be sick. She swallowed down the bile. This was silly. She was stronger than this.
Nothing had changed. Gemma was still her friend and deserved her support.
She slipped back inside the house. When she walked out a second time, she closed the door loudly behind her. Margaret and Gemma stopped their argument immediately, though she could feel the tension between them.
“Oh, darling,” Margaret exclaimed when she saw her. “Thank you so much for helping us carrying things out. We were just trying to make room in the boot of Gemma’s tiny little car. We should have thought things through and had Josh drive us in his big, macho pickup truck so we could carry everything home.”
“I’m sure Eliza wouldn’t mind if you needed to leave a few things here overnight,” Sam managed with a cheerful smile as fake as Roxie Nash’s lip implants.
“We can at least fit in these few things. Thank you for carrying them out,” Gemma said.
Was that a searching look her friend was giving her? Was Gemma wondering how much of their conversation she had overheard? She didn’t want to reveal that she knew the truth now. Gemma would tell them all when she was ready.
“You’re welcome. I can take a load of gifts to your house, if you need help carrying things.”
“We should be fine. I think I can fit most of it.”
“Great. I’ll wait before carrying out any more gifts until you figure out how much room you’ll have.”
“Thanks,” Gemma said.
Sam hurried into the house. She wanted to find her purse and her car keys and slink away into the night but she knew her friends would find that behavior suspicious. As she slipped back to the terrace, she did her best to mask the sadness that had settled over her like a dingy cloud.
Nothing had changed, she told herself again. She only had one more reason to forget about her growing feelings for Ian Summerhill.
Everything suddenly seemed to make a grim sort of sense. She remembered their conversation the last time she had talked to him, the despair in his eyes as he had talked about moving closer to his parents and about helping his father with the family businesses.
He hadn’t been talking about some kind of commercial endeavor. He meant all the assorted business that must come from being an earl.
The family must have land and holdings that needed care.
Some of her shock began to trickle away, replaced by a growing compassion. Poor Ian. He was a biology professor who loved his work and his students. He couldn’t have feigned that. He didn’t want to give up his research, but had talked about having no choice but to help his father.
He had seemed so sad the last time they had spoken. And she had tried to offer advice about talking to his father about what he really wanted.
He couldn’t do that. He was as trapped by obligation as she had felt all her life. Compassion seeped through her, along with lingering hurt.
He should have told her the truth. She would have understood. Knowing he was the heir to an earldom certainly would have kept her from spinning ridiculous fantasies she didn’t even want to acknowledge.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HE DIDN’T WANT the summer to end.
Ian sat on what was becoming his favorite spot, the bench on the edge of the dock in Samantha’s garden, watching his research boat bob on the small waves and listening to the night creatures hoot and splash around him.
Gemma’s wedding was only a week away now and he and the children would be leaving a few days after that. Every time he thought about flying back to Oxford and packing up their things to move home to Summerhill House, he felt claustrophobic, as if he were drowning in those deep, dark waters of the lake, the air slowly seeping out of his lungs.
He sighed, forcing himself to breathe through the sensation until calm returned. He wasn’t drowning. He was doing the responsible thing. The inevitable one.
A light came on inside Samantha’s house, shining across the expanse of lawn through her windows.
That ache in his chest seemed to come back, the yearning for something he couldn’t have.
For her.
Why couldn’t Gemma have hired someone from England to design her wedding dress? Some matronly older woman with a squint and a pencil stuck behind her ear?
And why couldn’t he have found another house to rent for the summer, somewhere far away from her? If he had never met Samantha Fremont, then he wouldn’t have this