Page 80 of Moonlight Kisses at Willow Tree Hall

She gulped. ‘I sent out the album launch invitations with the wrong venue on.’

‘That’s no big deal,’ he told her. ‘You just send out an updated one, and make sure they’ve all received it. Venues change all the time. Next problem?’

She was quiet for a long time before speaking. ‘I can’t do this.’

‘Do what?’

‘Be a housekeeper,’ she told him. ‘I’m too uptight.’

‘So change,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’ll be happier if you’re more relaxed.’

‘I can’t,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘Anyway, I don’t deserve to be happy.’

‘What are you talking about? Everyone deserves to be happy.’

But to his dismay she shook her head. ‘Not me,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Don’t you see? It’s the price I need to pay for the accident.’

He was aghast. ‘That’s crazy! It wasn’t your fault. And your dad would never want you to think like that, either.’

‘You don’t understand,’ she told him. ‘Sacrifices had to be made after the accident. They still put me through college, even though there was no way we could afford it on Mum’s wage alone.’

‘So how did you cope?’ he asked.

‘I worked every evening in a cocktail bar in Aldwych.’ She gave him a sad smile. ‘I can make a mean cosmopolitan if I’m ever able to face alcohol again.’

‘Doesn’t sound like there was much time for dating,’ he said, unable to stop himself from asking.

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I was too busy working. Trying to keep us afloat. There was no way I could afford to go to university, so I left home as soon as college was over so that I wouldn’t be more of a burden on them.’

He sighed. ‘One day, you and I are going to talk about the prom and what happened beforehand.’

‘Not today?’

He shook his head. ‘I think you’ve got enough to deal with at the moment.’

‘So, what next?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he told her. ‘I wish I did.

She stood up and paced up and down.

‘Have you spoken to your parents?’ he asked. ‘Told them how you feel?’

She laughed without humour. ‘Of course I haven’t. We don’t have those kinds of conversations.’

‘Maybe you should start.’

Lily’s face lit up in wry humour. ‘And when did you ever have those conversations withyourparents?’

‘We were talking about you.’

‘Yeah, right.’ Her voice was laced with sarcasm.

‘Look, you’re nearly thirty,’ he told her, trying to wrestle the conversation away from his own problems. ‘You’re old enough now that you have the choice whether to carry on feeling this unhappy or learn to relax a bit. What if you’d have died yesterday and you’d spent the past how-many-years living this closed-off life?’

‘Ha! Right back at you!’

He looked at her, confused at her words.