by Becky Wicks
‘Maybe.’ She looked uncomfortable now, and he regretted pushing it. Then she said, ‘I don’t know why Anouk left that house to me and not her, Lucas. I mean, Anouk knew I’m not exactly the kind of woman who lives in a multi-storey heritage home in Amsterdam. I haven’t even been here for years.’
‘You’re here now. Maybe, after all your travels, she thought you might want to put some roots down.’
Freya flinched. ‘Well, she picked the wrong person to try and pin down, if that’s what she had in mind.’
Lucas had never thought of it that way before. ‘So you think that staying in one place is like being pinned down, do you?’
‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with putting down roots, Lucas...not at all. I just prefer having wings.’
‘Is that why you’re already planning on leaving for Vietnam?’
Freya looked away. He felt it then, the pang, just as he could practically see the giant red flag waving above her head. This was a warning to his brain to stop before he even started: to put his heart on high alert and protect it with everything he had. But his body seemed to have other plans. He reached out a hand to tuck the stray curl behind her ear. ‘Are you planning to fly away already, Freya?’
Freya opened her mouth to say something; maybe to defend some predetermined decision, but she seemed to think better of it. Her cheeks flushed slightly, like the faintest physical contact had touched her on a deeper level—just as it had him.
In the corner of his eye he saw Joy looking at them curiously. Hell. Had she seen him, just now, putting a hand on Freya’s hair?
Leaning down, he lowered his voice and spoke in her ear. ‘How far can you walk in those heels?’
‘Not very far. Why?’
‘I thought so. Do you want to get out of here?’
CHAPTER SIX
FREYA CLUTCHED HER bag to her shoulder. She suddenly felt overdressed in the satin gown as the evening breeze played with her hair on the street outside the hotel. But Lucas was already saluting the security guard outside, making a beeline for the busy square.
‘We’ll cut through Dam Square.’
‘You haven’t said where we’re going,’ she reminded him. The cobblestone streets were threatening to make her topple already, but something was making her follow him anyway. Their conversation on the roof had been both intimate and awkward, and she couldn’t tell which aspect had intrigued her the most. She supposed feeling anything at all for a guy was part of the reason—she just wasn’t used to it. She wasn’t used to letting people in at all.
There was also the fact that he looked so damn good in his suit. Tall, lean, composed, he took each step in a way that commanded the people around him to stop and pay attention. Even a woman on a bicycle turned around to look at him over her shoulder and nearly ran into a lamppost.
In under a minute they found themselves together in the middle of Dam Square. With Lucas at her side she stopped abruptly at the towering white memorial in the centre—built, if she remembered rightly from her chats with Anouk, in memory of the Dutch soldiers and members of the resistance who’d died in World War Two. Cyclists seemed to float past her as she followed the structure skywards with her eyes.
‘I used to come here with Anouk to feed the birds,’ she shared. She could feel the warmth of his hand so close to hers by her side, an energy buzzing between them that fizzed in the growing darkness. ‘She used to tell me how she bought flowers from the hippies here in the sixties. This was where they all hung out.’
‘Must have been fun in those days.’ He smiled.
She nodded, letting her eyes wander past a group of Australian guys singing over beer cans to the waxwork museum just beyond the memorial. Madame Tussauds.
In a flash she saw her mother laughing like crazy with Liv over the printouts of photos they’d taken together of themselves inside with waxwork versions of celebrities.
‘I never went in there,’ she told Lucas, wrapping her arms around herself to stop herself from reaching for his hand. She hadn’t wanted to touch someone so much in ages. Just feeling his fingers brush her hair like that, back on the roof—it had taken all her strength not to respond in some way. Maybe she would have if they hadn’t been surrounded by people.
She focused on the museum with its gaudy facade. ‘Did you?’
‘You never went into Madame Tussauds? It’s like...the biggest tourist attraction here. Bigger than the Anne Frank House!’
‘Liv went in there with Mum,’ she said, ‘and Stijn. I didn’t go with them.’
