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‘Well, have a good journey home, all of you,’ she said. ‘And we’ll see you in London in a fortnight, I guess.’
Isabella nodded and leant in to kiss the air beside Helena’s cheeks. ‘We’ll have the house all ready for you both. Then you and I can sit down and discuss your social calendar.’
Social calendar? ‘Great.’
Ezekiel nodded his own farewell then walked out of the front door with his wife, leaving Helena alone with Thomas.
‘You’ve got two weeks here, Helena,’ he said, studying her face with serious eyes. Helena’s breath caught in her throat. She and Thea had always known that their father was easy-going and affable—but only to a point. When he turned serious, they knew it really mattered. ‘Use them wisely. You’ve made your choice and you need to stick with it now. So make this work.’
He didn’t really need to add the or else, Helena supposed. She knew well enough what happened when she disappointed her father.
‘And if you speak to your sister,’ he added, pausing by the door, ‘tell her we need to discuss her future. Sooner rather than later.’
Helena nodded stiffly. She didn’t envy her sister that conversation.
But then, Thea probably wouldn’t envy Helena two weeks in Tuscany trying to ‘make things work’ with a husband who didn’t want her, either.
Well, if all Flynn wanted was a paperwork wife, Helena could give him that. Watching as he waved to their parents’ departing car from the front step, Helena made a decision. If this was all business anyway, she’d let Flynn get on with his—while she focused on her own life. She’d cleared her calendar for the month around the wedding, knowing things would be manic enough without adding any new projects for her burgeoning interior design business into the mix. But here she was with time on her hands, her laptop and freakishly fast Internet access, given their location. It was the perfect chance to get on with the new website she’d been planning for months.
Time for her to get on with her own future for a while.
* * *
Their married life had slipped into a routine surprisingly quickly, Flynn realised a few days later. Every morning he woke, went for a run, returned to the villa to shower and dress, then sat down for breakfast. Helena usually joined him then and they made polite, if sparse, conversation over the English papers he’d arranged to have delivered.
Then Flynn would settle into his father’s study to work while Helena did...whatever it was she did all day. Sometimes they’d see each other for lunch, sometimes not. Dinner they usually took together in the dining room, and Helena always turned in for bed first.
There had been no repeat of her wedding night offer, something for which Flynn was profoundly grateful as Henry had been held up in London and wasn’t able to get out to Tuscany until the end of the week. As much as he wanted the paperwork sorted before he allowed himself to really invest in the marriage, he knew his own limitations. No man had willpower strong enough to resist Helena in that negligee night upon night, whatever the stakes.
Still, he thought as he took his morning run on the fourth day, he didn’t want the distance between them to grow so much as to be insurmountable, either. Once Henry arrived he needed Helena on side, ready to work with him, ready to make this marriage real.
With an extra burst of energy he took the last stretch up the drive to the villa at a sprint, the thought of a calendar entry he’d barely registered the day before spurring him on.
Back in his room, he checked his phone as he caught his breath again. He smiled. Right there, scheduled neatly in his personal calendar by his PA, who’d been put in charge of all the honeymoon plans, was exactly the right way to make things up to Helena. A romantic tour of a Tuscan vineyard, complete with wine-tasting, lunch and perhaps a drive through the countryside. Perfect for the honeymooning couple.
It would mean taking the whole day off to do it properly. If he’d been with Thea, as planned, they’d have spent half a day there then both headed home to catch up with emails, he imagined. But Helena, he suspected, required a different hand. After four days of distance, this needed to be all or nothing.
And Flynn was going all in.
* * *
Helena ignored the first three knocks on her door. She’d stayed up late after dinner working again on the new website and had planned to catch up on her sleep with a well-earned lie-in—especially as it meant she stood a better chance of avoiding her husband at breakfast. The endless awkward pauses and stilted conversations over the dining tables were becoming more than she could bear. Would it be like this in London? She hoped not.
But the fourth knock she couldn’t ignore, especially as the door opened seconds after it.
