Page 21 of A Midnight Kiss on Ever After Street
That’sit?That’swhy he’s come looking for me? Nothing to do with the magical evening we spent together or the best kiss of my life? He just wants info about the castle? Oh, this day just getsbetter.
‘I tried to follow her but she disappeared into the woods. She knew her way and I didn’t.’
‘Not from around here?’ Scarlett asks as he continues leafing through the pages.
‘No, I’m from Scotland. Just here for a couple of weeks to clear the castle of anything valuable before the sale.’
Scotland? He did say he was only here on business, but by heck, Scotland may as well be the fourth moon of Jupiter. He doesn’t have the accent though. He sounds exactly like he did last night: English and well-spoken, a deep voice that’s slow and considered, but gets stuttery when he’s nervous.
Scarlett sighs wistfully. ‘That ball must’ve been magical. Sadie was just telling me about— ow!’ She glares at me when I stamp on her foot.
‘You don’t recognise any of these, I’m sure,’ I say when he looks up at Scarlett’s noise of pain. I am, obviously,surethat he doesn’t.
He shakes his head forlornly, and Scarlett takes pity on him. She explains our guarantee about finding love in one of our dresses and that buyers can return a dress if they don’t find that special someone while wearing it. ‘We have rails of returned dresses out the back – that might be worth a look.’
The returned dresses! Oh, the holiest of hecks, I never took my dress back upstairs last night. It’s still there, on the rail where I shoved it before Ebony arrived. I’d intended to take it back up to my flat when the coast was clear, but I never thought of it again. Oh God, hecannotsee that collection of returns. I jump in quickly. ‘It was only last night. I don’t think she’d have returned it yet. There’s no point in looking.’
‘There’s always a point when it comes to love.’ Scarlett beckons him through to the back room. ‘Come on, this way.’
‘Not love,’ he reiterates. ‘I don’t believe in any such thing.’
‘No, don’t. I…’ I blank on any other possible excuse, and it’s too late. He’s already ducking through the door behind Scarlett.
I clonk my head down onto the counter. Just tell him. It’ll be awkward and embarrassing, but he’ll soon realise thatIam not the fairy-tale princess I was last night, and we’ll laugh and put it down to the headiness of the evening, and he’ll politely backpedal on everything he’s just said and go back to Scotland as if none of it ever happened. Maybe they won’t even find the dress. He’s clearly not the best at recognising things, and without his glasses on last night, maybe the dress looked fuzzy enough to be unrec—
‘Sade! Where did this dress come from?’ Scarlett calls from the back room.
Monkey bollocks. They’ve found it.
‘It was, er, outside when I came in this morning,’ I call back. ‘Another return, no doubt.’
Witt emerges from the back room cradling my dress in his arms like the person in it has died. He looks devastated. ‘That’s it then, isn’t it? If she’s returned the dress, last night couldn’t have meant anything to her.’
‘Didn’t mean much to you either, eh?’ I mutter under my breath.
‘Or, as per my mum’s ridiculous guarantee, she could just have been trying to swindle a free dress for the evening. You’d be surprised at how many people treat us as a rental service.’ Scarlett follows him out into the shop, but he looks genuinely distraught, and I wonder if maybe it did mean something to him after all, and no matter how annoyed I am by his lack of recognition this morning, he seemed like a genuinely lovely guy last night, and I don’t want him to think he did anything wrong. This has already gone too far.
‘Look, there’s something I need to tell you. It was me…’ I take a deep breath and look up into his eyes, and it’s as though he’s looking straight through me. There’s still no recognition whatsoever. It hasn’t even crossed his mind that someone so scruffy and tomboyish could be the Cinderella princess from last night. I’m just a worker, a middleman – someone who people look at but never really see. Last night, it was easy to believe in fairy tales and forget the truth that every adult knows – they don’t happen in real life, and it would be better to spare us both the embarrassment and move on. Let last night be exactly what it was – a fantasy. A magical night that’s best becoming nothing more than a lovely memory. This will get even more messy if he knows who he really danced with. ‘…who made the dress,’ I finish quickly. ‘And I can’t say I remember who it was for. Sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter now. For her to return it… It can’t mean anything good.’
‘Maybe she doesn’t want to be found,’ I suggest.
‘Maybe she doesn’t. But she framed the castle in a way that I hadn’t thought of – a way that potential buyers would appreciate. She—’
I must let out a growl because he cuts off the sentence and looks over at me. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘So you want us to tell you who this woman is so she canhelpyou sell the castle and, what, get a few brownie points from your boss? Get a higher offer from the supermarket?’
‘Well, notjustthat. I’d like to go for a coffee or something. I’d like to talk to her again. I liked talking to her, and believe me, I don’t like talking to many people.’
‘No bloody wonder,’ I mutter. ‘Newsflash,Witt, no one on Ever After Street wants the castle sold, so you’ve come to the wrong place,mate. There’s the exit.’ I throw my hand out towards the door, narrowly avoiding hitting Scarlett, who’s staring at me with her mouth agape.
Witt has the decency to look taken aback. ‘I’m sorry, that came out way too harsh. It wasn’tjustthat. I’d like to see her again. There was something about her. Her soul, her spirit, or something. I don’t know. I wasn’t attracted to her physically.’
Oh, thanks. I roll my eyes.
‘That came out wrong. I mean, Iwas, very much so, but it was so much more than that. She made me see things in a way I hadn’t before. I felt different when I was with her and I liked being different for a while.’
Now,thatI understand. That vulnerability he had towards the end of the evening has crept back into his demeanour. He was reserved at first last night, he didn’t loosen up immediately, and I can see hints of that deeper layer again today, and I’m overjoyed that whatever it was I felt yesterday, he really did feel something too, but none of it changes the fact that he doesn’t know me today. ‘You haven’t got a clue what she looked like. All you remember about her is a thing.’ I wave towards the dress in his arms. ‘You wouldn’t recognise her if she was standing right in front of you.’
