AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No, Faith knew what she needed to do next. Even if it was the last thing she wanted.
Back in her hotel room, Faith packed quickly and economically. Three years as a tour guide had taught her the best way to roll clothes, as well as what was essential, and what wasn’t.
She stripped off the hideous dress she’d bought for the theatre and left it folded on the chair. She wouldn’t need it again. Instead, she pulled on an old pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a cardigan, loading her case with the rest of her clothes. She removed her make-up before packing her cosmetics bag, shoved her feet in her trainers and headed for the door.
As one final thought, she left Dominic’s expenses credit card on top of the dress. He already thought badly enough of her. She didn’t want him thinking she was a thief, too.
She kept the money in her purse though, the last remains of the petty cash he’d given her at the start of the week, to buy a train ticket back to the only place she had left.
Home.
* * *
Dominic was up early the next day, after a night spent liaising with his PR team and barely sleeping. He could still smell Faith on the bed sheets, and knowing she was only a few rooms away, awaiting his decision on her future, didn’t help. He knew he couldn’t really have handled it differently, under the circumstances. But knowing that didn’t make him feel any better about it.
Now he just had to break the plan to Faith.
‘We’ll sell it as a rehabilitation,’ Matthew the PR guy had said once they’d established there was no way to keep the news that the runaway heiress was back in town from breaking. ‘You met in Rome and brought her back to try and reconcile her with her parents. There’ll still be a lot of talk about her past, I’m sure, but as long as we present it right, get in early with the story, you should both come out okay.’
The first step, they’d agreed, was to get Faith to give an interview, with Dominic at her side as a sort of mentor. Then they’d stage the reunion with her parents, build it up carefully. After that, Matthew said, Dominic could wash his hands of her altogether, if he wanted.
It was a plan. It wasn’t perfect, but it should at least minimise the damage. Once he convinced Faith to play along.
Showered and dressed, he headed to her room, annoyed when she didn’t answer his knock. He banged louder, and this time the door opened—only there was nobody on the other side. Anger and frustration started to build. The room was empty, with no sign that anyone had even slept in the bed last night.
Dominic swore. The runaway heiress had run again.
* * *
‘I’m not staying,’ Faith said, the moment her mother opened the door. Time was, there’d have been the butler to do that, but after Jenkins died when Faith was seven, there’d never been the money to hire another one.
Her mother raised her eyebrows at her, gestured inside with her glass and said, ‘Then I assume you want money. There isn’t any, you know.’
‘Trust me,’ Faith said, lugging her suitcase over the threshold, ‘I know.’
Her father, at least, seemed pleased to see her.
‘We missed you around here, you know,’ he said, kissing her cheek and taking her arm as if she’d been away on holiday, not missing for three years. ‘Nobody to laugh at my jokes!’
‘I can’t imagine that’s true.’ There had always been someone to laugh at the right time, to sparkle and smile when he wanted it. Lord Fowlmere had never needed his daughter—or even his wife—for that.
He laughed. ‘Dahlia! Fix this girl a cocktail. She’s probably been travelling for days to return to the bosom of her family.’
In fact, Faith had caught the first train north from King’s Cross, studiously avoiding all the papers at the station and refusing to log into the train Wi-Fi. Instead, she’d slept all the way, then walked the three miles from the nearest station and arrived at Fowlmere late morning. Also known as cocktail hour to her mother and father.
While her mother fixed her drink, Faith took herself and her suitcase back up to her old room.
Now she was back, it almost felt as if she’d never left, except for the aching loss in her middle where thoughts of Dominic used to reside. If she thought about him, about the disappointment on his face or the feel of his body against hers, she’d cry. And if she started, she might not stop. So, no crying.
But, seriously, why was it she cared so much about his disappointment? She’d let down every single member of her family, scandalised the society in which they lived...why would she care about disappointing one man who she’d known for less than a week? Especially one who’d wanted her to stay put and stay quiet while he managed her life.
