaimed. ‘But I can’t let them think they can come and go from your house whenever they want.’
‘So you don’t think Isla and Rory would like it?’
Her children would utterly love it; that was the problem. And Cassie wasn’t sure how she would get through another London winter without the space and calm she relied on each summer in Galloway.
‘Jas is taking them to my mother’s for a few days in August,’ she said quickly.
For one week every year, her mother was the perfect and attentive grandmother, and the children adored staying at her glorious villa high above the Amalfi Coast. This would be the first time they went without Cassie, and the plan still filled her with trepidation.
Her mother – who couldn’t bear to think of herself as a granny and would only answer to ‘Gigi’ – insisted they were perfectly old enough to manage without her, and it was only because Jas was travelling with them that Cassie had even agreed in the first place.
Jas she trusted with her children, her mother not so much.
‘I do appreciate the thought and it’s so kind of you, as ever.
’ She bit her lip. Surely she was imagining that his eyes were telling her more, that he wanted to please her too.
‘I’ll only be taking a couple of weeks off work, and I was thinking of camping in France for a change.
I can’t impose on Fiona and Gordon with the move; they’ll have enough to do. And I don’t want to be in your way.’
‘You won’t be. And I’ll be spending more time in Hartfell anyway,’ Raf replied casually. ‘Kenny and Vince from the pub have asked me to invest in a distillery they’re taking on, so we’re going to be business partners. They thought I might be interested, and I plan to be involved in the day-to-day.’
‘Okay, and wow!’ Cassie hoped she had hidden the hurt that he hadn’t shared this with her before now. Perhaps he had tried, and she’d fended him off as usual, making some excuse about being too busy to see him. But he needed something else after the band, and she’d simply have to get used to it.
‘Congratulations, how exciting. You really are setting down roots. A new business and a new home.’ Her eyes were shimmering, and she blinked. He wouldn’t be in London as much as before. ‘Does Rory know?’
‘No. I was going to tell him once I’d spoken to you. I thought maybe we could do that together?’
‘I think that would be good.’ She tried to balance her relief over Raf being out of reach against Rory’s disappointment.
‘Cassie, this doesn’t mean I won’t see him or Isla.’ He squeezed her fingers before letting go, and she was glad. It was difficult enough to think straight when he was close, much less if he was touching her. ‘Or you.’
‘What about Norfolk? Won’t you miss being by the sea? You always loved it there.’
She thought of the open expanse of beach merging into unending skies backed by sandy dunes, a place he’d often escaped in between travelling.
But he always returned to London. Always.
The city was a part of him, its vibes and the hustle, the music scene and the clubs he used to frequent, and Cassie couldn’t imagine him leaving it fully behind.
‘Yeah, probably. But I’m selling the cottage.’
‘Seriously? But what about your writing? I thought Norfolk was your inspiration, your muse?’
‘Those songs are just for me, no one else.’ He shrugged. ‘If I carry on, I can write wherever I am.’
‘If? But you love writing music.’ Something she had known for a long time.
‘Yeah, but Dad doesn’t use the cottage now and I haven’t spent much time there recently. I thought maybe I should let it go and try somewhere new.’
‘Raf?’ Cassie laid a hand on his arm, her voice barely more than a breath.
Her fingers were pale against the tattoos, telling the story of his life and those he loved.
‘I hope one day you’ll share your music.
I hope you know how wonderful a musician you really are.
That you earned your place in the band and you’re brilliant. ’
‘Thank you.’ He shifted, so her hand fell away, his eyes somewhere else entirely. ‘I wanted to say that we’ve always been friends, and I hope that will never change. We’ve both apologised for what happened in Australia, and I think you’re right. We should move on and put it behind us.’
‘You do?’ The relief wasn’t as overwhelming as the disappointment, but it was absolutely the right course of action. ‘But what you said last night, that you couldn’t get it…’
‘Forget what I said. It doesn’t matter.’