Produce the kind of baketactular that would make viewers at home go “Ooh, that’s quite impressive for week two.”
And as she meandered through the little woodland that ran alongside the Lodge, Rosaline felt she was doing a pretty good job of psyching herself up to be a deadly, single-minded baking machine. Until she saw Alain coming the other way.
Fuck fuck fuck.
Unfortunately, there was nowhere to hide. Well, technically there were loads of places to hide because she could have run up a tree or jumped into a pile of leaves, but if her aim was to avoid another embarrassing situation, then fleeing like an alarmed squirrel probably wasn’t going to help her cause.
“Um,” she said, “hi?”
He gave her one of his half-smiles. “Rosaline.”
They eyed each other across the bracken. And she was once again struck by how quietly stylish Alain was with his shirts and his chinos and, today, a light jacket that seemed to be part of an outfit rather than a concession to the evening breeze. It was like that bit at the end of a game show where they open door number three to show what you could have won if you weren’t a lying sack of shit.
She wondered if she should apologise again. Or if that would just be annoying. So she opened her mouth to say goodbye and found herself apologising for something else. “Sorry about my dad.”
“Not at all.” He flicked back a lock of hair that had escaped its assigned position in the artful whole. “He’s clearly very protective of you.”
“Protective” wasn’t the word Rosaline would have used. But better he thought that than realised how much of a letdown she actually was to her father. “Yeah. He’s, um, yeah.”
Another long pause.
“How about we take a walk?” asked Alain.
Okay. That was good, right? Not that she’d been expecting it. Or hoping for it. Well, not very much. “Are you . . . are you sure?”
He arched a slightly self-mocking brow. “Not at all, Rosaline-um-Palmer. Shall we do it anyway?”
“Maybe it can be another adventure.”
“With the real you this time?”
This felt like a life branch or an olive raft. “I promise.”
“Come on then. The river’s this way.”
She risked a smile. “You’re not planning on pushing me in, are you?”
“I’m annoyed, Rosaline. I’m not fucking twelve.”
They’d strolled a little way down the hill—surrounded by the soft purples of an English country evening—before Rosaline plucked up the courage to say, “So I’m taking you not wanting to push me into a river as a good sign.”
He glanced down at her, his eyes gleaming wickedly. “I didn’t say I don’t want to. I said I was too mature to.”
“You know what’s really mature? Calling yourself mature.”
“You know what’s even more mature? Pretending you went to Malawi when you actually didn’t.”
It still made her wince. But at least he was teasing her instead of calling her a liar. “Does the fact you’re taking the piss out of me mean you’re getting over it?”
“Perhaps. I’ll tell you when we’ve got to know each other a bit better.”
Rosaline wasn’t quite prepared for the sheer relief that rolled over her. She wasn’t sure she deserved a second chance, but she was sure as hell going to take it. And yes—as she’d just reminded herself—her priority was baking, not boys. But wasn’t Anvita right? Wasn’t it okay to want both? She’d been taught to aim high, and while her parents weren’t super sold on where she was currently aiming, if she could come out of it with ten grand, a book deal, a new career, and an architect, those were all pretty strong ticks in the “life back on track” column.
Only one problem, though. “There’s not a lot to get to know,” she admitted.
“Really? It seems to me you’ve had quite an eventful time of it.”
“Eventful” was a kinder way to put it than many she’d heard. “Have I?”
“Well, haven’t you? I know what they say about making assumptions, but I can’t quite believe getting pregnant at, what, nineteen or twenty was your original plan.”
“Not exactly. I was going to be a doctor.”
He smiled a little. “So you went dangerously close to the truth on what you were studying and needlessly far from it on where you’d been?”
“I did say I panicked.”
“And you did say you were a bad liar.”
“Yes,” she agreed, laughing. “And I wasn’t lying.”
There was a silence. It wasn’t comfortable. But it wasn’t wipe-your-eyes-with-chili-on-your-fingers awful either.
“So.” Alain paused delicately. It was a pause Rosaline had heard—or not heard—before. “You