She quickly had a shower, got dressed and went downstairs to help Rose with her painting workshop.
She bumped into Quinn as he was heading towards his own studio.
He frowned when he saw her. ‘Hey, you OK? You look like you’ve been crying.’
The tears she thought had gone filled her eyes again. ‘Luke left. We’re basically finished. He’s going up to oversee the renovations on his new house and then he said he would just be popping back to pack all his stuff and then leave for good.’
‘Yeah, he told me.’
‘Everything was so perfect between us, I’m not sure what went wrong.’
‘Yeah, he was pretty smitten with you, I thought he’d end up staying here but then…’ he trailed off.
‘But then what?’
Quinn chewed his lip as he studied her. ‘He heard you, on the phone last night, saying it was just great sex,just a bit of fun. He was heartbroken, he thought this was something more for the two of you.’
‘Wait, what? I never said that.’
‘That’s what he heard.’
She frantically tried to remember her conversation with Tabby the night before and what Luke could have heard to make him think that.
She gasped. ‘No, that’s what I told my friend I thought he thought.’
‘What?’ Quinn said in confusion.
She sighed. ‘As the house was going to be sold, I offered to come to Scotland with him and then he bought the house. I was chatting to my friend Tabby saying, well he clearly didn’t want me to come to Scotland with him, and I said, maybe he thinks all this was just great sex, just a bit of fun. That’s what he heard me say and thinks that’s how I feel.’
‘Christ, you two really need to talk to each other.’
‘I know, I wanted to, but I thought we had more time. It didn’t feel right bringing up a future so soon after we’d met. And last night I asked him about seeing him again, I said I would come up and see him in Scotland and he said there was no point going all that way just for great sex. God, that’s why he said that.’
Her heart broke that she’d hurt him in that way.
‘Call him, explain that he was wrong,’ Quinn said. ‘I bet he’d be on the next plane home. He… adores you.’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve booked a flight, I’m going to see him tonight. I thought if it was going to end, he should at least know that I love him. I wanted to tell himto his face. I didn’t know if it would change anything but I wanted him to know.’
A huge smile grew on Quinn’s face. ‘You love him?’
‘Yes, so much.’
‘And you’re flying to Scotland to tell him that?’
‘Yes.’
‘A big gesture, he’s going to love that.’
An idea suddenly formed in her mind. ‘Yes, a big romantic gesture.’
She smiled as she came up with her plan and suddenly tonight couldn’t come soon enough.
After making a quick phone call, she hurried into Rose’s studio ready to help with her painting workshop. They had three people coming today, Chloe, Amy and Michael. The three of them were friends after meeting each other at other local brain injury support groups a few years before. While their recovery and rehabilitation meant they were able to continue living the lives they had before their injury, to a large extent, the impact of their injuries had left them with other problems.
Because their issues were mental rather than physical, Rose didn’t need any help today, but she wanted Flick there as moral support. Flick joined her in her studio a few minutes before the guests arrived.
‘So what do you have planned for today?’ Flick said, taking a seat at the large table Rose had set up in the middle of the room so they could all work together.
