I’m lying on my back, my eyes focused on the ceiling. I can’t believe this is about to end. Tomorrow is the final day. The day of the Bowsley Ball. RSVP’s have been returned, caterers are in, and there’s a small army of staff milling around the house getting it ready. Some areas are being roped off—mainly the East wing where Eli took me the night before last. It shows how little I know about him that until that evening I didn’t know he slept in a guest room when he came here, apart from of course when he’s in my pink walled room with me, which he has been every night he’s been home.

But then, don’t I know how he tastes, feels? Don’t I know the way he moves in the dark, and the emotions that live under the surface of his skin?

We haven’t talked about what happens after tomorrow.

I said two weeks and then I’d walk away.

That now seems impossible.

It’s more impossible than when I faced down the Everest of marble in my studio all those weeks ago before turning it into a cameo of Eli’s face.

I don’t think I can walk away.

There’s a gentle rap, one I recognise and my body responds to, before the door is even open.

And there he is, beautiful and blue-eyed.

“Busy?” He smirks a little as he comes into the room and settles next to me on the bed. His lips seek mine and I fall into the silence as his kiss whisks me away to a land where bad things don’t happen.

When I pull away, his eyes dance. “I’m hoping your failure to come to dinner means you’re hungry.”

My fingers trail along the outline of his jaw and scratch against his dark stubble. He’s wearing a favourite outfit of mine: tatty old jeans and a T-shirt. This is the Baroness’ son at his most attractive.

His lips against mine, he slides across me until his weight is pinning me to the mattress and my body sings with delight. “I’ve missed you today.” He pecks kisses amongst his words. “When am I going to see this secret you’ve been creating?”

“Tomorrow.”

I grin against his mouth and run my hands down his shoulder blades. “Did you say something about food?” I kiss him harder, faster, and slide my tongue into his mouth until it tangles with his. Our kisses are hotter and more desperate than anything I’ve ever tasted.

“Food,” he breaks his lips to ask, “or this?”

I chuckle as he rolls us over until I’m on top and his hands are running along my spine and ribs. My top rides up and the tops of his fingers graze across my skin. “I hope you’ve washed all the paint off.”

He rolls us again. “Are you complaining?”

“Maybe,” I squeal as his fingers delve for my ribs, his teeth nipping at my earlobe.

I hate being tickled and try to clamber away, but he has me, and he’s much stronger. We are both laughing and kissing and breathing every moment of perfection that this is.

Then I look at him and catch my breath. “We’ve got twenty-four hours left, stop messing around and fuck me, Fairclough.”

His eyes widen, the dark recesses flicker with deep emotion and then he pounces, and soon my cries of laughter have morphed into something else and I scream his name like it’s the only thing left in my soul.

“So, food?”

My stomach is almost joining in our conversation as it gurgles and grumbles with hunger. I don’t want to move though. My arms are wrapped around his chest tight. My cheek wedged against the firm and hot skin. I trail my fingers through the smattering of hair across his pecs, and breathe in the heady scent of him mixed with sex.

“I’m not hungry,” I reply and tighten my clutch on him.

With a rumble of a chuckle which makes my stomach pinch with excitement, he manages to extricate himself from my hold. He grins as he slides me up to meet his gaze. His hands slide through my hair and hold it back from my face as though his gaze is seeking an answer to an endless riddle.

“What?” I ask and lean onto my elbows. His fingers continue to comb through my blonde strands. At the end of the lengths, his hands rub along the ink of my skin.

“You are incredibly beautiful.” His lips curve into a sensuous and wide smile.

“Really?” I wiggle my eyebrows. “Many people would disagree.”

“They’d have to be blind.”

I shrug. “People don’t like girls with tattoos, especially when they have as many as me.”

The tip of his right index finger trails across my roses. “These blew me away when I first saw them.”

My eyes skim the pink walls of my Bowsley bedroom, which after tomorrow will no longer be mine. “They’ll remind me of you and this room.” My throat tightens as I speak. “It’s ironic really that I had them done because I wanted something pretty, and you who loves them so much are the only person who sees me as beautiful.”

He watches me, his lips crimped together, for a long pause. I stare at him back and will him to understand the words I can’t yet say.

“Come.” He shakes his head. “Enough of this sadness, let’s go.”

Eli rolls from the bed and holds his hand out for mine. “Dinner.”

My stomach growls again. It probably is time to eat something.

I follow him to the kitchen where we find a basket on the table with a note tied with brown string to the handle. Enjoy!

“She’s a trouper, old Elaine.”

“Are we going to the conservatory?” A tingle of excitement flares. I haven’t spent enough time in that phenomenal place and now it’s too late.

“Maybe.” He smirks and holds out his arm for me to take. I link us together and anchor our elbows tight.

We don’t go to the conservatory which is a disappointment, for a whole three minutes, until I see he’s leading me down the kitchen gardens. “Where are we going?”

