‘I’m interested in why you’re okay with lying to your family,’ Jannes clarified. ‘To your community, who you just told me mean so much to you.’
‘I told you why. You would have lost your sponsorship. I didn’t want that on my conscience.’ She crossed her arms, and he knew he was pissing her off. He knew equally that this was a conversation they absolutely had to have.
‘It wouldn’t have been your fault,’ he told her. She didn’t have to take responsibility for his failings, as much as he was grateful for her help.
‘I don’t get why you’re making a big deal out of this,’ Lara said, pulling her sunhat down now so that it hid her features. ‘Are you going to start talking about my commitment issues again? Because this looks pretty committed to me.’ She flashed him her left hand. She was right; it absolutely did. It looked committed in a way that struck him deep in his bones, making him wish that he had put a ring there for real.
‘Maybe we should talk about them,’ he said gently. ‘Because—and I don’t know if you know this—most people would find a fake engagement quite extreme, even as a way of helping out a friend.’
‘It’s convenient,’ she said, shrugging, but he wasn’t fooled by the casual gesture. ‘It will save me a whole load of hassle with my family if I can pretend that we’re together. And it doesn’t cost us anything—it’s not like you even have to turn up to things. But when they try and set me up with cousin Sandra’s brother-in-law’s son, or whoever it is this time, I just have to play the engaged card.’
He tried to stare her down, but it was impossible with the sunhat and the glasses. She knew what she was doing when it came to avoiding a deep and meaningful talk, he had to give her that. ‘Some people might find it a little constraining—especially given what we’ve said about not doing anything that might undermine our story.’
‘But it’s not—it’s the opposite.’ Lara took off her sunglasses and finally looked him in the eye. ‘We both know where we stand. We have all our cards on the table. Neither of us can do anything to hurt the other because we both know it’s all fake from the start. It’s safer, when I know that it’s a lie. It’s better than something like that taking me by surprise.’
He frowned. ‘Because I can’t hurt you.’
‘Precisely.’
‘Because you’re not vulnerable,’ he pressed.
‘Now you’re getting it.’ She put her glasses back on and looked back over the water.
‘But once this is over, pain-free with no surprises, aren’t you going to find it hard to be with someone without being vulnerable?’
Lara still refused to look at
him, so he knew he was on the right track. ‘So I go back to the casual thing I was doing before. No big deal.’
Except she’d told him she was tired of that. And the reason she avoided anything serious wasn’t because she didn’t want it, but because she was scared of getting hurt.
‘This needing the cards on the table thing. Is it to do with your dad?’ he asked, knowing that this was sensitive ground.
Lara’s gaze was determinedly fixed ahead. ‘Why would you ask that?’
‘I’m just trying to understand why you settled for this. For me. When you could have so much more.’
‘I don’t know. Why are you settling for me?’
‘I’m not settling.’
He stared at her, knowing he should take those words back, or at least clarify what he meant, but he couldn’t. Being with Lara, even temporarily, even pretending, even if he didn’t have her for real, could never be settling.
‘We should drop this,’ Lara said at last, and he could tell from the stiffness of her shoulders that they’d crossed the line and got too close to the truth of what was going on between them.
‘So you’re going back to London today,’ Jannes said, and then bristled at his own words. It sounded too much as if he was trying to get rid of her. ‘I think I should come too. I need to talk to Mormor.’
Lara laughed, and he was relieved at the familiar sound. ‘Because that worked so well the last time that we tried it.’
His eyes crinkled into a smile. ‘She doubled down so I guess now I have to as well. You don’t have to come with me.’
‘Oh, no, I have a few things I want to say to Mormor.’
‘Excellent. More fireworks.’
* * *
Lara drove them back to London—it seemed stupid to take two cars—and he’d deal with how to get back to Harbourside later. With her eyes fixed on the road in the exodus of cars following the regatta, he could sneak glances across at her.