Page 124 of Tears of Ink

And that’s it. It can’t stop laughing and tears begin to fall down my cheeks. This is it. Nothing more, nothing less. Him and I.

Every square inch of the blanket has been rolled on, my lips are bruised and I’m breathless. “I’m pretty sure you mentioned food.”

His hands anchor into my hips, pushing me into his pelvis where he grinds his erection against the ache between my legs. I want him so bad it physically hurts.

“It’s always about the food with you.”

I bat him with my hand. “Hardly, I’ve nearly starved to death in this place.” I kiss him again. Screw the food. “In fact…” I break contact to continue. “When your grandmother said on my first day they used to have starving artists stay here, I didn’t realise she meant they were actually starved while they were here.”

He chuckles into my neck and warm shivers of excitement wash along my skin. I let out a little groan of disappointment when he actually moves away from me in the search for food.

He passes me the basket. “Here, dig around and I’ll set out the rest of the stuff.”

“Jeez, I’ll do all the work, shall I?” I snigger. Truth is when this two-week fairy tale ends tomorrow, I’m going to have to pull my socks up. Otherwise, he’s quickly going to realise I live like a total pig—in fact pigs are cleaner I’m sure.

“How do you feel about reality television?” He’s unscrewing two more bottles of beer while I’m looking in the basket.

“What do you mean?” I’m distracted by a wheel of brie.

“Reality TV, what do you think about it?”

“Do I look like the type of woman who sits about watching Love Island?”

He smirks, “Hey, I think that’s perfectly reputable.”

“And you sit there watching it in that swanky London Mews house you call home, do you?”

“Faith, I do all kinds of things in that swanky London Mews house you don’t even know about yet.”

I flush a bit pink. I can all too well remember what he did to me on that kitchen island. I get hot between the legs just thinking about it.

I raise an eyebrow. “Why are you asking anyway?” I pull a pat of butter out of the basket. I don’t know how big this thing is, but it seems to be full of endless food supplies.

“I’ve been in talk with Sky Arts. The team coming tomorrow wants to discuss the possibility of making a show based on our little summer experiment.”

“Uh, no. I can’t do that in front of other people.”

He catches my hand and squeezes my fingers. “When are you going to see how talented you are? This place is a goldmine of unique art now, because of you.”

“It wasn’t all me.” I don’t add that really the art of the ball has nothing to do with me at all.

“Look at it this way.” He hands me my new bottle of beer. “If we get funding then we don’t need to worry about the Fairclough name or even Bowsley. Hell, the producer even said there are plenty of stately homes who would take up the opportunity. So when I get cut off tomorrow.” He winks, although honestly there is nothing amusing about the palpitations fluctuating my heart rate. “It won’t matter. The project is still ours.”

“What about your job?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know yet.”

“What about Tabitha? You didn’t want to leave her, like your…” I hesitate, “like your dad did.”

He nods slowly. “I know. But she’s a big girl and I need to do my own thing. I can’t let this family dictate my life anymore.”

I roll my eyes. “Shit, your mother is going to hate me even more.” I turn my attention back to the basket. “How much food is in here, Eli?” My hand lands on a small black box. “What’s this?”

I pull it free of the dark recesses of the basket. It’s a little heart-shaped antique ring box. I should know, I grew up in Brighton where the antique shops of the Lanes peddled these things to tourists.

His eyes are on me. My heart… it’s near on collapsing. “Don’t panic, I’m not proposing. Even I’m not that crazy.” He grins, but it doesn’t help the butterflies flapping their wings in my chest cavity.

“What is it?” I can hardly speak.