Hopelessly Devoted to Holden Finn (24 page)

‘Yeah, I’m really not that hungry.’

‘You won’t think I’m a fat pig if I have half a chicken with my chips?’

‘Of course not.’

Max leaned across the table and kissed her lightly before he slid from his seat and strode to the bar. Bonnie watched him go – his tall, solid, ever-dependable figure scoring a knife through her emotions. This was torture; why couldn’t she just tell him? The longer she dragged this evening out, the worse it would be for both of them.

Minutes later he was back with a coke and a pint glass. ‘It’s a shandy,’ he said in response to Bonnie’s questioning look. ‘I’m a good boy, you see.’ He placed Bonnie’s drink in front of her and sat down with his own. ‘Where were we?’ he asked, grabbing Bonnie’s hand and gazing at her with a broad smile.

Bonnie couldn’t stand it anymore. She steeled herself.

‘I don’t know how to say this…’ Bonnie began. She paused, watching as the smile slid from Max’s face.

‘Say what?’

There was another pause that seemed to drag on for hours. The only sounds were the murmur of other pub customers deep in conversation and the low rumble of a heater somewhere nearby. Bonnie took another deep breath and slid her hand from Max’s grip. ‘We can’t see each other any more.’

‘Why? What have I done?’

‘You haven’t done anything,’ Bonnie cut in quickly. ‘It’s Henri. He’s come back.’

‘You have got to be kidding. When?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘And did he say where he’d been?’

‘Not exactly. But it doesn’t matter.’

Max stared at Bonnie. ‘How can it not matter?’

‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeated miserably. ‘I wish it could be different.’

‘You’re dumping me for a man who’s been missing for two years and then just walks back in as though nothing has happened?’ Max’s voice went up an octave with incredulity.

‘What else can I do?’

‘Tell him to sling his hook, that’s what,’ Max growled.

‘He’s Paige’s dad.’

‘It’s a shame he didn’t think of that when he went running back to France and left you two in the lurch.’

‘He didn’t know what he was doing, his head wasn’t right.’

‘I’ll bet half my business that he had a pretty good idea what he was doing.’

‘Don’t… Max, please,’ Bonnie almost whimpered. ‘Don’t make this harder than it already is….’

‘Oh, right…’ Max replied, his voice now ice, ‘how remiss of me to forget that in all this mess there’s a seriously mixed up woman and a terribly jammy French git. Never mind the poor boyfriend who’s wasted two years of his life waiting for this woman and when he finally gets her, his reward is a boot in the bollocks and his marching orders. Because we wouldn’t want to make it any harder for little Bonnie than it already is…’

‘Max –’

He held up a hand to silence her. ‘Forget it, Bonnie. I understand perfectly where I fit in all of this; clearly a long, long way behind the French twat who deserted you and his daughter. But thanks for filling me in.’

‘Max! I didn’t mean it to be like this –’

‘Really? I fail to see any other way you could have meant it to be.’

‘I really liked you –’

‘
Liked
me? Past tense? Gerard Depardieu turns up again and suddenly it’s not
like
, but
liked
…’ Max’s voice grew in volume with his indignation and obvious humiliation. Bonnie stared miserably at him. If only it could have been anyone but sweet, kind, funny Max, that she had to do this to.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. There was nothing else that could possibly make it any better.

Max’s gaze softened. There was so much compassion in his eyes, it was almost harder for Bonnie to bear than the fury he had shown moments before. He shook his head. ‘Forget it, Bon. I honestly hope you’re happy with him.’

‘You understand?’

‘No,’ he said ruefully, ‘I don’t, not one bit. But it’s your life and your choice and I would never wish anything but happiness for you.’ He smiled tightly. ‘As they say in France,
bon chance
.’ He pushed himself up and placed a twenty pound note on the table. ‘This should cover the bill,’ he explained.

‘Max, I don’t want –’

‘I know what you’re going to say. I said I’d treat you and I will. Indulge me, eh?’

Bonnie nodded, fighting the tears that were now stinging her eyes. She wanted to say thank you for being the most amazing, kind, understanding man she had ever met, she wanted to say that she was wrong and that she didn’t want him to go, she wanted to say that Henri wasn’t the right man for her and really, deep down, she knew that. But nothing would come out. Max walked away without another word and Bonnie simply watched him go.

Twelve

‘Bloody hell, you look like death warmed over twice. Are you ok?’ Linda asked as Bonnie shuffled into work the following morning.

