by Fay Keenan
‘Well, it was a favour to a friend,’ Holly replied, trying to inject a note of brightness into her voice.
‘Yes, I can see that,’ Miles leered. ‘Really friendly, aren’t you?’
‘Excuse me.’ Holly tried to push past Miles, in pursuit of her borrowed pashmina, but he refused to budge.
‘Don’t you think it’s just a little bit rich of you, coming here tonight to schmooze the local business owners, when you’re so uppity about those of us who don’t conform to your so-called eco principles?’
‘Not really, Miles,’ Holly’s temper was starting to fray, but, mindful that this was Charlie’s patch, and Charlie’s night, she tried to keep her voice neutral. ‘Now I must be going.’
‘Not so fast, girly,’ Miles hissed. ‘I’m not finished yet.’ His face was puce with drink, his purple nose an unattractive, clashing shade. ‘You’d better not get any ideas about bending Charlie Thorpe’s ear to your Green-freak ideas. We don’t need any more of that rubbish in Willowbury.’
‘Well, you would say that, Miles,’ Holly’s voice was louder than she’d have liked, but she couldn’t help it. She wouldn’t let herself be walked over by Miles, especially after such a civilised night. ‘So long as you’re turning a profit, you couldn’t care less what, or who you damage, could you?’ Rumours were rife about the reasons why Fairbrothers had such a high turnover of staff and exactly how they disposed of their waste products.
‘Just remember, missy, it’s people like me who bankroll the campaigns of your new boyfriend. Without us, he wouldn’t have half the influence he has. You’d do well to bear that in mind.’
‘Are you threatening me? Because that’s what it sounds like.’ Holly lost what was left of her temper. ‘I might have known twats like you couldn’t help muscling in on nights like this. Well, you can leave me out of it.’ She pushed past Miles and retrieved her pashmina and handbag.
Miles put up a hand, in a patronising gesture that infuriated Holly even further. ‘No need to start calling me names, Miss Renton. I was merely having a chat.’
‘Oh, fuck off,’ Holly said mutinously. ‘You’ve been trying to get me thrown out of my shop ever since I bought it.’
Miles affected innocence, and for a moment, Holly wondered why. Then it clicked. Like a sixth sense, she knew that someone was standing right behind her.
‘Charlie’s waiting for you in the foyer, Holly,’ Tom Fielding’s voice, smooth and soothing, took the tension off the exchange. ‘Miles, can I buy you another drink?’
Miles glared one last time at Holly
‘Shall we, Holly?’ another voice said softly. It was Charlie, who’d obviously clocked what was happening and had hotfooted it back from the foyer to Tom’s side.
‘Yes, let’s.’ Holly pushed past him, her fury bubbling over as Charlie clasped Miles’ hand and shook it. She could hear him murmuring platitudes as she walked out of the ballroom, probably trying to smooth over the scene she’d just been a part of. She felt an ugly, red, heated flush creeping up her neck to her face in her anger and frustration. So much for principles, she thought. Charlie was obviously more interested in keeping his voters and benefactors sweet. Debating about whether or not to call a taxi, she figured she’d better wait for him and have it out.
Sure enough, he exited the ballroom a minute or two later, a look of undisguised irritation on his face. Taking her arm, he led her out of the building. ‘Let’s get out of here, shall we?’ he said. ‘I think you and I need to talk.’
22
Charlie, to his credit, maintained a polite silence until they’d both got into the car. He even opened her car door for her, but Holly knew something was coming. She felt hot with mortification again as she recalled just how much she’d let Miles wind her up. But that didn’t stop her from being angry with Charlie, too, for not coming to her defence. Charlie had just stepped in and placated that slimy bastard without so much as an enquiry as to what had riled Holly in the first place.
‘That man’s a tosser!’ she said furiously. ‘He just won’t leave me alone.’
Charlie said nothing; just kept his eyes on the road ahead. It had started to rain, and he flipped the wipers on to clear the screen. With his left hand, he reached over to turn on the demister, and Holly felt a jolt as his palm brushed her knee, which was close to the gearstick. She wasn’t going to give into that right now, though; she was still too angry.
