‘I’m sure they were proud, Frankie...’ Frowning, he tried to cup her chin.
But, batting his hand away, she shook her head. ‘Proud of what? The fact that I spent all my time on my phone? Messed up my exams? Dropped out of university? It’s not exactly most parents’ outcome of choice for their child.’
‘Did they say that?’
She made herself look at him. He was watching her calmly. ‘Of course not. They weren’t like that. They weren’t like me.’
They were like Arlo. High achievers. Top of everything they tried.
‘My dad was a paediatrician. My mum was a barrister. Harry was a junior doctor and Amelie was a solicitor. But they weren’t trophy-hunters they were good people...’
Better than good. They’d been decent, dependable, far more deserving of life.
Suddenly she was unbearably conscious of her guilt.
His brows drew together. ‘You’re a good person, Frankie. And I don’t believe for one moment that your family would want you thinking like this.’
The vehemence in his voice made her breath catch in her throat, but it was his hands, with their firm, unwavering grip, that steadied her. She felt a lightness inside her that seemed momentarily to reframe the choices she’d made.
He didn’t have to do this, she thought. Take time to reassure her. Leaning forward, she kissed his cheek, her lips soft and warm against his skin. ‘You’re a good person too,’ she said slowly.
As he let his head rest against hers she felt her heart contract. Since losing her family, the idea of getting close to someone, caring about them, had been too terrifying to contemplate. She couldn’t risk it happening again. To love and then lose someone again was beyond her. That was why she kept people at arm’s length, built emotional barriers between herself and the world.
Until Arlo. Seeing him so vulnerable had made something crack open inside her. But she had to keep things straight in her head. Maybe one day she would be able to love and be loved, but not here, not now, not with him.
This could only ever be temporary, and these feelings of tenderness were just the result of her loneliness and her desire to belong somewhere.
And besides, Arlo didn’t even believe in love.
He let his head rest against hers. ‘You’ll have fun, okay? I promise. Now, get dressed and pack whatever you think you’ll need. I’ve just got a couple of calls to make.’
* * *
‘I got Robert to bring the car round,’ Arlo said, turning to Frankie as they walked downstairs. ‘But I thought I’d drive myself.’
Glancing discreetly at his watch, he felt a ripple of astonishment as he saw the time. Incredibly, it had taken an hour and a half for Frankie to pack, but he’d waited patiently, sensing that to rush her would be counterproductive.
She had been nervous before, but now she seemed excited and he was the one feeling jittery.
No, not jittery so much as conflicted.
He wanted to go, for Frankie’s sake, but he was still dreading it. Partly that was because he’d never been as extroverted as Johnny and his parents, and he found spending time with his family en masse hard. But mostly the reason he didn’t want to go was because celebrating Davey and Serena’s tenth anniversary would remind him of his own failed marriage.
His stomach clenched. It was so unbelievably petty and shameful that he could barely admit it to himself, much less Frankie. Only she’d said that thing about her own family and he’d had to pull himself together.
She shook her head. ‘I still can’t believe I know someone who has a chauffeur.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s not that big a deal. It’s just a useful option if I need to take my hands off the wheel.’
Watching her bite into her lip, he felt his insides clench.
‘You have a one-track mind,’ he said softly.
Her blue eyes locked with his, wide and teasing. ‘So do you.’
‘You carry on looking at me like that and I’m going to have to put you in the boot,’ he warned.
She laughed. ‘Empty threats, Milburn. The Land Rover doesn’t have a boot.’
‘We’re not going in the Land Rover, Fox,’ he said, holding open the front door.
Turning, she clamped her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, my goodness. Is that a Rolls-Royce?’
The note of excitement in her voice was strangely satisfying, and he let his gaze follow hers to where the huge golden convertible crouched like a lion in the drive.
‘So this is the car Robert drives.’ She giggled. ‘I couldn’t imagine you being driven around in state in your Land Rover. But this makes more sense.’
Reaching out, she slid her fingers over the silver figurine crouching on the bonnet and he felt almost light-headed. It was dizzyingly easy to imagine those same small, delicate hands caressing his body.
‘Does she have a name?’ she asked.
‘She does.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The Spirit of Ecstasy.’
Her eyes met his, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
* * *
‘Are we here?’ Only a little while later, Frankie was glancing out of her window. Up ahead, a pair of huge wrought-iron gates rose up between the high brick walls edging the road.
He nodded. ‘This is it. Stanhope Park.’ Leaning over, he punched a number into the keypad set into the wall and waited as the gates swung open.
As the big car swept up the driveway Frankie suddenly sat up straighter, her cheeks flushed with excitement and awe. ‘Oh, wow,’ she said five minutes later, as he pulled up in front of the beautiful house.
Switching the engine off, he looked over at her. ‘Okay?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded, and then she froze, her blue eyes widening with panic. ‘But what have you told them? About us?’ She stumbled over the word. ‘I mean, about who I am...what I am to you?’
He stared at her in silence, his heart beating against his ribs, stunned by her question and by his own idiocy. It was the first question everyone would ask, only up until now he hadn’t thought to classify their relationship. It hadn’t seemed necessary. In fact, naming what he and Frankie shared felt wrong, for some reason.
