by Holly Martin
‘Well, after six marriages, you obviously found some things unforgivable,’ Lyra said.
‘Two of them cheated on me, one stole my money, one tried to kill me, one turned out to be gay. All pretty unforgivable. Well actually, I forgave my lovely gay husband for breaking my heart. Even went to his wedding when he found himself a nice fella, but the others I couldn’t forgive. I’m presuming Nix didn’t cheat, steal or try to kill you?’
‘Well, no,’ Lyra said.
‘What did he do that you can’t get past?’
‘He ran away,’ she said simply. ‘The next morning he left without even saying goodbye.’
‘OK, but have you asked him why?’
‘No of course not, how sad would that make me look?’
‘Can I ask him?’
‘No you cannot. And if you breathe one word of this conversation to him or anyone, I’ll take that gold cloak and put it through the shredder.’
Sylvia gasped. ‘You wouldn’t.’
‘I would,’ Lyra said, grabbing a piece of scrap paper and putting it through the shredder next to her desk, relishing the noise it made as it destroyed the paper.
‘OK, OK,’ Sylvia said. ‘This goes no further than these four walls. But what are you going to do?’
‘Nothing. Try be civil to him and hope that we can put it behind us and work together.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a good plan. What if Nix is your soul mate? What if he’s your happy ever after?’
‘I’ll guess we’ll never know,’ Lyra said.
‘No, this is heartbreaking. You two are supposed to be together.’
‘Look, I’m not the one in the wrong here. He left me. He has to be the one to offer the olive branch, not me.’
‘And if he did?’ Sylvia leaned forward eagerly. ‘If he apologised, would you take him back?’
Lyra thought about it. ‘Honestly, probably not. I’ve been hurt too many times in the past to want to go through that again.’
Sylvia opened her mouth to protest but Lyra stopped her.
‘But if he had a good enough reason for leaving then I might consider it.’
Sylvia nodded. ‘Yes, it has to be a good reason. You can’t let these men walk all over you.’
‘No, definitely not.’
‘OK, let me see if I can do some digging. Subtly,’ Sylvia quickly reassured. ‘I won’t mention this conversation but let me see if I can find out his side of the story.’
‘It better be subtle, Sylvia O’Hare. Your precious cloak is at stake.’
Chapter Eleven
Nix got back to the office after several hours with the charming Elsie McLaughlin and some time with Seamus, the town mayor, to find a sandwich wrapped in clingfilm on his desk. He cocked his head in confusion and glanced over at Lyra who was hard at work, but thankfully not with her headphones in this time.
‘Is this from you?’
She looked up. ‘The restaurant is now closed until dinner. I thought you’d be hungry as your meetings seemed to overrun.’
She turned back to her work as if it wasn’t a big deal, when it was a really thoughtful gesture.
Unless it was poisoned. The air was still distinctly frosty between them and he had no idea why. ‘Thank you.’
Lyra shrugged.
He didn’t want to tell her that Elsie had plied him with enough biscuits that he didn’t feel remotely hungry. And then, while visiting Seamus and his wife Kathy to discuss their anniversary party, he’d been given several slices of cake as well.
Nix sat down and bit into the sandwich, making appreciative noises for good measure. It did taste good so he took a few more mouthfuls and then discreetly moved it to the side.
‘What’s with the teabags?’ Lyra asked, gesturing to the small plastic bag he’d brought in with him.
He stared at the bag. Seamus had been helpful in so many ways when Nix had told him about his plan, and, when Kathy had handed Nix the bag of teabags with a wink as he’d left their house, he’d laughed at their meddling. Although he couldn’t tell Lyra any of this.
He cleared his throat. ‘Oh, me and Seamus were talking about special teas. I’m not a tea person so Kathy suggested I try some.’
Lyra looked like she didn’t quite believe him and Nix decided to quickly change the subject.
‘I’ve been thinking about this competition,’ he said. ‘I think we should liaise with each other about what we’re doing.’
