The One in My Heart by Sherry Thomas

Author:Sherry Thomas [Thomas, Sherry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: big city romance, friendship, New York City, Eton, Upper East Side, travel, television producer, loss, Paris, Central Park, fake girlfriend, musician, photographer, Amalfi Coast, Italy, death, grief, scientist heroine, Sexy contemporary romance, filmmaker, Upper West Side, one-night stand, Manhattan, doctor hero, fake boyfriend, fake relationship, pretend relationship, family life, surgeon, Isle of Capri
ISBN: 9781631280122
Publisher: Sherry Thomas
Published: 2015-04-20T23:00:00+00:00

WHEN WE WALKED BACK INTO Mrs. Asquith’s drawing room, it was already time for Bennett and me to say our good-byes. Mrs. Asquith presented my fake boyfriend with an elaborately wrapped gift.

“Happy belated Christmas, my dear young hooligan.”

“Not again,” said Bennett, shaking his head even before he undid the wrapping paper to reveal a hardcover notebook.

Mrs. Asquith chortled. “You ingrate. Something from the best stationer in London isn’t good enough for you nowadays, is it?”

Bennett stuck the notebook into his messenger bag and hugged her. “You bought this on High Street for a quid fifty, you old liar.”

“What was that about?” I asked when we were in the car, being driven to the airport.

“Long-running gag. She gives me one every time she sees me, for me to record my sexual shenanigans—then submit for her perusal, of course. When I was younger I used to cut out passages from vintage porn, paste them in, and send the notebook to her.”

I smiled a little at Mrs. Asquith’s gleeful perversity. “Did you tell her about how scarce your sexual shenanigans have been lately?”

“No, I told her about our encounter with my parents.” He paused for a beat. “And I tried to persuade her to let me listen to her heart, but she wouldn’t have it. Said she didn’t trust a young man with a taste for old ladies.”

Had I been there, I’d probably have laughed out loud at Mrs. Asquith’s snark—it was still funny in the retelling. But a sober undercurrent to Bennett’s words caught my attention. “Why were you trying to examine her? Is she okay?”

“Not as robust as she’d like us to believe. And asking for spoilers to a TV show?” He frowned. “That’s not like her at all. She hates spoilers.”

He pulled the notebook out of his bag and flipped through the empty pages. The scent of crisp, new paper perfumed the warm interior of the car. He traced a finger along the edge of the notebook, then turned his face to the window, lost in thought.

The sedan cut smoothly, almost soundlessly across the countryside, the fields and riverbanks of which were still green after a long winter. In the silence my conversation with Larry began to replay in my head, my own voice echoing, every syllable harsh and unforgiving.

In Mrs. Asquith’s garden I’d felt as righteous as a mother lion protecting her cub. But now that moment of adrenaline had passed, I began to see that my instinctive growling and teeth-bearing had been but another manifestation of the fear in my heart, the one constant emotion that undergirded everything in my life.

Except this time the fear could no longer be shut in and locked away. This time the fear had been in control of me, throwing words like grenades toward Larry de Villiers.

Near the airport traffic turned knotty. We had to rush through the terminal to make our flight. It was only after we were airborne, with the fasten-your-seat-belt sign turned off, that Bennett asked me, “So, what do you think of Larry?”

I chose my words carefully.

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