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“No way.” I returned the gesture, and when he sighed, I knew it was my cue to go in. “One hundred and fifty thousand,” I said to Ivan. “Guaranteed, after a survey and quotes for the roof and destroying the unstable barn.”
“The seller will never accept one-fifty.” He looked at Matthew as if to say, “Is she nuts?”
Yes, I was, actually.
Thank you for noticing, Ivan.
“Fine,” I said. “Then go to auction, lie about the roof, and have to either drop the price or put it up again because the buyer dropped out. I really don’t care. There’s another property I like that doesn’t involve ripping the roof out, and we have to be there in less than half an hour, so...”
His eye twitched as he glanced at Matthew.
He held up his hands. “We’ve been married for two weeks. I’d rather keep the honeymoon period going a little longer.”
Ivan grunted. “I’ll call the seller, but I doubt she’s around right now.”
“That’s fine. We have to go anyway.” I slid my hand into Matthew’s and leaned into his side, wrapping my other hand around his arm. “Come on, honey. I don’t want to be late to this one.”
I was almost entirely certain that Ivan was beginning to sweat.
This was fun.
“All right, all right.” Matthew smiled at Ivan. “I’ll speak to you soon, Ivan. Thanks for this.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.”
I dragged him excitedly back to the car, and I somehow managed to keep my giggles in until we were clear of the house and out of his view. “Do you think he bought it?”
Matthew laughed, turning onto the main road. “Eva, I didn’t think you were going to buy it for a moment there.”
“Oh, my gosh. It took me a moment to realise what you were doing.” I shook my head. “For the record, good cop, bad cop is much more fun in the bedroom with handcuffs.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He snorted. “I think he’s just about shitting his pants back there. You’re quite ruthless.”
I smiled, leaning back in the chair. “You wait. We’ll get it for under two hundred thousand.”
“Mm. We’ll see.”
“You’re right. We will.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EVA
This was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever been.
The Anglesey coastline was rich and rugged. Stretches of land reached out into the water haphazardly, and in turn, the water roared against the rocks, driven by the wind that tunnelled down through.
I had not been prepared for it to be this windy.
No sketching would happen today.
A Celtic cross was the first thing we came across, and the ruins of a building were just to our right. A lighthouse and a cross were visible a little further on, and the general landscape was completely mesmerising.
“What’s the Celtic cross for?” I asked Matthew, staring up at the slightly imposing statue.
“It commemorates local shipwrecks,” he replied, casting his gaze over it. “There are a lot around the island as it was—is—a busy route.”
“Oh, of course. It’s kind of in the middle of everything, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “That’s Saint Dwynwen’s church there.” He pointed at the ruins to our right. “That’s her cross, and that’s the lighthouse a little further on.”
I waited for a family with a baby in a pram to pass down the path, then crossed over to look closer at the church. The stones were large and weathered by time, but the general shape of the church was still there. I could only imagine how beautiful it was, and I knew right then that I had to go home and learn everything I could about this woman.
I still knew nothing, but there was something about this place that was so… real. The kind of place you came to as one person and left another because it touched your soul so deeply.
Was that this place, or was that just Anglesey in general?
It’d been two weeks since I’d moved here, and I could already feel something inside me shifting and changing.
“Now will you tell me about her?” I asked, sweeping my hair to one side after wind blew it in my face.
“It’s awfully tragic, you know.”
“I figured as much. All the best stories are.”
Matthew chuckled and we stepped back onto the path. He offered me his arm, which I took gratefully, looping my hand through the crook of his elbow. The path was rocky and uneven, and even the low, chunky heels of my boots seemed like a terrible idea, in hindsight.
“Well, she’s the Welsh patron Saint of lovers. Homage is paid to her every January twenty-fifth, and Saint Dwynwen’s Day is based on her own sacrifice of love.”
“Her own sacrifice of love?”
“Do you want me to tell you her story, or not?”
I did. “Sorry. I’ll be quiet.”
“That’ll be the day,” he muttered.
“Rude.”
He nudged me with his elbow, and we both stepped aside to avoid a particularly large rock in the path. “Legend says she was born in the fifth century, in what we know today as the Brecon Beacons further south. She was one of twenty-four daughters.”
