Page 103 of Tears of Glass

I shrug. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about such matters, I guess. Eli?” A question pops into my mind. “If this is a pro-bono case and nothing to do with corporate law, who is footing the bill?”

“Well technically it is corporate law. The company are our clients.”

“What?”

His eyes dance. “The Fairclough trust extends far and wide. And if I’m going to go down, then I’ll take those bastards down with me.”

“You’re acting against your own client? Isn’t that against the law?”

He shrugs.

This man.

Embarrassingly my eyes swim with sudden tears.

“Good grief, please don’t cry on our date. It would make it an epic fail of vast proportions.”

I swipe at my face, smiling, fighting the tide of emotions that threaten to sweep me away. “I can’t believe if I hadn’t forced myself into The Ritz that day I would never have known this. It’s scary.”

“What’s scary?” his voice lowers, his gaze burningly intense.

“Everything.”

Our plates are taken away though I’ve barely touched my food. I plug hard at my wine, draining my glass. “I made you something.”

He swirls his own drink, dancing ruby liquid inside cheap glass.

“You made me something? What?” His grin is electric.

“A promise.” I dig into the pocket of my jeans. I’m not breathing. My lungs are empty and deflated. I hold my hand out, my fingers clenched around the small trinket. “I know what you are risking for me. I know what it’s taking for us to be together.” My heart... will it just stop with the racing and the thrumming. I want to wash away, exposed and fractured, but I cling on to my promise. “This is to say I won’t run.” I open my palm revealing the gold twisted ring I created in our studio. Silver and gold entwine, rough edged and raw.

“This is me.” I point to the silver. “And this is you.” My fingers slide along the gold. “I don’t know whether it will fit, I had to guess, but I can fix it; you know, smelt it down and start again.”

“Faith—” He stands catching me, making me rise with him, his fingers slipping along my jaw. “I love you.”

“Forever.”

And my heart soars, flying free, set loose from the cage I’ve hidden it in. The cage disintegrates with it, scattering in the dust of the past as his lips search mine, seeking out everything that I am.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Days pass and I’m happy. For the first time I’m happy and it’s nothing like I ever expected, nothing I ever believed in. A dream. A hope. A wish a broken girl whispered overlooking the sea when her heart was so black she never thought she’d feel again.

I study; look after Tabitha, enjoying having a baby sister, giving myself the family I’ve always craved; and Brighton feels far away.

In the mornings, Eli leaves for work to save the world, and I create and learn, giving myself to the dream that this is something. That my art will mean something—just like Al always said.

Every day that passes my grief lessens, eases, and I see loss for what it is, another stage we live through.

I can’t ring Dan and it hurts. I sleep with it on my mind, my arms wrapped around Eli. Dan and I are lost to one another now.

I’m stuffing the machine with a dark wash. Sally, who I’ve discovered is the cleaner, has been in and done her miraculous sweep through making the mews smell delicious, but I’ve requested some jobs fall to me. Eli may have a charmed life with cleaners and staff, but I’ve always washed my own underwear and that isn’t going to end now. My phone rings which is a good thing because it’s stuffed in the back pocket of a pair of jeans in the machine—bloody hell, maybe I should let Sally do everything.

“Yo, Tabs.”

“Faith? Are you free?”

“I’m extraordinarily busy doing housework.”