‘Why not?’
‘I was such a stubborn kid whenever they asked me to do stuff like that with them.’ She let out a sigh, shaking her head at herself. ‘I guess I took offence that my mum only seemed to want to have fun as a family after Liv came along. I made things difficult because I felt...’
‘Hurt? Rejected? That’s understandable.’
‘Maybe I denied myself a few experiences, looking back.’
‘You were just a child.’ Lucas suddenly put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a small squeeze that felt like an invitation for her to lean in, to absorb the comfort she’d been seeking. Instead, she froze.
She shifted her focus to a lone pigeon swirling round the top of the memorial. When she finally met his eyes, his words from before played over in her head. ‘Are you planning to fly away already, Freya?’
She hadn’t known what to say to him. Was she really giving off the vibe that she didn’t want to be here at all? Standing here now with Lucas, she did, but she could also see the mistakes she’d made in this city rearing up like angry horses, making her want to flee.
She’d refused to go into Madame Tussauds because her mother hadn’t pushed her to go. In an effort to seem independent and indifferent she’d made up some story about having homework to do. Liv had been upset, let down by yet another refusal. It was Liv who had suffered. She could have been a better sister. And daughter.
But what if it was too late to fix things with her mother? Elise hadn’t exactly been beating down the door to see her either. A few phone calls, basic small talk...that’s all they’d allowed each other ever since Freya had left for America. Maybe her mother was angry underneath, too, at how spoilt and sullen her daughter had seemed back then.
‘Freya?’ Lucas was looking at her in concern now, but she swiped at her eyes, realising suddenly they were wet.
‘I’m fine. I shouldn’t have had the wine,’ she told him, embarrassed.
He frowned at her. ‘You barely touched it.’
She turned away from him, started walking. The flock of pigeons took fright at a passing blue and white tram and fluttered off to the rooftops and she prayed her mascara hadn’t streaked her face in that sudden emotional replay. It wouldn’t do to let him see her cry, for so many reasons.
He caught her elbow. ‘Hey, I was going to suggest you come with me somewhere but if you’d rather I took you home instead...’
He trailed off, searching her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to continue being with him tonight, but she was feeling emotional now, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea. Her thoughts were so muddled. Luckily he seemed to sense it.
‘Let’s just start with a ride.’ He placed a hand gently on the small of her back, just to guide her in her high heels. Her mouth went a little drier.
‘A ride?’
‘You’ll see.’
They were approaching another canal. This one was narrow and flooded with pink and yellow neon lights—the Red Light District was pumping as usual. Her feet were starting to redden around the straps of her heels, but thankfully Lucas soon stopped by a ladder leading down to a tiny wooden jetty.
‘Take those off and follow me down,’ he told her, motioning for her to take off her shoes whilst pulling a set of what looked like twenty keys out from his jacket pocket. He made easy work of climbing down the ladder rung b
y rung till he reached the jetty. Once on the wooden slats he held up a hand to help her.
‘I’m OK,’ she said quickly, pulling off her shoes and hoisting up her dress to knee height.
‘As you wish,’ he said. It sounded like he gave an amused sigh as she started climbing down by herself.
When she’d made it down the ladder with her dignity thankfully still intact, he was already climbing aboard a small motor-powered boat. This time she accepted his hand to help her, but only because she might have fallen into the canal without it.
‘Your house is on the Prinsengracht, right? Where, exactly?’ he asked, taking a set behind the wheel.
She told him, eyeing another group of people watching them from the bridge, eating chips from paper cones. Two ducks scrambled closer in the water in a flap of feathers, hoping for scraps, as he started the engine and they chugged away from the jetty.
‘Is this yours?’ she asked, running a hand along the smooth side of the boat. It was small but definitely expensive. The finish was all polished wood and varnish and the floor was an engraved map of modern Amsterdam.
‘It’s Ruben’s. He’s an old school friend, he’s up north of here with his family in Groningen right now because his wife Anne Marie is pregnant with their second child, and I think this was their last chance to go before the baby gets here. But I have keys to most of my friends’ boats.’
