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TEN

FREDDIE

Weeks after it happened, Freddie had told Charlotte what her mother had overheard – Dominic’s voice booming from the FaceTime call on her doorstep – and she’d almost fallen from her chair laughing.

Their first date had only confirmed to him how fantastic she was. He could’ve spent the whole night listening to her talk, the way her hands would punctuate her sentences and her eyes glimmer with her plans. ‘We’re going to make the band work. I’ve started to write some songs. I want us to play our own stuff.’

‘That’s amazing.’

He’d meant it, too. To have both the talent and the ambition to make it work was quite something.

She’d tilted her head, flicked her long blonde hair over her shoulder. ‘What about you? What do you want to do?’

He’d shrugged. ‘I have to go into the family business. Financial stuff.’ He didn’t want to talk about it in detail, it bored him enough; he didn’t want to bore her, too.

She’d laughed. ‘That doesn’t sound like it’s setting your world on fire.’

‘It’s not. But what can you do?’

She’d frowned at him as if he was speaking a foreign language that she didn’t understand. ‘Just…not do it?’

His laugh had been hollow. ‘Not an option. Since my father died, my mother has been attending every boring board meeting in his place to keep my seat warm, as she’d put it. She was convinced my cousins might try and squeeze me out.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘No such luck.’

Charlotte had shuffled back in her seat, placed her drink down on the table and looked him dead in the eye. God, she was beautiful. ‘That’s ridiculous. If you don’t want to do it, you should tell her. You can’t choose your whole career based on what your mother wants you to do.’

Said like that, he’d seen why she was surprised. It was more complex than he’d wanted to get into on their first date, though. ‘What about your parents? What do they want you to do?’

She’d picked up her glass and sipped at her beer. ‘They just want me to be happy.’

There was something about her expression that had told him there was more. ‘Really?’

She’d laughed the warm throaty laugh that had made him want to pull her close. ‘Well, my dad just wants me to be happy. My mum wants me to be happy as long as I do it the way she wants.’

That’d made him grin. ‘Which is…?’

‘Which is, get my degree, get a great job, travel the world, solve world peace.’

He’d just taken a large gulp of his beer and he’d choked on it as she’d got to the end of her list. ‘Not much then.’

‘No. Should have it done by the end of the week.’ She’d sighed. ‘I’m exaggerating, but she does have pretty high expectations. She went to private school, my mum. Like you. But she had to leave and I think the whole thing has left her with a bit of a chip on her shoulder about your type.’

Under the table, she’d nudged his legs with her knee to show she was teasing him. Electricity had run through his whole body. He’d cleared his throat before he could speak. ‘Mothers, eh?’

She’d nodded and taken another sip of her beer. ‘Absolutely.’

Freddie had had enough girlfriends that he was an old hand at knowing the right time to go in for the first kiss. But being around Charlotte made him feel like a novice. In the end, it’d been her who’d reached for him as they’d left the bar and, when their lips touched, he’d known that he never wanted it to end.

That summer had been the best of his life. She’d been working as a waitress in a small cafe and he would wait for her to finish her shift and then pick her up with a plan for what they’d do that night. Sometimes it would involve their friends, others it would just be the two of them and he would bring a small picnic or a bottle of wine and take her to the nature reserve. They would lay a blanket on the grass and stretch out side by side, eyes closed, holding hands, talking about their hopes and dreams for the future. He’d never wanted the long warm days to end.

When she’d gone back to university in late September, he’d missed her like a limb, but they’d both been determined to make it work. They’d alternate the travel: one weekend he’d visit her; the following weekend she’d take the train home. Dominic wasn’t impressed, but Freddie had known – with every inch of him – that she was worth it. She was the one.

Which is why he was so angry with himself for messing it up. For risking everything he had with her on one stupid night. For what he did that Christmas.