“Patience, Faith.”

I chuckle a little. “I don’t have any.”

When he turns to me in the dark he steals my breath away. He’s even more beautiful lit by shadows of cloud and moon.

He glances at the sky and I watch as the smile spreads across his face. “Why are you smiling at cloud cover?” I ask.

“Wait and see.”

Finally, when we’ve been walking down the neat pathways and borders for a fair while he turns into a walled garden. The most delicious pungent scent fills the air, cloying and sweet, and I breathe in deeply.

“What is that? It’s delicious.”

He tugs on my hand and pulls me around for a kiss, the basket forgotten on the floor as his hands weave their way into my hair and his thumbs skim my jaw.

“You kiss like nothing else I’ve known.” The words slip into the night air, but I can’t really care or want to call them back. It’s a statement of truth and I’ll stand by it until my dying day. His kiss and the pungent air make my head swirl.

“This is the orchard.” He pecks a kiss on the tip of my nose. “It’s better at night.”

I’ll say.

“And you kiss rather well too,” he adds with a cheeky grin. I just laugh. He makes me want to laugh; he makes me want to forget I’m the girl with tattoos, the girl with a past.

He lets go of me and busies himself setting out the blanket. I watch him enthralled. What the hell will my eyes look at when tomorrow is over?

The lightning bolt hits me smack in the grey matter with resounding clarity.

I can’t walk away.

I’m going to fight.

While he sets out glasses and a bottle of champagne with a gold foil top, I close my eyes and think of those Māori tattoos I have bound onto my skin.

Maybe those tattoos weren’t meant to be for fighting Aiden and my father. Maybe they were for this. Maybe this is what I need, more than I need acknowledgement or apologies.

“Eli,” I say his name. The tension in my stomach pulls and aches.

“Faith.” He grins up at me and motions for me to come forward. He holds my hands and we sit on the blanket, two people fluid and free with one another.

“I’m just going to say this.” The words are a fast train and they won’t stop now for anything.

He nods, simple and precise.

“I don’t want this to end tomorrow.” My cheeks flare under the silver haze of the cloud covered moon. “I can’t walk away from you. I thought I could, but now...” I shake my head as I think of the words I want to say but can’t articulate. “I want to fight. I want to live rule free.”

His hands slip around my face, his palms cupping my cheeks. His mouth catches mine and lingers with possessive attachment. “It’s funny you should say that.”

My heart hammers, loud and fast. “Why?”

He shakes his head. “I want you, Faith. Everything you are. The freedom you live with, the strength. I want that every day. And so we are starting backwards. We haven’t even had a date yet, but.” He grins and then pecks another kiss on my lips. “It’s a start.”

“What about your family? Grandbaronessy isn’t going to take this well.”

His eyes hold mine, fierce and determined. “I can live without money and the Fairclough name.”

I almost crumple at his confession.

I kiss him, breathe him. Feel him.

Solid and firm, he holds me in his arms, his embrace gripping me to his chest as though he doesn’t want to let go.

“We don’t even know each other.” I laugh, and it’s on the verge of being water filled.

“We can start now.” He grins and pulls away. Declarations are done, simple, easy almost. “Champagne?” He holds a glass for me.

“I prefer beer.”

He shakes his head but then smiles with a warmth that makes my blood rush with heat. “Bottle of beer?” He slips his hand into the basket and pulls out two bottles of Budweiser, popping the lids off.

“Much better.” I take it and we clink the necks of the bottles “Thank you.”

“I hate bananas.” he says out of the blue, and I snort a laugh.

“I hate oranges.”

We both begin to chuckle and a bubble wells in my chest.

“I really like Take That,” I say, but then wag my finger under his nose. “Don’t tell anyone though.”

“I quite fancy Gary Barlow myself.”

And that’s it. It can’t stop laughing and tears begin to fall down my cheeks. This is it. Nothing more, nothing less. Him and I.

Every square inch of the blanket has been rolled on, my lips are bruised and I’m breathless. “I’m pretty sure you mentioned food.”

His hands anchor into my hips, pushing me into his pelvis where he grinds his erection against the ache between my legs. I want him so bad it physically hurts.

“It’s always about the food with you.”

I bat him with my hand. “Hardly, I’ve nearly starved to death in this place.” I kiss him again. Screw the food. “In fact…” I break contact to continue. “When your grandmother said on my first day they used to have starving artists stay here, I didn’t realise she meant they were actually starved while they were here.”

He chuckles into my neck and warm shivers of excitement wash along my skin. I let out a little groan of disappointment when he actually moves away from me in the search for food.

He passes me the basket. “Here, dig around and I’ll set out the rest of the stuff.”

