The Little Teashop in Tokyo by Julie Caplin Page 0,33

that he’d met her before. Each time she secretly glanced at him, an uncanny prickle ran down his spine.

‘Haruka wanted me to take that one.’ Fiona blurted out as he clicked on a shot of the three generations of women. ‘Do you think I could print a copy out today? I’d like to give it to her.’

‘Yeah, sure. It’s a nice shot.’

‘Nice,’ she said.

‘She’ll be thrilled with it.’ It was a nice family shot. The three woman sitting together, their likeness to each other captured perfectly as well as their individual personalities. ‘Good job. If we crop it like this.’

They spent the next half hour working on the picture, enhancing and cropping it before printing it and putting it into one of the photo frames that he kept in stock. He was grateful that it used up a good portion of time and meant that there was less time to work through the next batch of shots.

After a second coffee, they returned to the remainder of Fiona’s pictures and he checked his watch. Almost two. He felt that he could respectably call it a day quite soon and hopefully he’d spent enough time with Fiona to appease Haruka.

With a weary internal sigh he returned to the screen and began to scroll through the images again. His fingers froze, hovering over the mouse, and then he leaned forward. Double clicking, he opened the picture up, watching as it enlarged on the screen. It was a shot of Haruka and Setsuko sharing an intimate smile as they walked arm in arm, their heads haloed with clouds of palest pink blossom. Love, it said. Pure mother-daughter love. His own heart clenched at the sight of it. Pure love. A distillation of something so special, and caught in the scant second it took to press the shutter. Had he ever loved Yumi with that much purity? Like his parents loved each other? The question shocked him. He’d never considered it before.

‘This is …’ He cast a quick glance at Fiona, seeing her profile suddenly lift with the alertness of the scent of something. Ah, she saw it too. ‘This is good. Very good. Brilliant.’ His finger traced the image, unable to determine quite what it was about the picture that made it what it was. It just was, and that was its perfection.

He turned to Fiona. ‘This is beautiful.’

A slow smile transformed her face, her eyes luminous with delight and … oh my God, he thought as it hit him. He had met her before.

Bloody hell.

It was her.

Chapter 8

‘We’re going to the Tokyo Skytree today,’ said Gabe to Haruka who, despite yesterday’s displeasure towards him, insisted he came in for tea before they headed off, offering him breakfast and asking if his coat was warm enough and whether he’d like to borrow one of her husband’s scarves.

Gabe lapped it up, patting her hand and putting his arm around her to give her a quick squeeze.

‘What would I do without you? Yes, I’d love a cup of your green tea. Do you have any of the gyokuro jade?’

Her beaming look his way was positively dazzling, as if he’d performed the best parlour trick in the book. ‘Especially for you.’ She turned to Fiona. ‘It is one of the finest green teas. Gabe has very excellent taste.’

Fiona refrained from rolling her eyes at this blatant sucking up, even if it was rather sweet to see Gabe enfolding the tiny woman in his arms.

‘Skytree will be good,’ said Haurka. ‘Cold, but good.’

Gabe nodded, turning to Fiona. ‘It’s a clear day, so there’ll be some great views from up there. You get a real idea of the size and scale of the city.’

Fiona scowled to herself. He sounded as if he was quoting a guidebook. She didn’t want to sound like a petulant school-girl but she didn’t want to go sightseeing, she wanted … That was the problem – she wasn’t sure what she wanted. She needed to find a theme for her exhibition. To start taking some proper photographs. Much as she’d enjoyed the museum in Mayu’s company, and the cherry blossom, apart from the one shot of Haruka and Setsuko, which she wasn’t sure she wanted to exhibit, she didn’t feel like she’d achieved very much. That one photo didn’t give her a starting point for an exhibition. Frustration made her fingertips itch and she tossed her heavy plait over her shoulder, slightly embarrassed when she realised Gabriel was watching her, a thoughtful expression on his