Chapter 4
Four
Icouldn’t think of many sounds I liked less than the echoes of an empty space once filled with saved-for furniture and prosecco-drunk laughter.
I stood in my empty apartment, giving it a final once over.
My case sat at my feet, packed with everything I’d need for my stay at Harrington.
I was running late for the train but still, I took a moment to take in the barren space where I’d spent the last few years.
My chest constricted. If Keira was here she would know how to make me laugh and remind me that starting a new adventure was a good thing.
Tears pricked my eyes but I brushed them away before they could fall. She wasn’t gone forever.
With a stiff upper lip, I grabbed my case and headed out the door. I posted my key back through the letterbox for the landlord to collect later, saying goodbye to my front door for the last time.
I trotted down the steps and came to a halt when I noticed Maia waiting in the driver's seat of a Bentley.
My grip on my case tightened. I was an idiot to think I’d be travelling back on the train. Really it was surprising that Alfie didn’t mind me getting the tube alone. Or at least, he didn’t try to stop me.
Maia looked past me at the front door of the apartment she had lived in too.
She climbed out of the car. I didn’t move.
It was strange looking at her now that she wasn't playing a part.
She carried herself differently, no hunched shoulders or averted eyes trying to make herself invisible.
She stood with a straight back and a lifted chin.
Gone were her drab, don't-look-at-me clothes and in their place were a pair of black trousers and a sensible, white button-up shirt.
Her curls were pulled back in a tight bun and her dark skin looked bright in the rare rays of English sunlight.
If she felt guilty about her deception she didn't show it. Where she'd been these last few months I didn't know. I hadn’t seen her since our Dubai trip.
“Miss O'Connell, shall I help you with your luggage?”
“‘Miss O'Connell’?” I raised my eyebrows at her. “Seriously? I think it's a bit late for formalities, don't you?”
She didn't respond, only gave me a tight smile. I tossed my case into the trunk of the car and slid into the back seat.
Maia got behind the wheel, the engine purred to life and she pressed the button to slide up the partition screen, hiding me from her view. I appreciated the privacy. I pulled out my phone to send a text to Alfie but found one from him waiting for me already.
Are you two getting along?
I responded with the middle finger emoji.
Careful.
Two middle finger emojis.
You're lucky I'm on my way to Paris.
I scoffed at my phone, typing furiously. YOU’RE lucky you're on your way to Paris. Why can't I have Elliot instead of Maia?
He turned down the job. Said you were too much trouble. Good luck today. I love you.
I rolled my eyes. I looked around the car for the button that would bring down the partition screen. I might as well have it out with her if we were going to be stuck together for a month.
“You know, pretending to be someone's friend when you're not is a really shitty thing to do.”
There was a long silence and I began to wonder if she was just going to ignore me, when finally, she spoke. “For what it's worth, it felt pretty shitty too.”
“So why did you do it?”
“Money. Why else?”
I shook my head. “Spying for money. Honourable.”
“It wasn't spying exactly, Lola. I didn't report back on you.”
“You didn't have to. Alfie was getting all the information he needed on a flat screen. You knew and you didn't say a word.”
She was silent for a minute. “I know. Money is the only excuse that I have. I’m not going to beg for your forgiveness. It was a shitty thing I did but I’d do it again if I had to.”
Now it was my turn to be silent. In all the time we lived together, she’d revealed almost nothing of herself and anything she had could just be a lie.
But I hadn’t forgotten the way that she and Eli had looked at each other that night at the Never Tell Club.
There was no denying the truth of that connection.
“Eli has a lot of money, seems like you could have asked him for help if you were that hard up.”
“I don't do charity,” she replied stiffly.
“You just spy on people.”
“I wasn't spying!” she snapped, exasperated. “I was just supposed to keep an eye on you.”
“Like a spy.”
“No! I was just supposed to protect you.
To be there if anything happened to you, if you got groped by some guy in a bar, or if you got a new boyfriend and he didn't treat you well, or if someone broke into the house, whatever.
Mr Tell wanted you to be safe. I don't agree with his methods.
I really am sorry. I wasn't expecting to actually like being your friend.