But this was going to be hard enough as it was. He didn’t need to complicate matters by questioning what was, in essence, just a fling. He should follow his own advice and not overthink things.
‘I think it’ll make things simpler if we stick as close to the truth as possible. Why don’t we just say we met through Johnny and you’re up from London for a couple of days?’
She didn’t say anything for a moment, and then she nodded slowly. ‘That would work.’
‘Good,’ he said brusquely as the front door opened and a trio of Labradors came cantering out, followed by a tall blond man. ‘Now, come and meet Davey.’
* * *
Arlo had been right about his cousin, she thought, as Davey led them into the house. He seemed like a really nice, normal man. But, despite what Arlo had said earlier, it was difficult not to be intimidated by Stanhope Park.
It was as big as a hotel, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that Davey was wearing a Tattersall check shirt, moleskin jeans, and tan-coloured brogues she would have felt as if she’d slipped through a looking glass into the seventeenth century.
Lavish gilding, Rococo tapestries and jewel-bright festoon curtains were perfectly offset by a neutral colour palette of French grey, buff, and pale green. In fact, everything was perfect, she thought, gazing round their vast bedroom.
‘I’ll leave you to get settled in.’ Davey smiled at Frankie. ‘Lunch is at two.’
Lunch. She walked slowly the length of the room, trailing her fingers over the smooth velvet and polished wood, then walked back to where Arlo was watching her calmly.
‘So...?’ He tilted his head back questioningly.
&nb
sp; ‘It’s a little intimidating.’ She met his gaze. ‘Should I change for lunch?’ She looked down at her jeans and sweater.
He shook his head. ‘But, speaking of clothes, I have something for you.’ Taking her hand, he led her past the gloriously over the top canopied bed and into the dressing room. ‘I hope you like it.’
Frankie stared past him, open-mouthed, at a curaçao-blue silk dress. Except that dress was too basic a word for the confection hanging from the rail. Thin, fragile straps, a flowing skirt... Turning the dress, she felt her pulse accelerate. And a devastating neckline cut low to reveal the length of her back.
‘Where...? How did you...?’ she stammered.
‘Bond Street. I had them courier it up.’ His eyes were fixed on her face, examining her reaction. ‘I took a punt at your measurements, so I hope it fits.’
‘Oh, Arlo.’ She breathed out shakily. ‘It’s lovely...but I can’t accept this.’
‘Of course you can. I invited you, remember? And after I spoke to Serena I realised the party was going to be bigger and grander than I thought.’
‘Grander!’ Her head was spinning. ‘You mean, like crowns and things?’
Shaking his head, he brushed her hair back around her ear. ‘No, it’s just that the guest list is a bit of a roll-call of the great and the good. They like to dress up and I want you to feel at home.’
There was no dress on earth that could do that, she thought dully.
‘Who are they?’ she heard herself say.
‘There’s my other cousins, Jack and Arthur. Jack runs a very successful hedge fund and his wife Charlotte co-owns an art gallery in Knightsbridge. Arthur owns an estate over the border in Scotland, and his wife Jemma is a model. Then there’s Tom—he set up a literacy charity...’
She felt hot and shivery, as if she had a fever. Maybe she did have one. It would certainly explain why she wasn’t thinking straight...why she had agreed to this. What had she been thinking? It was hard enough to pretend to herself that she was good enough. She couldn’t possibly spend an evening trying to convince people like Arlo’s friends and family.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do this.’
‘Do what?’ Arlo looked straight into her eyes. He sounded confused.
‘Be here. In this house. With these people.’ Her hands were tingling now, and she felt a rush of panic, cold and swirling and unstoppable, like the waves rising up over the causeway. ‘I thought I could, but I don’t fit in here. I don’t own an estate. I’m not a lady.’
‘So what? I’m not a lord...’ The confusion in his eyes had darkened his irises almost to black.
‘But you’re related to one. And you own an island.’ Her heart was crashing in her ears. ‘You’ve walked to the South Pole alone. Everyone at this party will have done something amazing, won’t they?’
‘And so have you.’ His hands caught her wrists. ‘Look, Frankie, I get that you’re still grieving, but you have got to stop this. You’ve got to let go.’
Her heart squeezed. ‘Of what?’
‘This need you feel to be worthy of life.’ He was looking at her, his face implacable. ‘Look, I understand. You see it all the time in the military. Survivor’s guilt. A belief that you did something wrong by surviving. That being alive makes you guilty.’
In a tiny voice, she said, ‘But I am guilty.’
‘Of what? Surviving something that was completely random?’
‘Not just surviving.’ She drew a breath, trying to maintain control. ‘It’s my fault they’re dead.’
* * *
Heart hammering, Arlo stared at her in silence. Her voice sounded as if it was sticking in her throat. She looked frightened, angry, helpless.
It was like seeing himself at thirteen.
Pushing that thought away, he shook his head. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Frankie. It was an accident.’
She pulled away from him, her anger rearing up like a riderless horse. ‘How would you know? You weren’t there?’
