“You’re avoiding.”
“And you’re pushing.”
“Well, I butted out last night, and look where it got us—you’re taking a culinary stroll down memory lane. Not that I mind being the beneficiary of your angst, but what happened?”
Grace poured their tea, then brought the mugs back to the table. “Nothing happened. Ian was nice. Reserved. Saw me home. He might not exactly be sticking pins into my voodoo doll, but he’s also not thrilled to see me. He’s … indifferent.”
Asha chewed, her expression thoughtful. “He saw you home?”
“Said he wanted to make sure I was safe.”
“That doesn’t sound indifferent. Had he merely been concerned for your safety, he would have put you in a cab. This is London, not Lebanon or wherever you just came back from.”
“It would almost be easier if he shut me out instead of telling me he’s forgiven me and then leaving. You know him better than I do these days. What do you think?”
“He’s cautious. Can you really blame him?”
“Cautious. That doesn’t sound like the man I knew at all.” Her Ian had been impetuous, daring, spontaneous. Yes, there was discipline involved in his rowing, but he and his crewmates had shared the same kamikaze attitude: leave it all on the water, no matter what. Better to die than to let your teammates down. Give everything for the people who depended on you.
Give everything for those you loved.
Grace let out a groan and buried her face in her hands. “I did this to him, didn’t I? He gave up rowing for me, and then I left him, and he decided it wasn’t worth taking risks anymore.” She lifted her head. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“I don’t know, Grace. Ian’s never been the sort to blame other people for his own decisions. And he doesn’t mince words. If he’s said he’s forgiven you, then he’s forgiven you.”
“But he hasn’t forgotten what I did to him.” Grace pushed her food around on her plate, no longer hungry. “What do I do?”
Asha folded her arms on the tabletop and leaned over them, a sure sign she was going into doctor mode. “What do you want? I mean, honestly. If you just want to make amends, I’d say you’ve done what you can. Leave it alone and move on with your life. He has.”
“And if I don’t want to move on?”
“Then you need to show him that you’ve changed, that you’re not going to run away this time if he gives you another chance. Just be sure you’re doing it for the right reasons, yeah?”
The right reasons. She wasn’t sure she even knew what those were anymore. After ten years, it was ridiculous to think she knew anything about him. Foolish to think they even had a hope of rekindling what they once had. But they’d never find out if they didn’t have the chance to get to know each other again, and Asha was right: he’d never take that chance if she didn’t show him she had changed.
This first step would be to not run away.
Of all the things Ian expected to see when he climbed out of the boat, Grace was the least likely. In fact, he was fairly certain he’d imagined it, a sort of visual déjà vu, or maybe early senility. Given Grace’s usual avoidance of confrontation, it certainly couldn’t be her.
But no, when he flicked a glance over his shoulder, she was still there, her hands thrust into the pockets of a black army jacket instead of holding a camera. When she saw him looking at her, she raised a hand in a half wave, half salute.
“Got a fan, MacDonald?” Marc asked from the stern end.
“I have absolutely no idea.” He didn’t look her way again. Maybe if he didn’t acknowledge her, she’d give up and leave. An admittedly childish plan, but it was better than admitting the way his pulse had accelerated at her arrival.
No, much better that she leave of her own volition.
When he exited the clubhouse half an hour later to find his plan had worked, he didn’t feel even the slightest prick of disappointment. Not at all.
Then he rounded the corner and saw her sitting on a green wooden bench, earphones plugged into her ears while she scrolled through something on the screen of her mobile.
“What are you doing here?”
Grace removed the earphones and quickly shoved her phone into one of the jacket’s pockets. “Hoping you might let me buy you breakfast.”
His no stalled on his lips. What had caused the deviation from the regular script? “Where?”
“Your choice.”
“All right, then. This way.”
She didn’t even blink, just fell into step with him on the pavement. “Was that Chris I saw down there?”
“It was.”
“How much of the old squad rows here?”
“Only a few. Chris is a regular, rows bow in my four a few days a week. Marc coxes for us on the weekends for kicks with the other lads. We see Nikolai around the boathouse, but he’s still competitive, so he rarely joins us. He’s a dentist now, if you can believe that.”
Grace’s smile flashed, and it did strange things to his gut. “Nik, a dentist? That’s the last thing I would have expected. I thought he’d read accounting at Cambridge or some such.”
“Well, he turned out to be rubbish as an accountant, but I’m not exactly sure of the thought process that brought him round to teeth as a career option. I suspect he did it so he could set his hours around his workouts.”
“I’m glad to see you stuck with it,” Grace said softly. “Or rather, went back to it. Do you compete?”
“No. I don’t have the time to stay in race shape. But I’ve done too much damage to my body over the years to stop, and it’s more entertaining than physical therapy.”
“Your physical therapist probably thanks you. You were always a terrible patient, and somehow I doubt time has changed that much.” She threw him a wry grin, and he returned it despite himself. In the light of day, side by side on the pavement chatting like old friends, the awkwardness of the night before disappeared. She might be able to pull off the evening wear and stiletto heels with aplomb, but the regular Grace—the one in faded jeans and boots with a newsboy cap pulled low over her eyes—was still there.
