Forrest graces me with the most beautiful smile, as she continues to make a case for grubbiness in girlhood.
“Well,” I tell Cecily’s portrait. “Forrest Faulkner of the improbable name likes me back. Forrest Faulkner, with the biceps and abs, says he can’t bear the thought of the whole Atlantic between us. Forrest Faulkner, whose kisses make me dizzy and delirious, says he’s falling for me. And his daughter thinks I’m silly and fun, Cecily. Who’d have thought it?”
This is one of those rare happy moments that are so perfect, you know right in this second that you will remember it forever no matter what happens next.
And then the sadness comes, like a twist in the gut with a knife.
How can I tell Forrest that I can’t go back to the States with him?
Chapter Fifty-Two
The castle is buzzing with people for the grand finale ceremony. Local and national news reporters are here setting up TV cameras and big lights. Potential investors and other industry leaders are here to check out what’s new. The local mayor is swanning about in her chain of office and hat with an enormous pink feather, and I have heard a rumour from LadyB that we might even be graced by the presence of a minor royal.
It’s exactly the sort of crowded, noisy event that I hate. I’d much rather go and hide in the lab than sit on that stage with Forrest, more than anything else in the world. But Rani says I’ve come this far, I might as well get on with it and just imagine, after it’s over, that I can wear pyjamas and stay in for as long as I like as long as it is not forever.
“So, have you had a chance to talk to him yet?” Rani asks me. She is sewing on a loose button on my eighties Chanel suit as I stand there scanning the crowd for Hal. I haven’t seen him since he told me he was going to pull out of the competition, and a little part of me is worried that he might have decided to skip this part and go straight to the facility to donate his body to science. Earlythis morning I went to the lab and turned on all of FreeThought’s interfaces. The AI was there in all its glory, but not to talk to. Not to chat to and hang out with like I used to. When I asked what was going on, FreeThought told me that Hal was considering his options but that I was not to worry. What options? The option to recycle his bits, or stay around and live in the real world, or you know, detonate all of Earth’s nuclear arsenal at once? (I’m sure it’s not that one.)
Nevertheless, I worried a lot.
“To Hal?” I reply as she pulls the thread securing the button tight, snipping it off with a pair of sewing scissors that she seems to always have on her person. “No, I haven’t seen him. He couldn’t just go without saying goodbye, could he, Rani?”
“I don’t think that’s a very Hal thing to do,” Rani says. “I know I don’t know him as well as you do, but he seems like a very straight, down-the-line sort of person. But actually, I meant to ask you, have you had a chance to talk to Forrest? About how you feel about going to the States with him, or not, as it happens?”
“No, I was going to,” I say, smiling dreamily. “That’s the thing with kissing: It doesn’t allow for a lot of talking.”
“All right, no need to rub it in,” Rani says, rolling her eyes good-naturedly, just as Alex walks into the room. She smiles and waves at him. He blows her a kiss.
“You and Alex will have the rest of your lives to kiss,” I tell her. “I’m on a deadline here. And I have a lot of lost time to make up for, like you could argue over fifteen years of sex that I have not been having, and, you know, I’m balancing the books.”
“I hate you,” Rani says mildly. “Do you have to say no? You could just try being spontaneous and go back with him for acouple of weeks. Seeing a man in his natural habitat is a good idea.”
“Not for me,” I tell her, firmly. “You know I don’t like change. This experience at the castle has been good for me, and that’s down to you. It’s made me willing to get out of my comfort zone...”
“And out of your underwear,” Rani reflects.
“But a whole new country is a bit too far outside of it. I’d spend all the time in a wardrobe, Rani, I know I would. It’s too soon and too fast. I have to approach stuff like this very slowly and from a long distance.”
“Unlike rampant sex, apparently,” Rani says, with a smile. “Sorry, you know I’m just jealous.”
“Which you should be,” I tell her, “because last night I discovered that if you...”
“Good morning.” Forrest appears at our side. He puts his arm around my waist and kisses me on the cheek. He smells gorgeous, of flowers and bedsheets and a little bit of me.
“Oh, it came out really well,” Rani says, brushing an imaginary thread off the shirt that Forrest was wearing on the first day we met him. Somehow Rani has used her special magic to bring it back to its former glory, good as new.
“It did,” Forrest says. “I can’t thank you enough, Rani. I told Artie the story about it today, and she was really pleased to know it was a gift from her mum. She also told me I looked like an old pirate.”
“Fair,” I say. “Where is Artie?”
“Helping Lady B with refreshments, mostly by eating as many as she can, I think,” Forrest says. “But Lady B offered to watch herwhile the ceremony was on, so what can I do? She knew what she was signing up for.” Forrest looks around. “Quite the day here, isn’t it?”
“It’s exciting,” Rani says, looking around. “Oh look, it’s her from the news. I’m just going to work the room, hand out my business card. I’ll leave you two to have a little chat.”
“Do we need to have a little chat?” Forrest asks me at once. “I’m no expert, but I think that’s British for we need to talk.”
“We do sort of,” I say, taking his hand. I check the time. “We’ve got a few minutes. Shall we go somewhere quiet?”
Leading him out of the ballroom, I take him to the orangery and into my lab.
