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And then she wasn’t.
He gritted his teeth. There had been so many days like this in the past when everything would be going well and then he would go too far. Take one risk too many. Forget to put on the brakes.
Except he hadn’t done anything this time. It was Lily who had changed the mood. Killed the mood.
And he still wasn’t sure why it had happened. One moment he had been leaning into her in the warm sunshine, feeling the light press of her body against his and thinking, Isn’t this easy? The next she was demanding to go back to the house, her eyes shuttered, her body taut like an archer’s bow.
‘Maybe if you told me what it was, I could help—’
‘You can’t. You wouldn’t understand.’
Her body tensed as it had before, almost as if she was bracing herself against some unseen threat.
‘I might, and, even if I don’t, I can still listen. Like you did.’ Her face softened a fraction but then she shook her head.
‘You wouldn’t understand because you look like you. And I—I look like this.’ Her hand moved to cover the slight bump on her nose.
He stared at her in confusion. ‘Like what?’
‘Like this.’ Her voice turned sharp and she typed something into his phone and then held it out with a hand that shook slightly and he stared down at the screen, his brain jamming in shock and disgust as he read the headlines that accompanied photos of Lily as a child, then an adolescent, right through to almost present day. A few were the right side of jokey. Others were cruel. Some were just barbaric.
No wonder she hated having her photo taken. His anger was heavy and jagged beneath his ribs.
‘Did your dad not stop these?’
‘He did.’ He heard the protective flare in her voice. ‘He tried. But it’s difficult. If you go after them, they just make out it was supposed to be a joke. And if you do get an apology, it just gives them a chance to resay or repost it all over again. It’s just better to ignore them and not give them any oxygen. That’s why there are fewer photos of me now. Because I’m careful.’
He felt sick. In other words, she kept a purposefully low profile. And he had dragged her into the spotlight.
‘Look, Lily, these people are inhuman. That’s why they’re called trolls. You can’t believe that normal people see you like this.’
‘You did,’ she said quietly. ‘That first time we had lunch, you couldn’t have made it any clearer that it was under duress.’
Was that what she had thought? His gaze moved from her high cheekbones down to her soft mouth and up to the bump on her nose. Her profile was not ‘classically’ beautiful, but she was a very beautiful woman. How could she not see that?
‘I was hungover and you were snippy with me, so I was snippy back.’
‘You only met me because you had to. You would never go out to lunch with someone who looks like me ordinarily,’ she countered.
‘How could I? All the women I know look exactly the same.’ Her face made it clear that he had simply proved her point. ‘Not naturally. They’ve had fillers and “tweakments” and surgery. But just because you haven’t, it doesn’t mean these photos are an accurate representation of who you are.’
‘How are they not accurate? They’re not some AI-generated content. They’re me.’
Shaking his head, he pocketed the phone and took hold of her hands. ‘They’re moments in time. It’s not who you are.’
The shape of her mouth made his heart feel as if it were being squeezed in a vice.
‘Is this where you tell me beauty is only skin-deep? Or in the eye of the beholder? Or that real beauty comes from within? That what matters is that I’m a good person?’
‘That does matter. And you are a good person.’
‘No, I’m not.’ She pulled her hands free and as she wrapped her arms around her stomach, it seemed to transform her from hostile to vulnerable. ‘I’m not. It’s just that nobody knows.’
He stared at her in confusion. ‘Then tell me,’ he said finally. Because he wanted to know. To prove her wrong. To take that haunted look off her face.
Silence.
His throat was tight and aching. Silence was his nemesis. He had got better at managing it, mostly by tapping, but he was too scared that one tiny movement would send her spiralling away from him for ever. Or perhaps he had already lost her, he thought, gazing at her still, tense body.
