Page 165 of The Puck Stops Here

‘Go, Astrid.’

She gave him one last pleading look, but his eyes were pinned straight ahead, his jaw set like steel. He wasn’t listening any more, he was shutting her out. Behaving like the man she’d met that very first day, playing offence and defence, fighting for his career. Bitter. Angry.

Only this time, she was the one who’d fired the shots, and she couldn’t hate herself more.

For an award-winning journalist, an expert in words, she was lost for them now. The one thing she wanted to say, she didn’t trust herself to admit. Nor did she trust him enough to hear it and not laugh in her face. So she stepped out into the cold, numb to everything but him.

‘I’m sorry.’

Her words were snatched away by the bitter wind, the slam of the truck door punctuating the finality of it all. Andhunching her shoulders against the cold inside and out, she did what he’d told her to do, she ran to Sissi, needing her friends now more than ever. She felt his eyes on her the whole way though, because of course Blake wouldn’t leave until he knew she was safe.

He hated her but he was still protecting her.

And she deserved none of it.

Sissi launched across the diner as Astrid pushed through the doors, her arms wrapping around her as Astrid listened to the truck screeching away and then she crumbled, sinking into Sissi with a sob.

‘It’s okay, honey,’ Sissi murmured. ‘It’s okay…’

‘No, nothing’s okay,’ she cried. ‘I don’t think anything will be okay again.’

Because she knew in that moment Blake wasn’t alone.

Shewas broken. She had torn her own heart in two. And she had no idea how to piece it back together again. Not without the man to whom she had given it to…

And what kind of karma was that?

Gorging on her own Just Desserts, that’s what.

* * *

‘You’re going to have to tell him how you feel,’ Sissi said, topping up her wine glass.

They’d been talking for hours. Ever since Sissi’s shift had ended and they’d rolled home to her tiny two-up two-down, Astrid had been spilling her heart out. Her messed-up feelings for Blake. Her conflict over Aiden. The sex.Allthe sex. And the karma.

‘He’s never gonna let me anywhere near him.’

‘You’re one of the most resourceful women I know, you’ll find a way.’

‘I barely trust myself to feel it let alone tell him it.’

‘Just because you’ve never fallen in love before, it doesn’t mean you don’t know it when you feel it. Iknowit. And I see it in you.’

‘I really do love him, don’t I?’ Astrid buried her head in her hands. ‘How could I have been so stupid, so careless…’

‘Love has a will of its own.’

‘But Blake, ofallpeople? He’s supposed to be like me; he doesn’t do relationships, he doesn’t fall in love…’

‘It’s probably why you were so drawn to him in the first place… he could never let you down like your father did your mother because he’d never lie to you about the future in the first place.’

Astrid lifted her head. ‘I can’t believe you remember all that stuff.’

‘Of course I remember, I’m your friend, one of your best. I listen. We all knew it was a risk with Blake; you like a bad boy because on the face of it, they’re nothing like your dad.’

It was true. Her father was so clean cut, so perfect on the outside, quick to make friends and influence people, quick to tell his mother what she wanted to hear and snatch it away when it suited him. ‘Christ, I’m a psychologist’s wet dream.’

Sienna chugged on her wine. ‘Welcome to the club.’

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