Page 43 of One Week With You
Rafe: How did you have it all? How did you have a life with Mum and a successful business?
Dad: Hard work. Balance is not easy. I also depended on a lot of people.
Rafe: Is this your way of saying I should listen to Henry more?
Dad: It wouldn’t hurt.
Rafe: Maybe you could tell him to stop comparing everything I do to you.
Dad: You’re the CEO now.
Rafe: Point taken. But if I am the CEO, you shouldn’t be getting updates from him.
Dad: Point taken.
Dad: It’s nice to hear from you. One year maybe you’ll join us for Christmas.
His words caught me off guard. I frowned down at the screen.
Rafe: I didn’t think you wanted me to.
Dad: You’re our son.
Rafe: You never pushed for that. You never said anything.
Dad: You’re also our adult son. You can do what you want. We also figured you were happier elsewhere. Some little blonde caught your eye maybe. You always did have a thing for blondes.
I glanced at Talia. She’d slept with damp hair the other night so the strands were wavier than normal, a wild spread across my chest. Her hands were clasped underneath her chin, breaths soft and even. Something flipped, then flopped in my chest.
Rafe: You might be right. Night, Dad.
Dad: Night, son.
“Night, beautiful,” I whispered, mouthing a kiss against all that hair, and closed my eyes.
CHAPTER10
TALIA
“I thinkit’s time I walked to the village,” Rafe said a few days later, distracted by his iPad. He’d checked his work emails every morning, not that it bothered me. If I still had a job, I would’ve been doing the same, and I wasn’t a CEO.Yet.
It was another way I appreciated our similarities. How seamlessly our worlds had entwined. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but it was so easy to picture us together like this in the future, sitting at the table eating breakfast, drinking coffee in comfortable silence while Rafe worked on his iPad and I defeated another level on Homescapes or browsed expensive shoes I could no longer afford on Selfridges’ website.
It was so nice.
Normal.
I’d been so busy I’d forgotten what that felt like.
“What for?” I slathered strawberry jam on my third slice of toast, looking up in time to see a flicker of irritation slither across Rafe’s face. His phone had his attention this time.
It also wasn’t the first time I’d seen that expression today.
“To see when the road might be cleared,” he added. “No one seems to be answering my calls about it.”
“Oh. I didn’t realise you’d contacted someone.”
“I’ve tried. If you’re not careful, you could get snowed in up here for weeks, especially as no one uses this road except us. Sometimes the snow ploughs bypass us completely if they don’t think anyone is here. Saves time, I guess.”