‘I haven’t slept much,’ Bonnie said.

‘It looks as though you didn’t sleep at all.’

Bonnie gave her a rueful half-smile. ‘You guessed right.’

‘Henri?’

‘Sort of.’

Linda watched, a shrewd expression crossing her face as Bonnie shrugged off her coat and hung up her bag. ‘Bon… please tell me you didn’t dump Max.’

Bonnie turned to face her. She didn’t need to reply.

‘Bloody hell,’ Linda said. ‘Do you have any idea what an idiot you’ve been?’

‘Don’t… please.’

‘I could smack you one!’

‘Linda, you didn’t see how Paige was with Henri. It means so much to her that we make this family work again.’

‘Paige is fifteen! She doesn’t understand yet what arseholes men can be, even her own dad. She doesn’t understand how hard it is to come by decent men like Max… and you’re letting her ruin your chance of happiness with one.’

‘It isn’t just about me!’

‘No it isn’t. And Paige is too young to realise that she’d be better off with Max in your family than Henri.’

‘I did what I thought was right.’

‘Then you’re a moron.’ Linda paused as she looked at Bonnie, as though she was trying to see right into her heart. ‘Do you love him?’

‘Which one?’ Bonnie replied, aware of the irony of this question.

‘Henri.’

‘I honestly don’t know. While he was missing, I thought I did. Now he’s back… I don’t know how I feel.’

There was a knock at the back door.

‘Oh, God, Linda, I can’t be here.’

Linda folded her arms. ‘You can’t be missing every morning. Sooner or later you’re going to have to face him.’

‘Please… just get the door today.’

Linda stepped aside. ‘You do it.’

Bonnie shot her a pleading look, but Linda didn’t flinch. A moment’s stand-off ended with a second, more insistent knock. Linda marched into the kitchen and Bonnie had no choice but to go to the door.

Her heart was beating so fast that she felt dizzy as she undid the bolts. What would she say to him? How would he react when he saw her? Slowly, she pulled the door back.

Whether it was relief or more like sticking pins in her already wounded heart, she wasn’t sure, but Bonnie felt her breathing calm again when she saw that Max was not outside the door.

‘Are you going to let me in?’ he said.

It was the surly youth that worked for Max in his warehouse. Bonnie stepped aside without a word. It seemed that Max was so angry and upset with her that he had sent his warehouse boy instead of coming himself. Was this how it would be from now on? What had she done?

***

Henri pushed his empty plate away with a smile. ‘One thing I did miss was your cooking, Bonnie.’

‘I’m glad to hear I could do at least one thing right,’ Bonnie replied with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Paige looked at her sharply but the moment seemed to pass Henri by. ‘So, I take it you’ll be looking for work tomorrow?’ Bonnie added.

Henri shrugged. ‘You know how difficult it was last time,’ he said. ‘I thought about placing an ad for language lessons.’

‘But you’ll try to get something in the meantime? The last time you did teaching you had hardly any students. Stavros wants help at the Bounty, he said so… how about that?’

‘I will try to find something more suited to a man of my capabilities first.’

‘You need to take what you can find,’ Bonnie said scathingly. ‘Jobs are hard to come by and you have no reasonable employment history to show anyone as it is.’

‘Give him a chance,’ Paige said defensively. Bonnie shot her a pained look. Why did Paige side with her dad all the time?

‘I will find something,
ma petite fleur
,’ Henri replied. ‘I just need some time.’

‘Well…’ Bonnie said, getting up to clear the dishes away, ‘don’t take too long because I can’t afford to keep us all like I did before. Things have changed – the economy is bad, everything costs a fortune and money doesn’t go as far as it did two years ago.’

‘But you won’t have any rent to pay soon,’ Paige put in helpfully.

‘I will be paying your nan rent,’ Bonnie said from the sink as she filled the bowl with hot water.

‘But Jeanie said –’

‘I don’t care what your nan says. I’m paying her some rent whether she likes it or not. I’ll put it in an account for when she needs it… and she will need it at some point, I’m sure. I’m not sponging off her, it’s not right.’

Henri got up and moved to stand behind Bonnie at the sink. He kissed her lightly on the neck. ‘You have always been too kind.’

‘It’s not being kind,’ Bonnie said, trying to sidestep awkwardly away from the arms that were attempting to encircle her waist. She grabbed a teacloth and turned to face him. ‘It’s being a decent human being.’

