Page 75 of Moonlight Kisses at Willow Tree Hall

She gave a start. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I shouldn’t have said what I did.’

Robot.The word echoed around her head. He had called her a robot and he was probably right. She hadn’t changed at all since they were teenagers. If anything, she was even more lonely and full of worry than she had ever been.

She gulped, the tears suddenly pricking at her eyes. ‘You were right,’ she blurted out, her voice thick with emotion. ‘After we broke up and then the accident, I closed myself off to everything… and everyone.’

‘I shouldn’t have said what I did,’ said Jack, dragging a hand through his hair.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told him. ‘I’ve got it all completely wrong. No wonder I’m going to lose my job.’

‘Are you?’ His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

‘I’m pretty sure I am. I wrecked everything. Lauren has left. I took over the album launch and put the wrong venue in. It’s a mess.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘I’m a mess.’

‘You’re many things, but you’re not a mess,’ he told her. ‘Well, apart from when you tried smoking a cigarette that one time.’

She grimaced. ‘Please! I feel sick enough.’

‘You were pretty sick that day as well,’ he said, smiling in memory.

‘Yes, I remember,’ she told him, rolling her eyes.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’re more than capable of organising things. You don’t have anything to prove, so stop trying and relax. Then perhaps everyone else will relax a bit as well.’

‘But I can’t relax,’ she blurted out. ‘I have to do well. That’s why I need all those lists: so I can get everything done.’

He looked irritated. ‘Just forget about the lists.’

‘I can’t!’ she wailed. ‘I need to stay in control, otherwise something bad will happen again.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The guilt!’ she told him. ‘Don’t you see why I’m like this? The never-ending guilt over what I did to my dad. His whole life fell apart and it’s all my fault.’

He looked confused. ‘How is it your fault?’

‘I was the reason we were in the car in the first place,’ she told him. ‘I was so upset about breaking up with you that he suggested taking me and Mum out for a meal. We wouldn’t have been in the car if it weren’t for me.’

‘You’re crazy,’ he told her, reaching out to take her hand in his. ‘Besides, if anyone should feel guilty, it should be me. I was the one who left you at the prom. I was the one who stopped you from running away with me. Nobody else.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘You can’t carry that kind of thing around with you forever. It wasn’t within your power to prevent the accident. It was out of your control.’

‘I know it was,’ she said, withdrawing her hand from his. ‘Which is why I don’t like feeling that way.’

He leaned back in his chair and nodded to himself in thought. ‘Well, at least we now know the answer to what happened to the impetuous, spirited girl I once knew.’

The silence stretched out until she put down her mug with a clang. ‘I’d better get back to the Hall. I need to pack.’

‘You’re really leaving your job?’

She shook her head sadly. ‘You have no idea. I’ve mucked up on an epic scale.’

‘Maybe I can talk to Sam.’

Lily sighed. ‘He’s got bigger things on his plate at the minute with the baby. Oh my God, the baby! What happened?’

Jack held up his hand. ‘Don’t worry. The baby is fine and still due in a month’s time. It was just early contractions, nothing to be worried about. Annie’s heading home today as well.’

Lily sank back in relief against the sofa cushions. ‘Thank God.’ She put her mug down on the coffee table before looking around at the room. There were no photographs. No paintings. No wall art. Nothing. ‘Did you just move in here?’