Chapter 8

8

That confession travels all the way back to Kensington with us.

I hear to you above the rumble and hiss of double-decker buses, a bass line thrumming below Christmas music as we pass more department stores with festive windows. I don’t stop beside a single one to take a selfie. Instead, I march to the beat of two words, and by the time I unlock the door to a tall, white townhouse, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who hears them as a second heartbeat.

Reece shrugs out of his coat and my scarf, then stands in the same spot where mistletoe once hung. Nothing spins above his head to invite me to kiss all of his hurt better. Because that’s what I heard several times during the last part of our conversation: Being used had hurt him. He’d been blind to it, at first. He can’t have been deaf to it if his expression as he repeated what Valentin told him about being scruffy was a measure.

I can’t count how often I’ve told Rex that his hair is a disaster or that he looks as if he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards. It’s probably as many times as Rex has grumbled and then gifted me stationery from tax havens. Both are proof of caring. Of how we complement each other, but here’s the real truth about Rex in his untidiest moments. Those scruffy days are when I know he’s doing what Heligans are born for.

Now Reece stands where he encouraged me to spin—to play—and isn’t that his own real calling?

Reece has been bruised by someone superficial who doesn’t value his work, and now I can’t stop thinking about what could have bruised him long before I ever knew him. Something about going home each December also left an uneasy mark on him, which is hard to believe when the Trelawney family are Christmas-card perfect.

I don’t know why the idea of him having shitty holidays as a kid seems worse to me than a narcissist abusing his good nature with a camera. Maybe it’s due to having a run-in with a camera-wielding narcissist of my own. Only good things have come my way since I put Lito Dixon’s bullshit behind me. I’d tell Reece that if he was done unloading.

He isn’t.

He waits until I hang my coat to stop me in the study doorway. His hands are light around my biceps, more a suggestion than a command that I stay put and listen. His palms rub as if in consolation as he murmurs, “Sorry, Jack. It’s too late to rehash that personal stuff. You’re moving on to bigger and brighter things for your own reasons. Doesn’t matter if it’s here in London or in New York. If that’s what you want, I’m pleased for you.” He straightens up. “At least it’s all out of my system now. I’ll make sure to focus on business for the rest of the week.”

“Out of your system?”

Me?

That shouldn’t feel this crushing. Or like I’m the one taking a dunk in icy waters. He’s only confirming he won’t cross what I said was my own line in the sand.

I still don’t like how he backs away while nodding. “Yes, Jack. Because this week together is about the foundation. About Safe Harbour. And you were right to remind me by taking me to the gallery.”

I’m not so sure about that after his revelations, but he nods again.

“Getting this done is more important than…” His quick glance over his shoulder at a hairy sofa is a reminder of his hands skimming across more than my biceps. I can almost feel his warm palms under my shirt all over again. That phantom touch slides away, and so does Reece. He also tosses this over his shoulder on the way to the desk.

“Seeing all those rescues I helped with? That reminder of how we got started? The foundation, I mean, not you and me,” he tags on quickly. “It all means Rex is right. We do need more of the donations big fundraising events generate. A lot more. And I’ll need to learn how to magic them up without neglecting everything else once you aren’t here to make it look so easy.”

He takes Rex’s seat, which creaks again, sounding as uneasy as his next statement.

“I’ve just got to wrap my head around how to change my mindset.” These sound like some of his brother’s blackboard affirmations. “The finance side is as important as what I actually enjoy doing. I should share responsibility for it. I’ve agreed to that, so I will.”

He only sat down a moment ago. Now he gets up just as quickly, to switch places and to beg a favour.

“Show me how?”

First thing this morning, his eyes were stormy. They’re back to soft again now, which will only get him mashed and crushed in this city.

People like Smallbone won’t loosen their hold on donation purse strings unless Reece can match them step for step in a dance I know infuriates Rex. I’ve seen him lose his cool and go off like a rocket. After everything Reece has shared, I can’t help thinking he couldn’t explode with any of Rex’s pissed-off fireworks even if he wanted. Reece would hold any failure inside like he held onto the fact Valentin only used him as a stepping stone. A real friend wouldn’t do that or make negging comments about his appearance, as if he wasn’t good enough to fit into his filmmaking world. Now Reece has concerns about making the grade in finance circles. He’s tucked both worries close to his heart, and…

Mine clenches.

He adds, “Please, Jack. Got to be honest, I’m a little bit scared of fucking this up.” So I hurry, although the boss’s seat I take for a first time creaks as unhappily as I feel about Reece thinking he should change for any reason. As for being scared of fucking up? He’s brave. How many people can truly say that?

