She reached for her phone to text him...what? Thanks for the keys? For his time? For everything? There had been a lot of ‘everything’ to thank him for.
Keep it simple, she reminded herself, keying in the words:
Thanks for yesterday. N.
That covered it. Then she realised that she’d used N instead of T, which made it a lot more complicated. He was not a keeper and she was Tash, not Natasha. This was no more than a bit of a fling while she sorted herself out, she reminded herself.
So why did it feel like so much more?
Because she was all over the place. Because her life had been turned upside down. Because he was so much more...
She hit send before her brain fried tying itself in knots avoiding the truth.
* * *
Tash spent the next few days building up a media presence for Hadley Chase. She scanned some of the watercolours and used one that Darius had painted of the house as the header for the Facebook page, the ready-made web page she’d invested in and the Twitter account. It was very similar to the photograph she’d taken. No wonder he’d said she had a good eye.
Once it was all in place, she scheduled one-hundred-and-forty-character ‘bites’ from the history on the Twitter feed, adding his grandmother’s exquisite illustrations, and then she did the same thing with the rest of his paintings. She linked it to the Facebook page and to the webpage where she’d laid out the house details.
She recorded a voice-over for the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ video that she’d made inside the house and posted that on YouTube, linking each room to something from the history.
By the following week, she was gathering quite a following, getting lots of shares and re-Tweets, but most of the people who commented were less interested in the house than the artist and the history.
Who had painted the watercolours? Where could they buy them? Were prints available? Was the house open to the public? Where could they buy the book?
So far, no one had connected the paintings with Darius Hadley—hardly surprising considering the sculptures that had made his name. She considered sending a link to the Facebook page to Freddie Glover. She knew he’d get it, and no doubt wet himself in his rush to get his hands on the pictures. But Darius had dismissed the pictures as chocolate-box stuff and, besides, she’d given him her word.
There was no word from Darius—well, he was busy—but whenever the doorbell rang she rushed to see who it was.
‘Tash?’
‘Hi, Mum,’ she said, buzzing her up, quashing her disappointment as she reached for the kettle. ‘This is a surprise. I thought you’d be busy cooking and packing for the holiday.’
‘Cooking,’ she said, taking a casserole dish from a basket and popping it into the fridge. ‘I ran out of room in the freezer.’
As you do...
‘And you came all the way to London to give it to me?’ she teased.
‘Not just that. I thought, since you aren’t working, we could spend the day together. We could go shopping...maybe have afternoon tea at Claibournes? Dad offered to treat us.’
Oh, right. This wasn’t just food, it was the entire take-your-mind-off-it scenario.