Luke pushed his hand through his hair. ‘Now you’re being ridiculous.’
‘No, I don’t want your money. I told you before, throwing money at this isn’t the answer.’
‘I’m not just throwing money at it. Having the café and the gift shop will get people through the door, which will help the artists to sell their products. It will bring in much needed revenue to support the studios and most importantly will help to fund the workshops for those with brain injuries. This is an investment and one I’m happy to make.’
‘Why?’
He frowned. ‘You know this place is important to me because it helped my mum after her stroke. I want to save it for her and for your grandad who created such a brilliant legacy of helping other people. And I want to help you, you’re passionate about saving it and I can help, so why the hell not?’
Flick folded her arms across her chest, not liking the idea of being beholden to him.
‘Your bias against rich people is clouding your view of this. I want to help, there is no ulterior motive here. If you’re thinking that I bought you all this because I wanted you to repay me with sex then you don’t know me at all. And if you do think that then we need to end this now because I can’t be with someone who thinks that little of me. Is that what you think?’
She frowned. Was that what this was? Was her bad experience with Ryan tainting this? Was her subconscious waiting for Luke to demand something in return? No, she knew Luke wasn’t like that. She trusted him. She was just annoyed that she’d spent thousands of pounds of his money without realising and it still stung that he hadn’t told her.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Luke said and walked out.
‘Luke, wait.’
But he didn’t and she was left alone feeling frustrated and annoyed.
Flick went looking for Luke later. She was still frustrated that he hadn’t told her before and that she’d inadvertently spent thousands of pounds of his money but she did understand why he hadn’t immediately shared that kind of information. It wasn’t like she had led with ‘Hi I’m Flick Hunter, I have one hundred and sixty-four pounds, eighty-seven pence in my account.’ It had just come as such a shock. Luke didn’t act or look like a millionaire. It had also been hard to hear her nan dismiss what they’d shared because he hadn’t told Flick the truth.
She walked into his studio but while the lights were on and there was evidence he had been working there, he wasn’t there now. She wondered, briefly, if he was hiding from her in the store cupboard at the back of the studio space before she dismissed it.
She saw movement outside and realised he was in the garden standing in front of the wonky tree. She quickly moved outside.
‘Hey,’ she said.
He glanced at her and then looked back to the tree.
She chewed her lip and stepped closer.
‘The storm took out three out of the four supporting cables last night and one of the poles,’ Luke said, gesturing to the tree.
‘Oh no.’
‘We need to get someone up here quickly to try to reinforce it again but honestly anything stronger than a breeze and this thing is going to go. Look.’ Luke gave the tree a shove and it rocked precariously, lifting visiblyout of the ground. ‘Most of the roots are dead anyway and so brittle, there’s nothing really left to cling to the soil.’
‘Is there anything we can do in the meantime?’
‘Well, we can always get a concrete lorry to come up here and pour concrete in the hole. That might stop it from falling.’
‘Wouldn’t that kill it?’
‘I think the tree is clinging onto life by its fingernails. There are less than half the leaves we had last year and look at the state of them, brown and curling at the edges. At least if we concreted the tree in place it would preserve the landmark.’
‘I’d rather pour a load of compost in the hole with a ton of plant food and hope we can save the roots, rather than admit defeat.’
A smile spread across Luke’s face. ‘You really do like to fight for the underdog, don’t you?’
She didn’t know what to say to that.
‘OK, compost it is. I’ll make some phone calls and see what we can do about getting the tree reinforced too.’ He turned and walked away.
Flick stared after him. Were they really not going to talk about this?
She moved towards him. ‘Luke, wait.’
