Fiona Harper - Best of Fiona Harper

‘Hi,’ he said, his voice low and warm. I reminded myself this was a Monday afternoon. I had no business thinking about Sunday mornings.

‘Hi,’ I said back.

We looked across the shop at each other.

‘Do you want to grab something to eat?’ he asked.

I sucked a mouthful of air in and held it in my lungs. ‘Maybe later.’ I glanced back at the open door to the office. ‘I’ve got some things I need to catch up on. After the weekend…’

It made me feel worse that he believed me.

‘Hold that thought!’ he said, his smile widening further. Then he walked over to me, dropped one sweet, intoxicating kiss on my lips and strolled out of the door.

After locking the door behind him, I went immediately to the washroom and reapplied my lipstick, and then I decided I ought to find something to do.

I found a couple of boxes to unload and reload, rooted around in my desk drawer for a lost stapler, and then rearranged my costume jewellery in its wood and glass display case. I was just about to turn my attention to the hatpin display when the door rattled. I didn’t have to look round to know who it was, and I didn’t need to ask what it was in the carrier bag he was holding—I could smell the delicious waft as soon as he entered the shop.

He plopped the bag down on the counter and headed straight through to the back office, flung his keys down on the desk and fetched the pink picnic hamper. I coughed before he unbuckled it, and he looked up.

‘Fish and chips?’ I asked, wrinkling my nose slightly.

The smile dropped from Adam’s face. ‘You don’t want fish and chips?’

I shook my head and clasped my hands low behind my back. ‘Actually, I have a hankering for Thai.’

He looked at the tightly wrapped paper bundles in the carrier bag. ‘But it’s hot, and I asked for onion vinegar especially for you.’ He started to unwrap the paper and a delicious acidic waft hit the back of my nose. Saliva pooled underneath my tongue.

I gave him my big-eyed ‘little girl’ look. ‘I really fancy Thai,’ I said, the lie sliding effortlessly through my evenly spaced teeth.

‘You’re sure about this?’ Adam gave the hot bundle of fish and chips a longing look. I nodded and blew him a kiss.

There was no eager yip, as one of my ‘puppies’ might have given, but he sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. I knew he was going to do it for me—not because I’d pushed him into a corner, but because his innate sense of chivalry had kicked in. ‘Okay, Thai it is.’ He shrugged. ‘At least it’s only a few doors down.’

I bit my lip.

On purpose.

‘What?’ he said, his voice heavy.

‘I don’t like that restaurant any more.’ I lowered my head a little and looked at him through my lashes. ‘I like the Blue Dragon.’

‘But that’s the other end of town!’

I did my coquettish little one-shouldered shrug. ‘You did say you’d get it for me…’

He gave me a long, hard stare, and then he picked up the hamper and disappeared into the back office again. While he was gone, I pinched a couple of chips from one of the parcels, stuffed them into my mouth and then quickly rearranged the packet so it looked as if none were missing.

My, those chips were good. Heavenly, in fact. I closed my eyes and licked the salt off my lips.

I had to swallow quickly when I heard Adam returning, minus hamper but in possession of his car keys. Something inside me sank. This was what I’d wanted, but a part of me hadn’t wanted it to be this easy, hadn’t wanted Adam to be predictable like all the others.

I was leaning against the cash desk, arms bracing me, and he peeled one of my hands off the shiny surface, turned its palm upwards. ‘I don’t play games and you know that,’ he said as he dropped the keys into my waiting palm. ‘If you want curry from the Blue Dragon, you’re going to have to get it yourself.’

My skin began to prickle. Damn it. I liked this new Adam with the menacing edge to his voice too much.

Okay, he might not have been as predictable as I’d both feared and hoped he would be, but that didn’t mean I was going to let him outmanoeuvre me. I pushed the keys against his chest and let go. He caught them on a reflex.

‘I’m not driving that hulking machine of yours ’round these narrow streets,’ I said, glaring at him and stood up. ‘Fine. I’ll get my dinner myself.’

‘Fine,’ he said, glaring back at me.

I didn’t really want to, but what choice did I have? I picked up my purse and stalked out of the shop and up the road to the Spice Heaven. Ten minutes later I was back, with a curry I didn’t really want.

Adam had moved into the back room, but his chivalry thing had decreed he wait for me. A parcel of fish and chips was waiting unopened on his lap. As soon as he saw me he dived in. I set to work opening my plastic tubs and dishing rice and curry onto a pink plate.

Adam wasn’t ‘twinkling’ so much now. He stared at his fish and chips in silence. It didn’t look appetising. But then cold fish and chips never do.

I ate a bit of my food, and then resorted to pushing it around my plate and taking the odd nibble when I felt Adam’s eyes on me—which was more often than not, unfortunately. Coconut milk and onion vinegar definitely did not make a good taste combination. This was no comfortable silence we were enjoying. I knew he was thinking hard, trying to work out what his next move would be.

‘I’m off in three days,’ he said as he bit into a chip, grimaced and dropped it back into the open parcel on his lap. ‘You sure you won’t change your mind and come with me? I think you’d really enjoy it.’

