What if he had left already? Decided that whatever she was trying to teach him wasn’t worth sticking around for?
A stab of pain slid through her belly as memories of being just not good enough surfaced. Weekends spent in an empty house because her parents had had more important things to do, or long summer holidays spent at school because she wasn’t wanted at home. She’d thought that those feelings were long gone. Until she’d met Will Thomas she’d not thought of those times for years, but now... He had rejected her once. It would be so easy for him to do it again.
The hollow feeling of fear curled in her stomach and she rushed to the front door, relieved to see Will’s car still parked on the drive. He was still here. That had to count for something. She still had a chance.
She couldn’t quite rationalise her relief, given how frustrating yesterday had been. But, however difficult it was proving to be, she needed to help him. She couldn’t look at someone in pain, someone who needed help, and simply do nothing. And then there was the spark that she’d felt between them when he’d bandaged her finger. The tender concern he’d shown her. The way that he’d started to pull her close before getting spooked. The fact that he’d pushed her away almost immediately should have been enough to tell her that she would have been better off if he’d gone.
‘Everything all right?’ Will appeared at the top of the stairs dressed in grey trousers and another crisp white shirt, phone in hand.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Maya said, not wanting him to guess what she’d been thinking. ‘I thought I heard the doorbell.’
She gestured widely with her arm towards the front door from where she stood at the bottom of the stairs. Turning her body towards him, she rested her hands on her hips and smiled up at him.
‘Did the country air knock you out?’
‘No, no. I’ve been up for a while. I was going to come and find you, actually,’ Will said.
He was looking for her? Warmth spread through her body at that thought, chasing away the cold she’d felt a second ago when she’d thought he might have left. She was so overwhelmed with relief that he hadn’t walked away, hadn’t rejected her as she’d thought, that she didn’t step back from the stairs as he descended. Even when he reached the bottom and was standing just a few inches away. Instead she enjoyed the feeling of being close to him, the way the air between them almost hummed. Like yesterday, those few good moments in a sea of disaster, when he’d shown such concern for the little cut on her finger.
The memory of the cold that had followed as he’d walked away was not, apparently, enough to make her body stop wanting him.
‘You were?’
‘Yes, my battery’s about to die and I’ve forgotten my charger.’ He poked at the screen of his phone and then gave a long sigh. ‘I have a conference call in ten minutes. I don’t suppose there’s a spare one around here anywhere?’
Maya gulped, trying not to show her anger. He was working. He’d probably been up at the crack of dawn, as she had. But whereas she’d spent hours in the kitchen, trying to figure out how they were going to make this experiment of theirs work, he’d been happily ensconced in his room, getting on with business as normal. He hadn’t even bothered to tell her what he was doing that morning. He’d just got on with his day without giving her a single thought.
Maya felt a chill sink through her as the implications hit home. She had spent all morning trying to make his day better in a small way, even if all she had to offer him was cake. She knew that it couldn’t possibly fix his pain. But she’d tried. She’d thrown everything at helping him the only way she knew how. And he’d not thought of her at all. He couldn’t have made it any clearer how little she, her food or her time meant to him.
She took a step back as her shoulders slumped, and her arms came across her body, protecting her from further blows.
‘That’s not a problem, is it?’ Will ran a hand through his hair and it came to rest of the back of his neck.
Maya picked up on the tension in his body, the sharper edge to his voice. He’d sensed he’d upset her, she guessed, and was looking for an escape route.
‘I’m sorry; I didn’t think you’d need me in the kitchen until this evening. You didn’t mention last night...’
Actually, she had mentioned it last night, but he clearly hadn’t been listening. And she shouldn’t have to force him. His attendance on the course had been his idea. He was the one who had said that he wanted to learn—or that he was prepared to try, at least. And if that was the case then he had to be proactive. He had to make an effort—not just show up when he thought it was unavoidable.
She clenched her fist against the anger building in her—at herself as well as at him. All morning. She’d spent all morning trying to make this idea of his work, and he hadn’t even bothered to turn up.
This thought, heaped on top of disappointment, sparked anger—at Will, at her parents, at herself—and she knew that they couldn’t continue like this. Every day that she was around Will she was reminded that she’d never been enough. When her food wasn’t working for her she felt unworthy of his, anyone’s attention. She wasn’t helping him; all she was doing was hurting them both. He would be better off leaving.
Maya tried to keep the heartbreak from her voice, reminding herself that really this was just business. ‘I think we need to talk. I’ll be waiting for you in the kitchen.’ She didn’t bother looking to see Will’s reaction but stalked through the door and let it slam behind her. She knew that she hadn’t succeeded. Her words had been sharp, clipped, forced out so that her voice wouldn’t waver. But she knew that she hadn’t fooled him into thinking they were detached.
When Will walked into the kitchen she recognised the determination on his face—he was obviously worried that he had blown his chance with her, and with good reason. She couldn’t take any more of his cutting insults, whether he knew that he was making them or not.
‘Oh, I didn’t realise you’d started already. You should have shouted if you needed my help.’ He ran a hand through his hair as he took in the array of baked goods cooling on the counter.
A flush of colour crept up Maya’s neck as she tried to rein in her frustration and embarrassment—her every feeling was laid bare on the worktops of her kitchen. Hours of love and hope had been poured into cake tins, lined up carefully on baking trays, and there was no hiding from the passion that was displayed on every side.
‘I didn’t need your help, Will,’ she snapped. As if it wasn’t bad enough that she was wearing her heart on her sleeve, showing him how important he was to her—something she hadn’t quite realised herself before this moment—he’d completely missed the point. ‘I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself. But why weren’t you here? This week was your idea. You committed to doing it. But all I’m getting from you is half-measures. You’re wasting my time as well as yours, and I think you should pack your bags and go.’
She watched as her words registered and knew that she had shocked him. For a minute he actually relaxed and leaned back against the counter, his eyes wide as he watched her. She could understand why. She almost wished she could see herself from the outside right now, because she didn’t recognise the person who had just spoken. Maya was always nice. It was who she was—what she did every day. Making people happy. She wasn’t sure that she’d ever lost her temper and spoken to someone the way she’d just hissed at him.
She was surprised at how good it felt—it was exhilarating. There was a freedom in it that she’d never felt before. If her food meant nothing to him, then she had nothing else to offer. He couldn’t make her feel any worse than he had just now, so what did she have to lose?
She held her ground, refusing to look away as he continued to stare at her, and she guessed that he was weighing up his options. She felt sure that he wanted to go, that he was here under duress of some sort, because he surely wasn’t enjoying it. Watching him, she could tell that