‘He thinks he’s got the right to tell me what to do about everything. It’s so frigging patronising.’
She glanced at Charlie, but in the darkness of the country lanes between Stavenham and Willowbury, all she could see was his profile, jaw set as tightly as it had been before his speech.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ Holly, frustrated by Charlie’s silence, raised her voice again.
‘I think you’ve said enough for the both of us tonight,’ Charlie said quietly. ‘I really don’t think there’s much more I can add.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I think you know.’ He kept his eyes steadfastly on the road.
‘Oh, I see,’ Holly snapped. ‘I’ve said something I shouldn’t, to someone I shouldn’t, and now I get the passive-aggressive treatment? Very grown-up, Charlie. Is this how you treat everyone who disagrees with you?’
Still silence. Charlie reached over and changed gear as they turned one of the many sharp corners on the road, and Holly scooted her knees defiantly out of the way.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she tried again, softening her tone.
This, finally, seemed to get through to him. ‘Holly, I’ve got a job to do! I can’t get into an ideological debate every time someone says something I don’t agree with. I’ve got to generate enough goodwill to make these very wealthy people part with their cash to support the party. That way, I get to make the changes I want to make. Changes that are good for the whole community, not just a few. What don’t you understand about that?’ Charlie raked a hand impatiently through his hair and swerved to narrowly avoid a cat that had strayed out onto the country lane, obviously mid-hunt.
‘I’m not stupid, Charlie, I get that you’ve got to smile and pretend to agree for the sake of the party line, but do you have to be quite so nice to those money-grabbing tossers who’d happily see your new home town cut in half by having the M5 slapped straight through the middle of it?’ Holly, aware she was raising her voice, tried to curb herself. Frustration, and irritation that she could still fancy Charlie quite so much in the midst of a row was making her rash. Not to mention a few glasses of cheap Prosecco. Had she been in a better mood, she’d have made a joke about the affluent party members not being able to run to some decent fizz for their fundraising gig.
‘Well, if you know that, then why the hell did you have to rile up one of the biggest party donors this side of Wells? If Tom hadn’t stepped in and smoothed the waters, he’d have pulled the plug on it.’
‘There’s more to life than money, Charlie, or have you forgotten that?’
‘Not when you’re trying to actually change what matters.’ Charlie was pulling up outside Holly’s home, now, and the phrase hung in the air between them. ‘You can pick up all the plastic bottles and bags you can carry, but, ultimately, I rely on people like Miles Fairbrother to help me to fund the real changes, and you mouthing off to him about his business is the absolute last thing I need.’
Holly, stung, shook her head. ‘Well, I guess that’s told me, then. I mean, what’s the point of doing anything if it achieves nothing?’
Charlie, sensing he might have gone too far, tried to grab her hand. ‘Look, I’m sorry. Of course what you do matters. I’m just frustrated. Can I come in? We can talk about this.’
She couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness of the car.
‘I think you’ve said all you need to say, and you’re obviously not going to listen to me. Goodnight, Charlie.’
She picked up her evening bag from the footwell of the car a
nd was out of the passenger door before he could respond further. Slamming the car door behind her, she felt his eyes on her back, until, evidently exasperated, he started the engine of his BMW and drove off.
As she walked up the path to her door, she felt at once deflated and angry. She couldn’t wait to get out of the dress, and although she’d entertained notions of Charlie being the one to unzip it, she was too cross now to fantasise. She’d known this dinner was a bad idea from the start, and it had shown her quite clearly that she and Charlie would never see eye to eye, no matter how sexy she found him.
Thrusting open her heavy wooden front door, she did her best to slam it behind her, to let out some of the irritation, nearly decapitating Arthur in the process, who was attempting to sneak in and find a warm place to sleep.
‘Sorry, my lovely,’ Holly said, picking him up and cuddling him to her. ‘Looks like you’ll be the only male sharing my bed tonight, and for a while yet.’
Slinging her bag down on the hall table and stepping out of her deeply vertiginous heels, she wandered off to bed.
Charlie, still seething, reached his house and drove swiftly into the parking space outside it. Pulling the key from the ignition, he slammed his car door shut and hurried up the path to his front door. He was twitching with irritation, laced with a deeper desire for Holly that, even though they’d parted acrimoniously, still throbbed inside him.
