by Holly Martin
He opened the back door and leaned against the frame. Her whole face lit up at seeing him and that warmed parts of him that hadn’t felt warmth for a very long time.
She drew closer and her eyes cast down to his arms. ‘You’ve got your elbows out again.’
He laughed as he looked down at his rolled-up sleeves.
‘Well I thought it might stop you jumping me as soon as you walked through the door. It is supposed to be just dinner, remember?’ he said, playfully, though he wasn’t sure if he was saying that to remind himself.
‘You don’t need to worry, I have super-strength willpower, I will be perfectly behaved. I didn’t know whether to bring anything—’
Tori suddenly tripped up the doorstep and went flying. He managed to reach out and catch her before she hit the floor, but her handbag and its contents went cascading all over the kitchen.
‘God, are you OK?’ Aidan asked, helping her back to her feet.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Tori said, a little breathlessly. ‘Thanks for the lightning reflexes.’
‘Ha, no problem. Though I thought you said you were going to be perfectly behaved and that nothing was going to happen. You haven’t even been here five minutes and you’re already throwing yourself at me.’
Tori laughed. ‘It’s obviously your animal magnetism. It’s my kryptonite. I clearly can’t keep my hands off you.’
‘Understandable,’ Aidan said, and Tori laughed again. ‘Here, let me help you with your stuff.’ He watched Tori’s face fall, her eyes widening in horror.
‘Oh god no, please don’t,’ Tori said.
He cast his eyes to the pile of debris scattered over the floor and spotted a condom, several condoms in fact. Flavoured ones judging by the bright colourful packaging. His eyes caught something else. Shit. There was a pair of red handcuffs, a blindfold and what looked suspiciously like a vibrator. What the hell kind of dinner had she planned for their first non-date?
He cleared his throat. ‘Well… when you said you didn’t know what to bring tonight, normally social etiquette suggests a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates, not… a vibrator.’
‘They’re not mine,’ Tori said, falling to her knees and hastily stuffing all her things back into her bag. ‘Bloody Agatha and her meddling. She insisted I brought these things tonight. They’re hers. I tried to tell her it was just dinner and even if it was a date I certainly wouldn’t be needing a bloody vibrator but, in the end, it was easier to just take them than argue with her. You know what she’s like. Everyone in the café overheard, so probably half the village thinks I’m here for a night of sex and debauchery now. I was going to empty my bag before I came, but I forgot.’
Aidan laughed, with relief. ‘She doesn’t give up, does she? We need to get her back for this.’
Tori looked up. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘I don’t know, we can discuss it tonight. Though no matter what we do, it won’t make any difference to her interfering.’
His eyes fell on her notebook, which had fallen open on the most current page. On it was an incredible detailed pencil drawing of him. He knelt to pick it up, but Tori snatched it away before he could even reach for it and it disappeared back inside her bag along with her bondage paraphernalia.
He didn’t know whether to say anything, but she seemed even more flustered and embarrassed about that than about the bondage gear, so he decided to let it lie for now. Instead he picked up her keys and purse and handed them back to her without a word.
‘There’s some prawn crackers you can nibble on while I get dinner ready. And some heartberry chutney you can dip them into. Can I get you a drink? I have wine or beer.’
‘A beer would be great,’ Tori said, zipping up her bag firmly and hanging it up over the back of the chair.
He pulled a bottle out of the fridge, cracked open the top and passed it to her. She took a long swig and he smiled because yet again she had surprised him. In her pretty dress and with her red curls cascading down her back. He’d presumed she was the kind of girl who would appreciate a glass of wine. He clearly shouldn’t make assumptions.
‘So, for our “just dinner non-date” tonight, I figured we should stick to neutral topics of conversation. So, tell me more about Heartberry Farm?’ Tori said.
He stared at her for a second. If she thought he was going to spend the whole night talking about berries and fruit-picking she could think again. He wanted to get to know her, every single thing. But he’d let her have it for now, let her become comfortable with the evening before he started on any of the personal subjects he wanted to talk to her about.
‘It’s been in my family for several generations. It is one of only three places in the world that grows heartberries and the only place in Europe. We also grow apples, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries but the heartberry is the most important, according to the villagers anyway.’
‘And the heartberries are magical?’ she teased, as she picked up a prawn cracker and popped it in her mouth.
He smiled and went to the oven to retrieve the dinner. ‘Don’t let the villagers hear you mock the heartberries. They take their traditions very seriously.’
‘They actually believe the berries are magic?’
‘A lot of them do, especially the older generation.’
‘Do you?’
He served the chicken onto the plates and scooped out the dauphinoise potatoes as he thought about his answer. He didn’t believe eating certain berries could possibly have an impact on anyone’s life, he’d never believed in the power of the berries, but he guessed he had even more reason to doubt them now.
He placed the plates on the table. Tori sat down, and he sat opposite her. He poured out two glasses of water from the jug he’d put on the table earlier.
‘Me and Imogen ate the heartberry cake at the festival of love two years ago shortly before we were supposed to get married. She jilted me at the altar, literally left me standing there in my best suit surrounded by all our friends and family and I never saw her again. So, I don’t hold a lot of faith in everlasting love and certainly not in the power of the heartberries.’