He’s also playful in the face of trauma. I wouldn’t know where to start with that, but those kids in a community centre all drew smiling faces because he helped each one of them when they were new here. He taught them to make friends, and to have hope.

That’s the gift I want to leave Reece with this Christmas, so we spend the rest of the day with spreadsheets between us, and then with a shared late lunch as I pull together data.

The afternoon passes in a flash. No surprise when charts and graphs and lists are my idea of heaven. I’m not sure Reece has the same sense of data-rich contentment. If anything, he’s back to grey when I show him what I’ve pulled together from almost three years of files and emails.

“Don’t look so worried. I’ve made it easy for you, see? Here’s the bones of a template I started over the weekend.” I swivel a laptop to show off guest lists in neat, colour-coded columns. They include the great in green and the good in gold, along with people he can’t let share space with Rex in scarlet. “Because back when he was slutty and single, he ripped apart as many hearts as condom wrappers. Things could get messy.”

Reece snorts, and that’s better.

“So that’s a future guest list sorted.” I repeat what Gran showed me so often made for a great party. “That’s one of the four pillars of entertaining.”

“Four pillars?”

“Yes. Location, guest list, menu, and decoration.”

“How do you know how to do any of this?”

“Remember, I spent school breaks with a planning expert. Rex did the rest.” I can’t help echoing his last snort. “You try herding a Heligan for your living. My first year was a pretty good crash course in expecting the unexpected. Planning helped keep him on track.”

I gather sticky notes that prompt me to ask him another question. I can’t do it and make eye contact, so I focus on these small squares of paper.

“Or were you really asking how I know how to collate, analyse, and make projections with data despite only having a basic admin certificate?”

“Ah.” He’s quiet for a long moment. “You saw that video.”

Heat rises, hot and probably as mottled as that video showed me, and I can’t look up until he takes one of those sticky-note pads from me, writes something on it, then pushes it back across the desk at me.

Valentin took the video down.

I look up in a hurry. “He did?” The reason why strikes me just as quickly. “You made him.”

He shrugs. “I asked him how you might have felt to have a private moment taken out of context. I’m only sorry I didn’t see it right away.”

My throat shrivels at the thought of him watching me shuffle Post-its.

“Jack, you could have?—”

“Told you?” I shake my head. “No. There was stuff at the start of the video about the foundation. Some nice footage of—” I stop myself from saying you . I imagine he guesses. That grey cast of his has a hint of pink when I meet his gaze again. At least that means my neck isn’t alone in being rosy when he takes over talking.

“Seriously, I haven’t had to gather this much data since writing up my thesis. There’s so much more involved than I expected.” He touches one of the location-related notes spread out by my laptop. “Liability insurance. Accessibility provision. Entertainment and music licences. I didn’t even know we needed a licence to screen foundation footage at fundraising events. All of this comes naturally to you?”

“Being organised?” I stack sticky notes in colour order. “What’s that debate you psychology types have? Nature versus nurture?”

He nods, looking interested, which is better than grey, so I keep going.

“I’m probably a bit of both. Yes, I didn’t have a great time at school, so I fucked up my final exams and didn’t get the grades for uni, but Gran was always my best teacher.”

“When you were even littler than you are now?”

I hear his smile without needing to see it. I also channel Sebastian.

“Sizeist.”

My coloured stacks of paper are also a muddle of different sizes. I get busy solving that messy problem and tell him, “Seeing her run a big house was good training. She used to plan everything and only needed coloured pens and pencils and a notepad to do it, but if you want to see real organisation, you should see how she keeps busy since retiring.”

“How?”

“With spreadsheets.” I point at the laptop screen. “This is nothing. Hers make my eyes cross. You should see her biggest one.”

“I’d like that.”

“To see my eyes cross or to see her biggest spreadsheet?”

He laughs, and that’s better. He also says, “Both,” which is a weird time to realise a single word can sound as easy to sink into as a pillow. He adds, “What data does her biggest one collect?”

“Rom-com locations. I’ve already taken photos for her where key scenes were shot here. Mum says she has a new page for ones set in NYC. And a whole page dedicated to where she visited with Gramps when they honeymooned there.”

Reece’s face doesn’t exactly fall.

I don’t have a word for what I see across this desk. I do notice the darkness outside the study window. Night has arrived while we’ve been busy. “It’s time.”

“For you to relocate?” I’ve seen colour drain from his cheeks several times today. This is the first time I hear an audible version. “I…I thought you hadn’t interviewed yet or made your mind up.”

“I haven’t. I meant that it’s time for you to get ready for this evening’s banking ball.”

“Ball?” He blinks as if he’s forgotten. “What time do we have to be there?”

“We? Oh, there isn’t a plus-one on the invite. Rex doesn’t need me at parties.”

