“Come here,” says Elliot in a soft voice. He pats the sofa cushion next to him, indicating for me to sit down. “Come and talk to me, Holly. Properly, I mean. I think we owe each other that much, at least. Don’t you?”
I swallow nervously, then nod.
“Okay,” I say, allowing myself to slide from my position on the armrest down to the seat next to him. “Let’s do it. Let’s talk.”
30
Sitting this close to Elliot feels both comfortingly familiar and excitingly dangerous.
Especially with his thigh pressed up against mine, and our hands almost close enough to touch.
“Why did you stay here?” he asks suddenly, reminding me that I’m supposed to be thinking about talking, not touching. “At the bookstore, I mean? I know you didn’t want to leave your dad when he was struggling. But then, once things started to pick up? Once it got to the point he was able to take on more staff? Why did you stay then? I’ve been wondering. I’ve been wondering a lot, actually.”
“It wasn’t that simple,” I reply, sighing. “Nothing’s ever as simple as you like to pretend it is, Elliot.”
“Okay, so tell me about it, then,” he returns, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back in his seat. “I’ve got plenty of time. My flight home doesn’t leave until tomorrow afternoon.”
My heart does another jump-scare thud at the thought of him leaving again. I really wish it would stop doing that.
“Force of habit, I suppose,” I say. “At first I told myself I was just staying to help out until things settled down a bit, and Dad got used to it being so much busier. But then … I don’t know. I guess there just wasn’t a good enough reason for me to leave by then. You were gone. I didn’t expect to ever see you again. And I was with …”
“Martin,” Elliot finishes for me, his expression stony.
“Yup. Him.” I can’t even bring myself to say his name right now. “I … well, I obviously had no idea what he was really like. What he’d done. And he’d been kind to me after you left, so I suppose I felt grateful to him. God, I feel so stupid now I know the truth.”
I hide my face with my hands again, and while my eyes are closed, I feel the sofa underneath me shift slightly as Elliot takes the seat next to me.
“Don’t feel stupid, Holly,” he says softly. “It’s not your fault. He lied. He lied to us both. That’s all on him.”
Through my fingers, I see his hand sneak out, as if he’s going to take mine, or maybe put his arm around me. But before he can reach me, I remember that he lied too — he lied about being ‘Vivienne’, and even though he claims his intentions were good, I’m still not sure I can get past that particular revelation in the space of a few minutes, so I shift slightly away from him.
“It’s not just that he lied about you,” I tell him, taking my hands away from my eyes. “He lied about everything. He made me feel like there was no point in trying to do anything with my life other than just sticking around here.” I make a gesture with my hands that’s supposed to encompass both the store itself, and Bramblebury in general. Hell, maybe even all of England.
“He kept telling me how great it would be; him with the bakery, me with the bookstore. Both of our families close by. A whole, tight-knit little community to look after us. He made it sound amazing. I mean, who wouldn’t want all of that? It’s perfect. Like a Christmas romancenovel. I think ‘Vivienne Faulkner’s’ written quite a few like that, hasn’t she? Haven’tyou, I mean? Wow, it’s going to take a long time for this to stop being weird.”
“‘Vivienne’ has written a few Christmas romances,” Elliot agrees. “But they’re no more real than she is, Holly. They’re fun to read — at least, I hope they are — but they’re not a reflection of real life. You know that. I know you do. It’s just a story. It’s wish-fulfillment, for the most part.”
I nod, miserably.
“It was nevermywish, though,” I say. “Martin really made me think I’d be stupid not to believe in it, though. He made me feel guilty for wanting something different. Ungrateful. Like I’d be turning my back on something most people would give anything to have. It’s like everyone else wants to be the girl in the picture-perfect small town, who marries the wholesome boy next door and lives happily ever after, with, like, a couple of kids, and, I don’t know,chickensor something. But not me. No,Ihave to go and want the Christmas romance in reverse, don’t I ? I’m the girl who wants toleavethe small town and go and live in the city with a guy who has the potential to break my heart and totally destroy me. And I don’t evenlikechickens.”
The last words come out in a strangled kind of sob, which I do my best to turn into a laugh. But Elliot isn’t fooled.
“Is that really what you want, though?” he asks cautiously. “Still?”
“Well, yeah,” I reply. “It’s just … I still want the happily ever after bit, too, though. And I’m not sure I can have both. I’m not sure I can have the danger, and the excitement, and the … thepassion… without the risk that comes with it. You know?”
“I do know,” he says seriously. “And I think you’re right. I think you have to take the risk if you want to have the rest. I think that’s how it works.”
“And there’s the problem,” I say in a small voice. “I don’t like taking risks.”
“You did once. Or maybe you didn’tlikeit, exactly, but you were prepared to do it. Weren’t you?”
I look up and into his eyes. He’s sitting very close to me; so close that I can see the flecks of gray in his deep blue eyes. So close that it’s going to be very, very hard to pull myself away from him again.
“I was,” I say in a whisper. “But then it all went wrong. And it wasawful, Elliot. It was so, so awful. I don’t think I could go through that again.”
“Maybe you don’t have to,” he says instantly. “You know now that I’d never hurt you, Holly. You do know that, don’t you? You know I still love you? Please don’t tell me I made that speech back there on the stage for nothing. It was embarrassing enough as it was.”
