From Best Friend to Fiancée

by Ellie Darkins

  ‘I’m pretty sure that was your doing, with the special achievement award,’ Lara pointed out. He had earned that award, and she didn’t want him thinking that his successes were down to anything but his own hard work. She couldn’t take the claim for that.

  ‘And I think it’s because everyone adores you and they have to like me when I’m near you.’

  She shook her head. ‘So you’re just using me for my adorability?’

  ‘No, we’re helping each other out. But I’m not going to push you into anything you don’t want to do. If it makes you uncomfortable, we won’t do it. It’s as simple as that. I don’t want to do anything that risks our friendship.’

  Their friendship. Which they had to protect at all costs, because if they lost sight of that at the wrong moment then she was sure that they would do something stupid that would mean that she lost him for ever. And then they would both end up hurt, and broken, and without their best friend there to hand out tissues and help pick up the pieces. She couldn’t bear the thought of having to go through something like that without Jannes there in her corner. Or the thought of hurting Jannes, and then not being the one to hold him and help him heal.

  ‘You are my friend, Jannes, and all the hand-holding and kissing and stuff, that’s not important, is it? We know what we are to each other, and what we’re not. And as long as we remember that then the other stuff doesn’t matter. This just makes our lives a little easier, with no cost.’

  ‘And when we’re not in public then nothing changes,’ Jannes assured her. ‘We carry on as before. We’re friends, Lara. Nothing’s going to change that.’

  Good, because she didn’t want to back out of this now. Later that night, as they tucked into a takeaway, she thought again about the family events she’d agreed to go to, and how she couldn’t even consider going without Jannes at her side. And it didn’t cost her anything to show up to Jannes’s events. It took dating completely off her radar, meant that she could concentrate on her work, her studying...and not on those commitment issues Jannes always seemed to want to make her talk about. It was hard not to think about those issues when she was with her family, faced with the evidence of how little she had meant to her father. How she had been a footnote to his real life. How easy she had been to hurt. How destructive following his desires had been for the two families that he’d destroyed.

  With Jannes by her side, it had all felt...less bleak. She’d felt less disposable. Sure, it helped that no one was asking her about her love life any more, but it helped that he was simply there. Grounding her. Reminding her that she was present and she mattered.

  ‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘We’ll keep things going a little longer. If you’re sure you wouldn’t rather be dating someone else for real.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ he told her, and she took comfort from the certainty in his voice.

  ‘And are you sure you don’t want to talk about that?’ she pushed him. ‘We’re friends, Jannes. I don’t like the thought that you’re missing out on meeting someone for real because you’re sitting through family parties with me.’

  ‘I... I wouldn’t be dating anyway,’ he told her.

  She tried to keep her voice light, as if the idea of talking with Jannes about his love life wasn’t giving her butterflies. ‘Oh?’

  He shrugged. ‘I haven’t dated for a while. You hadn’t noticed?’

  Well, of course she’d noticed. She couldn’t help but notice that it had been over a year since she’d seen him with anyone else.

  ‘I noticed. Why is that, though? You can’t be short of offers.’

  He picked up his chopsticks and dug them into his Pad Thai, not meeting her eyes. ‘I just didn’t see the point, after a while. I didn’t want—don’t want—anything serious, and after a while the casual thing gets repetitive, don’t you think?’

  Yeah, it did, which was precisely why she’d stopped doing it too. But she knew it was more than that. That he was scared of getting hurt. Of having someone walk away from him the way his parents had done, over and over again. She couldn’t trust herself to never do that to him, never to hurt him, and that meant she had to hide what she really felt.

  ‘You’re not worried that I’m going to be getting in your way?’ Jannes asked, with the honesty that she loved him for.

  She shrugged. ‘I’m not missing much. Not when I already know that it’s not going anywhere—not when I’ll freak out and leave as soon as the question of whether I can trust him comes up.’ In the end she’d realised that it was far simpler not to get into something, rather than walking in while simultaneously checking for a secure exit. She would have thought that Jannes would have understood that better than anyone. But they’d never actually talked about this before.

  ‘Why doesn’t it ever work out?’ he asked. ‘Why don’t you want it to?’

  ‘Because I can’t make it work,’ Lara said, her voice tightening slightly as she defended herself. She didn’t expect this from Jannes. More than anyone, he was supposed to understand. ‘Because, at the back of my mind, I’m always wondering if they’re going home to someone else every time I say goodbye. It’s just easier not to start something; isn’t that basically what you just told me about why you don’t date?’

  ‘I don’t know; it just seems...sadder when we’re talking about you.’

  ‘Ouch,’ she said, leaning away from him.

  ‘No—’ he dropped his chopsticks and reached for her hand ‘—I don’t mean that you’re sad. I just don’t like the idea that you’ve given up because you haven’t found a guy who you know will treat you like you deserve. You’re amazing and any guy should feel incredibly lucky to have you.’

  She rolled her eyes at him. ‘You’re patronising me.’ After all, it wasn’t as if he was pushing for the chance to be with her for real. He was quite clear that faking it was all that was ever going to be on offer from him. Which was fine. Obviously.

  ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention,’ he apologised, and then hesitated. ‘This is all to do with your dad, right?’ he asked.

  It was as if he had thrown cold water over her, killing the conversation dead. ‘Jannes. I really don’t want to talk about my father with you. I’m happy fake dating and so are you. I won’t grill you on your reasons; you don’t grill me on mine. I thought that was the deal?’

  ‘Okay, fine,’ Jannes said at last. ‘But if it’s not working for you, you have to tell me and we just undo the whole arrangement. Okay?’

  ‘Fine.’

  She picked up her chopsticks, heaped more Pad Thai on her plate, and then chewed on a dumpling thoughtfully and sank back into the sofa cushions. ‘So what do we do next?’ she asked, trying to steer the conversation onto safer ground. ‘Should we compare diaries? I’ve already had invitations for some of the family stuff you agreed to at Pip’s wedding. It’s only a month until the twins’ christening.’

  ‘Fine, yes, I suppose we should. I’ll forward you details of a few things. The regatta in Harbourside is happening in a couple of weeks. I’ll be there meeting with potential sponsors—it would be good if you could be there, help the image, you know, if you’re there doing the girlfriend thing. And I think you’ll enjoy it.’

  She nodded. ‘Okay. Regatta in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘And of course I have a spare room at my place there so we don’t have to repeat the only one bed incident.’

  ‘I didn’t realise it had been so traumatic for you,’ she said with an exaggerated head-tilt. ‘Poor little flower.’

  He shoved her playfully with his foot. ‘It wasn’t traumatic; it just complicates things, doesn’t it?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  LARA PUT ON a wide-brimmed sunhat as she stepped out of her car. With the air-con on all the way down from London, she hadn’t realised how hot the day had become.

  Jannes had warned her that he wouldn’t be there when she arriv
ed and so she followed the instructions he’d sent her to get into the key safe. She hadn’t seen his Harbourside house before. He visited Mormor so often that he had a room there, and it made more sense for them to meet up in London and hang out at her place. Which meant that she had never seen a space that was entirely Jannes’s. She couldn’t help but be secretly pleased that he couldn’t meet her until later. It gave her a chance to see his place without him in it. She wasn’t sure why exactly that appealed so much: if there was something she wanted to know about him then she could just ask.

  But this was different, she thought.

  The hallway was bright and clean and sparse, with just a couple of pairs of shoes stored neatly by the door, a couple of jackets she recognised on the hooks. She dropped the key into a bowl on the shelf above the radiator and walked through to the kitchen. Ah, so here was Jannes. Glass doors covered the whole of the back of the house, offering unbroken views of the sea, all the way out to the horizon. A host of boats bobbed in the water, sails billowing in the breeze, and she wondered how often Jannes sat here, watching people out on the water. Every seat in the open-plan room—from the great big corner sofa to the pale wood chairs arranged around a circular table—faced towards the sea.

  And there were touches of the ocean inside too: the woven blanket tossed haphazardly on the sofa, with a mix of blues and greens, aquas and azures, and sky and stormy grey. The artwork on the walls all captured a part of life on the shore or the sea: shells, and fishing boats, and always the rich blue-green of deep water.

  She wandered along the bookshelves that held Jannes’s trophies and, across the facing wall, the ones with actual books. She pulled a few out and looked at the titles, curious. There were books on travel and nature and woodwork. Sports biographies and sailing, and more sailing, of course.

  She walked back through to the kitchen and found the coffee machine, made herself a double espresso and slid the glass doors open. A wide deck spanned the width of the house, with a glass barrier the only thing breaking the view from the deck to the sea. Lara sat on a wicker chair, eyes drawn to the white caps and sunlight glinting on the water and felt the stress and anxiety of her working week fall away. She could get used to this. Well, maybe she would, she considered, depending on how long she and Jannes kept up their pretence.

  She watched the yachts out on the water and listened to the rattle of wires in masts from the marina. With every lungful of sea air, her body felt looser and heavier. If Jannes didn’t call soon and let her know that his meeting was finished then she might decide that she was never leaving this deck.

  As if on cue, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Jannes. She hit answer and tried to hide the smile in her voice.

  ‘All done schmoozing?’ she asked.

  ‘For now. If you want to join me here, we can do some more together if you like. You know you’re much more charming than I am.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, stretching out in the chair. If she didn’t move soon she would definitely fall asleep here. ‘I need to earn my keep.’

  She could practically hear his frown. ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’

  ‘I know. I’m kidding.’ It was adorable, how seriously he took her sometimes.

  ‘I’ll walk back up and meet you. Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes if you’re ready to head out.’

  ‘I am, but there’s no need to walk back up here. I’ll mooch through the town and meet you at the yacht club,’ she told him. She’d never visited Harbourside before, and wanted to explore in her own time.

  She said goodbye, pulled the glass doors closed and gathered up her bag and her sunglasses and hat. Pocketing the key, she pulled the door closed behind her and followed Jannes’s directions to the main street of the town. Bunting was strung between the shops, across the cobbled street, and the sun was fierce on the heads and shoulders of pinkened tourists.