‘Is that right?’
‘It’s good to have a ride whenever you need one.’ He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world to climb onto someone else’s boat and steer it away.
‘Do they all have keys to your boats, too?’ She said boats, not boat, as a joke; as if he’d have more than one.
‘Of course,’ he said simply. ‘We share.’
She hid her smile behind her hair, crossed her legs a little awkwardly in the dress from her place at the bow, looking out at the line of elongated storybook houses huddled shoulder to shoulder along the canal, like a giant’s doll’s house collection. ‘So...you live on a houseboat?’
‘That would be correct. It used to be on the Prinsengracht actually, but I moved it.’
‘Why did you move it?’
‘I had a few kids knock on the door and ask for a tour. I guess you can see some interesting stuff through the windows. It was safer and more private to move it somewhere else. It’s less exposed now anyway, moored under some trees.’’
‘That sounds like a good thing.’ She was itching to ask what people could see through the windows. Did he really have wallpaper designed by Banksy in his bathroom? She bit her cheeks to stop herself asking. Of course he didn’t. Then again, he was stupidly wealthy...
‘My mother said a bit of bird poop probably helped my tomatoes to grow, but I have my doubts about her theories.’
‘Her theories?’
Lucas rolled his eyes with a smile. ‘Mum likes to believe everything she reads or hears. I think she’s just got a busy mind. She gets bored easily with the real world...or just...maybe she needs an escape from things sometimes. She’s convinced elves are real.’
Freya let out a snort. ‘Elves?’
He made a noncommittal sound as he took off his tie and she let her eyes run over his smooth jawline down to his Adam’s apple and back up over his lips. ‘She met this woman at her life-drawing class who told her all about elves. They grant wishes, did you know that?’
‘I did know that.’ She swallowed as he draped his tie over the steering wheel, revealing a small tuft of hair that peeked from his shirt. Damn, why did he have to be so freaking sexy?
‘Anyway, Mum went home and built some kind of elf house for them in the back garden out of flower pots. She got pretty annoyed at the cat when he knocked it over, even though the same woman told her there are no elves here in the Netherlands.’
‘How does she know there are no elves here?’ Freya asked, with a straight face.
Lucas frowned, playing along. ‘That’s a good point. Maybe they’re just hiding.’
‘Or maybe they’re just really small.’
‘Who knows. Anyway...the houseboat... It’s better where it is now, on the Amstel just off the canal ring.’
Freya was still laughing to herself, picturing his mother shouting at a cat over an elf house. She sounded fun, she thought with a stab of envy. ‘What does your father think about elves?’ she asked him.
Lucas went quiet for a moment. ‘I don’t know if he always knows what’s real and what isn’t.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, confused.
He shrugged. Falling silent, he steered the boat expertly under the next bridge, leaving the Red Light District behind, and his words niggled at her conscience. She sensed there was something else under the surface that he wanted to say about his father, but he clearly wasn’t about to tell her.
The night was darker and quieter instantly. Crossing her arms around herself, she peeked at his profile in the passing streetlights. ‘So, you grow vegetables on your roof? That sounds ambitious,’ she said to fill the silence.
‘It was Roshinda’s idea. She preferred to cook with fresh ingredients.’
Freya flinched. Hearing him mention Roshinda again made her feel jealous, much to her own annoyance. ‘Do you miss Roshinda?’ she ventured anyway, wondering if they’d lived together on the houseboat. ‘She sounds like she made quite an impact on the team.’
‘I did miss her for a long time. Both professionally and personally. You know what it’s like after a relationship ends, certain things bring it all back.’ He met her eyes. ‘But time heals, right? You said that yourself, not long ago. It’s been eighteen months since she left and most days now I don’t even think about her.’
She nodded slowly. She’d admired him quietly during his speech for many reasons, even as she’d spotted Joy openly swooning. It was clear her new friend had a crush on the heart surgeon, though Joy had once admitted to Freya that she knew she wasn’t Lucas’s type.