Lyra frowned. For someone who’d seemed so easy-going and happy the first night they’d met, she sure did frown a lot at work. He wondered if that was all his doing.
‘It’s hardly going to be a fair competition if we’re telling each other our ideas,’ she said.
‘Well, no, but it doesn’t need to be a fight to the bitter death. It’s a friendly competition. May the best man or woman win.’
She eyed him sceptically.
‘My point is, if you present that there’s going to be a chocolate fountain on day one they won’t want to see a chocolate fountain on day two. It makes sense that we have fireworks on day two, so by me telling you that I plan to do that, then you won’t go ahead and plan them for day one.’
‘I’ve already added fireworks to my plan.’
He sighed. ‘Fireworks are always the grand finale, everyone knows that. It makes sense to have them at the end of day two.’
‘Fireworks are used at the opening of events,’ Lyra said. ‘Even the Olympics have fireworks at their opening ceremony.’
‘It doesn’t make sense to have fireworks on both days – it’s too costly for the hotel for one.’
‘No you’re right, which is why it makes sense to leave it on day one.’
Nix bit his lip to clamp down on his frustration. So that’s how she wanted to play it. ‘Well, I guess we’ll let them decide which day they want the fireworks.’
‘I guess we will,’ she smiled at him.
He sighed. ‘So you don’t want to liaise on what we’re having on our respective days?’
‘I think it’s probably best if we keep our ideas separate. I’d hate you to think I was stealing your ideas or vice versa.’
He felt his eyebrows shoot up. ‘I would never steal your ideas.’
She sighed, the fight seemingly going out of her. She rubbed her eyes. ‘I know, you’re way too nice for that.’
It sounded like she wished he wasn’t.
‘Fireworks on day two probably makes more sense,’ Lyra said.
He hesitated, not quite sure what to do with this sudden U-turn. ‘Thank you.’
Lyra nodded and then gave him a small smile, the first genuine one he’d seen since that wonderful night. ‘It won’t matter anyway; I intend to win this competition with or without the fireworks.’
He met her challenge with a smile. ‘Oh, we’ll see about that.’
Lyra shone the torch on the road ahead as she walked back to her cottage. The moon was gleaming brightly above her, the stars twinkling against a velvet sky. She loved going for a walk at night. It was something her mum always used to do, bundle Lyra and all her siblings into their coats and go out for a walk before bed. And though Lyra had worked very hard to make sure she didn’t end up like her mum, and though they barely spoke at all now, it was a habit that had seemed to stay with her. This time of night there was no one around, it was peaceful and quiet and it gave her time to think. And maybe it was naïve, but here on Jewel Island she felt safe.
Except… up ahead there was a man in a hoodie climbing over a gate. The gate leading from Nix’s field and the beavers. Her heart leapt in her chest as the man pulled his hood down further over his head and walked away up the hill. She felt sick at the thought that he might have done something to the beavers. Nix had told her that some people didn’t like the ideas of beavers in the wild, and that in some parts of Scotland the beavers had been culled. What if this man had snuck in and hurt them?
‘Hey, what do you think you’re doing?’ Lyra said, chasing after him. ‘O
i!’
The man kept on walking, and she caught up with him and grabbed his arm. He leapt at her touch and turned around and she came face to face with Nix.
‘Lyra, shit, you scared the crap out of me,’ he said, pulling his headphones out of his ears and turning the music off on his phone.
She stepped back in surprise. ‘Oh, I saw you climbing over the gate and I thought… I thought you were someone else. You looked dodgy.’
His eyes widened slightly. ‘Did you see what I was doing?’
She frowned. ‘Why, what were you doing? Is there another poor unsuspecting woman in there?’
She glanced over the fence to see if there was another woman abandoned in the middle of the field after having the best sex of her life. The moonlit meadow was completely empty.
‘Unsuspecting?’ he said, clearly alarmed. ‘How were you unsuspecting?’
‘Oh come on, we both know you made it seem more than it was.’
He stared at her in confusion. ‘And how did I do that?’