  Ahead of her, a toddler sat down abruptly, striped pinafore dress gathering around her chunky legs as she sobbed and declared she wouldn’t walk another step. Lara gave the parents a smile as she passed the family, and stopped to look in the window of a boutique. There was vintage furniture, clothes and jewellery of all her Instagram dreams. She took a couple of photos through the window and made a mental note to stop in before she went back to London. The next window was filled with second-hand books, and if it wasn’t for the knowledge that Jannes was waiting for her at the entrance of the marina she was in danger of losing the whole afternoon in the little row of independent shops that led down to the seafront.

  She followed the sound of the music and found Jannes waiting for her by the entrance to the marina, ice cream melting down his wrist.

  She laughed as he licked a trickle of cream that was making its way around the circle of his wrist bone. Laughter was definitely the right response to that, she told herself, eyes still fixed on his wrist. She definitely shouldn’t offer to lick it off for him. She licked her lips involuntarily as he held the cone out to her.

  ‘I got you ice cream. Probably should have waited until you were actually here.’

  ‘You’re sweet,’ she said, reaching up to press a kiss to his cheek, just a friendly thing to do, and took the ice cream from him.

  ‘How are things going?’ she asked as they walked down steps into the marina and along the row of yachts moored there. She tucked a free strand of hair behind her ear before it got stuck in the ice cream.

  ‘Not bad,’ Jannes said, slipping his hands in his pockets as they walked. His sunglasses hid his eyes, making it hard to read his expression. She was distracted, anyway, by the glint of sunlight on the pale hair on the back of his legs, bare skin between his shorts and his deck shoes.

  ‘Lara?’

  ‘Hmm, what was that?’ She tried to cover her embarrassment, not sure how long she’d been distracted.

  ‘Nothing—I just asked you if you found the house okay. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you arrived but they changed the meeting at the last minute.’

  ‘Like I said on the phone, it was absolutely fine. And I love the house. You do know you might never get rid of me now? I think I could live here for ever.’

  Even with the sunglasses on there was no hiding the flash of panic across Jannes’s face. ‘I was kidding, Jannes. I’m not really about to move in.’

  ‘I didn’t panic.’

  ‘You look terrified.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘I do know what we’re doing here, and I know that moving in with you isn’t a part of it. I just meant that I love the house. You need to stop freaking out every time that something I say makes you think I’m trying to trap you into committing to me. We’re not even together. I don’t understand why you keep thinking I’m trying to make you do something you don’t want to do. This was your idea.’

  * * *

  Because if he started to think that she might stay, then he had to be afraid that she might leave. It didn’t make any sense, of course it didn’t. He knew that they weren’t really dating. Knew that her trip to his home was part of their charade and nothing more. But irrational fears were just that—irrational. And any time that he got the feeling that Lara might want to stay, might want to make this thing more than a fantasy, he got this feeling like a hook in his gut, a wrench, an inkling of what it might feel like when she would inevitably leave him, and he couldn’t help but retreat.

  He’d been here before. He knew he threw up these walls and barriers when he liked someone too much. It had destroyed relationships before, and he was determined that this wasn’t going to come between him and Lara. If he was willing to risk that, then he wouldn’t be so sure that fake dating was the only romantic future that was available to them.

  ‘Jannes!’ he heard shouted by someone in the crowd of people outside the yacht club, and he turned to see his agent walking towards him. Lara slipped her hand into his. She didn’t break her stride or even loo
k up at him, just gave him this little show of togetherness as though it was nothing.

  He had to keep his head on the job here, which was securing sponsorship for his next transatlantic race. Otherwise, the three months he had pencilled in for the race next season started to stretch uncomfortably in front of him. Standing still always felt like this. He had learned as a kid that it was a lot less painful to tell himself that he was racing back to school for extra training than because it was better to walk away than be left somewhere. When he had signed up for every sports club and extracurricular activity, he had told himself that he was just a sporty kind of guy, not that he couldn’t bear the thought of sitting with nothing but his own thoughts to distract him.

  ‘Lara, lovely to see you again,’ Chris, Jannes’s agent, said, looking a little surprised to see her with him. Jannes rolled his eyes—was it so out of character that he turned up with the same girl twice? Okay, stupid question. But Chris was only giving him that look because of the bad press he’d been getting before this thing with Lara, and every word of those articles had been fictional. He had wanted to deny it publicly but, according to his manager, that would just add fuel to the fire, and now his career was at risk because his sponsors weren’t happy. He loved his job, but it came with a cost—and this was it. He would be happy if he never had to take another meeting with a sponsor again. But, unless he happened to find a spare few million to fund his ocean-going lifestyle, he couldn’t see that happening any time soon.

  Chris dragged them over to meet Spencer, the representative from a new online bank who were looking to raise their profile with sponsorship, and within half a minute of him introducing Lara she had them charmed and eating out of her hand. It was always that way with her—she was so disarmingly friendly that it was impossible not to fall in love with her.