Chapter 24

We dressed in a hurry, but Nix stopped me before we left the room, licking his thumb and tracing the edge of my lips. “You’ve got a little smudge.”

“As do you,” I chirped, wiped at his mouth and reached to kiss him once more.

He held me, prolonging it.

NixonArmaswas the most confident, unabashed man I’d ever met, but I couldn’t help but think he might have been procrastinating meeting my mother.

I would, too, if I were him.

My family home was four hundred years old and rather awkwardly planned. The dining room was thin, with a steep step down to the kitchen. The August warmth was finally in England, but Mum’s oven heated the whole house.

Ben and Griff were setting the table as we walked in, using Mum’s fine china. The one that only came out at Christmas.

“Where’s Mum?” I asked cautiously as Griff came to hug me.

“Kitchen,” Ben said, folding a napkin.

“Nix!” Griff greeted. “Always a pleasure. Thanks for following me back on Instagram and…”

I smiled to myself as I walked further into the house, down into the kitchen. Mum was not the best cook, but the smell of a roast dinner was always something that reminded me of home. And Mum was actually good at making a cheesecake. Probably because it didn’t involve the oven.

Mum aged quickly after Dad’s passing. She had grown streaks of grey in her light, cropped hair and her movements became less sure. More fragile.

The woman retrieving the food from the oven was not that.

She’d dyed her hair the same light blonde colour as mine and, for a woman who religiously got her hair cut every six weeks, hadn’t had a chop for a few months, growing out her fringe.

She looked younger.

She looked happy as she pulled trays of food from the oven.

I blinked back the stinging of my eyes. Fuck, I was a dick for what I said to Ben.

“Mum! Happy birthday!” I cried, falling back into that forced, excitable daughter role I had around her. I went to hug her but she only raised her gloved hand before taking it off.

“Give me a second, Olivia,” she said.

“Do you need any help?” I stood there as she pulled out serving dishes from the cupboard.

“Right, where were we?” she said, brushed her hands on her apron and gave me the lightest hug, her hands barely touching my top. “Thank you.”

“What did you need at the shop?” I asked. “Everything looks amazing.”

She started to gather flute glasses on thecountertop, counting them once and then again. “David wanted lemons for his lemonade.”

“David, ah,” I said, leaning against the side. “Your new beau?”

I tried to be light about it, joking and unbothered.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh, don’t be so childish. We also got some champagne.”

“Nix and I got your favourite champagne as part of your present — let me just go and—”

“That was your dad’s favourite. Not mine.”

Dad ’s favourite? She was the one quick to open it on every occasion, not him. Dad wasn’t a big drinker.

She’d always spoken so kindly about him.

“You don’t even—”

A man, tall and wide, with greying hair above his ears, came out of the pantry, holding said bottle of champagne. “If you’re talking about that bottle from the supermarket, I can assure you this is far better, Olivia.”

Right.

“Wait until you try it,” he said andunpoppedthe cork. The pop felt like a sensory assault as I jumped out of my skin.

“You’re buying me a birthday present with your client?” Mum said, brow cocked as she refused to look at me, instead getting the potatoes out of the oven. “I know he’s your client, Olivia.”

“Yes, but—”

“You need to stop fucking people you work with. First Adam, thenVinny… now, whatever his name is. I would have thought after the whole world found out with that photo…” She sighed. “You said this was your last chance at your career.”

I flinched as if she’d hit me.

David only leaned against the counter, reading the label of the champagne. Completely unsurprised. She’d told him. She’d bloody told him .

“Mum,” I called, my voice high and broken. I had no idea what else to say, whether to cry or scream, to shout or run.

Before Nix and my therapist, she was the only person I’d told exactly what had happened. Two weeks after Dad’s death, a week after the event.

She’d hugged me but told me she had too much to cope with. She couldn’t take the burden of me regretting a one-night stand with my client.

And I’d accepted that. I’d understood that I was the burden and there was nothing more to say.

Ben walked in with a glass and stopped when he saw me wiping at my eyes. His eyes scanned the room. “What’s going on?” he asked and came to my side.