“Jeez, I’ll do all the work, shall I?” I snigger. Truth is when this two-week fairy tale ends tomorrow, I’m going to have to pull my socks up. Otherwise, he’s quickly going to realise I live like a total pig—in fact pigs are cleaner I’m sure.

“How do you feel about reality television?” He’s unscrewing two more bottles of beer while I’m looking in the basket.

“What do you mean?” I’m distracted by a wheel of brie.

“Reality TV, what do you think about it?”

“Do I look like the type of woman who sits about watching Love Island?”

He smirks, “Hey, I think that’s perfectly reputable.”

“And you sit there watching it in that swanky London Mews house you call home, do you?”

“Faith, I do all kinds of things in that swanky London Mews house you don’t even know about yet.”

I flush a bit pink. I can all too well remember what he did to me on that kitchen island. I get hot between the legs just thinking about it.

I raise an eyebrow. “Why are you asking anyway?” I pull a pat of butter out of the basket. I don’t know how big this thing is, but it seems to be full of endless food supplies.

“I’ve been in talk with Sky Arts. The team coming tomorrow wants to discuss the possibility of making a show based on our little summer experiment.”

“Uh, no. I can’t do that in front of other people.”

He catches my hand and squeezes my fingers. “When are you going to see how talented you are? This place is a goldmine of unique art now, because of you.”

“It wasn’t all me.” I don’t add that really the art of the ball has nothing to do with me at all.

“Look at it this way.” He hands me my new bottle of beer. “If we get funding then we don’t need to worry about the Fairclough name or even Bowsley. Hell, the producer even said there are plenty of stately homes who would take up the opportunity. So when I get cut off tomorrow.” He winks, although honestly there is nothing amusing about the palpitations fluctuating my heart rate. “It won’t matter. The project is still ours.”

“What about your job?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know yet.”

“What about Tabitha? You didn’t want to leave her, like your…” I hesitate, “like your dad did.”

He nods slowly. “I know. But she’s a big girl and I need to do my own thing. I can’t let this family dictate my life anymore.”

I roll my eyes. “Shit, your mother is going to hate me even more.” I turn my attention back to the basket. “How much food is in here, Eli?” My hand lands on a small black box. “What’s this?”

I pull it free of the dark recesses of the basket. It’s a little heart-shaped antique ring box. I should know, I grew up in Brighton where the antique shops of the Lanes peddled these things to tourists.

His eyes are on me. My heart… it’s near on collapsing. “Don’t panic, I’m not proposing. Even I’m not that crazy.” He grins, but it doesn’t help the butterflies flapping their wings in my chest cavity.

“What is it?” I can hardly speak.

“Open it.” He scoots closer across the blanket and crosses his legs as he watches me intently.

I flick the small brass latch and lift the lid. Holy shit.

The holiest of shits.

Nestled inside of the small box is a giant black tear-shaped solitaire, delicately balanced on a slender band of pave diamonds.

“That’s beautiful.” Tears sting my eyes. “I’ve never seen an onyx shaped like that before.

His lips quirk and he pulls the ring from the box, holding it in his fingers.

“It reminded me of your ink, and I hoped that one day maybe I’d be the one who stops your tears for good.”

I’m breathless. There is no air left in the world for me to grab onto.

As I meet his eyes, my heart pounding, a droplet of rain splatters onto the blanket. Then another, and then another.

He smiles broad and wide and I know why we haven’t gone to the greenhouse. “You remembered.”

He nods, picks up my hand, and slips the exquisite ring onto my right-hand ring finger as rain begins to pour down.

“A kiss in the rain. It’s the first that I get to keep.” Then his mouth is on mine and the rain soaks our faces. Our lips slide as our tongue’s tangle.

On my hand is a giant teardrop of ink. Tears he’ll help me fight.

“I think I love you.” I blurt the words. Crazy. Insane. Spontaneous.

He kisses me harder. His hands hold my jaw, his thumbs sweep my skin. “Nothing to think about.”

We are lying in bed, my hands trailing across his chest. His fingers smooth my damp hair. “When did you know?”

“Know what?” A light pressure presses against my hair and I bloom from under his tender touch.

“That you loved me?”

His chest moves as he chuckles. “I can’t tell you, it’s too cheesy.”

“Ah, but I love cheese.”

Another kiss. “You love cheese, you hate oranges. I’m a quick learner.”

“Stop stalling.” I nudge him with my elbow.

“When you refused to sit down at The Ritz.”

My face folds into a half-hearted scowl. “You were an arse that day.”

“I told you, it’s this family. It’s what it does to me.”

“I’m glad I saved you then.” This time his lips find my mouth and I breathe in the hot scent of his breath. “And I’m glad I broke my rules for you.”

My one rule seems so very far away now. I didn’t know being with someone could be like this. I didn’t know I could care so much my heart would ache and pull, and want to explode all at once.

He rolls me, his intent clear as he hardens against my body. “I’ve never been gladder of anything in my life.”