Page 90 of The Cottage in the Highlands

Lily’s eyes leapt with horror. “He said that to you?” Her breathing grew deeper, stirred up with resentment and rage. “That was lies. All of it. He never wanted children and I didn’t want them with him. I wanted them with you.”

Flynn senior’s throat made a desperate, tiny groan of regret.

Lily screwed up her eyes, shining with the start of tears. “Oh God. That day of my birthday I was visiting my mother who was ill. I stayed over with her at her request, because it was my birthday. When I got back, he never said a word that you had been here.”

Lily fiddled with the heavy silver locket around her neck, turning it over and over with her anxious fingers. “I wondered if he knew how I felt about you. He was a sly man. If he did realise, he never said a word to me that he knew.”

Her glistening eyes shone with hurt. “I thought you’d forgotten all about me; that you’d abandoned me.”

“Never,” croaked Flynn senior, gazing up at her.

“Or that you’d decided to make a go of your marriage because of your son.”

“I wanted you,” managed Flynn senior. “That never changed.” He threw his hands up. “I hoped that what I said to you in that letter right before we left for Africa… that would reassure you how much you meant to me…”

Lily looked confused. “What letter?”

“The one I wrote to you just a couple of days before we left Scotland.”

“I never received it. The first I heard about Africa was from Astrid.” Lily’s features misted at the memory. “She couldn’t wait to tell me you were leaving.”

Cold, hard reality gnawed at Flynn senior. “Then someone stopped you from receiving that letter. Either Bernard or Astrid must have intercepted it.”

Lily folded her arms around herself. Pain lodged itself in her features. “And the house, Merry Wood, you never sold it.”

Flynn senior swung round and gave his old house an absent glance. “I couldn’t bring myself to sell it. All the happy memories of us together in that garden… I knew how much you loved it.” He let out an embarrassed laugh. “It would have been like denying that what we had together ever existed.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Bernard told me that you wanted nothing more to do with me and that was bad enough.”

He flashed her a look, as if he were begging her to understand.

“I wish I’d tried again to contact you, but he sounded so convincing. I was shocked that he knew.”

Flynn senior tried to steady his voice. “When I realised it was over between us, I suppose I thought keeping hold of Merry Wood was the second-best thing. I thought that as long as Merry Wood belonged to me, your heart did too.”

My chest heaved in sympathy for the pain both of them had suffered. What a mess. It was a heart-breaking story of deception. Two people who belonged together, kept apart for all these years because of the jealousy and resentment of their partners – partners who never really cared for either of them at all.

Beside me, Flynn reached over and took my hand in his. The sensation of his warm fingers furling around mine sent a bolt of happiness through me. I couldn’t fight my feelings for him. It was useless to even try.

I tightened my grip and gave him a shy smile.

“But how on earth could you afford to keep the house?” puzzled Lily, who had emerged onto the top step and was squinting a little in the sun. “You were a struggling artist.”

“Thankfully, I didn’t have to struggle for much longer at the time. Not long afterwards, I started selling a lot of my paintings.”

Flynn senior hesitated, before posing a question. “Have you heard of the artist Chandler?”

“Yes, of course,” replied Lily. “He’s that street artist. Nobody knows his identity.” She blinked down at Flynn senior. He cocked his head to one side and arched one brow.

A little gasp escaped out of her mouth. Her eyes read his face. “No. Are you trying to tell me that’s you? You’re Chandler?”

“Yes.”

Lily gawped past him at Flynn and me, looking for confirmation.

“It’s true, Lily,” I nodded.

She made another stunned noise. “Well, I never,” she managed, fighting to take it all in. “I don’t know what to say.” She allowed this revelation to sink in. “Did Astrid ever find out?”

“Oh yes,” ground out Flynn senior. “At the beginning, I kept it a secret from her. I was worried she might blab to some of her celebrity friends and then it would end up all over the newspapers.”