“I want more than that.”
“Why?”
Good question. Rick had two answers, and he gave her the one that her doctor ought to give. Wanting to be the one who saw Fleur’s zest for life rekindle in her eyes wasn’t relevant.
“Because you’re capable of more. You’re not failing at anything, and that’s because you’re not trying hard enough.”
“What? You want me to fail?”
“Yes, I want you to fail. And then I want you to get back up again and again until you eventually succeed. Don’t tell me that you don’t know how to do that.”
She twisted her mouth. “I know how to do it. But that life’s over for me now.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just a different challenge. Even if you can’t perform on stage again, it doesn’t mean that you can’t dance a little, and lead an entirely normal life.”
Fleur’s snort told him all he needed to know. She wasn’t happy with a normal life, she wanted the extraordinary. And nothing less meant anything to her.
“All right. But I’m going to write a new treatment plan for you. It’s going to set the bar a lot higher, but if you can complete it, then you won’t just be able to walk onto that ferry, you’ll be able to run onto it.”
“And if walking onto it is enough for me?”
“Fine. Stick to the old treatment plan. Be a loser.”
He could see the mortification in her eyes. He wanted to comfort her, tell her that she was no loser, and that he’d been wrong to suggest she might be. Then the determined set of her jaw stopped him.
“You think you can shame me into doing your treatment plan? You can’t, because you don’t know me. But I’ll do it anyway, just to show you that you’re not always right.”
Tenderness pumped through his heart. Being the bad guy wasn’t as easy as Rick had thought, but it was getting the response he wanted. That was all that mattered. Fleur’s welfare was all that mattered.
“Nothing would make me happier, Fleur. For you to show me that I know nothing...”
She twisted her lips into a smile. “Okay. Don’t let up on me now. That’s really confusing.”
She started to drink her tea, her attention caught by a group of women entering the tea shop. They piled a mountain of thick winter jackets into the young waitress’s arms and pushed four tables together to accommodate them all.
One caught sight of Fleur, smiling and waving. Fleur gave a half-hearted wave back, seeming suddenly ill at ease. Then another of the women whispered something to the woman next to her, and Rick caught the mention of Fleur’s name.
So what? Fleur was back on the island again and that was sure to excite comment. Rick was under no illusions that his own name had been bandied back and forth up and down Main Street as well. But this felt different. The woman who had whispered to her companion was contorting her face into a look of frank disapproval.
“Stupid little liar... Mollie still blames her for all of it...” The woman’s mouth framed the words and she stabbed her finger onto the table in front of her as if to emphasize the point. Her companion nodded.
The words meant nothing to Rick, but Fleur had clearly heard them too and they meant a great deal to her. She moved across the bench seat, shrinking against the wall, out of range of the women’s stares. Rick opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but Fleur refused to meet his gaze.
The chatter amongst the group of women rose and fell. Rick turned his attention to them again, and found that three of them were now looking straight at him and Fleur.
Defending her effectively was going to be problematic, since he had no idea what was going on here. But the look of mortification on Fleur’s face had cut him to the heart. She was here because he’d made her come. If Fleur couldn’t face these women, it was up to him to do it for her.
He smiled, returning their stares. “Good afternoon, ladies.”
Two of the women looked away quickly. One didn’t, but Rick could see that her cheeks were suddenly red with embarrassment. She nodded in his direction and then picked up the menu, as if it was the most important thing in the world and she had to study it immediately.
“I want to go.” Fleur’s voice was almost a whisper. When he turned to her, she forced a smile, clearly trying to cover her distress. “It’s getting noisy in here. It’ll be a waste of your time if I can’t hear you nagging me properly.”
Now wasn’t the time or the place to push. Jess was nowhere to be seen and Rick turned, signaling to a woman with a strawberry-blonde ponytail who’d appeared from the back of the shop with a large cake box and was walking toward them.
“Mrs. Brady...?”
“Call me Fiona.” It sounded a lot like an order. “Nice to see you, Fleur.”