Chapter 47
Aria struggled to summon up enthusiasm for her gardening job.
Her back was hurting after a night spent on the beach and she was unexcited by the mundane tasks of scarifying the lawn and fishing dead leaves out of the pond.
Frustrated, she climbed into a fountain and started shovelling mud, overthinking the situation with Nic.
While the sex last night had been wonderful, he’d had his way with her and then left, without so much as a ‘good morning’ or a wake-up kiss.
She knew it was his planning meeting today.
But would he come back home after it? Or should she prepare herself for him disappearing for good?
Trudging back into town, she decided to call in on Sophie.
***
‘Oh hello,’ said an old man, opening the door. ‘You after my granddaughter? She’s downstairs talking to her mannequins, if you’d care to follow the hallway and walk down a few stairs. I’d show you there, but I’m exhausted. I hiked three Wainwrights today.’
Although he looked like he was likely to stumble getting to the bathroom, she took him at his word. ‘Fantastic. How many have you done in total?’
He looked perturbed. ‘I can’t remember exactly. I’d join you for a chat but there’s a programme about hoarding on.’
After checking it was OK to take Tiger with her, Aria wandered through the hall and down some steps into a cellar.
There, she found her friend wearing headphones, brushing the hair of a mannequin and whispering.
Aria waited for her to finish, taking in the piles of clutter from Christmas decorations to old suitcases.
‘OK, I’m confused,’ Aria said when Sophie logged off.
‘What’s with the brushing and whispering? ’
‘I’m growing my ASMR channel. I was trying to get people off to sleep.’
‘Is that still a thing?’ Aria asked. ‘It’s almost the afternoon.’
‘It’s totally still a thing. And it’s midnight somewhere in the world.’
‘People pay you to do this?’
‘Not yet, but I’m never gonna get rich cleaning or working in a shop so I’ve come up with some business ideas. If I can’t get humans off to sleep, I’ll kidnap Tiger to practise on.’
‘Good luck with that. He’s a terrible sleeper.’
Sophie reached for Tiger. ‘Come here, you gorgeous dog, and don’t listen to her.’
Looking at the two of them cuddled up, Aria couldn’t help but think back to the night before. Wrapped up on the beach with Nic, her head on his chest, the feeling of his skin on hers…
Sophie must have smelled the pheromones. ‘So. How’s life in the luxury lodge with fit Nic? Good sex?’
‘Sophie!’
‘Come on, don’t be coy. We are mature enough to talk honestly and I’m sure a guy like that is going to be a great lay. He’ll have been having sex with himself in the mirror since he was old enough to notice God chiselled him an awesome jaw.’
‘The sex is pretty amazing,’ Aria admitted, sighing and kicking off her shoes. ‘I’ve fallen for him, Sophie, despite all the red flags.’
‘What?’ Sophie practically shrieked. ‘That man is a walking green flag. Rich. Successful. No clutter in his house, which makes it easier to clean than a yoga retreat…’
Aria felt ready to confess her worries. ‘We slept together on the beach last night. But he got up and left this morning without a word.’
Sophie shrugged. ‘That’s what all guys do. You’re engaged, for goodness sake. I wouldn’t sweat it. Can I organise your hen night when you tie the knot? I’ll wear one of these wigs and come as Bridesmaid Barbie.’
Aria reached out for Tiger and grabbed his lead. She needed to get home, anyway, and right now her friend wasn’t being the greatest listener.
But as she went to stand, Sophie grabbed her hand. ‘Hey, wait, you’re proper upset?’
‘Our engagement was fake all along and now it’s over,’ Aria blurted out, tears welling.
‘That’s bollocks,’ said Sophie, passing her a toilet roll. ‘What do you even mean by fake? As I’ve said before, he’s besotted with you, and you go all moony whenever anyone mentions his name. If you aren’t married by Christmas, I’ll eat Grandad’s cap.’
Aria pulled off a couple of sheets and scrunched them up.
‘It was an agreement between us to con your mother and the other councillors into supporting his planning application. He proposed the idea of a fake relationship before the swim, and I was so rattled by Justin and Lu-Lu crowing about theirs I took it a little far. I was knee deep in my campaign to save the lake, and I negotiated some stuff that would be beneficial to the environment, so I didn’t feel I was giving myself away.
Plus, I got to live in his house and save some money.
It became a bit of a roller coaster as we had your mother coming and had to get to know each other quickly.
But now…’ Aria shrugged, ‘the ride has ended and I’m totally alone and back in the queue for tickets. ’
Sophie put her head to one side and looked at Aria coolly. ‘Well, you’re not alone, because you have me. And I thought it looked good on you, that fake engagement.’ She put the word fake in finger quotes in the air.
‘So did I! I was happy for the first time in ages. I started to fall for him. I thought we were on the same page. But then he dropped me like a hot cake. Went straight off to London as soon as your mother gave him the thumbs-up.’
Now Sophie looked confused. ‘But you said you had sex last night?’
‘He came back, and we were messing around at the lake, laughing at Tiger who was humping a duck. Don’t ask. Then I helped him plant an oak from an acorn as he’d never grown anything before, and, before I knew it, we were kissing…’
‘He came back from London, grew his own wood and planted a seed in you?’ said Sophie, delighting in her wordplay. ‘So why are you round here worrying?’
‘Because, if the planning decision goes his way today, he’ll have no more use for our agreement.
And if it doesn’t, he’ll return south and it’s all over anyway.
I really like this man, Sophie. But I feel there are two different versions of him.
There’s the super-charged, ruthless businessman who is willing to run roughshod over the Lakes, building on every bit of green he can get hold of, for profit.
And then there’s the chilled guy who identifies species of fritillary with his phone so he can chat with me about them, who rubs my back when I’m sick, buys the food I like and pets Tiger.
I fear he’s going to revert from country guy to city guy again and leave me here in bits.
’ The tears she’d been holding in fell and she pulled off more toilet roll to absorb them.
Sophie smiled sympathetically. ‘It will work itself out. You look amazing together and you’re irresistible. Except when you are crying like that: then you look like a sad, snotty panda.’
Aria blew her nose into the tissue. ‘I was so humiliated by Justin and so unhappy when I left Cumbria a year and a half ago. Returning here and living in his house gave me hope. I thought my luck had changed.’
‘Hmm. Remind me why you almost married that jumped-up caravanner?’
Aria pulled herself together enough to answer. ‘I really have no idea. I got an invite for their wedding. Isn’t that just odd? The e-card was literally a clone of the ones I designed for me and Justin.’
‘See? You bring stuff to the table too, Aria. You might not have pots of money or a fancy company, but you are a catch, and neither of them deserve you. And if the king of the castle doesn’t step up and give you both a happy ending – and yes, I do mean that kind of happy ending – then he’s blind and stupid and I give up on love.
This calls for getting drunk and ordering takeout.
I’ve no food in as my sister and I are taking Grandad to Wales tomorrow while the house is damp-proofed.
He thinks he’s going to climb Snowdon. In reality, he falls over a molehill every time he goes out for a pint of milk, and thinks Poet’s Panorama is a Wainwright.