‘You… pretended to care, you listened.’ Embarrassingly, she felt tears smart her eyes. ‘You held me as I told you things I’ve never told anyone before.’
Nix was looking at her as if she’d grown an extra head and she felt like an idiot.
‘It doesn’t matter, water under the bridge,’ Lyra said, hurrying past him to get to her cottage.
‘Wait—’
‘Please, forget I said anything.’
There was silence behind her for a moment as she walked away and then he was running to catch up with her.
‘What are you doing out here alone at night?’ Nix said, as he fell in at her side.
‘I’m going home.’
‘You live round here?’ he asked in confusion.
‘I moved to the island a few days after we…’ she trailed off. ‘My house is just up here.’
‘The little cottage? What a great place to live.’
‘It has a wonderful view,’ Lyra said.
‘Shall I walk you back?’ Nix said.
‘Thank you, but that’s not necessary.’
‘Well, I’m going this way anyway. I’d prefer to know you were safe.’
They continued on in silence for a while and it was just painfully awkward.
They approached her cottage and she headed straight up to her door. She opened it and switched the light on inside, letting it pour out into her tiny front garden.
‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Nix said.
‘Thanks for walking me back,’ Lyra said.
He paused. ‘Lyra, I didn’t pretend to care.’
She stared at him. This was ridiculous. Ben said she had to put it behind her but she couldn’t, she had to know. She moved back out to stand in front of Nix. He was watching her warily.
‘Look, I think we should talk about this, because we’re never going to move on unless we do. And I’ve told myself a hundred times that I’m probably better off not knowing, but I just can’t let it go. So let’s just be brutally honest and then we can move on once and for all. Because I thought we were getting on really well that night and you seemed so bloody lovely. And we talked about stuff that I’ve never told anyone and you seemed interested, like you genuinely cared. If I’m honest, I haven’t been with a man for so long and you just pulled down all my walls and now I feel like you were playing me just to get me into bed. Was that it? Was that always the endgame – just sex? And then what? You saw how I looked at you and panicked that I saw something that you didn’t? Or did you see all my baggage and think you didn’t want to deal with that? Because I’m a big girl, I would have understood. But you didn’t even say goodbye.’
Nix was looking thoroughly confused.
‘Or was it the sex? Was it really bad, is that why?’
She definitely didn’t want to hear the answer to that.
Nix’s mouth fell open in shock. Then he cleared his throat. ‘Lyra, the sex was incredible. I wish it wasn’t because it would be easier, but it was. We had this connection that I’ve never felt before.’
She frowned in confusion. ‘Then why? What happened?’
‘What do you mean, what happened?’
‘You left!’ Lyra said in exasperation.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘That sure in hell isn’t how I remember it.’
Lyra sighed. ‘Go on then, how do you remember it?’
‘I woke up after the most amazing night of my life and you were gone,’ Nix said.
She felt her eyes widen, her heart crashing into her stomach as doubt and uncertainty started creeping in. ‘No, I left a note,’ she said, her voice no more than a whisper.
He folded his arms. ‘I can assure you there was no note.’
She swallowed. ‘I went for a swim in the lake. I suggested you might want to come down and join me.’
His eyes widened and when he spoke his voice was broken. ‘Lyra, no!’
‘And when I came back you were gone and I wondered if you’d looked at the part of the note that said, “Love Lyra” and thought that I’d fallen in love with you and so you ran away before I could march you down the aisle.’
‘No, I would never just go. I mean, sure, if I’d woken up and you suggested we got married I probably would have been a bit shocked, but I wouldn’t have just left.’
Had she completely got this all wrong?
Nix shook his head. ‘But hang on a minute, Daisy was gone as well.’
‘She was dirty after my little fall so I took her down to the lake to clean her off too. I can’t believe you didn’t see the note, I left it by the door.’
‘Well I’m guessing that when you opened the door it blew away,’ Nix said.
Her heart sank. That was entirely plausible.
