‘You drove here, right?’ Lara asked. ‘You don’t need me to give you a ride home.’
‘I have my car,’ he said, his voice wary. ‘You’re leaving?’
‘I have to. I can’t go back in there—I’m not going to humiliate myself any more.’
‘And you’re leaving without me?’ She knew that she was hurting him. Knew that she shouldn’t walk away from him. But she needed to be away from here, and she needed to be alone.
‘You should stay. It’s an open bar. And apparently the buffet is going to be excellent.’
‘Lara.’ He turned her face up to his. ‘You know full well that I don’t care about the bloody open bar. I care about you—don’t do this.’
She shook her head. She didn’t have a choice. ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’
‘You’re walking away from me.’
She glanced past him, back towards the hotel, the party, her family.
‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
And with that she walked past him, and he watched her until he heard the creak of the gate and she disappeared into the trees.
* * *
She texted him later that night, when the adrenaline and anger had deserted her, and she was left feeling limp and uncertain.
I’m sorry. Can we talk?
She watched her phone for an hour, a cup of coffee growing cold beside it, waiting for Jannes’s response. She didn’t even know where he was—whether he had driven back to London or Harbourside, or straight to the marina and headed out on the water. It was unsettling to feel so adrift just because she didn’t know where he was. What they were to each other right now.
How had they messed this up so badly? Because she was messed up. She’d fought with her dad, thrown herself at her friend, been rejected, and then walked out on him.
She had messed up in the worst possible way, and she deserved every bit of anger she was sure Jannes must be feeling. She just wished he would show up and be angry in person. Or at least call her and be mad at her on the phone, because this silence was killing her. She just needed to know that they were going to be okay. That they could pretend the last six weeks hadn’t happened and go back to being friends who stridently ignored the chemistry between them, because they knew the massive disaster that would ensue if they ever decided to cross that boundary.
She checked her phone again, even though she knew she would have heard it buzz if he’d messaged back. She cycled through her soc
ial media apps—turned out someone had shared a picture of them kissing before the christening, when she’d been so relieved to see that he was safe.
And then she remembered that he’d lost his phone, and she’d been waiting for a call that was never going to come. She dropped her head into her hands. What had she done?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LARA SNAPPED AWAKE the next morning as a message pinged, sitting up suddenly in bed and scrambling to read it, her hands shaking.
It was from Jannes.
Hey, sorry, just got a new phone. Want to talk now?
She replied before he could change his mind.
Yes. Please. Are you in London?
Maybe she should have worried about looking too eager, but she was desperate and there was no point hiding it.
Yeah. London Fields? Ten?
Meet you in our usual spot.
She showered and dressed quickly, running through conversations and arguments in her head, rehearsing what she could say to bring him back to her. To apologise for the way she had thrown herself at him and then run away when he’d quite understandably turned her down. And before any of that they had to decide what they wanted. What she wanted. Because she knew that until she’d done that there was no point talking at all.