Her face fell. ‘I’m so sorry. What a shitty thing to do. She never contacted you to explain?’
‘I got a text from her to say she was sorry.’ There had been more to the text than that, though he wasn’t going to go into detail. ‘I wasn’t looking for explanations at that point. If she was the sort of person that could do that, I think I had a lucky escape.’
‘And you had no indication that it was going to happen?’
He took a bite of the chicken, the cheese oozing onto his tongue. Mixed with the garlic and herbs, it was the perfect combination. Maybe it was good to push yourself out of your comfort zone occasionally.
He swallowed. ‘Looking back, I knew. I knew something wasn’t right. Imogen was getting more and more stressed as the big day grew nearer. And it wasn’t just the normal wedding nerves about everything going smoothly, it was obviously nerves about getting married, about being married to me for the rest of her life. Going by the rumours that I heard after she had left the village, she was sleeping with someone else as well.’
‘Oh no, that’s even worse. I’m so sorry you went through that.’ She took a long swig of her beer and then put the bottle down carefully on the table. ‘My ex cheated on me, I know what that kind of heartbreak feels like.’
He studied her, wondering whether to push it or not. ‘Is that the reason you’re not interested in a relationship?’
She turned her attention to her chicken for a moment and he thought she wasn’t going to answer.
‘There are many reasons for me not wanting a relationship. I suppose Luc was one of them.’
He waited quietly to see if there was any more, whether she’d even want to talk about it. Seeing him patiently waiting she sighed and picked up a prawn cracker, nursing it in her hand before she put it in her mouth.
‘My dad walked out on us when I was ten. Ju
st decided he didn’t want our family any more and that the woman he had been seeing was much more preferable. I’d like to say that there were arguments, that my parents’ separation had been brewing for a long time, but I can’t. They were happy together, they laughed and kissed and cuddled. We were a happy little family. Turned out he had a girlfriend and a son a few months younger than me. When Mum was pregnant with me, he was sleeping with someone else. I don’t think Mum could ever forgive that. He used to work away from home a lot – it turns out all those nights he was away with work, he was staying with her, living with his other family. And in the end, he chose them over us.
‘I haven’t seen him since he walked out. I don’t know whether he tried to contact me and my mum wouldn’t let him or whether he just drew a line under the years he spent with us and started a new life. It doesn’t really matter either way. I guess I realised then that men can’t be trusted. Mum was devastated. She was utterly heartbroken, and I’ve never seen pain like it. For years, she would sit around and just sob. It hurt so much that there was nothing I could do. But as I grew up, watching her never getting over it, I vowed very early on that I was never going to let a man get close, so he could hurt me that much. I wouldn’t put myself in that position.’
This made so much more sense. Tori wasn’t just wary of relationships because of some git of an ex-boyfriend, this was something much deeper.
‘But you did have a relationship, with Luc?’
She nodded. ‘I never wanted a relationship, with anyone. Luc was… charming and attentive and wouldn’t take no for an answer. He slowly wore me down and I agreed to go out on a date with him. We had fun, we talked easily. One date led to another and another and soon we were dating. I was so wary about falling in love with him, I never wanted to be vulnerable or hurt in the same way as my mum. He knew about my trust issues and he assured me that I could trust him and one day I realised that, despite my best efforts, I had fallen in love with him. My first relationship and I knew without a doubt that this would be very different to my mum’s relationship. I knew Luc would never hurt me. Turns out he was exactly like my dad. He had been sleeping with someone else for six months before we broke up. That really hurt. The fact that I had been so hesitant to give him my heart and when I did he just squeezed it to a pulp.’
He went to the fridge and got two more beers. ‘And there’s been no one for you since?’
She paused. ‘No.’
The hesitation led him to believe that there had been someone.
She picked up the bottle of beer and cracked open the top. ‘I kind of had a bit of a thing with Matthew.’
That surprised him. Matthew had moved down here when the girl he’d been seeing fell pregnant with Elliot. They hadn’t lasted long after Elliot had been born and Sadie had left him to raise Elliot on his own. There hadn’t been any girlfriends for him since, he hadn’t left Sandcastle Bay very often and Aidan would have remembered if Tori had come down.
She must have seen the surprise in his eyes.
‘We grew up together. When my dad left, and Mum fell apart, I spent a lot of time round Melody and Matthew’s house. Both of them were my best friends. He was the first boy I kissed and the first man I made love to, although we didn’t have any kind of relationship back then. We stayed in touch over the years and later we became really close. We’d chat every day on the phone and it became something much more than friendship. He came up one weekend and we ended up sleeping together. He wanted me to come down here and see him, but I was scared. I didn’t want to get hurt again and I didn’t want to lose Matthew as a friend. God, I did love him though. I know that sounds crazy because we weren’t dating in the conventional sense. Anyway, we ended up having a big row about my unwillingness to commit and…’
She stared at her beer bottle sadly.
‘He got himself killed in that car accident?’
She nodded.
He let out a deep breath. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise you had any kind of connection to Matthew, other than him being your friends’ brother.’
