The Butterfly Cove Collection. Sarah Bennett
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He sat at the kitchen table and stared at his phone with distaste. He knew he needed to check it, to send at least a couple of texts to let people know he was okay. He switched it on and watched as the phone flashed up missed call after missed call and a raft of text messages. He ignored the voicemails and scrolled through his text messages with a growing sense of frustration and annoyance. Every message from Giselle was a rant—not a single expression of concern for him, only for herself and how his selfish behaviour had affected her.
She needed money; she needed him to take her to a premiere; she needed him to talk to some C-list moron about a portrait sitting. The whole diatribe just served to reinforce that getting away from her had been the right decision. The last message was a picture and he opened it and felt his gorge rise. She was naked from the waist up in a bed he didn’t recognise. She was also not alone.
He tapped out a terse reply: ‘Working on a project, will be away for the foreseeable future. I’m glad to see you’ve moved on. You can use the flat until the end of the month. Good luck.’ His thumb hovered over the send key for just a moment and then he pressed down hard. Their unedifying row in the street had been the beginning of the end as far as he was concerned and she’d given him the perfect excuse to finish things for good.
Feeling suddenly weary, he scrolled through the list of messages from his agent. Another set of demands and appointments. Time to stop being a cash cow to be milked dry of his last drop of talent and enthusiasm. He highlighted the messages and deleted them before tapping out a terse reply. ‘Taking a break. Don’t line anything up for me for the foreseeable future. I’ll be in touch.’
He opened his emails next, ignoring his burgeoning inbox, and fired off a note to his landlord advising him he would be away for the next few weeks and asking him to change the locks at the end of the month and send the new set of keys and the bill to Aaron.
A second email went to his best friend, who was also his accountant, assuring him that all was well but Giselle was out of the picture and he needed some time away to sort a few things out. His hand hovered over the keyboard for a moment before he typed out in a rush: ‘I’m so sorry, mate. My behaviour lately has been inexcusable. You tried to warn me, but I was too stupid to see until it was almost too late. I’m down by the coast for a few weeks trying to clear my head. I’ll give you a call soon.’
He should call him now, but he was afraid he’d give the game away if Aaron heard his voice. He wasn’t okay, not in the slightest. But he would be.
His phone started to ring before he managed to shut it down and he wasn’t surprised to see Giselle’s blank face flashing on the screen. He flicked the ignore button and switched off the handset. He had nothing to say to her.
Daniel rose and headed into the sitting room that would hopefully no longer be acting as his bedroom. He rammed the phone into the very depths of his duffel bag. Returning to the kitchen, he paused to wash his hands, feeling grubby after seeing Giselle’s dirty little message. How the hell had he ever ended up involved with her in the first place?
He turned away from the sink and pushed the unpleasant thoughts away as Mia came bustling through the back door, her arms practically dragging on the ground she was so laden with shopping bags. He hurried across the room to relieve her burdens and she sank down into one of the kitchen chairs with a sigh and a stretch. She looked lighter, happier than he remembered seeing her, and he found himself beaming down at her as he placed the bags on the table before her.
‘There are more in the car,’ Mia said, a slightly sheepish look on her face. ‘Once I got started, I decided that I really wanted to see the room as finished as possible. I know it’s foolish when there is so much other work to do, but I think it is the way I want to do this from now on. Tackle a room and finish it completely before moving on to the next one. It might not be practical but I feel so energised after months of straggling from one bit of the house to another, never quite finishing anything. Does that make sense?’
Daniel was touched she cared about his opinion enough to ask and it struck him anew how hard it must be for her to try and pull this huge house into a semblance of order by herself. ‘I think you need to do this in whatever way feels right for you. I’m happy to help if you can stand me under foot a bit longer. The work I’ve done over the past few days feels like the only positive and productive thing I’ve done in months. I don’t want to push you, I know you said I could stay for only one week, but you can’t possibly do this alone.’
Daniel trailed off as he watched her face tighten. Shit, shit! Stupid idiot. Who was he to tell her what she could and couldn’t do?
He turned away to stare out of the little window above the sink. Ivy crawled across the glass and he made a mental note to get out there and cut it back in the morning. If he was still there, that was.
He sighed. ‘Sorry, that came out wrong. You can do whatever you set your mind to; you have done so much already. All I’ve done is splash a bit of paint around the place. It’s just that now I know how big this project is, I don’t want to walk away and leave you to do it alone. You’d be doing me a favour if you would consider letting me stay on for a bit.’ Daniel sighed and scrubbed his hands through his hair in frustration, knowing he sounded pathetic and desperate as he tried to force Mia to let him stay.
The silence stretched between them making his gut churn and bile burn in the back of his throat. He risked a glance over his shoulder. Mia sat with her eyes closed and he watched her take a couple of slow, deep breaths. The tension in her frame loosened as she opened her eyes and sent him a considering look.
‘I don’t know what to say, Daniel. I don’t know what the right answer is to give you. I didn’t want you here; I didn’t want anyone here, and yet having another person around to help fill the space has made me feel more positive about things. I just don’t know whether it’s fair to take advantage of you when you’re clearly vulnerable. I feel like I would be exploiting you for my own selfish needs.’
Daniel gaped incredulously. She thought she would be taking advantage of him? He shook his head and gave a little snort of disbelief. ‘Perhaps we should stop worrying about it and take advantage of each other.’ He’d only meant to lighten the mood, but horror filled him when she paled and he shook his head frantically. ‘Oh, shit, no, not that. I didn’t mean it like that! I didn’t mean that we should take advantage of each other sexually. Oh, crap, I just need to stop talking before you throw me out on my arse.’
***
Mia bit her lip and tried not to laugh. The utter horror in Daniel’s voice was amusing and yet a tiny part of her hurt at the forcefulness of his denial. What a contrary, emotional headcase she was. How could she be terrified he was propositioning her one moment and insulted when he clearly wasn’t the next?
Her animal hindbrain decided that it had been quiet for long enough and conjured up an image from the first night when Daniel had stood in almost the same spot he occupied now, stripped to the waist as he washed his hair at the sink. She remembered all too clearly how the light caramel tone of his skin had glowed warmly in the soft light, one small trail of water rolling down the centre of his spine. Mia closed her eyes and shuddered. Her animal hindbrain needed to shut the hell up. She loved Jamie; she didn’t want to think about another man. She wasn’t ready.
Mia focused again on Daniel and his shamefaced expression and offered him a rueful smile, hoping her face didn’t look as hot as it felt. ‘Don’t forget the rest of the bags that are still in the car. I’ll start carting these upstairs and then I’ll see about making some lunch. Richard will be here soon to give you a hand with the furniture and he’s bound to want feeding.’
The hopeful look on his face sent a wave of sympathy through her. Whatever had brought him to her doorstep—serendipity, fate, or just a well-meaning meddling friend—this half-broken man needed a safe place to stay. Madeline and Richard had reached out to her when she’d been at breaking point, perhaps it was time to give a little of that support back to someone else.
Opening the bags on the table, she began to sort through the contents. Pulling