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‘Sure.’
His table was still free, his half-drunk bottle of water still there, so he ordered another, and a coffee for Merida.
‘Is everything okay?’ she checked.
‘Sure.’
She wasn’t secure enough in herself, let alonethem, to notice his distraction and not assume he was bored, or had got fed up waiting. Or just fed up with her.
She’d grown up with that—bewildered by the bitter custody disputes and two separate parents who would fight to the last penny and breath for their time with her. Yet all too often, when that time came, Merida had felt like an inconvenience.
‘I was just watching the foyer fill with construction workers,’ Ethan explained. ‘I thought you might have got stuck in the lift...’
‘No!’ Merida laughed. ‘After the hooker auditions they’re casting for a middle-aged construction worker...’
Ethan laughed at his own mistake, and at the small glimpse into her world, and then his phone went and he saw that it was Abe calling.
‘I need to take this.’
‘Sure.’
Only she didn’t quite understand why taking a call meant he had to walk off.
Work, Merida told herself.
Only it wasn’t.
‘He’s back from theatre,’ Abe said by way of greeting.
‘And?’
‘He’s talking,’
‘And?’ Ethan said, because although Abe wasn’t one for idle words, there was nothing reassuring in his tone.
‘You need to come to the hospital,’ Abe said. ‘Prof Jacobs is going to speak with us there. That’s all I know.’
‘Whohaveyou spoken to?’
‘Just get to the hospital as soon as you can, Ethan. I’ll meet you there.’
He looked over to where Merida sat in the mid-morning sun, pouring sugar into her coffee, and Ethan knew for sure that everything was about to change.
Everything.
The circus that was his life was about to go full throttle, and he wouldnotbe exposing her to that. And neither did he need another witness to his grief.
Grief.
Ethan knew the news wasn’t good for his father.
He’d known for a couple of months.
And now he had to face it.
He walked back to Merida. He didn’t sit down—just stood over her and tried to work out what to say and decided that less was best.
His father’s surgery was a closely guarded secret. The Devereux family did not discuss such things with outsiders.