‘No, I wasn’t,’ he agreed. ‘But there was an inquest. People must have looked into what happened—’
‘Other people who weren’t there either.’ The skin was taut across her cheekbones. ‘They don’t know what happened. What I did.’ Her face contracted.
‘Then tell me.’ He looked at her, waiting. ‘Tell me what you did.’
The anger that had flared up so fiercely flickered and died. ‘I made my dad fly that night. He was tired, and he said it was too late, but I made a huge fuss about getting home because I wanted to go to some stupid party. I knew he didn’t want to fly, but I made him—’
The despair in her eyes made his skin sting. This was more than just grief, and the crash had robbed her of more than just her family. It had taken away her trust. Not just that childlike faith shared by everyone that nothing bad could happen to good people, but faith in herself, in the person she’d thought she was.
Shaking his head, he kept his voice gentle but firm. ‘Your dad was the pilot, Frankie. And he decided to fly. It was his decision. Not your mum’s. Not yours. His.’
‘So what are you saying? That it was his fault?’
The anger was back and he caught her wrists again.
‘It was nobody’s fault. Including yours. But you want it to be. Because your guilt is a way of holding on to the people you’ve lost.’ She stared up at him mutely and, loosening his grip, he reached up and stroked her cheek. ‘Or you think it is. But you end up losing them anyway, because you can’t bear thinking about them, talking about them.’
She took a small shuddering breath and, watching her press her hand against her mouth, he felt his throat constrict. But he carried on relentlessly.
‘And I know that’s not what you want. But if you want to remember them you have to accept that what happened wasn’t some sort of cosmic quid pro quo. They didn’t die so you could live. You have to accept that and forgive yourself for not dying.’
Her small, white upturned face was like one of the anemones that grew beneath the walls of his kitchen garden.
‘I don’t know how,’ she whispered.
‘But I do, sweetheart. Trust me.’ His fingers tightened around hers. ‘You do trust me, don’t you, Frankie?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I do.’
‘Then you’ve taken the first step.’
Her face dissolved into tears and, wordlessly, Arlo pulled her against his body, his own eyes burning, his whole being focused on the aim of making the infinite expanse of her grief measurable.
Stroking her hair, he talked soothingly, and finally she breathed out shakily.
‘I’m sorry. I always seem to be crying all over you.’
‘You need to cry.’ Lifting her chin, he kissed her softly on the lips. ‘And I have plenty of shirts.’
She folded her body against his trustingly and he tensed inside. He had asked her to trust him, but why? He didn’t want her trust. He didn’t need that burden. He knew he should move, only his hand kept caressing her hair, and he could feel her soft warmth taking him to a place where cynicism and loneliness didn’t play any part.
But even if that place existed it was not for him, and he lifted his hand as she tilted her head back to look at him.
‘You’d better go and change, then, before we go down to lunch,’ she said, her fingers lightly touching the front of his shirt. ‘I seem to have covered this one in mascara.’
‘Are you sure you want to stay?’
The shaky smile that accompanied her nod was something he couldn’t bear to look at, and he pulled her closer.
‘You’re not responsible for what happened. No one is. Life is cruel and random, but you’re not alone. I meant what I said. I’m here.’
Not for ever, of course. But that was a given. They both knew what this was, and how it would end. And it would end...
CHAPTER NINE
TAKING A STEP back from the mirror, Frankie held a breath, her eyes meeting her reflection with silent satisfaction.
She’d kept her make-up simple—just smoky eyes, mascara, a pinkish lip tint—and her hair was pinned up with just a few loose curls framing her face. It was the dress...the beautiful blue dress...that was the star of the show.
It was a dress that managed to be revealing and subtle at the same time. A dress that made her look sleek, sophisticated, and wholly unfamiliar.
Turning, she glanced over her shoulder at the back of the dress. Her pulse jumped like a startled frog.
What back?
She was naked from the top of her spine right down to the twin indentations above the curve of her bottom, and yet she didn’t feel exposed. In fact, she had worn far less revealing dresses and felt more vulnerable.
Breathing out shakily, she ran her hand over the smooth, shimmering silk. In part, that was down to how the dress hugged her body, almost protectively. The other reason—the main reason, of course—that she didn’t feel vulnerable tonight was Arlo.
Her pulse twitched.
‘Trust me,’ he’d said, and then, ‘You do trust me, don’t you?’
And there had been no doubt, not even an atom of hesitation, in her reply. Her trust in him was as unwavering and unequivocal as the man himself. How could it not be? After everything he’d done and said.
Her throat tightened. After the inquest she had stopped talking to people about the accident, about the part she felt she’d played. Instead, she had kept her guilt close, preferring it to the alternative, more crushing pain of loss.
Only she could see now that hiding the truth had meant also hiding who she was, so she’d created Frankie Fox the social media influencer with a million friends—none of whom knew her, all of whom were easy to keep at arm’s length.
But she hadn’t kept Arlo at arm’s length, and in his arms the truth had come pouring out. Today, though, he hadn’t just listened. He had forced her to confront the whole truth, made her see that her guilt wasn’t just trapping her but condemning her family to exist only in those few terrible, fractured moments.
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