Page 153 of Off the Pitch

“Perfect,” she said. “I’ll be in touch with the details, and I look forward to seeing more of your work. Enjoy the cupcakes.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll walk you out,” said Hugo, which seemed a little unnecessary to me, but I heard them talking quietly by the door, so I assumed he’d had a question to ask her. I just flopped onto the sofa and picked up my neglected cupcake, finally able to enjoy the lemon-meringuey goodness.

It was delicious, and as I savoured the sweet tang of lemon on my tongue, I couldn’t help but wonder if the other two flavours were equally delicious. There was only one way to find out.

“Well, that was… something.” Hugo dropped onto the seat next to me, just as I put half a chocolate and salted caramel cupcake into my mouth.

“Mmm-hmmm.” I tried to make polite noises of agreement, which was very, very difficult with my mouth full. Hugo laughed and reached out to wipe a stray bit of icing off my face. “It was certainly a surprise,” I added as soon as it was possible to speak again. There was a wrinkle of concern on Hugo’s face that I didn’t like, but I didn’t know why it was there. “Cupcake for your thoughts?”

“You know, they aren’t just for you,” Hugo said, taking the lemon cake I handed him.

“I know, but I don’t have a penny on me.”

“I’m just… I’m so proud of you.” He ran his finger along my jaw, turning my head and pulling me into a deep kiss. “You deserve this.”

“Thank you. I’m still a little in shock to be honest.”

“Me too.” Hugo shook his head and smiled. “It wasn’t quite what I’d thought would happen this evening.” He kissed me again, slow and sweet, making my whole body tingle. “We should celebrate.”

“I would be up for some celebration,” I said. “What did you have in mind?” He slid closer to me, pulling me onto his lap and wrapping his arms around me. I smiled. Cake and kisses sounded like a pretty good celebration to me.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

KitI’m so hungry! Why can’t I magically summon food to my desk?

Hugo Mon coeur,you could make something?

KitAnd actually have to get up?!! Ugh no thanks, I’ll just whine pitifully from my chair instead

Kit

Preparing for the exhibition was definitely not as fun as I thought it would be.

I mean, I knew it would be chaos because I had three weeks to choose my pieces, paint more pieces, and prepare everything before the gallery came to collect them. That was fine. What wasn’t fine was the nagging sense of doubt I kept experiencing that nothing I painted would be good enough.

This was the Daaé Gallery for heaven’s sake. I couldn’t send them any old crap I’d knocked up in half an hour. Especially because Hélène wanted tosellmy work, and there would be people there who were interested in actually buying it, and if the paintings were rubbish then it would all be absolutely pointless because nobody would want anything.

I sighed to myself, setting down the brush I’d been absent-mindedly waving in the air for the past ten minutes while I was lost in my own head.

It sounded stupid, but I wished I could recreate the sense of peace I’d felt in Scotland. Being here in the centre of London, with real life going on all around me and my own impending sense of doom, wasn’t really helping me to relax. I knew what I wanted to paint, but for some reason I couldn’t seem to convince my brain to put it onto paper.

“Ugh,” I groaned, abandoning my work and heading for the kitchen in search of tea and biscuits. Since Hugo’s training was ramping up, biscuits were in short supply, but I found half a packet that I’d wedged away at the back of the cupboard where he wouldn’t be tempted by them.

Even though my house was ready, I was still living here, and I wasn’t quite sure how to tell Hugo that I didn’t want to leave. When I’d first gotten the phone call about the house, I’d sat and cried for ten minutes because I didn’t know how to tell Hugo, and I didn’t want my life here to end. I’d wanted to hide it from him, but he’d known something was wrong. The look on his face when I’d told him my house was ready had given me hope that maybe he didn’t want me to leave either.

Neither of us had brought it up again, and we’d casually ignored the topic for the last seven days.

I knew we had to talk about it at some point, though, because the house couldn’t stay empty forever.

My phone buzzed as I was making tea, and I picked it up without looking at it, simply pressing the little green icon on the screen. As soon as I answered it, I wished I hadn’t.

“Hello, Kit darling. It’s Mummy.”

I tried not to sigh, and instead scooped an extra spoonful of sugar into my tea. I was going to need it. “Oh, hello. How’re you?”

“I’m fine. It was just a quick call. I wanted to ask you a question.” Oh good, my torment would be over quickly today. I hadn’t spoken to my mother since last Christmas and I hadn’t seen her in years, and I’d conveniently forgotten to call her back every time she’d rung, so the universe probably thought I deserved a little karmic retribution.

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