The Sun Sister (The Seven Sisters #6) - Lucinda Riley Page 0,290

tell him what you’ve told me.’

Mariam sat there in silence, staring at the kitchen wall in front of her.

‘Anyway, I’m worried about him. At least give me his cell phone number so I can check on him.’

‘Okay,’ she agreed. ‘I deleted it from my own cell so I wasn’t tempted to call him, but I remember it.’

I took down the number and stared at her. ‘Listen, I’m not you and from my track record with men, I’m not going to sit here and offer you any advice. But there was something that my grandmother told me that stuck with me. This woman – Kiki Preston was her name – once said to a . . . relative of mine, that you have to work out who is important to you, and to hold fast to them. You have to do whatever it takes to make yourself and those you love happy, because before you know it, your life could be over. And I think she’s right. It’s what I’m trying to do myself.’

‘Forgive me, Electra, I feel so terrible burdening you with all my problems when I know what a difficult time you’re having just now. Never in my whole career have I had a situation where my personal life has interfered with my professional life. If you wish to employ Tommy as your bodyguard, then I have no right to stop you. I will cope, of course I will,’ she said.

‘Hey, I think we went past keeping our relationship professional when I had my meltdown before I went into rehab. You’ve been wonderful to me, Mariam, and I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise either your happiness or our future relationship. Promise.’

‘Well, that is very kind of you to say, but, I am a professional and you don’t need to take my feelings into account. Now, shall we talk about your design project?’ she said, putting on her brightest smile.

Shaken by my experience in the park yesterday, I decided to go to the gym to work out. As I pounded the treadmill, I thought about how my life had changed in the past few weeks. Before, all I’d done was travel from one shoot to the next. Now, it was one shoot every ten days or so, yet in between, my life seemed to be overflowing with personal stuff. And however tough some of that might be, I knew I could cope, because I had managed to gather a group of great people around me. One of them was my actual blood, and the others seemed to really care about me . . .

Which immediately brought me on to Miles.

I missed him. Not in a ‘I haven’t seen you in a while’ kind of missing, but in a permanent dragging at my heart – it was a feeling I couldn’t quite describe. It was as if I wasn’t whole if he wasn’t around, which sounded kind of weird and serious. Maybe Lizzie was right, and he was too intimidated by me to say anything. Or maybe I just hadn’t shown him how I felt about him . . .

But I was scared too, because I had shown Mitch how I felt. In fact, I’d been so needy, I wanted to vomit when I thought about the person I’d been with him. I just couldn’t let myself go there again . . .

Later, in the car on the way to my AA meeting, on a whim I redirected the driver to take me by the Flatiron Building to the meeting nearby. If Tommy was in trouble – which I guessed he was – I had a feeling that’s where I’d find him.

Sure enough, there he was, sitting a few rows in front of me, his red baseball cap marking him out. He didn’t speak this time, and neither did I – after yesterday, if I started, I’d never stop, and I just needed time to process all I’d learnt slowly and in my own time. When the meeting was over, I decided to lurk at the back of the room and wait for him to pass by me.

‘Hey, Tommy!’ I called to him. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

‘Oh, hi, Electra. How are you?’

I saw that his face was pale and his eyes were red as though he hadn’t slept for days. The good news was that I didn’t catch any scent of alcohol on his breath as he spoke to me.

‘I’ve missed your presence outside my building,’ I said cheerily. ‘Where have