When they stopped in front of his choice of restaurants—a greasy spoon near Putney Bridge—she broke into a laugh that was as damaging to his distance as her smile. “You can choose anywhere, and you pick this dive?”
Ian held the door open for her. “Best fried slice on the West End, as you well remember. And I’m starving.”
He saw her amusement fade to curiosity, but he didn’t delve into the reason he’d chosen one of their old haunts. The interior was still the same polished ceramic tiles and cheap Formica tables, not a surprise since they hadn’t changed since 1972. She flicked a glance to the corner booth, her teeth pulling the edge of her lip. That had been their table, the site of hours of laughter and conversation and more than a few stolen kisses. After they placed their order at the counter and took their mugs of tea, Grace made a beeline for the opposite side of the café, as far from their usual spot as she could get.
Probably a wise idea, if he still thought of the table as their spot.
Ian leaned back against the booth and draped an arm over the backrest while he studied her. “So what’s this really all about? I’m thinking you didn’t wander down here on a whim for breakfast.”
She toyed with the salt-and-pepper shakers for a moment, then set them firmly on the table in front of her and looked him in the eye. “Last night you asked me why I was back in London.”
“I did. And you lied to me. Not very convincingly, I might add.”
She flinched and fidgeted with the zipper of her jacket. “I didn’t lie, exactly. I just didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
He said nothing, just continued to wait.
“You said you understood that I was running toward something, not away from you. You’re right about that. At the time I was young and idealistic and not a little bit stupid. I thought I had an obligation to change the world.”
“Which you ha
ve.”
“Have I?” Doubt swam in her green eyes. “Or have I been riding on others’ coattails, exploiting their good work and claiming it for my own? I didn’t establish those schools and hospitals, but everyone’s whispering Pulitzer. All I did was take some pictures.”
“I’ve seen those photos, Grace. They’re stunning. Whatever accolades you get for them—for your body of work—they’re well deserved. I don’t understand why you’re doubting your talent now.”
“It’s not my talent I’m doubting. Just my … effectiveness. That photo we’re all chasing—the one that’s going to make the world stand up and take notice—it doesn’t exist. At some point it’s time to move on. Get out while we still can.”
It was the slightest break in her voice, and the way her hand went back to the dragon tattoo on her wrist, that alerted him this wasn’t just an existential crisis, a questioning of her career path now that she’d achieved success. “Who did you lose?”
She didn’t meet his eyes this time. “I’ve lost eight colleagues over the last ten years. Good photographers. Good journalists. They knew the risks in this job, and they accepted them. It’s what made them effective. But Brian was different.”
Something sharp and painful twisted in Ian’s chest before he could arrest his emotions. “He was special to you.”
“I was responsible for him. When I was his age, Jean-Auguste took me aside and told me the truth. He saved my life more than a few times. I wanted to do that for Brian, but I failed. He got killed, right in front of me, and since then it hasn’t been the same.”
Her grief tugged at his sympathies. To lose a friend—a protégé—in such a horrific way … no wonder she wanted to make a change. No wonder she doubted the risks were worth the payoff.
“Grace, you’ve experienced something horrible. It’s normal to question if it’s all been worth it.”
“I know I can’t change anything,” she said softly. “But I wonder if I gave up the best thing in my life for no reason.”
Two plates thunked down in front of them, startling him out of the spell her words had woven around him. The server looked between them. “You need anything else?”
“No, thank you.” Grace smiled politely and picked up her fork.
But Ian couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. She couldn’t make a statement like that and then pretend it had never happened. The best thing in her life? Did that mean she was back for him? “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I just thought you deserved an honest answer.”
Ian fell back against the booth, his shock overcoming his appetite while he tried to reconcile the woman sitting across from him with the one he remembered. Her eyes had always held that slightly haunted look, the recollection of terrible things in the past buried just below her gaze, but she was different now. Wiser. Sadder. Warier. He supposed they both were, forced to accept that sometimes life didn’t turn out the way they’d envisioned it. He couldn’t deny any longer that her decision to leave had changed everything for him. And yet ten years later her smile could still take his breath away. What was he to make of that?
“Are you going to eat?” she asked, still not meeting his eyes.
He picked up his fork and then set it back down with a clank. “What exactly do you want from me?”
Clearly she hadn’t anticipated a direct approach. Two spots of color bloomed on her pale cheeks. “I suppose I was hoping that we could at least be friends.”
“No.”
She blinked rapidly, clearly struggling against hurt. “I see. I suppose I deserve that.”
“Not merely friends. I think we both know where that ends up.”
Her lips parted on a half exhale, half laugh, and God help him if his mind didn’t go straight to what it would be like to kiss them again.
“We do?” she asked.
“We do.”
“Then where does that leave us?”
You’re an idiot, his better judgment chanted in the back of his mind. He shoved it away. “Dinner.”
“Tonight?” When he nodded, she narrowed her eyes. “What if I already have plans?”
Was that a hint of flirtation in her tone? “Cancel them. Unless, of course, you’re not interested.”
