Farlan didn’t want this to end. But all he had really offered was a couple of months, and then after that…
There were too many possible interpretations of ‘after that’ for her to contemplate, and only one she wanted to be true.
She stared down at him, her heart racing. She could wake him now, tell him that she didn’t want just a couple more months, that she didn’t want him to go anywhere without her.
But he might not be ready.
He might never be ready to hear that.
Remembering how his mood had shif
ted in the restaurant, she felt her breath catch in her throat. He had been angry and hostile, but there had been fear not fury in his eyes.
If that was how he reacted when she tried to find out more about his family, how might he react if she told him she wanted to share her life with him?
She couldn’t risk losing what she had right now for yet another impossible dream of love.
Shifting down a gear, Farlan turned the steering wheel, his mouth curving down as he threaded it through his hands.
‘What is it?’ Nia asked.
She was sitting beside him and, turning, he grimaced. ‘Ignore me—I’m just being a spoiled brat.’ Sensing her confusion, he grinned. ‘It just feels a bit “agricultural.”’
‘You mean the car?’
He nodded. ‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great car, but…’
As he let the sentence tail off, her eyes gleamed. ‘Oh, I see. It’s not edgy enough for Mr Hollywood Big Shot.’
They could be playful now, teasing one another without fear of everything imploding.
He burst out laughing. ‘I wish! I’m just the new kid on the block right now. Compared to the Mr Big Shots in Hollywood I’m like a firecracker. Seriously.’
Outside the window, the countryside was starting to recede. In its place, houses and shops were starting to hug the road. He could feel something shifting inside him, like the pistons and the flywheel inside the car’s engine.
‘If you don’t believe me then maybe you should come out with me to LA and see for yourself.’
There was a pause, and then he felt her hand on top of his. ‘I’d love that,’ she said quietly.
He felt a swooping happiness, pure and swift like a swallow curving through the sky. And, reaching over, he caught her fingers and lifted them to his lips.
‘Then I’ll make it happen.’
Was it really that easy? He felt his pulse accelerate. Apparently so. Only what had changed? Why was it so easy for them to communicate now when before everything had been so charged with misunderstanding?
He didn’t understand it, but he couldn’t deny how easy it was between them now. Or how happy it made him.
‘After two hundred yards, turn right at Lennox Place.’
The glacial voice of the satnav broke into his thoughts and he smiled at Nia. ‘We’re nearly there.’
It was the only ‘date’ he had in his diary for the whole trip. Everything else he had been happy to leave to serendipity and Diane. But this was personal: it was the Gight Street Picture Palace.
The cinema had been small and shabby, but years ago it had been his hideout. His refuge. A place where he’d been able to watch heroes and heroines defeat the bad guys, fight alien hordes, go back in time and fall in love.
From that first visit when the lights had dimmed he’d been captivated, swept away not just by the dramas playing out on screen but by the thought of being behind the camera. Telling stories where he got to choose the ending.
Most times, he hadn’t even cared what film was on. He’d sat through all of them. And later, every week wherever he was in the world, he would check the listings there, always thinking of the day when his film would play there.