“Nothing, darling,” Mum said, dishing up the plates. “Food will be ready in a second.”

“Liv, you okay?” Ben asked, bending slightly to look into my teary eyes.

I nodded with a sniff. “Yeah.”

Mum was old-fashioned. I knew that. And I also knew she thought I was an attention seeker.

She was too preoccupied watching David pour the drinks for her to notice Nix’s arrival.

I stepped back into him, needing to feel his body behind me.

“Mum, this is Nixon,” I said, my voice still wobbling. I cleared my throat and gestured behind me, not looking at Ben’s concerned gaze. “Nixon, this is my mum, Victoria.”

She turned with a surprised smile.

“It’s an absolute pleasure,” Nix said, taking her hand to kiss.

His easy-going charm was going to earn him some brownie points. Mum grinned. “Well, it’s nice for Olivia to bring home a gentleman for once.”

At least that definitely confirmed she hadn’t heard any of our activities as she came home.

My swallows were still harsh in my throat.

Nix and I waited several seconds for her to introduce us to her boyfriend, but her attention went back to the food. Ben, drink refilled, left.

“Er, Nix, this is David, I assume?”

David nodded, not looking up from chopping his precious lemons.

“Do you need any help dishing up?” I asked Mum again.

“No,” she said and shooed us out. “Just take these drinks out with you.”

I looked over the champagne flutes. Nix didn’t drink.

So I downed one, to my mum’s chagrin, and filled it with orange juice.

With two drinks each, Nix and I went out to join my brother and Griff.

Griff gestured to the space beside him. “Nix, arm yourself by sitting between me andLiv. We’ll save the dirty work for Ben.”

Nix laughed and sat between us, taking a sip of the orange juice and placing his phone on the table. We didn’t do that here. Phones were forbidden at dinner.

David brought out the potatoes and vegetables while Mum came to give us the meat and Yorkshire puddings. From all of my travelling, I had really missed a good roast—nearly as much as a full breakfast.

Mum took each of our plates in turn, loading the potatoes on and talking to David about Nietzsche. Something she’d never had an interest in before.

“So, my French is definitely not that bad,” my brother whispered with a little grin as he leaned over the table to talk to me. “Something about being his little slut?”

Griff choked on his drink. My mum stopped dishing up the potatoes and came to his back. “Are you okay? Do you need a soft drink?”

“Fine!” Griff wheezed, putting the glass of champagne down with a little more force. “Just went down — the wrong way!”

Mum patted him on the shoulder and returned to the plates.

“You must be quite fluent then,” Nix confirmed. I nudged him in the ribs with my elbow.

“Rusty,” he said. “I haven’t had to use it much since we were sixteen.”

Nix cocked his head to the side. “So, you both speak French?”

“Not exactly fluently,” I said, shoving my carrots around the plate. “We lived in France for a few months at a time for Dad’s job.”

Mum sat next to Ben and said grace. Somehow, that made Griff laugh more, trying to clear his throat.

I wanted to die. The floor should open up, swallow me whole and throw me back up somewhere very, very far away.

“Olivia wasn’t very good at languages,” my mum said with a little laugh. “She always struggled.”

“You didn’t earlier,” Nix said, shovelling a forkful into his mouth to hide his grin. “Your French was perfect.”

Oh. My. God.

Griff coughed again, trying to pass it off as the previous coughing fit. Ben pursed his lips, eyes wide, staring down at his plate .

“French was one of the very few subjects Olivia wasn’t perfect at,” Ben saved me with a wink as Mum finally started to eat. She eyed Nix’s phone as it lit up.

“Sorry, I hope you don’t think me rude,” Nix said. “My mother is unwell. I just need to keep my phone on me.”

Mum shook her head. “Oh, gosh, no. You do what you have to.”

We all got into our food, thanking Mum for her efforts. The potatoes were hard, the cauliflower cheese was cold but the Yorkshire puddings were okay.

Nix’s phone lit up again and he turned it over, face down.

“Are you close with your mother?” Mum asked, peering over.

“Very,” he said with a nod. “It was mostly her raising me and she’s always been supportive of my career, despite it being completely unconventional.”

