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Hayley considered him before placing her hand on his arm gently. An offer of support. “What was it for you?”
Of course she knew there was more. “Fifth grade. Couple of kids had been taunting me for most of the year, and one day, they decided to up the ante. They’d already broken my nose when Emilia stepped in. She’s got a mean right hook.”
Hayley smiled, but it was rife with past pain. Harrison knew that smile. Had seen it in the mirror many times.
“It was university for me,” she said. “I grew up north of London, in a town south of Yorkshire. The people there, you may not realize, have very distinct accents. Thanks to a lot of hard work and the benefit of my family’s position, I studied literature at Oxford.”
The way she spoke was clear, polished. Practiced. Harrison’s gut clenched.
“It was exciting. I’d graduated top of my class, and it was my dream to attend. It didn’t take long to see that it didn’t matter how smart I was. I was an outsider.” She ducked her face, hiding behind her hair. “I spent every day practicing to talk like everybody else. Now I barely remember what I used to sound like.”
Harrison’s gut clenched. Those fucking posh bastards. He knew the type. Boorish, classist assholes. Apparently, it didn’t matter what country you came from; they manifested everywhere like weeds.
Hayley avoided his gaze but hadn’t moved away. Harrison pressed his knee to hers. The corner of her mouth curled up, but her smile didn’t last.
“I learned to hate all that snobbish crap about what is highbrow and lowbrow. As if it matters. What? You’re more deserving because you like intellectual films instead of silly little stories about love?”
Ouch. Harrison deserved that. He’d been a fucking asshole yesterday. And shit, he might not have the same love for the genre that she had, but hadn’t he been the one to protest that all stories deserved to be heard?
She placed her hand on his, her voice soft with understanding. “For what it’s worth, Harry, I understand why your sister still believes. Sometimes hope is as good as happiness, especially when we are striving for something we’re not sure we’ll ever have.”
Her perfume was faint and sweet, the tease of a memory.
Harrison had always gravitated toward interesting people, but there was so much more to Hayley. The way her mind worked, her creativity, the slow, easy way she could connect ideas that would never occur to him. He was too methodical, too analytical. Hayley’s mind operated like a current, smooth and calm. It fascinated him. Seduced him.
It had been easier before to tell himself that all he felt was physical, that the way she wore her heart on her sleeve, wove compassion into her words — scripted or otherwise — hadn’t affected him.
But any attempt to pretend that was true was impossible when she was beside him, offering comfort for Emilia, looking like she wanted to hunt down the asshole who had hurt her and to give him his just desserts.
As the breeze passed, her hair fell across her face. On instinct, he reached out to tuck it behind her ear, relishing the softness of her skin and the way she leaned into his touch.
God, the curve of her neck did wicked things to him.
“Harry…”
A high squeal nearby cut Hayley off, and Harrison turned, afraid of what he’d find. A talking frog, hoping for the kiss that would turn him into a prince?
Instead, one half of the couple nearby was kneeling to propose to her girlfriend. A photographer closed in on them, beaming, and Harrison found himself smiling.
It was surprisingly sweet.
Music started, loud and insistent, and then, as if in slow motion, the crowd around them — every single person in the courtyard but the two of them — turned in a single synchronized movement.
“Oh look,” Hayley said softly, while Harrison shuddered.
Because he could deal with a lot of things.
A week writing a romance film with a woman he had extremely inconvenient feelings for.
Crazy coffee shop moments and a city obsessed with Valentine’s Day.
But he would not,could not, handle a flash mob.
“Oh hush, it’s sweet,” Hayley chided, poking him where he was most ticklish. “It’s not like they’re asking you to join in.”
And thank god for that.
The couple watched on with gleeful expressions. Clearly they didn’t have a problem with it. He couldn’t imagine wanting a spectacle like this if someone proposed to him.