“No,” she said slowly, “I’m interested.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven, then.” Ian retrieved his utensils, his appetite back with a vengeance now that he’d made a decision. It was rash, reckless, utterly ridiculous to be even considering getting involved with her again. In all likelihood, they wouldn’t make it through dinner before discovering that the embers of whatever they had shared were too cold to ever be fanned back to life.
But it was better than spending another ten years wondering what would have happened had he taken a chance.
Chapter Eight
A knock came at the door at precisely 6:55 and set Grace’s heart hammering. She leaned over the sink to give her lips one last swipe of pale-pink lipstick, then thrust her feet into a pair of black leather ballet flats. She hadn’t any idea where Ian was taking her, so she’d opted for a safe casual look: skinny jeans and a slinky top beneath a blazer with a gauzy scarf wrapped around her neck. In the last two days, she’d pretty much exhausted all the date-appropriate clothing stuffed in her duffel bag. She hadn’t exactly thought this through when she left Paris.
The knock came again, and she rushed to the door, yanking it open without checking the peephole. Ian stood there with an umbrella in hand, drops of water flecking his dark hair and sparkling on the shoulders of his trench coat. “Are you ready?”
She looked down at her casual clothing, then back at the perfectly creased trousers showing beneath his coat. “I’m underdressed.”
“No, you look beautiful.”
The sudden warmth in his voice made her heart hiccup for a second. She grabbed her handbag from the coatrack, then stepped into the hall with him. “Where are we going exactly?”
“I don’t know yet. I guess we’ll see. Shall we?” He smiled mysteriously and swept a hand toward the staircase. Out on the stoop, he extended the umbrella and held it over her as they dashed for the black cab waiting at the curb.
Once they were safely inside, the driver turned. “You know where we’re headed yet?”
Ian pushed up his sleeve to check his watch. “A few minutes more.”
“Suit yourself. Meter’s still running.”
Grace sent him a quizzical look. “What’s this about now?”
As if on cue, Ian’s mobile beeped from his pocket. He dug it out and checked a text. “West Croydon.”
The driver made a sound that might have been exasperation, then pulled out onto the street. Grace stared in bafflement, though Ian looked perfectly unperturbed about the unconventional start to their evening.
“Did you have a nice afternoon?” he asked. “What did you do?”
“Wandered around Putney and took photos. You?”
He waved a hand. “This.”
“You’re really not going to tell me what this is about?”
“Not at all. It would spoil the surprise.”
“But it took you all afternoon to set up?”
He gave a single nod, clearly not going to give away any details. She leaned back against the seat in bewilderment. This was nothing like she’d expected. She’d been thinking casual dinner, maybe at one of James’s restaurants, followed by cocktails or coffee. Not crossing half of London in Saturday-night traffic in the pouring rain to a mystery location, apparently sent to him via text message. He had put in some effort to not be predictable.
When they pulled up on a nearly deserted block in front of an abandoned warehouse, though, a little quiver of nervousness began. The brick storefronts were shuttered for the night, graffiti scrawled across the metal roll-up doors. She took Ian’s hand and stepped out into the fine mist of rain, her heart slamming into her ribs. It took all she had not to look around
for potential ambush sites. This was London, and she was with Ian. He would never bring her to anyplace dangerous.
“Don’t look at me like I’ve suddenly become an ax murderer,” Ian said with a wry smile. “I know that’s what you were thinking.”
“It did cross my mind,” she murmured.
His answering laugh was so warm and amused, though, it unclenched her stomach and calmed her heart. He squeezed her hand as they approached an orange painted door.
A burly man in a black shirt stepped from the shadow of the building. He would have been threatening if he hadn’t been holding a tablet computer and wearing an earpiece. “Welcome, sir, ma’am. Your names?”
“Smithson.”
The man checked his tablet and then reached to open the door for them. “Enjoy your evening, Mr. Smithson.”
They stepped into darkness. Grace hesitated as her eyes adjusted to the surroundings. Black screens and drapes cordoned off a reception area and a temporary cloakroom that seemed to be made of … trees? Or coatracks that looked like trees. Strains of live flamenco music drifted from somewhere inside.
“Welcome to Seek.” A gorgeous woman with dark curls tied back in a kerchief and dressed in colorful, full skirts greeted them. “Right this way, Mr. Smithson.”
Grace cast an intrigued look at Ian and followed the woman around the screen into the massive warehouse space. But rather than the concert venue she’d begun to anticipate, they stepped into a Spanish town square, complete with cobblestones underfoot and a splashing fountain in the center. Festive paper lanterns strung from tree to tree—live trees this time, Grace realized—lit the space with a dim, romantic glow.
“What is this?” she asked as the hostess led them to a spot at one of the long, rustic tables.
“If I had to guess, I’d say Basque Country. Sometime in the past.”
Grace laughed in surprise. She climbed over the bench at their place, wide enough for two and adorned with an embroidered, red cushion. More details filtered in: a glittering canopy of stars overhead, a group of musicians with guitars and percussion boxes in the corner. In fact, had she not just come in from the London streets, she’d be convinced she’d somehow been transported to a plaza in Spain.
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