This was not just an invitation. I could tell by the wariness in his eyes that it was a test. I dabbed at the corner of my mouth with a pink paper napkin and shook my head. I needed Adam to go away on his own. This whole thing was going to be so much harder to accomplish if he didn’t.

He put his parcel down, stood up and walked across to where I was perched on the edge of my desk.

‘Please don’t, Coreen.’

I pretended not to understand. ‘I don’t do humidity,’ I said blithely, and attempted a cheeky smile. It wasn’t a good attempt. It stayed in place, but it felt as if it was only hanging there by a thread.

Adam took the plate out of my hands and put it on the desk behind me. ‘I told you that you don’t need to be this way with me. You don’t need to be that girl with me.’

And there, in a nutshell, was the problem. Because I really did need to be that girl with Adam. It was the only way I could keep myself intact. So if he didn’t want me this way then maybe he shouldn’t have me at all. I raised my chin a notch.

‘It’s who I am, Adam. If anyone knows what I’m like, you do.’

Liar. Coward. Those two words rang in my ears as I watched him digest what I had just said.

A siren sounded somewhere on my desk. My phone. My current ring tone was the song ‘The Girl Can’t Help It’ from the Jayne Mansfield movie of the same name, police siren and all. I never missed my phone ringing any more, but it drove other people nuts.

I retrieved it, grateful for an excuse not to look Adam the eye for a few seconds, but when I saw who it was calling I sent him straight to voicemail. Adam stared at me.

‘That was Nicholas,’ I said lightly, keeping a close watch on his reaction. ‘He’s not such an idiot after all, it seems. The plan worked. He wants me to go to dinner with him on Saturday evening.’

Reaction-wise, I got more than I bargained for. I don’t think sound escaped Adam’s lips, but he looked as if he were snarling. ‘Coreen…’

I slid my phone closed and smiled brightly at him. ‘Even Nicholas came to heel in the end. Just goes to show that no man is completely untrainable.’

Except Adam.

‘Stop it, Coreen.’

I don’t think my expression held quite the right level of innocence and guilelessness that I’d aimed for. Probably because everything inside me seemed four times heavier than normal. Even my face felt heavy. ‘What do you mean?’

He turned his head. Too disgusted to look at me, I guessed. I pretty much felt the same way.

‘I know what you are doing.’

And I knew that he knew. But I couldn’t stop. It was the only way to save both of us from a lifetime of heartache.

I didn’t say anything. I’d planned to tell him I was going to accept Nicholas’s offer of dinner, but it turned out even I wasn’t despicable enough to do that. It’s nice to have a least one redeeming feature: Coreen Fraser, not quite pond scum.

There was no point in lying any further, anyway. Adam knew Nicholas was just a diversion. He stood up, towering above me as I rested against the desk, only inches between us. Close enough to reach out and touch if I was stupid enough. Weak enough.

Soft fingers curled around my chin and pushed it upwards until I had no choice but to look at him. That’s when the tears started to fall, running down my cheeks and trailing down my neck, each one following the track of its predecessor. Adam’s expression softened. It was as if something in his eyes had opened and I could see deep down inside him, see all the treasure I’d been half-blind to all these years. Strength. Courage. Loyalty. All the qualities I lacked.

I knew my feelings for him were written clearly over my face, because I saw a spark of hope in his eyes. I couldn’t let it live. I tensed my jaw and the last pair of tears fell. With every ounce of my strength I arranged my features into blankness. I wound up my shutters, pushed him away without even moving. Without even breathing.

He saw it too. And I wished he hadn’t opened those windows to let me see inside, because now I saw it all turn to ash. I saw the desolation, the rage, the pain. I knew I was breaking both his heart and mine.

He stepped back, shell shocked, and I realised that up until that moment he’d never considered that there would be anything but a Happy Ever After for us, even if I had to be dragged into it kicking and screaming. That light, that welcoming light, the one that had always been there for me in his eyes, sputtered and disappeared.

Something really had been murdered this weekend. And I was the one who’d killed it.

I realised that holding all the power, having that ultimate control I had always craved, tasted nowhere near as sweet as I’d imagined it would. In fact it made me sick to my stomach.

Now Adam’s shutters came down too. He picked up his car keys, clenched them into his fist, and gave me one last rigid look. I knew those windows would never open again. Not for me, anyway. The thought of them doing so for another girl one day almost drew a cry from my lips, but I held it back, finally getting a handle on the ‘controlling my face’ thing.

Adam turned and walked away. Out of the shop and out of my life. I realised that somewhere in the back of my head I’d foolishly thought he’d eventually forgive me for this one day. After all, I was only being me. Vintage Coreen. He’d always forgiven me before. But as I ran to the doorway that led to the shop floor and hung on to the frame I saw him stride away down the road and realised he never would. I’d taken it too far.

I stood there motionless, hardly breathing, my fingernails folded into my palms. It would have been a good time for the violins to play, to swell around me in melody sweet and sad and sharp enough to make hearts bleed, but I made yet another discovery: there was nothing romantic about moments like this.

Nothing romantic at all.

A limousine arrived to pick me up at seven on Saturday evening. It took me over the river, wove skilfully through the London traffic and deposited me at an exclusive little restaurant in the West End. I was fussed over and shown to a table, where Nicholas was waiting for me.