How could she have been so tactless? Honestly, the woman was like an unexploded bomb at times. A smaller voice whispered that he’d been an idiot to have put her in that position in the first place – after all, he knew how far apart they were ideologically, but he’d just assumed that she’d suck up her principles for his sake. That was clearly his first mistake; he had no right to assume anything of her. Why should she have to stay silent just because airing her opinion might make his life tricky? That was not the right way to conduct any relationship.
Pushing open his front door, he pulled out his phone in the lame expectation that in the two minutes it had taken him to drive from her place to his, Holly might have texted him. Even though he knew she wouldn’t have, it still struck him in the gut when that was confirmed by a distinct lack of messages.
Sighing, he grabbed a glass of water and headed upstairs. He should probably email Tom and touch base before he went to bed, but he just wanted to black out and forget the evening. As debut dinners in the constituency went, this one had been memorable – in the end, for all the wrong reasons.
Loosening his bow tie and shrugging off his dinner jacket, he placed both over the chair in his bedroom and then shed the rest of his clothes. His body was buzzing as much as his mind was, and when he glanced in the mirror to take out his contact lenses, he was struck by how flushed his face was – and he’d not even been drinking. Holly had really got under his skin. Should he text her? Or should he let things calm down between them and try to speak to her when they’d both had a bit of breathing space? Perhaps he should calm down too.
Sighing, he decided on a cold shower and a good night’s sleep. Perhaps then he’d be able to face Holly tomorrow.
23
‘I can’t believe you let that twat wind you up,’ Rachel chided the next morning when she popped round for a post-mortem of the grisly night before. ‘Miles has always had it in for you, ever since you bought this place. Why on earth would you let him get to you so badly last night?’
‘I suppose I was wound up already at the thought of going to the thing, and I’d held my tongue so much all night, that Miles just pushed me over the edge.’ Holly shook her head. The remnants of a Prosecco-induced hangover were pounding at her temples and the matcha tea was making her feel nauseated rather than improving things. She cast around the shop for her supply of milk thistle leaves, which made the best hangover cure, since the matcha wasn’t cutting it.
‘Why don’t you get your head down for an hour?’ Rachel said. ‘I can mind this place for a bit longer – I don’t have to pick Harry up from nursery until twelve thirty.’
‘How’s he settling in?’ Holly asked.
‘Loving it,’ Rachel said. ‘Can’t wait to get there in the mornings. Makes me feel quite redundant, actually!’
‘As if,’ Holly snorted. ‘But I’m glad he’s getting on well.’
Harry was a lively and outgoing little boy, who seemed to take everything in his stride, and the nursery school had been more than reassuring about making sure he took his Creon at snack times, and alerting Rachel if any of the other children had particularly bad coughs or colds. A simple cold, if Harry was to catch it, could rapidly turn into an infection, which meant, at the very least, a round of antibiotics, or, worse, a hospital stay.
‘Fingers crossed it stays that way,’ Rachel replied. ‘But stop changing the subject. Are you going to lie down or what?’
Holly shook her head, then wished she hadn’t as it gave a resounding thump. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re stubborn,’ Rachel chided but fell silent as the shop door opened with a tinkle of the bell.
Holly, who had her eyes on her coffee mug, caught a familiar scent in the air that made her senses tingle and, stomach fluttering not just from the hangover, she slowly raised her eyes and cursed inwardly. There, in the doorway, looking as delicious as he had last night, even dressed down in jeans and a casual shirt and, because he’d been driving, not hungover in the slightest, was Charlie.
‘Hello, you!’ Rachel said brightly. ‘What can we do for you on this fine day?’
‘Hi,’ Charlie smiled. ‘I was just wondering if you had anything I could burn to relax me? I had a bit of a night of it last night.’ He glanced at Holly, who was busying herself with removing the coffee cups.
‘So I hear,’ Rachel said wryly. She turned to Holly. ‘Why don’t you and Charlie escape into the sunshine for a bit? I’ll keep an eye on things here.’
