Page 64 of A Secret Escape

“Forest Nest is my business, and I do whatever is needed. Sometimes it’s taking bookings. Sometimes it’s arranging a celebration cake. Sometimes it’s cleaning a floor.”

“And you don’t mind it?”

“Not at all. I love my job. Does that surprise you? It probably seems very boring to you.”

“Boring?” He let his hand drop. “Living here? Working here? Not boring at all. It’s a great life choice.”

Everything he said made her feel better about herself. She could have talked to him all day, but she had work to do and presumably so did he, so she scooped up her empty bags and his damp towel and got to work.

She changed sheets, put fresh fluffy towels in the bathroom and emptied the bins. She flung open windows and did some basic tidying, careful not to touch any of the remaining notes or stray pieces of paper.

As she mopped the kitchen floor she could see him standing on the terrace, staring out over the lake, deep in thought.

His job probably required a great deal of thinking and mental stamina, she decided, whereas hers needed physical stamina.

Her back was aching from too much bending over, and she scooped up the bags of dirty laundry and was on her way to the door when he stopped her.

“I have one question before you go.”

She dropped the laundry bag, aware that her face was probably unattractively hot and sweaty. “What?”

“Is your chocolate fudge cake as good as the key lime pie you brought me the other day?”

She laughed. “That’s for you to decide.”

She was still smiling as she closed the door behind her and headed up the track toward the café to check on the team.

She was halfway there when it occurred to her that for the past hour she hadn’t thought about Richard or what he might or might not be saying to Zoe.She’d been laughing and happy and distracted. And tonight she was going for dinner with Brendan Scott. She was going to wear a dress and put on makeup and do her best to wipe Richard’s words from her memory.

Feeling more positive, she reached for her phone and sent a message to Zoe.

Love you. Hope you’re doing okay there xx

Chapter15Zoe

Zoe was lying on her bed in the spare room in Avery’s flat when the message pinged on her phone.

She knew it would be from her mother (Cally still wasn’t speaking to her, which actually made her feel a hundred times worse than her parents’ divorce did), but she didn’t look at it right away because she knew her mum hated the weekends she spent with her dad and Avery, and looking at the message would make her imagine her mother all lonely and upset at home. But then she realized that if she didn’t reply she’d worry her mother, and everyone was already worrying far too much, so she picked up her phone, read the message and composed a reply.

Love you too. All good here. X

She stared at it and then deleted the second sentence. It wasn’t exactly good, was it? If she sounded as if she was enjoying herself, she might upset her mother. If she sounded miserable, she’d upset her mother. She had to sound neutral.

Love you too. Learning my lines! X

There. That was better. And her mum would be relieved she hadn’t given up on the play. Yet. She pressed Send, lay back down on the pillow and went back to staring up at the ceiling.

She didn’t hate being here, but she didn’t love it either.

The one good thing about being with her dad was that he wasn’t as emotionally intuitive as her mother, so she didn’t have to try so hard to hide her feelings. He didn’t seem to notice if she was happy or sad or quiet. Or maybe he just felt guilty and didn’t want to confront the consequences of his actions so instead chose to ignore them.

There had been that one excruciating moment early on when her dad tried to explain that he hadn’t meant to fall in love with Avery, and that the passion had taken him by surprise and overwhelmed him, and Zoe had wanted to cover her ears and eyes and tell him that if there was one thing a thirteen-year-old didnotwant to talk about it was her father’s passions.

Fortunately, he’d seemed to find the conversation as awkward as she did and had never mentioned it again.

Now on the weekends they were together they focused on doing things in the moment and didn’t talk about thesituation. Sometimes it seemed odd to Zoe that he never asked how her mother was, but presumably if he really cared about her feelings he never would have left in the first place.

And although the first few times she’d met Avery had been stiff and awkward, it was getting easier.

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