Page 40 of Only Ever You

“Okay, but you know those croissants are best when they’re warm.”

Faye couldn’t figure out the reason for Bash’s obstructiveness, and what had he ‘done’? There was something she’d missed.

Matt looked at her with a welcoming smile. “Are you alright with a hug, Faye? It’s nice to see you again.”

“Of course.” It was only a quick embrace, barely two seconds, but she appreciated the request for permission first.

“This is our daughter Imara.” Matt patted his hand on top of the older girl’s head which she lifted to give her a once over. Faye guessed that she was seven or eight, perhaps. “And the one climbing Dad like a tree is Maya.” At the sound of her name, Maya waved her shorter arm from her perch on Arthur’s shoulders.

Faye remembered their names, both of them the spitting image of their mother with their south Asian colouring and silky black hair, but it’d been so long since she’d last seen them in person thatshe was glad of the reminder. She didn’t think either of the girls would remember her anyway.

She twinkled her fingers to Maya in a wave in return.

“And last but absolutely not least” – Matt offered his hand out behind him – “my wife, Saira.”

“What a nice surprise!” Saira moved a strand of windswept hair from off of her cheek. “We didn’t expect to see you here.”

Faye flicked her eyes to Bash who stood tugging on his earlobe.

“Neither did I,” she said honestly, then quickly ran through explaining the whirlwind of events that had led her here.

The small talk was short, and soon Michèle funnelled the women towards the kitchen whilst Arthur offered up himself and his sons to scurry between the house and the silver estate, shuttling bags in the raindrops beginning to fall.

Faye sat on a stool at the island and tried not to squirm. She was good at polite conversation – half of her job was interacting with people whom she’d never met before. Yet there was pressure here to make a good impression. She realised more and more each minute how much shewantedBash’s family to like her.

When Arthur returned, shoulders dotted with rain, Matt hadn’t followed him.

And neither had Bash.

* Now

13

BASH

Bash shutthe door to the lesser-used sitting room. Which of them had dragged the other in here didn’t matter: Matt had questions to ask, and Bash had warnings and thinly veiled threats to give.

Theoneperson who explicitly knew of his feelings for Faye was now in the same house as her – that spelled “disaster” for him with a capital “D.”

He had approximately two minutes and a handful of seconds to persuade Matt tonotbe obvious about his knowledge for the next few days, before either his wife or their mother came looking for them.

“What happened to your cheek?”

Bash had lost count of the times he’d been asked that, and each time the answer got shorter. He wished the sting when he smiled too widely would fade just as quick.

“Tennis. Bennet. Ball.”

He moved them as far across the room into the corner as he could, away from the door, wedging himself between a displayed bowl of Arthur’s sea glass collection and an upright ladder drapedwith folded throws. With reluctance, Matt appeased him, then got straight to the interrogation Bash put off when he’d arrived.

“Why is Faye here?” Matt waggled his brows with a suggestiveness Bash wanted to wipe from his brother’s face. Instead, he repeated what he’d told their parents, and those waggling brows gradually lost their enthusiasm. “Why didn’t you just offer her your spare room?”

He scratched the back of his neck. That thought had been his first one, but his impulses had taken over. “This felt like the better idea.”

“An idea from your head or your?—?”

“You’re crass for a doctor – you know that?”

Matt opened his palms in a gesture at himself. “Do I lookon callto you right now?”

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