That's why I withdrew so much when we were both at home, I felt guilty hanging out with you and Keira and acting like we were buddies. It felt dirty to me.”
I sat quietly, digesting her words. Whatever lies she’d told in the past, I couldn’t deny how sincere her words were now.
“How do you know Alfie anyway?” I asked finally.
“I knew Elliot first. He's well known in our industry.”
“What industry is that?”
“Elite security teams. There aren't many women who do this kind of work, that makes me valuable.
There are always men like Mr Tell that want a female guard on their security team.
Someone who can follow their wife, daughter, mistress, whoever, into the bathroom if they need it.
Men like Mr Tell are often possessive and don't like other men, even those they employ, going into intimate spaces with their women.”
I snorted. She didn’t need to tell me that Alfie was possessive. I lived it everyday.
“How did you get into this line of work?”
“In a roundabout sort of way. I served in the military for a few years until I was medically discharged. Bounced around a few different dead-end jobs before I was finally able to get an interview with Elliot. That was four years ago. Here I am.”
I wanted to ask her why she was medically discharged but that seemed rude. So I decided to ask her another rude question instead.
“And the money you needed? Why were you so desperate for that?”
She looked annoyed that I'd asked her such a personal question.
“Hey, you spent over a year lying to me, the least you can do is answer a few questions.”
In the mirror I could see her considering her words carefully before she spoke them.
“I had some debts to pay off. They weren't my debts but I still had to pay them off.”
Her answer had just opened up even more questions. How did you become responsible for paying off someone else's debts?
“Did you manage to pay them off?” Somehow I thought it might make me feel better if there was at least one positive outcome to all of this mess.
“Yes, I did. Please, that's all I want to say about it.”
“Fine.” I sat back in my seat, watching the winding streets of London pass by for a while. “So, just how far up my backside are you going to be over the next month?”
Maia allowed her stern expression to soften into a grin and her familiar brown eyes met mine in the mirror. “You won't even know I'm there, Miss.”
A nostalgic smile met my lips as we arrived back in my hometown. I’d missed the rolling fields, the cobbled streets. It was all a world away from my London life.
Being so close to my old home had me eager to go to Natalie and Ryan, to be back in my old house surrounded by my gran’s afghans and my mother's books.
To my old bedroom where I had studied for school and mourned the losses of my family and made love to the man I would marry one day.
But that would wait till later, till tonight when I would be going there for dinner.
For now, Maia drove us on to Harrington. I saw it in the distance as we passed the stretch of road where I had crashed into Alfie's car. I thought about that day, the day when the predictable pathway of my life had been changed forever.
Harrington was just as beautiful now, though less foreboding.
In a way, this also felt like a homecoming.
This place had an eternal piece of my heart.
I met the love of my life here. Here we had fought and fucked and built the basic, if slightly broken brickwork that lay the foundations of our relationship.
We pulled up to the main gates, no longer chained up like they had been when Riley had brought me here a year ago. Now they were open, ready for our arrival.
We drove up the long driveway that led us through the extensive gardens of the property.
The water feature that had laid unfinished last year was now properly erected.
The wiring no longer spooled out of it like snakes, now they fitted into the ground.
Water sprung from the mouth of the statuesque woman etched into stone.
Harrington House was impressive up close, even more so now that it was fully repaired.
The scaffolding had gone. There was no massive team of workmen milling about anymore.
Only a few work vans remained, no doubt belonging to whomever was putting the finishing touches to the interior.
I remembered it as almost haunting, the kind of place where ghosts wandered in hidden rooms.
The exterior was what I was most desperate to get to. Through the car window I caught glimpses of the newly and nearly finished gardens. My hands fidgeted in my lap, eager to explore.
I stepped out of the car, not waiting for Maia to get my door first.
“Lola! You're early!” a bright, Irish accent greeted me. Riley was unchanged. His thick-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, the sleeves of his flannel shirt were pushed up and there was dirt under his fingernails and on the knees of his jeans. I allowed him to sweep me up into a hug.
Once, I had been intimidated to meet a man whose work I had fangirled over so many times, but now Riley Fitzpatrick was family.