Holiday With The Best Man. Kate Hardy

citrus-glazed baked salmon with sweet potato wedges, caramelised lemons, spinach and baby carrots was even nicer. ‘Now this you did have to cook. Don’t tell me this isn’t impressive.’

      ‘Again, it’s much simpler than it looks. I was kind of guinea-pigging you,’ she confessed.

      ‘Guinea-pigging?’

      ‘I’m going to teach Bel to cook,’ she said. ‘So the food needs to look pretty—but it also has to take minimum effort and not involve planning the cooking time for more than two things at once.’

      He smiled at her. ‘You’re obviously a foodie—so why are you an accountant rather than, say, running your own restaurant?’

      Because numbers were safe.

      Though Grace didn’t quite want to admit that. ‘I was good at maths when I was at school, and accountancy has good employment prospects,’ she said. ‘Plus that way I could study for my qualifications in the evenings while I earned money, rather than ending up with a pile of student debt. It made sense to choose accountancy as my career.’ And that was who she was. The sensible, quiet older sister who was good at sorting things out.

      ‘Do you enjoy your job?’

      She smiled. ‘Bella always groans and says she doesn’t get why, but actually I do—I like the patterns in numbers, and the way everything works out neatly.’ She paused. ‘What about you? Why did you become an architect?’

      ‘Because I love buildings,’ he said simply. ‘Everything from the simplest rural cottage through to grand Rococo palaces.’

      She looked at him. ‘I can imagine you living in a grand Rococo palace.’

      He smiled. ‘They’re not all they’re cracked up to be. They’re very cold in winter.’

      She blinked. ‘So you’ve stayed in one?’

      ‘The French side of the family owns a chateau or two,’ he admitted.

      She felt her eyes widen. ‘Your family owns castles?’ Roland had a posh accent, but she hadn’t realised just how posh he was. Way, way outside her own social circle.

      ‘Chateaux tend to go hand in hand with vineyards, and our French family produces wine,’ he said. ‘Christmas in France when I was young was always magical, because there was always the most enormous Christmas tree with a silver star on the top, and there were roaring open fires where you could roast chestnuts and toast crumpets.’

      Now she knew he was teasing her. ‘Since when do they eat crumpets in France?’

      He spread his hands. ‘What can I say? We tend to mix the traditions a bit in my family, so we get the best of both worlds. But, seriously, that was probably where the architecture stuff started. Apart from the fact that I liked the lines and the shapes of the buildings and I was always drawing them as a boy, waking up in a freezing cold bedroom with ice on the inside of the windows made me think about how it could be made better. How we could have all the modern conveniences we were used to in London, but without damaging the heritage side of the building.’

      ‘And that’s how come you’re so good at mixing the old and the new,’ she said. ‘The front of your house is an old maltings, but the back half is as modern as it gets.’

      ‘All the new stuff is eco,’ he said, ‘and all the old building is maintained properly.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’m greedy, but I like having the best of both worlds. All the comfort and convenience of the modern stuff, and the sheer beauty of the old.’

      She smiled and brought over dessert—passion fruit cream with almond cantuccini.

      ‘This is seriously nice,’ he said.

      ‘Thank you.’

      When they’d finished eating, he made them some more coffee.

      ‘You were going to tell me yesterday,’ he said, ‘why your life got turned upside down. It’s a bit unexpected for someone who likes order and structure to make a decision that makes everything messy.’

      This time, he didn’t sound judgemental, and Grace felt comfortable enough with him to tell him. ‘I don’t like myself very much for what I did. I know I hurt Howard and I feel bad about that.’ She grimaced. ‘But if I’d married him it would’ve been so much worse.’

      ‘For what it’s worth,’ he said, ‘I’ve already worked out that you’re not a spoiled princess. Not even close. So that must’ve been a serious case of cold feet.’

      She nodded. ‘If I’m honest, I’d been feeling that way for quite a while, but I thought I could still go through with it.’

      ‘So what happened to change your mind?’

      She took a deep breath. ‘The Fifty Shades of Beige party.’

      * * *

      Roland almost choked on his coffee. Had he just heard right? ‘The what?’

      ‘Howard—my ex—it was his parents’ golden wedding anniversary,’ Grace explained. ‘I wasn’t looking forward to the party, and Bella drew me this cartoon to make me laugh. She called it “Fifty Shades of Beige”.’

      He smiled. ‘From what Tarq says about her, I can just see Bella doing that.’

      ‘Except the awful thing was that she was right,’ Grace said. ‘I was the only woman there not wearing beige.’

      ‘And it was a problem?’ he asked.

      ‘Not for me. For... Well.’ She grimaced. ‘Don’t get me wrong—I did love Howard. But that’s when I finally realised that I wasn’t in love with him.’

      ‘And there’s a difference?’

      ‘A very big difference,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t fair to marry him, knowing that I didn’t love him enough—I didn’t love him the way he deserved to be loved. I think we were each other’s safe option. We were settling for each other instead of looking for what we really wanted.’

      ‘Why did you need a safe option?’ He only realised he’d spoken the question aloud when he saw her wince. ‘Sorry. That was intrusive and you don’t have to answer,’ he said hastily.

      ‘No, it’s fine. Just don’t tell Bella any of this, OK?’

      He frowned. From the way Grace talked, she was clearly very close to her sister. ‘Why doesn’t Bella know?’

      ‘Because,’ Grace said, ‘she’s my little sister and I love her, and I don’t want to burden her with it. Basically, my dad’s really unreliable and I didn’t want to be like my mum. I wanted my partner to be someone I could trust.’

      Roland frowned. ‘But I met Ed at the wedding—he seemed really nice and not at all unreliable.’

      ‘Ed is utterly lovely. He’s Bella’s biological dad, but he’s my stepdad and he adopted me after he married Mum,’ Grace explained. ‘I think of him as my real dad, and he’s been a better father to me than my biological dad could ever have been. But the first time round my mum married a charming man who let her down over and over again. He was terrible with money and he never kept his promises. He hardly ever turned up when he’d promised to be there to see me. We’ve pretty much lost touch over the years. I just wanted to avoid making my mum’s mistake.’