Page 58 of Never Too Late

“What has cybersex got to do with running an advertising corporation?”

“Cybersex…” Cillian said with a snort. “Makes us sound like we’re robots.”

“Focus,” I demanded. “Work?”

He nodded. “I need to attend a lot of meetings to do the job I do. I’ve always assumed that I need to physically attend those meetings, but it’s simply not true. Eighty percent of clients don’t require the personal touch, and would be perfectly happy with my presence in whatever shape or form that happens to be, including over video. Which means, I can work from home.”

Cillian’s expression said he’d come up with quite the loophole and was waiting to be lauded for it. “Well done,” I drawled. “You’ve just reached the same conclusion that millions of people reached during the pandemic, only years later.” Cillian opened his mouth to make a comment, but I got in there first. “You mentioned eighty percent of your clients. What about the other twenty percent? Aren’t you concerned they’ll go to one of your competitors?”

“I hired an assistant,” Cillian said. “It’s early days, but he’s showing a lot of promise.”

The revelations just kept on coming in this conversation. “When did you do that?”

“When I got back to London.”

“And you didn’t think to mention it.”

“I didn’t want to get your hopes up.” He reached across the table and took hold of my hands, his thumbs rubbing across my knuckles. “I’ve been doing my best to sort out the mess I created.”

“Mess?”

“Us being apart. It’s not ideal.”

“No,” I said weakly. “It isn’t, but…”

“But?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head, still struggling to wrap my head around the conversation.

“You didn’t think I’d move here?”

“I didn’t think youcouldmove here. Or that you’d even want to. I thought the best we’d manage was going back and forth at weekends. I figured I’d eventually end up moving back to London if things worked out between us.”

“If?” Cillian looked slightly sick at my word choice.

“Yes.If.It’s not a foregone conclusion. We couldn’t make things work the first time, so what’s to say we won’t cock it up a second time?”

“We won’t.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

Cillian’s brown eyes were unblinking as he stared at me. “What am I missing here?”

“Practicalities,” I lied. “Like”—I swept my arm in a wide arc meant to illustrate the living room—“are you just intending to move in here? Because this is not a big flat. When Jules got it for me, he didn’t take two people living in it into account. Why would he when there was only me? You’re talking about working from home, but working where? I’d say you could get a desk in here somewhere, but that was before you filled it with all the cat stuff. And my internet connection is okay, but it’s not great. Ican’t guarantee that it won’t cut out in the middle of one of your important meetings.”

Cillian waited until I’d run out of steam. “Do you want me to move to Paris?” When his question met with silence, he frowned. “Just be honest, Finn. If you don’t want me to, then now’s the time to say it. I never assumed that I’d move in with you. I figured that’s something we’d discuss, that perhaps getting a bigger place together might be on the cards. Somewhere with a spare room that I could turn into an office. And yes, maybe I had that in the back of my mind when I got all the cat stuff. Which, is not cool when I hadn’t even spoken to you, but we both know that communication isn’t my strong point.”

“It’s neither of our strengths,” I conceded.

“We’ll get better at it.”

“Yeah…” Even I could hear the lack of conviction in my voice. I knew what was bothering me, but I just couldn’t be needy enough to lay it on the line like that, even if it was furthering the lack of communication issue. It was already too late, anyway, Cillian leaning back in his chair with defeat written all across his face.

“I thought it was what you wanted,” he said, his voice tight. “I had it all planned out in my head. We’d get a nice place together. You, me, and Quasimodo. Maybe with two spare rooms. One for an office and one for all the cat stuff, so we’re not constantly tripping over it. I’d work during the day while you were at work, and then the evenings and the weekends would be ours. I might have to take a few business trips, but I figured that would be okay as long as I kept them to a minimum, that you’d understand that sometimes they’re unavoidable. Hell, I thought you might even want to come with me on a few, depending on where they were.”

The picture he was painting was lovely, except for one glaring problem. He continued as I got up and started clearing thetable. “I was even thinking about how long you’re supposed to be together before you propose, whether it’s different if you’re making a second go of things, like whether that means it should be a shorter or longer time before it happens.” I stilled, my heart beating a furious tattoo in my chest. He gave a little laugh. “I guess there are no rules, or rather you make your own rules. Love always makes everything seem so easy in the films.”

I dropped the plates with a clatter and rounded on him. “Love!”

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