‘Melody and Isla don’t know. I never told them, partly because there didn’t seem to be anything to tell them about. Matthew and I had this weird relationship that mainly took place over the phone, and he lied to them about where he was that weekend he came up to see me and I didn’t want to cause a rift between them by telling them the truth. And it became this wonderful secret that was just mine and Matthew’s. And after he died it definitely never seemed the right time. But yes, we had something. I’m not sure what you’d call it, but we had something. I let myself fall in love with him. I refused to let anything happen for fear of getting hurt and I lost him anyway and that hurt in ways I couldn’t possibly imagine. And now I think love is just way too painful and something that should be avoided at all costs. Men can’t be trusted.’
Aidan was taken aback by this.
‘I understand your wariness. But that’s a huge generalisation that all men can’t be trusted.’ He wasn’t sure why he wanted to change her mind; it was better for them both if nothing happened between them.
‘I don’t have any great role models. My dad left, Melody’s dad left. Luc cheated on me, Matthew bloody left me too, although not by choice. Are your parents still together?’
‘My dad died, so no.’
She swallowed. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It was a very long time ago. Mum remarried, she’s blissfully happy, living up in Scotland now. But from where I’m standing there have been several women who have walked away from relationships too, Matthew’s ex and mine. Women aren’t perfect either.’
‘No, we’re not. I think relationships in general should be avoided, someone always gets hurt.’
‘Agreed.’
They fell silent and Aidan couldn’t help the huge stab of disappointment over this decision. Tori looked disappointed too. They had flirted with each other, they both knew that it was likely to lead somewhere and now it seemed they’d talked their way out of it.
He watched her as she continued to eat her chicken, slowly chewing each mouthful.
‘So, tell me more about these traditions that the villagers hold so much stock in,’ Tori said, seemingly forcing a smile onto her face as she tried to change the subject.
He pushed away his disappointment and tried to formulate a response, but his mind couldn’t focus. She was trying to keep things professional, friendly, but not let it go any further when it was quite clear that neither of them wanted that. There was a connection there that he’d never felt with anyone before and he wanted to explore that even if it didn’t go anywhere.
It was crazy, they came from different worlds. She lived in London, probably had a hectic and exciting social life going to glamorous parties and mixing with movie types. He owned a fruit farm and had nothing to offer her. It was a recipe for disaster. When he had been engaged to Imogen he had worried that what he had to offer was not enough to keep her interested and he had turned out to be right. She was always bemoaning the lack of great shops and nightclubs. She wanted more than life in Sandcastle Bay, she wanted more than spending the rest of her life with a boring fruit farmer and he’d last heard that she had emigrated to Los Angeles and was auditioning to be in movies. Surely this thing with Tori would never lead anywhere. But for some reason he couldn’t leave it alone. He was drawn to her, like a mouse drawn to cheese in a trap. He knew it was going to end badly but he couldn’t stay away.
‘Hang on, back up a moment. Did we just agree that nothing was going to happen between us?’
She swallowed. ‘I thought we agreed that yesterday when we first met. We were in the car. You said that you wouldn’t push anything with me.’
‘Things have kind of moved on since then. You’ve been ogling my elbows for one.’
She laughed.
‘Look, this doesn’t have to be… something. But we could…’ he trailed off. What was he suggesting? He didn’t really do casual relationships. He couldn’t not get emo
tionally involved when he was with someone and he definitely didn’t want to get emotionally involved with Tori and then watch her leave in a few weeks. He had avoided relationships of any kind since Imogen had jilted him. He had kept his heart locked away and that had worked just fine. But for some reason, Tori made him want to step out of his self-made cocoon where it was safe and he could never get hurt. More than anything he wanted to explore what would happen when they both let their guard down. It wasn’t just a sexual attraction either, it went way deeper than that.
‘I leave in two weeks,’ Tori said, quietly.
‘I know.’
‘So, are you suggesting we have some kind of fling?’
He studied her and, despite her earlier protests about getting involved in any kind of relationship, she suddenly didn’t seem so opposed to this idea.
He leaned across the table and took her hand, running his thumb across her wrist. She didn’t take her hand away and he distinctly felt her pulse start to race at his gentle touch.
‘I’m saying… let’s keep an open mind.’
She clearly thought about this for a moment and then broke into a huge smile. She held up her beer bottle.
‘To… possibilities.’
He grinned and chinked his beer bottle against hers. ‘To all those wonderful, delicious, glorious possibilities.’
She smiled and, keeping her hand in his, she finished off her dinner.
10
She stared at her fingers entwined with his and wondered why she wasn’t more bothered by this wonderful turn of events. While she was scared by it, she was also enjoying this connection and she kind of wanted to see what would happen between them more than she wanted to hide from it. She was choosing the fun path. For once she was going to take a risk.
They’d finished their dinner a long time before and chatted well into the night, neither keen to break this connection between them. She tried to remember if she had ever held hands over dinner with Luc and she didn’t think she had. She wasn’t particularly tactile, and he hadn’t been either, but she loved the way Aidan was gently stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. It was sweet and wonderfully intimate too. He made her laugh and they seemed to have endless things to say to each other, as if they were old friends catching up on all the years they had missed out on seeing each other.
