Page 94 of All Yours

‘I hope they’re being good for her. My sister and I once put prawns in my babysitter’s slippers . . .’

Fox heard his own snort of laughter before he could stop it. Erin’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and she touched his arm again, just briefly, as she started to laugh too. He watched the way she covered her mouth with her hand, and thought how pretty she was in this light.

‘Shall we order some food?’ He passed her a menu.

‘As long as it’s not prawns,’ Erin said with a giggle.

Fox took a deep breath and raised his glass.

‘Here’s to getting to know each other better,’ he said and she blushed slightly as she clinked her glass against his.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Robyn

Sunday passed torturously slowly. Rain lashed the windows relentlessly. Reluctantly acknowledging it would have to be a day inside, she played games with Willow, but soon they wore thin for both of them. She put the baby down for a nap and tried to sleep herself, but just lay there staring at the ceiling, her thoughts racing. She got up and spent all day making decorations for Isabella’s wedding, practising new ties for the bouquet, rearranging arrangements that were already perfect. Eventually, it was evening. She bathed Willow and put her to bed, kissing her nose and telling her that tomorrow was another day.

Robyn lit the fire and switched on the lights on the Christmas tree and tried to think cosy thoughts, but all she felt was trapped. Stuck inside, stuck in time while everyone else moved on. Stuck on her own.

Her phone beeped from its discarded position on the chair and she lunged for it. Just the florist, thanking her for all her work and asking her if she could supply the shop with spring seasonal wreaths when everything started budding again. Robyn read the text without much interest. No chance of that. She was getting out of Honeybridge at the first opportunity, sooner if she could. In fact, that’s what she could do right now. She picked up her laptop and opened her bookmarked travel pages. It was time to research tickets and get back to her real life.

An hour later, she’d found some reasonably good deals for hostels to stay in for the first few nights, and to break up the journey before heading to the elephant conservation centre. But the excitement she normally felt with travel planning was not bubbling to the surface. Closing her laptop, she sighed heavily, stretched, and walked over to the window to see if the rain had stopped.

It was pitch-black outside, but dry. Nearly all of the lights in Honeybridge House were out, apart from the downstairs study. She checked her watch. Ten o’clock. The boys would be in bed, and Fox was obviously working late. He apparently had been ‘busy’ all week, so maybe he was ‘busy’ still. For the first time, she felt a flush of anger, rather than hurt, at his sudden turnaround. The lack of communication was frankly childish, and his two-word texts were rude. She bristled and reached for her phone.

Robyn: Hi.

Robyn deleted the message and tried again.

Robyn: Fox.

She groaned and deleted that too, chewing her lip as she thought. Maybe she should just be direct?

Robyn: Why have you stopped talking to me?

Did that sound a bit aggressive? She considered a moment and cleared the words.

Robyn: I miss you.

No, no, no! Too much by far! She furiously deleted the message and threw the phone onto the sofa, out of reach.

Whatever she wrote didn’t sound right. She should go over there and talk to him face to face like the grown-arsed woman she was. Before she could stop herself, she grabbed the baby monitor and her keys and ran across the courtyard.

The house was quiet inside. Dingbat thumped his tail against the floor as she passed where he lay in his bed in the kitchen and she bent to give him a scratch around the ears.

‘Good boy, Ding,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just me.’

As she expected, the kitchen-diner was empty, and the TV room was dark. The door to the office was pulled to but not completely shut, doubtless so that Fox could hear the boys if they called from their bedrooms. She hesitated only long enough to take a deep breath before pushing the door open silently.

Fox had his head on the desk, resting on his folded arms. He was fast asleep. His face was turned towards her, but his eyelids were closed and his breathing steady. She’d never seen him like this before and it stopped her in her tracks. His lips were slightly parted, his eyelashes dark on flushed cheeks. The resemblance to Willow was astounding. Her heart clenched as she crept closer.

The screen in front of him showed the game he was working on. The volume was on mute and the scene paused. She edged closer to see what he’d been working on. She recognised Fox’s player, and she knew the rules of the original game back to front. A classic world-building set-up, the goal was to build a community and protect it from harm. It would be interesting to see how the sequel had moved things on. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to have a sneaky peek, would it? She glanced at Fox again. He hadn’t stirred.

Robyn silently moved the mouse and clicked play. Fox’s avatar was holding a net, and watching the night sky. A second later a shooting star blazed across one corner of the screen, before tailing off in the distance. It was soon followed by another, and another, varying in size and length of tail. Moving the player, Robyn watched in delight as the avatar swung his net towards the star. Oh! Catch a falling star. She was ready for the next meteor, as it burned through the night sky in a long arc. Making her player run towards where she guessed it would land, she swiped with her net, catching the star which exploded into a million glittery particles and lit up the whole screen. When they fizzled out, Fox’s avatar had turned gold and he’d won a wish. The list of wishes popped up on the screen for the player to choose from.

CHOOSE YOUR WISH!

• Build a house for a homeless person.