Page 104 of The Last Kiss

“So, it’s really the situation your mother has created that’s frustrating? Let me guess, she thinks Gabriella should come back here too?”

“It’s not that straightforward. She’s still in mourning, she wants us close.”

“I’d say it’s pretty easy.”

He shakes his head, lips pressed.

“You know my parents, they suffocated me, always expected me to do everything right. I was the eldest, I had to set an example. I never even really did anything wrong, yet they still blamed me when Liv followed her wild path. They blamed me for something I didn’t do. Everything I’ve done since has been cast in the light of that time. Months ago, you told me I lived a life in grey. Well, you, my lover, live a life of repression, here at the will of your maman. Is this even where you want to be? In a hotel that isn’t your dream, when really you’re a farmer at heart?”

There’s a lengthy pause, and I think I’ve overstepped the mark. Finally, he kisses under my ear, his arms closing me in tighter until my already empty lungs are depleted of all air.

“In January, I was in London because I was meeting a farmer who has managed to rebuild a herd of truly rare cattle. I was talking of taking over some land and starting what we do here over there. It would be different. A different type of cheese process to here. I wanted the challenge.”

“But?”

He doesn’t answer for a long time.

“Then the following month I went back to tell him it was a no go, I couldn’t do it. But then I saw you again, and right then in that moment I knew I wanted to move to London. Not for cows, not for the challenge of what I could achieve, but because I knew that I’d found something in you I never thought I would.”

It hurts. All of this hurts because… “But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.” His eyes meet mine. “And if I did now? If I packed a bag and left with you now?”

I can’t answer. It’s too late.

And even though he doesn’t know yet, he can hear the words in my silence.

“Let’s get some sleep.” I nestle down so he can’t see my face. I’m pretty sure it’s a picture of pure heartbreak.

I wake to warm fingers of sunlight reaching around the curtains. I pat the bed, expecting him to have gone to check his herds, but I tap tight arse cheeks instead. Nice. Automatically, I crank an eye to check Simone hasn’t come for a morning chat, breathing a sigh of relief when it’s just us in the room.

Gosh what a miserable mess he’s in here. Part of me wants to go and seek out his mama bear and tell her to let her grown ass son live his own life, live her grief herself and not destroy him with it. But I won’t. Because she’s damn scary.

I’m exhausted and not just physically. Although yes, my energy if it were flickering on a battery light would be coming in at about two, but mentally too. All night my sleep was disturbed by his words. That he wanted to come to London just for me but didn’t.

I can hardly complain, can I? For five months I’ve been keeping the mother of all secrets from him. But then I never expected it to come to this. It was only meant to be one night.

Maybe I can say that over and over again to myself until I end, but I know the truth deep in my heart. Even that first night this was something else.

He felt it too.

This last few months of mine feel like a tragic waste of time. More of a waste than the barren years of my life all put together.

Regret. It’s a bitter tasting pill.

Could I stay here?

Is that a possibility? If I tell him the truth, could I stay here and see out these final stages with him? Would he even want that?

Fuck. I should have told him the truth right at the start. We could have been anything together by now. Instead, we still teetered on the cusp of something that could only be nothing.

One thing I do know is that I don’t want to go home. Turning, I look at his stretched-out form, golden skin, messy waves of dark hair. The stubble on his face a dark shadow I could lick like a lolly.

No, I don’t want to go home.

But do I want him to see me the way I know I’m soon going to be? I don’t think I want that either. It’s bad enough he’s already witnessing this spectral ghost I’m becoming.

I don’t want anything that’s going to hurt, yet still I know it will anyway.