Page 91 of The Cornish Cream Tea Bookshop
‘OK,’ Ollie said. ‘Wow. I will forgive you for not telling me, considering your explanation is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.’
He gave her a soft smile. ‘So, what’s your plan? Get Liam – Bryan – to replace Sophia at the pageant event?’
‘He’s local, he’s loved, and it would be a huge coup to reveal him as the author of such a popular series. He’s a wonderful verbal storyteller, too. Everything about it is perfect, except that—’
‘He doesn’t want to do it.’
‘Right. He says that part of his life is over – his memoir aside – and he never outed himself as Bryan Mailer. He doesn’t want to change that now.’
‘You think you can talk him round?’
Ollie fiddled with the sleeve of Max’s hospital gown. ‘These things are ridiculous. Are you even warm enough? Do you want me to get your dressing gown from home? Or a nice soft blanket?’
He didn’t reply, and when she looked up, her stomach flipped at the look he was giving her.
‘What?’ she laughed.
‘You’re perfect,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t know how I got so lucky.’
‘It’s only a dressing gown.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t need anything from home. I have my clothes from Saturday night for when they discharge me. Mum and Dad are feeding Oxo.’
‘Oh, yes. Of course.’ She’d forgotten about his cat. ‘I should have thought about Oxo.’
He gave her an exasperated look. ‘Ollie! You don’t need anything else adding to your to-do list, and what I said, about you being perfect … I wasn’t trying to put pressure on you. But what’s the point of not telling each other how we feel? What good does it do?’
‘Leaves us with a little dignity?’ She smiled to show him she was joking.
‘Dignity can sod off, if it means not telling someone you love the truth. Nobody will get to the end of their life and say,I wish I’d been more reserved with the people I cared about,will they?’
‘Nope,’ Ollie agreed. ‘So I suppose I have to tell you that you are the hottest, kindest, most incredible man I’ve ever met, and I never want to spend a day without seeing you or talking to you. Also, I’d quite like to have sex with you every day, too, because you turn me on in ways I didn’t think were possible. I’ve reached the age of thirty-five, and suddenly that clichéd phrase,I never knew it could be like that, makes a whole load of sense.’
Max’s eyes darkened, and his gaze dropped to her mouth.
‘But maybe we should leave those truths for a different time,’ she murmured.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I do want you to elaborate on that at a later date, though. Really.’ He cleared his throat, and Ollie grinned, her own pulse thrumming. ‘What’s your plan for talking Liam round?’ Max’s head shake told her it was an effort for him to change the subject. ‘I’m 100 per cent convinced that you can do it, but I’m obviously going to miss it, so you need to tell me all the details.’
‘It’s pretty out there.’ Ollie settled back onto the bed, so she was sitting next to him.
A nurse appeared in the doorway, wheeling in a complicated-looking machine on a trolley. Ollie was heartened to see that the trolley had tinsel wound around its legs.
‘I should go.’
‘Five minutes,’ Max said to the nurse. ‘Ollie was about to tell me something really important.’
‘It’s notthatimportant,’ Ollie protested.
‘It’s incredibly important, to you and A New Chapter. And it’ll be entertaining, too.’ He smiled at the nurse, and Ollie watched the older woman’s face soften. MaxHolden, she thought: bewitching women every single day of his life.
‘If it’s entertaining,’ the nurse said, ‘I need to stick around to hear it.’
Ollie exchanged a look with Max, saw the amusement in his eyes, and marvelled at how he could be so positive after everything he’d faced. She kissed him and got off the bed. ‘OK,’ she said to the nurse, whose name tag readGillian.‘But in order for it to make sense, I need to give you context.’
‘Let me check Max’s vitals. When I’ve done that, I’m all ears.’
It was a good idea, running her plan past Max and a total stranger. It was Thea’s business and reputation, and she’d only just built a tentative truce with Becky. She didn’t want to bring everything crashing down just as they’d begun to understand each other.