“Yes,” Mum said, waving her fork in his direction. “You ride bikes.”

“Race,” I corrected her. “He’s on the TV every other weekend, Mum. You used to watch with Dad.”

Under the table, Nix’s hand stroked my thigh and I immediately relaxed, shoulders no longer tense. Maybe I would just sit here in silence.

“Nix is winning the championship,” Ben said. “He’s like forty points ahead or something ridiculous.”

“Thirty-nine,” he said with a shrug. “There have been bigger gaps.”

“But not so early in the season!” Ben disagreed. “Mate, you’re going to win the whole championship. Fourth one.”

Nix laughed. “Well, we’ll have to see.”

“Isn’tFeldtbehind you?” Griff asked and looked behind Nix to grin at me.

Those two were menaces.

Nix looked down at his plate. “Yeah, he’s a good rider. It’s been him and me fighting for first most of the races. But he’s crashed a couple of times. You can’t play it too eagerly.”

We finished our food, discussing lighter topics like TV and what I’d seen while travelling the world. They didn’t seem to realise it was also a job.

Just as Mum was taking the plates out — she refused for me to help her again — Nix’s phone buzzed. A call from his mother.

“Sorry, please excuse me,” he said and darted out of the house back to the pond.

Ben and Griff gave me puzzled looks.

“His mum is… complicated.”

Through the window, Nix looked over at me and jerked his head for me to join him. I excused myself and was in the garden in seconds.

He was talking quickly and, as I approached, told her he would call her back. His phone pressed to his chest, he said, his accent stronger, “Livie, I’m so sorry. I am so sorry, but I think I’m going to have to fly home.”

“What’s happened? Is she okay?”

“She’s…” He sighed. “She’s heard something about my dad. I’m not sure how true it is… my manager’s not picking up.”

“Is she okay?”

He nodded once but didn’t confirm it with words.

“Wait, your manager ?” I questioned with a frown. “What—”

“I…” He turned away and swore under his breath before turning back to me. “My manager is shit because he’s not re ally a manager. He’s employed by my dad to keep tabs on me. If I…” Pain twisted his face as he reached for me. “It’s a lot to explain.”

“And you don’t want to explain it now,” I finished for him.

“I want to find the correct words,” he admitted. “I want to explain it right. I can always fly to my mum tonight and come back tomorrow—”

“You can’t do that!” I argued, holding on to his top. “Nix, go to your mum. She clearly needs you.”

He nodded, holding my hands attached to him. “I hate leaving you, but… you should stay with your family. I don’t want you to meet my mum when she’s like this.”

“I’ll meet her whenever you’re ready,” I said and reached on my tiptoes to kiss him.

He gripped my chin to drag me back and kiss me for longer. “God. What did I do right to get you?”

“Must have been something pretty spectacular,” I joked.

His grin was breathtaking. Damn it, I really wanted to go with him.

“Can you do me a favour?” he asked. “I’ll tell my manager to call you if he needs to up the amount of money for the deal… whatever it is, do it. I don’t wantCallyto have to go through any more shit than she has to right now.”

Well, that answered my question. It wasn’t for him but for her .

“Just don’t give anything away about the two of us to him. I don’t want him to know.”

Before I could question that, he continued, “I’ll get a taxi back to ours. You go back in the car.”

“Will someone come and grab it from the garage?”

He shook his head. “Livid, it’s ours. ”

Ours? He’d only hired it for the rest of the week.

“You…”

He ruffled my hair. “I thought you liked this one?”

I gave a nod.

“You think I’m going to have somewhere to live in a country but not something to drive?” He pressed a kiss into the mess he had made. “You’re cute.”

And then we went inside, packed his passport, phone charger and wallet and — just like that — he was walking out, thanking my mum and telling me, “I’ll call you the second I land.”

I nodded and he pulled me to his chest, planting another kiss in my hair.

“I’ll see you soon, Livid.”

When I looked up at him, he kissed my forehead and then my mouth. “And we’ll talk about your French eavesdropping skills.” He rolled his eyes fondly and got in the taxi.

And I already missed him.