Page 82 of You, As You Are

“You didn’t have to hide,” she japed, sweeping aside one of the loose curls that framed her face with the back of her finger.

Iain took a glance at all of her features, trying to capture every one as quickly as he could. “Daffy, you look … beautiful.”

Maisie blushed under the compliment, turning shy like when they’d first met. Iain wouldn’t have any of that – no belief that she wasn’t deserving of admiration. Anddamn ithe was admiring.

Her dress … well it was really something: the V-cut and the slit in the skirt, the shoulder cutouts in the long sleeves that showed off her freckled arms – it all added up to show her off.

The boy on reception let his eyes roam over Maisie too, and Iain sent him a scowl.

“Um … well, this is new,” she told him, passing her palm down the dark-emerald, silky fabric of her dress that shaped around her soft curves. “Nainbought it for me before her birthday party. She wanted me to wear it that night, but I thought it was too immodest for a seventy-first birthday party.”

Good. Iain was glad she hadn’t worn it, because he might’ve spontaneously combusted that night and scrapped every fledgling agreement they’d made, doubled back on his word, and skipped thefakenessto this plan of theirs entirely if she had.

She was bold and she was bright, and she was beautiful.

And her green earrings were discretely shaped like a figure that wasn’t unlike her own.

“I wasn’t just talking about the dress,” he said, realising how prominently the freckles stood out on her face in this warmer hotel light. How many did she have? Hundreds? Thousands? A pattern so uniquely hers that nothing in the world could ever replicate – things he shouldn’t be noticing.

Maisie’s lips fell apart as she blinked up at him, her heels bringing her still nowhere near to his height.

“Oh …” she breathed.

Oh, indeed. More than anything, Iain wanted her to change her mind about joining her friends, lead him back upstairs to her room, and let him show her just how gorgeous she was. He wanted it so overwhelmingly it made him jittery.

But she was like priceless art:untouchable. It didn’t go against the grain of his unavailability for commitment to recognise that.

Iain reminded himself to not get too close. To stay back from the line of getting attached beforefeelingscrept up behind him and pushed him into the tracks of the runaway train.

He offered her his arm. “Shall we go?”

With a smile, Maisie curled her hand into the crook, her jacket folded in her other grasp with her purse. Iain was acutely aware how scruffy he looked next to her, but if she didn’t care then neither did he.

Iain couldn’t say when the last time he’d stepped foot inside a built-up city centre was. He’d rather stick a needle in his eye than get caught up in the fast-paced slog where manners were replaced for impatience. There wasn’t much that he was content with in his life, but he was happy where he lived a stone’s throw from the open air and the rolling sea, where tourist season was the only qualm he had to contend with.

They followed the map on Maisie’s phone for fifteen minutes, wandering the twists and turns of the inner-city streets to the speakeasy-style bar.

“Is this anything like the jazz club you go to in London?” he asked, stepping under red and gold lights that bounced off of dark-burgundy walls.

Maisie slipped her hand from his arm, and Iain wanted to grab it and put it back.

“Not really,” she said, leading the way into the bar. “But it does make me feel like I’m back home.”

For a Saturday night, the place was busy. Music played through speakers in the background whilst the live band got their instruments ready. Maisie found her friends gathered at a sofa arrangement around a table, and Faye jumped to her feet first, wearing a tight black number that her boyfriend raked his eyes over. Sienna, the one who’d sized him up for a meal, rose dressed in wide black trousers and a scarlet blouse, spirals of hair loose around her shoulders. Her flirting at the bakery had been upfront, which appeased the long forgotten jockish ego within Iain, though the way it made Maisie uncomfortable had been even more obvious to him, even from a glance.

He didn’t know what was going on between the warring chemicals in his body, but the overriding signal was clear.

Maisie.

His mind went quiet with her.

The pit in his stomach was weightless with her.

The rough oceans that broke in waves around him settled withher.

She didn’t ask anything of him that he couldn’t give. Which is why he couldn’t stay away. He didn’t deny those feelings to take form when he should, and he felt like an unfed hound ready to snap at anyone who dared to look at her, especially being out with her tonight.

Shit. This wasn’t good.

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