‘You said what was right for you, and that’s what counts. And I think you won over Mrs Whittaker.’

She thought he grumbled something about killing her with kindness and resisted the desperate urge to lay her head on his shoulder. They were sitting so close, it wouldn’t have taken much. She felt that same stirring within her. The desire to reach out, to touch, to take some of the strength she thought he might not realize he had. She was exhausted, but it was a happy exhaustion. One born from a hard day of good work.

‘Dad used to say something and it always irritated me. But I think I might have misunderstood it,’ he said into the setting sun.

‘What was it?’

‘He used to tell me that the estate had a bond with the town. That without one there wouldn’t be the other.’

Lily nodded, smiling at the memory of hearing Blake say as much.

‘I used to think that he meant that without the estate there wouldn’t be a town. But,’ he shrugged, ‘I’m beginning to think he meant the opposite. That without the town, there wouldn’t be an estate.’

Lily took a sip of her wine, not really believing that Henry wanted an answer or an opinion. Just someone to listen. She looked up at him then. The beautiful rich, almost golden hazel colour of his eyes so deep she could get lost in them. She saw his eyes draw to her lips and the spike of desire burst within her. The desire to kiss him so strong then, his own lips just an inch from hers. The moment stretched into an eternity and just when she thought he might close the distance between them, he turned away—

Taking with him the invitation to Victoria’s wedding that had sat ready on her tongue. For all the love and pride she’d seen in his eyes that day, the excitement and satisfaction, he’d still not said anything about staying. About cancelling the sale of the estate. And she couldn’t, wouldn’t, watch another man she loved walk away from her.

CHAPTER TEN

TWO DAYS AFTER THE harvest, a storm blew in from nowhere. It was as if the sky just couldn’t take the heat anymore and cracked open with jagged lines of lightning and claps of thunder so loud they shook the window panes all over the estate. From the living room, Henry stood at the window watching the rain bounce off the driveway below, reminding him of a Mediterranean storm he’d once been caught out in on his travels.