Chapter Twenty-Eight

Nick kept to his threat and phoned Lizzie every couple of weeks. She didn’t take up his offer to join him and Charlotte for Christmas, telling him she’d already agreed to spend it with Catherine. Knowing how hard it would have been to see her, Nick buried his disappointment and told himself it was for the best.

Each time they spoke, he was relieved to hear her sounding more and more positive. Yes, she’d found a great psychiatrist who was really helping her. Yes, she was eating properly.

No, she wasn’t wallowing; she was getting on with her life.

No, she didn’t have a man at the moment.

It was the last question he dreaded asking most. One day he wouldn’t like the answer.

‘I’m too busy for a man in my life,’ she declared when he picked up the phone to her this time. ‘I’ve been having acting lessons.’

He was delighted for her, he really was. It had been three months since Robert’s death and Lizzie was beginning to sound like the Lizzie of old, bubbly, excited.

Soon she won’t need you any more, a nasty voice niggled at him.

‘Nick?’

He shook himself. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’

She huffed. ‘Forget it. It’s not important.’

‘It was clearly important enough for you to ask in the first place.’

‘Yet not important enough for you to listen.’

‘It’s five thirty in the morning here. I’ve not had my first coffee yet, give me a break.’

He heard a gentle sigh. ‘I’m over in London in February for London Fashion Week.’

‘That’s great.’

‘And I wondered if you wanted to come.’

He froze, wishing to God he’d had that coffee.

‘Okay, I get the message,’ she said into the gaping silence he’d left. ‘I didn’t think you’d be interested.’

‘I didn’t say I wasn’t interested.’ He ached to see her, to take her out for a meal. To bring her back to the barn and just … be with her, if that was all he could have. But watch a fashion show? ‘Obviously it’s not my type of thing, but I’m sure Charlotte would love to go.’

‘Never mind. Forget I asked.’ She sounded cooler now, more detached. ‘I don’t want your sister to feel as if she has to go.’

‘Are you kidding? Charlotte would bust a gut to get to a fashion show.’ He realised belatedly that he’d hurt her. If she’d asked him to go, it must have been important to her, yet because he knew he’d feel uncomfortable, he’d snubbed her invitation ‘If you’d like me to be there too, then I’d like to go.’

He thought he could hear the smile in her voice. ‘Liar.’

‘Not a lie. Why wouldn’t I want the chance to see a lot of gorgeous leggy women not wearing very much?’

His heart lifted as he heard her laughter. He hadn’t realised how little she’d laughed since Robert had died. Since before that, if he was honest, at least compared to how often she’d laughed before her family’s accident. ‘Okay, if that’s the only reason you want to come, I’ll take it.’

‘It’s not the only reason. I’m quite looking forward to seeing you not wearing very much.’ His remark was met with a silence that shrivelled his balls and punctured his heart. She’s your bloody friend, you dimwit. Mortified at his slip from friend to lover, he cleared his throat. ‘So, what are the dates, so I can block out my diary?’

‘I’ll email them to you.’ Her voice was quieter now. Subdued? Horrified?

‘Great.’ His voice was too loud, as if he was trying too hard. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you then.’

Lizzie put down the phone thoughtfully. Had Nick just flirted with her? In which case, was it too soon, too dangerous to hope that maybe, just maybe, there was still a chance for them?

Then again, he hadn’t sounded keen to see the show. If the boot had been on the other foot, if he’d phoned to invite her to something that was important to him, she’d have jumped up and down with joy.

Of course it was early in the morning for him.

Before she could overthink it all, Catherine phoned.

‘Hey there. How’s things?’

Nick hadn’t been the only one to keep an eye on her in the months since Robert’s death. Catherine had taken to checking on her regularly too, insisting she join her for Christmas, making sure they had lunch every other week. ‘Good, thank you. I’ve just been on the phone to Nick. I invited him to London Fashion Week.’

She didn’t think it was possible to splutter elegantly, but that’s what Catherine did. ‘I bet he loved that.’

‘You’re right. He’s agreed to go but I got the impression he’d rather go to a karaoke bar. Sober. And stand up to sing.’

Catherine’s voice softened. ‘And you’re disappointed, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I thought he might have understood how much I wanted to see a face in the crowd who was there to support, not critique. I always regret that since I moved here neither my parents or Robert saw me modelling.’ She halted, forced herself to be truthful. ‘I guess in all honesty I want him there for more than that. I want him there so he’ll start to see me not as the beaten, battered woman I’ve become, but the woman I was before all that. Before the accident, before Charles. The model, doing what I do best.’

‘And I’m sure if you’d explained it like that, the man who hates the limelight, hates being out of his comfort zone, would have agreed to come without a second’s thought.’

Feeling immeasurably better, Lizzie smiled. ‘How did you get to be so wise?’

‘Age, my dear, just age. Now, my producer wants to meet you.’

Lizzie held a hand over her heart, feeling it thump. ‘He does?’

‘He does,’ Catherine confirmed. ‘He was thrilled to hear you were having acting lessons. Obviously there will be many other actresses he needs to consider, and you’d have to go through screening tests, but he did let slip he thought you’d be absolutely perfect for the role of Gretchen.’

It was a film Catherine was starring in. Gretchen was her daughter; a grieving widow who, wracked with guilt at surviving the accident her husband and child didn’t, had begun to embark on a series of increasingly dangerous one-night stands. It wasn’t hard to see why, at least on paper, she was perfect for it. ‘I appreciate your note of caution. I won’t get too excited,’ she said breathlessly, her pulse racing.

Catherine chuckled. ‘I hope you’re a better actress in front of the camera than you are down the phone.’

‘I’m a bloody awesome actress,’ Lizzie replied, laughing. ‘And I know that’s not very English of me, but I can’t help it. I think this is where my future lies.’

‘And isn’t it a wonderful coincidence that this film will be shot in England,’ Catherine added. ‘If you get the role, it might not just be your career this film will help to launch.’

As Lizzie ended the call, hope bloomed in her heart. Many months ago, after Sardinia, Nick had asked her to stay with him. Then, with Robert, with her modelling, she hadn’t been able to.

Perhaps, if this role came off, if she came back to live in the same country as him again. If he could stop seeing her as the emotionally shaky shell of a woman she’d turned into. If all that could happen, perhaps there was a chance they could rekindle what they had.