Page 31

She squeezed her eyes shut, pushing out the guilt, the heat, the wrong man!

If only she hadn’t been so determined to take advantage of a fresh opportunity.

If only she hadn’t been so fixated on her phone.

If only she’d clocked him properly before she’d sent her phone flying.

Before the panic had taken over that he would spy something incriminating on the lit-up screen.

Before they’d become entangled in the dark and his need had been so evident that she’d been high on her own triumph.

Then she might have seen the slight nuances. The lack of a scar to his cheek, the extra line to his left dimple, the way Blake always made her shiver with a thrill… fuck fuck fuck .

And now… now what?

She’d kissed Blake!

His body, his need, his kiss – the realisation that it had been him all along… the desperation to rewrite the moment entirely and not knowing which way to go. To know it was Blake and to revel in it. Or to have avoided the catastrophe altogether.

The latter! the phone persistently ringing in her hand told her . The bloody latter!

She hopped from one foot to the other as she waited for the lift to arrive at ground level, and as soon as the doors parted enough to let her out, she was gone.

Racing through the foyer and bursting into the frigid New York air as she swiped the video call to answer and promptly froze. Bella was sobbing!

‘Oh my God, love, what’s wrong?’

* * *

A little while later Astrid hung up the phone, but she couldn’t move from the alcove she’d found herself in. She was a quivering mess. The news from Bella beggared belief.

Chase wasn’t the unfaithful bastard she’d believed him to be.

And Astrid wasn’t the homewrecking mistress she’d branded herself as either.

There had been so much more to that sorry scene in the hotel room all those months ago…

and if Chase had only taken the time to explain things to her back then, this never would have happened. None of this.

Astrid wouldn’t have embarked on a crazy karma plan that saw her smacking one on the wrong guy. And Bella wouldn’t have played an innocent man for a fool… no, that wasn’t quite fair. Because Chase wasn’t entirely innocent . He’d left her to think the worst.

But he was hardly the devil.

And he certainly hadn’t deserved what he’d got.

Half of Operation Just Desserts was imploding, and she was the common denominator. A total liability.

She wanted to race around the corner and help Bella.

She wanted to race back upstairs and fix Blake.

Neither were an option without the truth spilling free and the domino effect of that… no, just no. It was a nightmare.

It also meant she couldn’t oversee the photoshoot. The last thing Blake needed was her on the other side of the camera. Fin would never get a decent shot.

Lifting her phone, she forced out a message to Stella and Fin making her excuses. And then she messaged the twins in their group chat to say she hoped it went well, that she’d review the photos with Fin later. Then she messaged Blake privately…

Astrid

I’m so sorry.

It sat on delivered.

She stared at it, willing him to read it, willing him to respond…

* * *

Several hours later, the message remained delivered and unread. And no amount of checking was gonna change it.

Fin sat at her uncle’s dining table running through the photos on his laptop, a beer and a bowl of nibbles on the go, while Astrid cooked them dinner.

They always reviewed the photos together, but today she needed Fin more for his company than his expertise, his warm Scottish brogue and down-to-earth nature a welcome distraction from the noise in her head.

She’d half expected Blake to walk out after she’d left. Half expected a message from one of the others saying the shoot was a no-go. But he hadn’t. He’d stuck it out. How? Why? Who knew, but the look on Blake’s face when she’d?—

‘Earth to Astrid?’

She blinked away the torment in Blake’s blue eyes, zoning in on the pot of Bolognese she was stirring. ‘Sorry’ – she looked up – ‘what did I miss?’

Fin gave her a bemused smile, flicking his red mop out of his face. ‘Quite a lot today, I’d say.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to bail on you.’

‘I’m not talking about the shoot. I’m talking about the last hour. You’ve been somewhere else the entire time. What happened to ordering in pizza and having you sit on my shoulder while I run through the shots?’

It’s what they’d usually do. But not this time. This time she’d been too afraid of what she’d see. What she’d feel.

‘I’m almost done cooking.’

‘I’m almost done too.’

‘You are?’

He nodded. ‘I’ve done a sweep and created a shortlist, but that Blake… he’s the real deal, eh?’

‘Huh?’

‘All that attitude. I’m glad I got some pre shots. You might want to use one of them because the second he changed his clothes, everything changed.’

‘He got changed?’

‘Aye, he came out all in black and his mood with it.’

Oh God.

‘That bad?’

‘Depends what you’re going for – the family maker or the heartbreaker.’

She gave an awkward laugh. ‘Neither! We want the boys-next-door-done-good look.’

‘Yeah, thought so.’ He leaned back over his laptop, finger scrolling. ‘There might be something we can do to take the edge off the twin shots.’

Take the edge off?

That didn’t sound good. She released the spoon and hurried on over, took one look at the photo grid and swallowed. Hard.

Aiden was all charm, his well-versed grin on display, his stance relaxed. While Blake… Blake looked ready to commit fratricide. Arms folded, jaw clenched, he glared at Aiden to his right, but that mouth… she lifted her fingers to her own that thrummed with the echo of his.

‘I reckon we can play around with the shadows, do something with it.’

She nodded.

‘And failing that, we can overlay one of the earlier shots.’

Pre-her. Pre-kiss. Pre-epic-fuckup.

She started to walk away, her heart in her mouth, her guilt with it.

‘There’s also the shots with the wee lad Aiden brought back. I don’t know whether they’d be any?—?’

‘ Kid ?’ She halted. Turned. ‘What kid?’

‘Some lad called Leo. Aiden brought him home.’

‘Aiden brought a random kid to a photoshoot ?’

Fin chuckled. ‘Not random at all. The twins knew them – Leo and his mum Chantelle. She was there too. They all seemed quite chummy.’

‘How do they know each other?’

He shrugged. ‘Beats me. But it got Blake smiling again. Enough to get some great shots. I just don’t know whether they’re what you want.’

She walked back over, glanced at the new photo spread. ‘Oh my!’

‘Good, right?’

Good was one word for it. Magic was another. Seeing Blake interacting with a lad of about seven – talking, laughing, tickling, fist bumping… the warmth, the charisma, the affection.

Who was this boy?

‘And his mum was happy for him to be photographed?’

‘More than.’

‘They’re… they’re perfect.’

But the question remained, who was he?

And more importantly, could they use them? Could she write about them?

She picked up her mobile and messaged Aiden.

Astrid

Great photos! Who’s the kid?

Aiden

You’ll have to ask Blake.

She frowned. Reopened her message with Blake. Kinda hard to ask if he wasn’t even reading what she’d sent…

‘Keep it in the shortlist and I’ll do some extra digging.’

‘Will do, boss.’