Freya had figured that if she couldn’t keep Johnny coming back for more, she didn’t stand a chance with a man like Lucas either. Being as rich and successful and handsome as he was, he could have any woman he wanted. But a smile danced in his eyes, seemingly just for her, and her stomach filled with butterflies all over again. Maybe she’d been wrong.
A rumble of thunder. A sudden howl of wind. Lucas stopped the engine, throwing them into total silence. Night seemed to envelop them as he reached for a blanket under the seat and wrapped it around her shoulders. Just the action made her groan inwardly and this time, when he stood close behind her with his hands on her shoulders, she let her head fall back against him. Clutching the blanket around the thin dress, it felt like just enough of a barrier between flesh on flesh.
This is safe enough, just staying like this. As long as nothing else happens.
‘It’s getting late.’ Slowly, he turned her in his arms to face him.
Her breath caught in her throat as he cupped her face in her hands, and his eyes held an expression that made her heart sing, and freak out at the same time. ‘I wouldn’t normally be here like this with a colleague, Freya, but I have to admit I like being around you.’
Blunt as ever. Totally gorgeous. She ran her eyes over his lips, so close she could almost taste them. ‘I...don’t know what to say, Lucas.’
She didn’t want to say anything, she so badly wanted to kiss those infuriatingly sexy lips but she couldn’t do it. Something was holding her back. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this either.’
‘Yeah?’ His expression was half amused, half something else she couldn’t quite read. Disappointment, maybe? Liv’s voice was back inside her head again: ‘You always push people away. Even the good ones.’
She closed her eyes, pressing her palms to his chest. Lucas pulled her close under his chin, and she allowed herself a deep lungful of his cologne and the warmth
of his comforting embrace...just for a moment.
Then he stepped away respectfully, back to the wheel with a long exhalation. ‘You’re probably right,’ he agreed. Instantly she wanted to retract her refusal.
It was tempting, very, very tempting. But no. It definitely wasn’t a good idea to blur any lines between work and pleasure when she wasn’t even going to be sticking around for that long. He certainly didn’t need another failed romance with a colleague behind him. This was for the best for both of them...wasn’t it? Keeping things less complicated?
Minutes later, he was helping her off the boat at a jetty at the end of her street. ‘You should get inside your house before it rains. Don’t forget these.’
Their fingers brushed for another second over the velvet straps of her shoes, and her heart rocketed to her throat. What had just happened? ‘Weren’t you going to take me somewhere?’ she asked him, feeling a wall springing up between them that, admittedly, she had built herself. This was very confusing. His very smell had been flooding her senses with delicious promises only seconds ago, and now, standing just a metre away from him, she felt cold and alone.
‘Maybe another night. I’ll see you tomorrow, Freya,’ he said briskly, tossing the rope back into the boat and taking the wheel again.
‘OK, thanks for the ride, Lucas...’ Her voice trailed off in the breeze. He was already steering away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LUCAS HEARD THE yelling from halfway down the corridor. It was coming from the consultation room. Freya was inside, clearly dealing with an emotional parent. He was about to walk on by and not interrupt her session when the noise erupted again.
‘Dr Grey?’ he said, knocking on the door in concern. He opened it, despite not being invited to. ‘Everything OK in here? I heard some commotion.’
Freya stood up from where she’d been sitting opposite two women, presumably a mother and daughter, the younger of whom made a show of ending a phone call and slamming the phone back into her bag with a huff.
‘We’re OK,’ Freya told him, crossing to the door and causing his heartbeat to speed up in the process. The room smelled of the lily-scented candles that Freya liked to use, and it took him back to that moment a week ago on Ruben’s boat, when the heady scent of her perfume and the glistening wonder in her eyes had almost tempted him into kissing her. He had a feeling she was avoiding him now, but that was probably for the best. She clearly had a stronger sense of self-preservation than he did.