His face does fall now, so I hurry to add, “How about I come in the cab with you? Talk you through who’s best to tap up for donations.” I dart out of the study to grab a suit carrier. “You can change into this, if you didn’t bring a?—”

“Tuxedo?”

“For the love of mud, don’t let Smallbone hear you call it that.” I show off silk lapels. “This is a dinner jacket. Bespoke tailoring. All part of the upper-class code.”

“Code?”

“Yes. How they tell new money from old.”

“Can the foundation afford bespoke tailoring?”

“Nope. It doesn’t have to. This is one of Arthur’s.” No way would Reece’s shoulders fit into anything in Rex’s wardrobe. “Vintage Armani. Timeless. Anyone who knows their couture from their off-the-peg will know it’s the real deal the moment they see it. Go try it.”

He heads upstairs to try on party glad rags I’m pretty sure he hates when he returns a short time later. I don’t know why. He looks…

Amazing.

I rummage in the desk drawer for a pair of Heligan-crested cufflinks. Reece must have had a quick shave. Must have borrowed Rex’s aftershave as well. It’s familiar, and smells fucking fabulous on him. Maybe a little too fabulous. I inhale so deeply we could be back where this whole mess started.

We’re chest-to-chest and only a tilt of our heads away from the kind of contact we agreed couldn’t happen again.

I step back.

He stops me. Although not by holding me tight. I could leave him right here if I wanted—only Reece holds out a strip of black silk and says, “Help me tie this?”

I do, and I keep on helping all the way to a glittering and grand venue complete with a red carpet.

Cameras flash outside this maritime museum in Greenwich as our cab waits in line, and I give Reece a last-minute pep talk.

“You’re standing in for an earl and a duke. If anyone snubs you, mention Rex’s name and ask how they know him. Say you’ll mention them to him. Even better, mention Arthur. Word will soon spread that you have the ear of a peer of the realm and are important.”

He chuffs, so I rephrase as the cab creeps closer to those camera flashes. I also swivel in my seat to check his tie isn’t crooked, which means I can’t avoid seeing how his eye contact isn’t only stormy. It’s worried. “You are important,” I insist. “They just don’t know it yet.”

He asks a simple question. “Rex really finds this easy?”

“Networking at parties? Yes.”

I’m not so quick to answer his next query.

“And he enjoys it?”

Lately?

No, Rex hasn’t, and right now, as our cab reaches the head of the line, I’m convinced Reece won’t either. If I had to pick a word to describe him, tortured fits as perfectly as his borrowed Armani.

Of course it does. Because someone he thought was a friend but who betrayed his trust said he wasn’t red-carpet worthy.

Now I watch Reece straighten in a reminder of the hero at the helm of a lifeboat I saw in a photo this morning. He’s prepared to face a challenge that might sink him all over again, and who the fuck knows why that gets me moving.

I meant to leave him here. What I actually do is scoot out of the cab before him to brief this cohort of photographers from society and financial publications. “Don’t miss Reece Trelawney.” I spell his last name. “That’s right, Trelawney. A tremendously old Cornish family with connections. He’s doing great things for Safe Harbour, the foundation set up by Lord Heligan and his Grace, the Duke of Kara-Enys.” I turn to point Reece out to them, my gaze almost skimming straight past a square-jawed stranger who looks every bit like he belongs here.

Reece could be a film star.

Not one of this phalanx of photographers would guess he’s actually a fish out of water.

I see it oh-so clearly.

He thinks he’s going to fuck this up.

That insight draws me to him before the cameras can start flashing, and maybe it isn’t entirely professional to slip a hand behind him, but no one will pay attention to a mousy PA beside his more glamorous employer. They won’t be able to tell I rub his back and gently steer him, or hear me say, “I’ve never walked a red carpet even once my whole time here. Be nice if I got to send Gran a photo. Mind if I walk it with you?”

Reece exhales as if he’s held his breath forever, then murmurs, “Of course.”

We walk, cameras flash, and it’s everything I imagined until our moment in their glare is over.

I come down to earth at the foot of stone steps leading to the entrance of this party.

“Okay.” I drop my hand. “This is as far as I can go.”

“You aren’t coming in?”

“No plus-one, remember? I’m off the clock now, but you’ll be fine. Just don’t forget to talk up the foundation.”

He nods. “I’ll do my best.”

I hand him Rex’s invitation. “I know you will. You’ve got this.”

Reece nods one more time, then heads up the steps of a venue full of potential donors. His tight hold on that invite is the only sign he’s nervous.

I can’t un-see it.

The door opens, Christmas tunes and conversation billowing out like the huge breath I see Reece huff.

