AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Can we? Because from where I’m standing, this is all about what you want. You haven’t thought at all about what I might want.’ She huffed out a short laugh. ‘You even decided I was your girlfriend without asking me.’
‘That was just to get Garrett off my back.’
‘Was it now? I’m so glad to have been useful.’
‘No! That’s not what I meant. I want a relationship with you. I want you to be my girlfriend. Tell me what you want and I’ll do my best to make it happen.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s never going to work. Let’s just draw a line under this—’ she gestured between them, ‘—and quit while we’re ahead. We want completely different things, and I don’t want what you’re offering. Let’s just get through the festival, then you can go back—’
‘What do you want? Come on Estelle, tell me.’
She held his gaze. ‘I want what Henry has with Libby and what Eveline has with Jack. I want to share my life with someone who gets me. I want to be loved.’
James’s heart stopped. Estelle had filled his waking consciousness and fevered dreams for nearly a year now, but he’d never allowed himself to label the thoughts and feelings. Now they threatened to overwhelm him.
‘You once told me you’ve always dreamed of falling in love,’ she continued. ‘Well, I have too. But my version doesn’t involve a life split between the city and the countryside.’
‘I… I—’ Just tell her! Tell her you love her! But the enormity of the words stuck in his throat. He’d never uttered them out loud to anyone before, not even to his parents or sister.
Estelle laid a hand on his arm, her eyes full of compassion. ‘Don’t say anything you don’t mean, just to get me to go along with what you want. You’re better than that.’ She sighed. ‘Look, I really like you, James. You’re a good person. You’re just not my person.’ She gave his arm a squeeze. ‘I’ve got to go and deal with the portaloos. Are there any funds left to get the compost toilets I specified? At least for this location?’
He nodded, utterly lost.
‘Good. Can I leave that with you?’
He nodded again.
She dropped her hand. ‘Okay, let’s keep in touch via email. And congratulations on getting the legal issue sorted.’ She gave him a brief smile, then walked away.
James watched her go, his mind blank and his body a wasteland. He was always so sure about everything, but now the only certainty in his life was that he’d mucked everything up with the only woman he’d ever loved.
But what could he do?
His phone rang and he took the call.
‘Hi, Elyse, everything okay?’
‘No. Your dad’s been admitted to hospital with chest pains. He didn’t want you to know, but I disagree. Can you come?’
James started running. ‘I’m on my way.’
33
‘What happened?’ James asked Elyse as she met him at the main entrance to the Royal United Hospital.
Her face was pinched and pale, her eyes red-rimmed as if she’d been crying.
‘He hasn’t been the same since coming back from China.’ Elyse led him through a set of doors and down a corridor. ‘And I kept catching him rubbing his chest and flexing his fingers as if they were stiff or he had pins and needles.’ She glanced at him. ‘I’m sorry. I thought it was because of all the fidget toys.’
‘Did you talk to Mum?’
She nodded. ‘She’d had her own suspicions, so we spoke to him together this morning. He… He wasn’t very…’
‘Receptive?’
Elyse pulled a face. ‘He started shouting. And then he had to stop because he was out of breath and in pain. Your mum called an ambulance.’
‘What have the doctors said?’
