“Not really, no. I suppose I should speak to Stratton, that’s the lawyer, and I dare say I owe Harry a call, but the rest... Ugh. The South of France is sounding better and better. Or South America? South of anywhere except England. I’m open to ideas.”

“You could just plug the damn ’phone in and deal with it all.”

“You deal with it, if you’re so keen,” Kim said. “Actually, do you want a job? Private secretary, duties entail telling people to sod off for me. Excellent salary.”

“No, but I’ve got one going for a book scout and dealer. Small obscure shop somewhere nobody’s going to look for you. As long as you like.”

Kim met his eyes for a second, then propped an elbow on the table and his head in his hand. “I’d take you up on that except I’d bring the combined forces of my father and the Press down on you. Christ, I’m sorry about this.”

“It’s not your fault in the slightest,” Will said strongly, then was forced to add, “Just goes to show, there’s a first time for everything.”

“Never change, Will. As if you would. Ugh. I need to call Stratton. And Harry, and Rennick. And Thompson of course.”

“Who’s Thompson?”

“The fellow who has all those books on approval. He needs to make a decision today, and that’s a twenty-guinea order. He can’t sit on twenty guineas forever.”

Twenty guineas was pocket change to Kim and they both knew it, but he always treated bookshop money with the value it had to Will, not to himself. That had sat a bit oddly at first since it was—not a lie, Kim had promised not to lie to him any more, but a pretence, because money didn’t have the same meaning to them. It might have felt patronising, and Will was sensitive to patronage. And it was a reminder that the first few times Kim had come to the bookshop, he’d done the exact opposite: ignored Will’s values, imposed his own, done things his way.

But Kim was trying to change, and that mattered.

So many things mattered about Kim. The way his deep brown eyes lit when he smiled, the intense concentration he brought to work or to bed. How he had made undrinkably weak tea for Will just once, watched him make his own with catlike attention, and got it spoon-dissolvingly perfect ever since. There were so many tiny wisping moments of trust and truth and vulnerability that had slowly become something real and solid between them, and Will didn’t want it to slip through his fingers. Not again.