Sophie Pembroke - Summer Of Love

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Even tea hadn’t been enough to improve Lily’s day.

She struggled to open a tiny silver jump ring with her straight-nosed pliers, just enough to slip on the earring hook and a sparkling crystal star charm, cursing when the whole damn lot slipped out of her grip and clattered to the scarred and marked work table. With a deep breath and a sigh, she checked the clock above the shop door for the umpteenth time that morning. Still only twelve-thirty. And she still thought just writing the day off and going back to bed might be the best thing she could do.

Except Edward would probably wake her up to talk weddings when he got home, even if she had the duvet over her head and her headphones in.

Gathering up her beading tools and trinkets, Lily finally had to admit the avoidance tactic had run its course. Pretending the engagement hadn’t happened, or that it didn’t mean there ever had to be an actual wedding, wasn’t going to work any more. Which meant she had to make some decisions. Did she marry Edward, or did she call the whole thing off? Admit that she was too scared to go through with it?

Time to own her decision and face the consequences.

On the face of it, an easy choice. She loved Edward, had spent the last seven years building up their relationship to this moment. They were comfortable together. She knew exactly what her life would be if she married him. It would mean she’d finally grown up and settled down. Would show the town she wasn’t the girl they remembered any more. It would make her mother happy, her friends happy, and Edward happy.

But the wiggling uncertainty in her belly told her it might not make her happy.

Of course, she’d been wrong about that sort of thing before. Once upon a time, she’d been certain that the only thing in the world that could make her happy was Alex Harper noticing that she was a woman. Since she’d been fourteen at the time, with the benefit of hindsight she knew it was just as well he hadn’t. Then there was the time at seventeen when she’d been sure that moving out of her mum’s house and in with her much older boyfriend would make her life complete. It had lasted three weeks.

Lily tossed the last of the findings back into her box and tried to stop her mind replaying the list of stupid decisions she’d made from the age of twelve to nineteen. It was lengthy, embarrassing and old news now, anyway, for all that her mother liked to relive them regularly. They didn’t matter now. None of the idiotic things she’d done as a teenager did. She was twenty-six, for heaven’s sake. She owned her own business, took care of herself, and was engaged to a successful businessman who loved her very much. She wasn’t that disappointment, that failure, any more.

Straightening her shoulders, Lily decided a new mantra was in order. ‘I am a grown up,’ she told herself. ‘I am a successful person, not defined by my past.’ She grinned; it felt good, not just to say it, but to believe it.

But then the shop door opened and Alex Harper walked in, bringing her past bang up to date with her present.

‘Lily Thomas,’ Alex said, his smile broad and warm. ‘You’ve turned into a veritable entrepreneur while I was gone.’

Rolling her eyes, Lily reminded her fluttering insides of her mantra. A decade-old crush on her best friend’s dishy older cousin really had no place at all in her grownup life. ‘Hardly. I rent my space here, sell my jewellery, and still owe the bank my soul.’

‘Still, quite the set-up you’ve got here.’ Alex turned slowly around, making a big show of taking in the room, with its glass display cabinets along one wall, and the workbench at the back. People liked to see how her jewellery was made, Lily had learnt early on. She couldn’t do everything out on show in the shop – anything remotely dangerous or involving heat she kept for the studio behind the main shop. But during trading hours, she liked to work on smaller, simpler and cheaper pieces out front. It still amazed her how many times someone had watched her make a pair of earrings, then bought them on the spot.

‘I like it,’ she said, shrugging. For some reason, she didn’t want Alex to know how much the place meant to her. Hadn’t ever wanted anyone to know, really. If they knew she really cared, they’d just be watching, waiting for her to screw it up. Same as always.

‘Really, Lily. This place is something else.’ She looked up into his eyes as he spoke and, to her surprise, saw real meaning there. Biting her lip, she smiled up at him, and he grinned back. Then, in a burst of movement, he was off investigating her window display. ‘I mean, look at these!’ Grabbing a champagne flute full of rings from the display, he brought it over to her workbench and tipped them out onto the surface she’d just cleared. ‘They’re all so sparkly. Are they white gold?’

Lily looked down at months of work, learning to shape, then stamp or engrave the perfect ring, then exploring the best ways to add stones and gems. Rings were still a fairly recent addition to her collection, but she was building up a bit of a local demand for individually designed rings. If someone intended to wear a piece of metal around their finger forever and ever, it made sense that they wanted something personal, something they’d chosen. Edward obviously hadn’t understood that.

In the pile of silver on the desk, Lily could see the progression of her abilities, could see them getting better. Not many of those were of saleable quality – they were more for practice than anything else – but that’s why they were piled up inside a champagne flute for display purposes. No one looked closely, and collectively they had quite an effect.

‘Sterling, most of them. One or two brass and copper, as you can see.’ Lily started packing them back inside their glass, and the sound of them clinking against the glass filled the studio. ‘The white gold and platinum ones are over there.’ She motioned towards the locked display cabinet on the other side of the studio. She’d made sure she was really good before she’d started in on the more precious metals.

Alex wandered across to look, leaving her to pack up the display rings again. ‘These are really beautiful,’ he said, his fingers reaching up to touch the glass. ‘You made Cora’s ring, right?’

‘Of course. She’s my best friend. Like I’d let anyone else do it.’

‘You let someone else make yours,’ he pointed out, turning back to face her. The quirk of a smile told her he was joking, but the words still barbed her heart.

‘Yeah, well. That’s different.’ Tipping the last ring into the glass, she placed it back into the window display. ‘What are you doing here, anyway? Ring shopping for the fiancée you haven’t found yet?’

‘Actually,’ Alex said, sounding hesitant for the first time Lily could remember. ‘I had something I wanted to talk to you about. Fancy a spot of lunch while we talk?’

A lunch date with Alex Harper. How her teenage heart would have pitter-pattered. Lily looked around the empty shop; she’d had a decent number of customers that morning, but Monday wasn’t exactly her busiest day. ‘As long as we eat at the Mill, so I can keep an eye on anyone wanting to look in the shop.’

‘Whatever you want,’ Alex agreed, holding the door open for her. The warmth in his voice promised considerably more than lunch, but she suspected that would be the same whoever he was talking to. The man was walking charm and sex, after all.

Lily grabbed her bag and her keys, reminding herself that she was a grown up, engaged woman, and she didn’t want that sort of thing from Alex any more.

Probably.

Chapter Three

It was ridiculous that he should feel nervous about this. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier to find the right words, or the way to start the conversation. Not that Lily seemed to notice his discomfort; she was too busy glancing back at her shop every few moments from their table outside the main Mill building, in case anyone wanted to buy anything. Alex gazed at the menu, not taking in any of the words. He needed her full attention, and the only way he knew to get it was to talk about her stupid fiancé.