‘I was gutted when I found you gone,’ he said, softly. ‘After what we shared…’
‘I was too. When I came back up from the lake to see you, Dexter and Judy had gone, I felt sick because I felt that connection as well. I know people have one-night stands all the time but it didn’t feel that way for us. I thought I’d done something wrong, that you didn’t want anything more to do with me. And, honestly, that made me feel pretty crap.’
‘I’m so sorry Lyra, I hate that I made you feel that way.’
‘I’m sorry too,’ she said, quietly.
They stared at each other for the longest time. She actually wanted to cry. All of this disappointment and pain had been completely unnecessary. She had hurt him too and she hated that. And she had been almost rude to him since starting work at the hotel the day before and he hadn’t done anything wrong. But where the hell did they go from here?
Nix moved his hand to touch her shoulder and she instinctively stepped back out of his reach. ‘Maybe it was for the best,’ she said, defensively.
He let his hand fall to his side.
She felt her shutters going back up. It didn’t seem to matter that there had been a genuine misunderstanding, that Nix hadn’t deliberately tried to hurt her. Her self-preservation was kicking in and she didn’t want to get hurt again.
She took another step back. ‘I’ve never done that before; I’ve never jumped into bed with a man I’d only met a few hours before. I’ve only ever had sex in a serious relationship and, well, they never turned out well either. I always end up getting hurt. For some reason, I let my guard down with you and I ended up hurt yet again.’
‘Lyra, it was a misunderstanding.’
‘I know, but I should never have… After my last boyfriend I swore to myself that I would never get involved with a man unless I had taken the time to get to know him first, and all those precautions just went straight out the window when I met you. If we’d known each other properly you never would have thought that I’d run away when you woke up. Not just because we had something special, but because you would have known that’s not the kind of person I am. And I wouldn’t have spent the last week feeling heartbroken yet again.’
‘Lyra, I’m sorry.’
/> ‘No, you have nothing to apologise for – it wasn’t either of our faults. But I think we recognise it for what it was, one spectacular night, and we draw a line under it and move on. I’m rubbish at relationships. I’m terrible at picking men. I think I attract the bad apples and I think honestly I’m probably better off alone.’
Nix let out a heavy breath and then eventually nodded. ‘OK. I get it. I was hurt and disappointed when I woke up to find you gone, but after I’d driven off and had some time to think, and despite the fact I’ve thought about you every single day since that wonderful night, I started to think it was for the best as well.’
She swallowed a lump of emotion in her throat. He’d thought of her every day.
He looked away over the moonlit sea. ‘I… I haven’t been in a relationship for a long time either and I don’t know if I’m ready to start one,’ he said.
She stared at him. ‘That night, you said you hadn’t had sex in a while, I thought it was just a line. You had this big stash of condoms and…’
He smiled. ‘My brother’s. He borrows the van from time to time and I think he uses it as some kind of sex-mobile, driving round different places, a different woman every night. That’s not my style at all. No, when I said I hadn’t slept with anyone for ages, it was the truth.’ He brushed his hand through his hair and didn’t speak for the longest time, as if struggling with what to say. ‘My wife died over three years ago. I’ve had a few dates but nothing serious. I haven’t slept with another woman since.’
Her heart ached for him. ‘Oh God, Nix. I’m so sorry.’
‘Thank you. It’s… tricky, you know, starting again.’
‘I can only imagine how hard it is,’ Lyra said.
He looked down, fiddling with the zip on his hoodie. ‘Part of me feels like I’m ready to have another relationship again, but then there’s a part of me that feels like… I don’t know if I want to fall in love again.’
She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what he’d been through, what he was still going through.
‘I understand that. To fall in love leaves you open to getting hurt.’
He nodded. ‘That’s exactly it. I feel like, I just need something fun, something casual to get me back in the saddle again. I’m not sure I’m in the right place for a serious relationship and, after the night we shared, if I got involved with you it would be something serious. It couldn’t be anything else. We’d have something big and life-changing and I’m definitely not ready for that.’