Holly grimaced; sunlight would do nothing for her headache, but she realised she wasn’t going to get out of this one. ‘OK,’ she said ungraciously. ‘Let me just grab my sunglasses from upstairs.’
‘Here, have mine,’ Rachel rummaged in her handbag. ‘Wouldn’t want you making a break for it out of your own back door,’ she muttered.
‘Thanks, sis,’ Holly said dryly. Taking a sip of the glass of water she’d also brought down to the shop counter, she stepped out from behind it and looked up at Charlie. ‘Shall we go then?’
As she turned towards the door, she was sure she saw Rachel and Charlie exchanging a significant look, which did precisely nothing for her already embattled mood.
‘I’m surprised to see you,’ she said as they headed up the High Street and away from ComIncense. She was glad of Rachel’s oversized shades, as the sun was warm on her face and she could feel herself breaking out into a not entirely sunshine-induced sweat.
‘Well, I thought I’d better come over and clear the air, as we didn’t part on the best of terms last night.’
Charlie had a long stride and Holly found herself struggling to keep up. They were heading towards Willowbury Priory, a glamorous-looking ruin that the National Trust was restoring and saving for future generations. On a sunny day like this, the stonework glinted in the light, and it was easy to fill in the visual gaps to see, in your mind’s eye, the dreaming arches of the complete building. Jokes and stories had endured through the ages about nuns and monks commuting between Willowbury and Buckfast to share worship and mead recipes, and the aching romanticism of the Priory seemed at odds with the devout purpose of the building. It seemed a bit incongruous to have such a high church icon smack in the middle of such a spiritually diverse town as Willowbury, too, but perhaps that was just another example of its all-welcoming ethos.
‘That’s very gallant of you,’ Holly’s mood was not improving as she remembered the exchange with Miles last night, and Charlie’s subsequent dismissal of it. ‘Were you worried I was going to trash your reputation even further?’
‘Holly, stop.’ They’d reached the Priory ga
rdens now, and Charlie paused in his walk. He reached out a hand to her, and reluctantly Holly allowed hers to be taken in his warm, dry grip.
They were standing under one of the few intact archways on the site, the drop of the chapel nave, shielded by a glass wall, strikingly close. Holly swallowed as the sight of it made her dizzy. She stared steadfastly at her feet.
‘I came to say I’m sorry. About Miles, about putting you in that situation, expecting you to just suck up your own opinions for my sake, everything. It was wrong of me to expect you to do that.’ He glanced up at the archway above his head. ‘When we were on that dance floor, surrounded by all the party faithful, all I could think about was being alone with you. None of that stuff mattered. And yet when I saw you and Miles arguing, the politician in me kicked in.’ He ran his free hand through his hair. ‘I have to be a diplomat with people like Miles. I don’t like it, but he’s part of the backbone of the local party, and the local economy.’
‘What, do they teach you that stuff in politician school?’ Holly’s tone was rather more withering than even she’d intended, and Charlie looked stung. ‘I mean, do you have to suck up to everyone for the sake of the party?’
‘Well, I’d draw the line at bolshy well-being shop owners,’ Charlie teased. ‘It seems they’re unsuckupable to.’
‘Touché,’ Holly said. She looked up at him and couldn’t help smiling. ‘And I’m sorry I let him get to me. I’m so cross that I allowed him to get under my skin in such a public place.’
‘What is it with you two?’ Charlie asked. ‘This is more than just opposing politics, isn’t it?’
Holly sighed. ‘You could say that. When my grandfather was alive, he and Miles had a kind of feud, all stemming back to them being in school. That extended through their lives, and, unbeknown to me, when I put in an offer for the freehold of what was to become ComIncense, Miles already had plans to turn the building into a second site for his bakery. He never really got over that I’d bought the place, and with my inheritance from grandfather, too. Ever since, he’s been trying to discredit me and my shop but has never managed to do so. I suppose he now thinks that because you and I are, well, whatever we are, he’s going to lose an ally.’ She sighed. ‘He and Hugo Fitzgerald were big mates, going back years, and he clearly wants to maintain that connection with the new guy. I figure Miles dislikes the fact that you and I are getting closer and that he can’t count on you, like he did Hugo, to support him if he starts making trouble again.’