‘Helena...you’re not up?’ Flynn closed the door behind him and stared at her, a frown line deepening between his eyebrows.
‘It’s only nine-thirty.’ Helena shuffled into a sitting position, glad that she’d slept in her comfortable shorts and T-shirt instead of the ridiculous negligee. ‘We’re supposed to be on our honeymoon. I’m maintaining the happy couple illusion.’
‘The car’s picking us up in half an hour. You might want to get up.’ Flynn crossed to the bathroom while Helena just blinked at him in confusion. ‘I’ll get the shower running. Give it a chance to warm up for you.’
‘I can run my own shower,’ Helena protested, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Apparently she was getting up. ‘And, anyway, what car?’
She heard the sound of water running and Flynn re-emerged. ‘The car to take us on our vineyard trip. Didn’t it get put on your calendar? I’ve got it all arranged for us.’
Helena felt that same chill that had overtaken her on her wedding night begin to snake its way through her veins, despite the steam from the shower seeping into the room and the warm summer morning outside.
‘You mean you had it all arranged for you and Thea.’ She was not jealous of her sister, Helena reminded herself. It wasn’t as if she was in love with Flynn either. She just liked to know where she stood, that was all.
‘I arranged it for my wife and me. That’s you, in case you’d forgotten.’
‘Not likely,’ Helena muttered.
Flynn headed back towards the door. ‘Car will be here at ten. I’ll meet you in the foyer.’
And then Helena was alone again, with only the sound of falling water to keep her company.
A vineyard tour. Presumably that included wine-tasting, so things could be worse. Maybe there’d even be lunch. Taking a deep breath, Helena decided to focus on the positive. Paying attention to the good things in life, she’d found, was sometimes the only way to avoid drowning in the despair of all the bad things.
So—good things only.
The sun was shining, the new website was going well enough that she’d earned a break, and she would have wine and food in the sunshine today. Maybe she could even talk the maid into coffee and something resembling breakfast before they left, if she was quick.
Lots of good things to distract from the one awful thing. It was going to be a good day.
Forcing a smile, she hopped in the shower, washing away her bad mood with the soap suds. By the time she emerged again, the maid had left coffee and a pastry on the chest of drawers and Helena sipped and nibbled happily as she flicked through her wardrobe to find something suitable for a newly married woman on her honeymoon, taking a tour with her husband.
She really hadn’t packed for this. Mostly, she’d just been working in shorts and a T-shirt so far. But today’s trip seemed important to Flynn, so she guessed it should be important to her, too. Maybe they’d even manage to learn how to speak to each other again. That kind of milestone required more than a pair of shorts, Helena decided.
In the end, she settled on a sunny yellow cotton dress, patterned with daisies around the hem, and slipped her feet into white
sandals. She twisted her wet hair into a knot at the back of her head, knowing it would dry quickly enough in the sun and give her pretty waves when she let it down that evening. Even with ten minutes to add sun protection and a little light make-up, she was still ready well before ten.
Grabbing her straw hat and bag, she headed down the stairs to find Flynn already in the entrance hall.
‘You were quick,’ Flynn said with a smile. ‘I thought I’d be waiting a while for you.’
‘Shows how little you know me.’ Helena arched her eyebrows. ‘I’m very efficient—when I want to be.’
‘Well, thank you for your efficiency.’ He glanced away for a moment before meeting her gaze again. ‘I’m sorry we haven’t had much time to spend together so far this week. With Zeke’s surprise coup, getting Dad to make me CEO, things are frantic at work, making sure everything’s in place.’
‘I understand,’ Helena said as coolly as she could. ‘I had work to do too, anyway.’
Flynn blinked and Helena realised he probably hadn’t even known she had a job, beyond helping out with his wedding. Irritation rose in her chest. Rosebud Interiors might not be much compared to the might of Morrison-Ashton, but it was still her company.
‘That’s good, then,’ he said. ‘Maybe you can tell me more about it over lunch?’
Some of the irritation faded away when she realised he did sound honestly interested. ‘Yeah, okay.’