The sound of money being made and music playing will cut off as soon as that door closes behind him. He turns back before that can happen, but he must trust my you’ve got this affirmation the same way he trusted me this morning by following me across London.

Those massive shoulders straighten again and he heads inside, only this time I’m the one who follows.

I can’t help it.

I’ve never run up a set of steps faster or been more brazen. There still isn’t a plus-one on the invitation I snatch from him. That doesn’t stop me from yodelling a greeting to another PA, who thankfully remembers me from shared meetings. Her nod means the doors open for both of us.

Reece is startled. He’s also relieved, and I witness repeats of that relief as we circulate and I give him pointers.

“See that huddle.” I point out a group. “They’re London’s biggest financial players. Chief financial officers, portfolio managers, and a couple of Treasury Department heads. The man right at the centre is Clive Simpson. He’s actually human for a CFO.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because his PA likes him. Go ask him how his son is enjoying university. Marine biology. He’s studying gulf streams. Could lead into you mentioning how the island is in the path of one. Then you can bring up?—”

“The foundation. And how the currents bring boats our way. Got it.”

He goes, and as soon as he’s safely chatting away about all things Cornish, I get busy dropping nuggets of information to other PAs.

So what if I take Smallbone’s name in vain by mentioning how much he’s donated. My phone pings with meeting requests that I forward to Rex along with a surreptitious shot of Reece in the thick of a conversation with high-powered budget-holders.

I have a good long look at my phone screen before I press Send—at Reece, who must be talking about kids for his smile to be this gentle. My phone is almost knocked out of my hand when music plays and bankers and wealthy clients get busy on the dance floor.

On TV, they’d pair up to waltz in sophisticated circles. In real life, their dancing is surprisingly sweaty and energetic, no doubt fuelled by the marching powder I see snorted in corners of this grand ballroom.

Reece also looks a bit hot under the collar when he finds me.

“Someone just offered me coke.”

“And you said?”

“Yes, I’d love a pint. Because I’ve talked myself dry.”

I don’t mean to laugh. After a moment, he does too. He also admits, “This is nothing like I expected. I mean, I can talk about what we do for kids and families, no problem. The asking for cash part…?” He shakes his head. “I know they’re both vital. I can’t judge how to strike a balance. I’ll try harder at the next party.” His gaze fixes on a night-dark window, and all I see is longing.

“Need some fresh air?”

“God, yes.”

I find some for him, and he breathes deeply the minute I close a door behind us in a courtyard we only have to share with the moon and stars and shadows.

There must be another event happening across this dark quadrangle. Classical music drifts across flagstones, sedate instead of fast and frantic, and Reece visibly decompresses until his phone pings.

“It’s Rex.” He reads a message, and his face has shown so much today—I’ve watched it slip from comfy-cosy to determined and back to gentle. This is the first time I’ve seen it crease with moonlit wonder.

He lists several big names in finance. “They all want to talk with me in the new year. About potentially making donations. Significant ones, Jack.”

I make a gentle reminder. “That’s why you’re here.”

“But I didn’t talk to any of these people.” He studies me for a long and silent moment. “How did you do it?”

I sniff. “A PA never reveals his professional secrets.” I’m also a little bit giddy to see him this relieved. So giddy that I can’t help having a little spin right here where only he can see me. I point at the door we escaped through. “More money than you can imagine is in there.” I turn with a flourish to point at him. “All you have to do is ask for what you want.”

He’s still shadowed. I’m pretty sure he smiles.

“Where’s the money, Jack?”

I spin to point at the door.

“And who needs to ask for what they want?”

I’m cackling by the time I spin to face him. It echoes, spiralling like I do again, and his laughter joins mine, only breaking off when my heel finds ice.

I slip.

It doesn’t matter.

He’s there to catch me, although him pulling me upright and then holding me close isn’t how this evening was meant to play out.

His arms around me feel right—safe, instead of constraining—and I’m flooded with more than an urge to spin again to keep him as happy as he looks now. I even go up on tiptoe, my arms around his neck before he murmurs a reminder.

“We said no repeats, Jack.”

I nod. We did.

Something inside me sinks at the thought of Reece letting me go. It also thrashes for the surface. “But would this technically be a repeat?”

He cocks an ear, listening, so I keep going. I also take a few steps while we’re still connected. “We weren’t dancing last time, were we?”

“No, we weren’t. You’re right.” I don’t need to see his smile to hear it. “This is completely different and not at all the same.”

Music plays, ice sparkles, and Reece says, “How about you lead? I’m happy to follow.” So that’s what we do—we spin in slow circles when he could be inside making more contacts.

That’s okay.

I’ll make more for him tomorrow.

Right now, both of us are too busy waltzing, and if we kiss again as we do it?

Only the stars and moon can see us.