Henri took the cloth from her and covered her hands with his. Paige watched them carefully from the table. Bonnie shot her a warning glance.

‘I guess I’ll go FaceTime Annabel,’ Paige said, taking the hint that her mum and dad needed to be alone. She got up from the table and headed for her bedroom, a small, triumphant smile on her face.

Bonnie turned to Henri. ‘You’ve been allowed back into the flat. But you need to work a lot harder to get back into my bed.’

He smiled, his dark eyes smouldering. ‘I know that. And I intend to persuade you, whatever it takes.’

‘I don’t want persuading if it’s the usual Henri Chasse method. I want you to show me that I can rely on you this time. Then, maybe we can talk about it.’

***

Max didn’t show up at Applejack’s all week. By the weekend, Bonnie was ready to slap Robert, his warehouse assistant, in his sullen face; the boy was no more pleasant than he had been the first time he had delivered to them, despite Linda’s best efforts every morning to draw some sort of conversation from him. Linda had also tried to get some sort of information about Max from his uncommunicative employee, but he simply shrugged every time the subject was broached and said that Max had informed him that he was now the new delivery man until further notice. Bonnie tried desperately not to think about Max, but she could do little else. Once, Paige had caught her crying as she cooked bacon for Henri, but had accepted her reply that she was worried about Jeanie’s imminent departure for Spain a little too readily.

Jeanie had reacted exactly as Bonnie expected – with a long string of expletives and threats to remove certain valuable parts of Henri’s anatomy – and it took Bonnie a long time to calm her enough to explain the reasons why she was letting him move back in. Jeanie sniffed and said that Bonnie was mad, that Paige clearly needed some kind of child psychologist, that she knew some very bad people indeed who could have Henri beaten up and left in an alleyway for twenty quid and a keg of Special Brew, and that she would rather set fire to her house before she left for Spain than see Henri move into it with them when she had gone. Bonnie nodded patiently to all this. She could see how hard it was for her mum to understand what Bonnie was doing. And if she was honest, sometimes, Bonnie couldn’t quite see a clear way through her own muddled logic either. But her decision had been made, and she had to make the best of it.

Henri had well and truly settled in too. Bonnie had no idea whether he was job-hunting when she was at work, but every night when she got home, there was a suspiciously deep indent on the corner of the sofa that got the best view of the TV. It seemed that he had a total lack of insight into his previous wrongdoings and couldn’t understand why Bonnie would not welcome him with open arms to settle right back into his old life, as Paige had done. As for Paige’s behaviour, Bonnie found it bewildering and frustrating in equal measure. While she was still as moody as ever with Bonnie, it seemed that Henri could do no wrong. Bonnie could only guess she had been so wounded when Henri left the first time that she was desperate not to be abandoned again and would do anything to make sure that didn’t happen. But Paige steadfastly refused to talk about it during the rare moments Henri was missing long enough for them to do so in private, and without discussing how her daughter really
felt, Bonnie couldn’t be certain. The only positive thing the week brought was that Holden’s texts seemed to have stopped and Bonnie silently wondered whether he had finally got the message. Any more of those would be a complication too far, and Bonnie’s nerves were already close to breaking point.

***

Bonnie woke with a start as the bed moved. She turned groggily to see Henri’s dark outline climbing in beside her.

‘What are you doing?’ she croaked.

‘I was cold.’

‘Get some more blankets then, you know where the cupboard is.’

‘Please, let me sleep here tonight. I’m lonely.’

Bonnie hesitated. The pain in his voice sounded so genuine. Perhaps it was true. ‘No touching,’ she said finally, moving away as he lay down. ‘Sleeping is exactly what we do.’

‘Can I hold you?’ Henri asked. ‘I need to warm up. I won’t do anything else.’

‘No.’

There was a pause. ‘Please…’ he stroked a hand down her hair.

Bonnie suddenly ached with longing as his breath warmed the back of her neck. She desperately wanted someone to hold her at night, had wanted it for the two years she had spent sleeping alone. So what if Henri wasn’t the right one? What was that old saying…
if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with
? Bonnie had never understood the meaning of that more than she did right now. Henri took her silence as permission and slid an arm around her waist, pulling her in to spoon her, and laid his head next to her. No matter how much she fought it, no matter how much anger she still had towards him burning her insides, her resolve was beginning to crumble. It was so hard to be this lonely for this long and not melt under Henri’s warm embrace, that voice in her ear, that seductive accent…