I could see it. I could feel it. I could sense it right through the room. Sense it right between us, in every breath.
He loved me.
Just as I loved him.
It was the most powerful thing to be feeling in that moment, and I struggled to keep myself together enough to talk Dad through the items I’d done particularly well on.
I was truly desperate to find a way to sneak out that evening and spend a night with Miles. I’d been desperate all week, needing an escape plan, and I only hoped a celebration with Holly would be enough of a believable alibi to chance another night out. But I didn’t get the chance. Dad was already keen to make plans of his own.
“We’re going to take you out tonight to celebrate, sweetie,” he said. “Me, you and Mum, to get pizza at Francesco’s.”
I loved getting pizza at Francesco’s, and loved going out with Mum and Dad, but I saw Miles’s smile drop hard behind Dad, and knew full well he’d been hoping for an escape route too.
Crap, how we needed one.
“Great, thanks,” I said to Dad, and meant it, even if it was a poop of a fly in my Miles Lindon hopes and dreams for the night.
Dad gave Miles a slap on the shoulder before he left. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow night,” he told him. “Thanks again for helping Faith this week. She did so well, and so much of that is because of you.”
He was right, but Miles took none of the credit, shaking his head and grabbing Dad’s shoulder right back.
“Faith has to take all the credit for this,” he said. “She was truly exceptional today, and that’s all down to her. She’s a truly talented auctioneer. We’re lucky to have her with us.”
My cheeks burned up and my heart swelled and I couldn’t hold back the smile as the both of them nodded their heads at me.
This was really it. Here and now on this Friday afternoon. The chance I’d been hoping for. The chance to fully explore my chance of a career on that podium.
It had been every single thing I’d been aiming for. And more. Always so much more.
The Miles Lindon effect. The Miles Lindon world as well as the man.
It was just such a shame it put all my future plans into perspective, and made me realise with a cold, hard reality that a career in finance really wasn’t ever going to be enough to capture my heart. Sensible road of a career or not.
I didn’t want it. Not finance and not Warwick. Everything I wanted was here and now.
“Come straight home after work,” Dad said, and as usual I found myself nodding. “We’re going to have such an excellent celebration to mark such an excellent day.”
I didn’t doubt it. Not for a second.
I only wished it could be the celebration that would mean the full deal for me. The real full deal in my real world, so hidden.
I only wished Miles could be there too.Chapter ThirtyMilesThere is only one thing to do when you have a churn of chaotic feelings in my experience. You force your brain through the whole sorry lot of them and concentrate on something productive.
That is what I did on Friday evening when I would have loved to be out celebrating an excellent first auction attempt with my beautiful princess. I pulled my mind out from the pit of guilt, and the want, and the despair at needing something so badly forbidden. I pushed myself past the pondering of what if and set myself onto the task of what would.
What would be for Faith, that is.
Seeing her up at that podium, leading the auction like a woman at place in her true vocation, was magnificent. Her enthusiasm was fierce enough to light up the room and keep it ablaze the whole way through.
It had made some things so shockingly clear to me. Far too clear to ignore.
Watching her set off for the conventional accountant’s study in Warwick would be a travesty without helping her stay fixed on her true ambition. And I could do that. I could be the one to help keep her heading for the real stars in her sky.
So I started.
I fired off some emails to friends and acquaintances in the antiques industry close by to the university, requesting they offer some training and support opportunities for Faith around her studies. I did some research into the university itself and how flexible they were in their degree placements, and was becoming pleasantly optimistic by the time I’d finished.
There was a chance, even if just a sliver of one, that Faith could step away from the road she didn’t want to walk down, and take a leap for the path she really craved. And I could help her do that.