Page 107 of The Summer That Changed Us

Ned had the dog in his arms and whistled when she came out from her bedroom.

‘Look at Grace, Barkly!’ he said. ‘Isn’t she a stunner?’

‘Oh shush.’ She flapped her handbag at him, embarrassed.

Barkly scrabbled to get down and came skidding over the wooden floor to greet her as if she’d been gone for hours. She rubbed his ears and told him he was beautiful.

‘And so are you,’ said Ned.

Grace tutted at him. ‘Make yourself useful and do my necklace up for me.’

Ned took the pendant from her and raised his eyebrows.

‘Oh. Doesn’t it go with the dress?’ she asked.

He smiled and shook his head. ‘It’s perfect. Turn around.’

She did as she was asked and lifted the hair from her neck so he could see what he was doing.

‘You were wearing this the night I first saw you,’ he said softly.

His breath tickled the fine hairs on her neck and a shiver ran down her back.

‘Was I?’ She racked her brains, trying to cast her mind back to the first time she’d met him.

‘Yep.’ She felt his fingers gentle on her skin as he tried to fasten the clasp. ‘It was the Annual Architects dinner in Oxford.’

She remembered that event. It was the night she met Myles. Had Ned been there too?

‘You walked up to the bar on your own,’ he said softly. ‘The bar was busy, but the barman served you straight away. I remember thinking that a woman like you would always get the barman’s attention.’

She winced. ‘Am I really that loud?’

Ned tutted. ‘Of course not, silly. I tried to catch your eye, but you didn’t notice me.’

‘How rude of me, I’m sorry. What happened then?’

‘Well then,’ he said, laughing under his breath, ‘I was about to pluck up the courage to talk to you when you ordered two drinks. I remember my heart sinking. She’s with someone, I thought. So I moved away from the bar. I even remember what you ordered. A white wine and a whisky.’ He touched her bare shoulders. ‘There, it’s done up.’

‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

She turned round to face him. They were standing so close that she could feel his heat. She remembered buying those drinks; she hadn’t realised he’d been there. ‘I wasn’t with anyone. I knocked back the whisky in one and then carried my wine off with me to my table.’

‘Did you!’ Ned threw his head back and laughed in surprise. ‘I didn’t see that.’

‘Oh yeah,’ she grinned. ‘I’d just met Myles and he asked me to go and have a chat with him about a possible opening at his company. I was so nervous I decided to have a little stiffener to calm my nerves.’

‘You didn’t look nervous,’ said Ned, his voice low, ‘you looked incredible, just like now.’

Grace felt a stirring deep inside her and her heart quickened. The way he was looking at her was … unexpected, thrilling.

‘Thank you. You don’t scrub up too badly yourself.’ She flicked a non-existent bit of fluff from the front of his shirt.

Her heart was racing now; his words were exactly what she needed to hear. Since finding out about Myles’s ‘affair’ from Julia and then learning the cold facts from Zoe, she’d felt undesirable and obsolete. The way Ned was looking at her made her feel alive again, and human – no – womanly. She pushed her shoulders back and matched his gaze.

‘I decided that I’d come and introduce myself as soon as the speeches were over. But during dinner, Myles told me that he’d met someone whom he had a special feeling about. A brilliant architect and an amazing woman. He said he was going to offer her a job. I said I’d spotted a beautiful woman, too. But then he pointed you out to me across the room and I knew I couldn’t say anything, and I never did, not to anyone. A few months after that he confided in me that he was in love with you. Lucky sod.’

Grace stared at him, absorbing his words. They flooded through her like melting honey.