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“Unfortunately, yes.”
At that moment, my grandmother hobbles out of the lounge room, roused from her nap by the scent of dinner. She’s walking slower these days, her cane permanently stuck to one hand, but her eyes are still wickedly sharp. Before I have the chance to even think about getting up to help her, Daniel is out of his seat and offering his arm.
My grandmother titters. “It’s been a while since I had someone quite as good-looking as you on my arm,” she says.
“Nan!” I scrub a hand over my face.
“What? Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m dead, dear.” She looks him up and down. “If you’re as pretty under those clothes, then I can see why my granddaughter wants to marry you.”
Daniel bursts out laughing and I will the ground to split open beneath me so I can disappear forever. “Kill me now.”
“Don’t be such a prude,” my grandmother says as Daniel helps her into a chair. “This is a wonderful thing. And to think, not a few weeks ago your mother was trying to marry you off to that stupid lump, Anthony.”
The entire room goes so quiet. I hear the rushing of blood in my ears, and flames crawl up my neck and pool in my cheeks.
“Mum.” My own mother steps in, looking as embarrassed as I am.
“He really wasn’t good for Ava, though,” Nan continues on, undeterred. “He was a little soft, if you know what I mean. Not too bright, couldn’t really think for himself. Oh, and he dressed terribly, wore those stupid hats all the time.”
I glare at my mother. This isallher fault—the fact that I felt compelled to take Daniel’s offer in the first place, that I’m here now being humiliated. Sometimes I wonder if she wants me to be miserable.
“Nowyou, on the other hand.” Nan nods appreciatively. “I bet you can think for yourself. Plus, you have good bone structure, very strong and muscular.”
“He’s not a horse, Nan. Jeez.” I gulp down half a glass of red wine in one go. I have never been more mortified in all my life.
“I hope you take care of her...inallthe ways.” My grandmother winks at Daniel. Actually. Freaking. Winks.
“This is...” I plonk the wineglass down on the table so suddenly I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter the stem. “This is so inappropriate.”
But Daniel grabs my wrist and shoots me a look, telling me not to walk away. How is it that after such a short time we can communicate like this—through a touch or a look? It’s as though there’s a level of intimacy that shouldn’t be. It’s too soon. Too much.
Especially considering none of this is real.
“What?” Nan shrugs and holds her plate out to my mother, who simply sighs and starts dishing up the meal. I lean back in my seat, even though I’m tempted to walk out of there and never return. “A woman should know when she’s got a good thing, that’s all. Consider yourself lucky, Ava.”
“Actually,I’mthe one who’s lucky,” Daniel says. “Ava found me at a moment where I was truly alone in the world...or at least I wanted to be.”
I can’t help but smile at the secret in his words, the little message of truth that only I will understand.
“It’s like she appeared right when I needed her most and every day since has been...surprising.” He looks at me and for a moment, my heart skips a beat. How can this not be real? Is he really so good at faking it? Need and want and joy shimmer inside me but I try to shut those feelings down.
This is no different from that day when I walked through my mother’s doors and she informed me of her plan to arrange a marriage for me. It’s a lie. A solution to a problem that doesn’t necessarily need solving.
You know that’s not true. You want love and marriage and babies and all of that.
I do. But I also want it to mean something, and I can’t settle for a man who sees me only as a means to an end. Yet I can’t help feeling this is something more. Something...so close to what I want I’m not sure if I’m staring at fantasy or reality.
“I’m a different person with Ava,” he says, still not taking his eyes off me. “A better person.”
I reach for his hand, and it’s entirely out of instinct and nothing to do with the two sets of eyes watching us. It’s nothing to do with keeping up appearances or selling the story or any of that stuff. It’s because I want to connect with him. Touch him.
“That’s all well and good,” Nan says, sticking her fork into her spaghetti and twirling the long strands. “But it certainly doesn’t hurt to have an ass firm enough to bounce a tennis ball on.”
Laughing and shaking my head, I raise my glass into the air before downing the rest of it in one fell swoop. Lord knows I’m going to need more wine to get through this evening.
We walk out of my childhood home a few hours later. The mortification continued through the meal, dessertandcoffee after that. Daniel had good-naturedly sat through stories of my failed childhood crushes and looked at pictures of me as a baby and taken flirty-borderline-inappropriate comments from my grandmother on the chin.
We’d driven over in Daniel’s Maserati and I notice some of my mother’s neighbours watching us through their front windows, blinds cracked enough that I see familiar faces left and right.
