I shrug. ‘Both.’
‘I will thank her profusely.’
There’s a beat. I could kiss him, try to say everything I need to with one action, but the opportunity to have frank and honest conversations would probably disappear after we do that.
‘Florian, look I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.’
‘You know when you said you needed some time, I had kind of assumed you meant more than twenty-four hours.’
‘Well, I never did specify…’
‘Did Archie come back?’
‘Yes.’
‘How was it?’
‘It was like kicking a puppy.’
‘I didn’t mean to…’ He stops, noticing my look of incredulity. ‘Okay, well I did mean to, but I didn’t want to hurt the guy.’
‘I know. I think he knows too. We talked when the dust had settled a bit, but I realised you were right.’
‘I hate it when I do that.’
‘Yeah, it sucks.’
‘So…’ He plays with a leather bracelet on his wrist. ‘Whatdoyou want, Ava?’
‘I don’t know.’ It comes out as an exhausted sigh and I watch as his eyebrows furrow, the smile wiped from his face. I don’t like it. Now that I know how to make him smile, how to muster up that disarming little grin, I want to do it all the time. I put my hand on his forearm, step towards him so he has to bend his head to keep looking me in the eye. ‘I think I want to see what this could be.’ He bites his lip and his index finger swoops under my chin, lifting it up so that we are looking at each other, eye to eye.
‘I’m sure I can manage that.’ His voice is gravelly, low. I know what I want now. I want to go, with him, I want to be with him anywhere other than here.
‘Florian!’ a voice calls from the doorway. His hands drop, I leap back. Turn my head to see Madame Grenaud smoothing her hair behind her ears. She looks alarmed; it makes all her sharp features more chiselled and angular than normal.
‘Shit,’ he mutters, scuffs his brogue into the ground and then looks up. ‘Mama, I’ll be there in a minute.’
She ignores him, steps towards us but still keeps her distance. ‘Ava? I didn’t think you were coming,’ she calls to me over the courtyard.
‘A surprise,’ I shrug, my stomach lurching at what we look like to her, what poisonous thoughts are now thundering around her head.
‘You have buyers, Florian. Stop… talking and get back in there.’ She manages to soften her voice at the end, controlling her fury.
‘Give us two minutes,’ he offers her, looks back at me with a wink.
‘Shecan wait, the Trelcats can’t.’
The viciousness of the way she said ‘she’ is difficult to ignore. It was a slap and I can feel Florian stiffening next to me but this isn’t the time or the place and nothing is going to be achieved by a screaming match in the gallery garden.
‘Go.’ I shoot him a pleading look. ‘We can talk anytime.’ He doesn’t look convinced. Instead, he looks like a teenager, someone who was about to hop the wall and play truant at his own show. ‘Go,’ I repeat, trying to wipe any ounce of flirtation from my voice.
‘Fine,’ he salutes her sarcastically, but she doesn’t leave the doorway until she sees Florian move from his flowerpot and start towards the door. When she turns her back, he holds out his hand behind his body and I take it.
‘So… this time I did know she was coming,’ he adds, noting the apprehension on my face. ‘I just didn’t exactly know that you were.’
‘How about in future, the first thing we say to each other is whether she’s in the vicinity?’
‘Romantic.’
