He blinked at me for a second. “She probably will today.”
“Excellent. Then I might throw something at her.”
“Now that will get you fired.”
“Even better. Then I can go and get peace and quiet in my flat.” I harrumphed and poured apple juice into a glass. “Do you want one?”
“Do you really miss London that badly?”
I set the carton down and met his gaze. “I don’t know. I guess. It’s where I live. It’s my home.”
“Is it? Home isn’t always where you live.”
“I like it here, but I could say the same when I go to my parents’ house. I guess that now that the party is within touching distance, I’m feeling a bit homesick, that’s all.”
Hugo nodded slowly. “I get that.”
“Do you?” I picked up the glass and sipped. “Because the way you just asked me that question says you don’t.”
His chest rose and fell with a deep breath, and he looked at me across the table. “A part of me wishes things were different.”
Stupid butterflies.
Stupid fluttering.
Stupid feelings.
“But they’re not,” I said softly, holding his gaze. “In a few days, I will go back to London and our lives will resume as normal.”
He stared at me for a moment before he took my glass of juice.
I huffed but grabbed another glass and poured it before I flipped my head forwards and removed the towel from my hair. I straightened and looked over at him as I squeezed out the excess water.
“They should go back to normal now, Hugo.”
He snapped his gaze to me. “What?”
“We shouldn’t…” I waved a hand half-heartedly between us. “Nancy is trying to find out who you’re seeing, and last night was a close call. If she finds out that you were here until five, she’ll tell your mum everything and it’ll all go to shit.”
“You’ve been speaking to my sister too much.”
“But it’s true and you know it!”
He said nothing.
“I’m so close to pulling this whole lying bullshit off. Camilla will forgive me, and when it’s all said and done, she can claim she had no idea and be able to be honest about it.” I set the towel down on the back of a chair and looked at him. “I just need to get through five more days and it’s over, Hugo.”
“What if I don’t want that?”
“Does it matter?”
“So my feelings don’t matter?”
“I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it.”
He leant forwards and held my gaze. “How did you mean it, Sophie? Explain it to me. Because you’re doing an awful lot of circling around a topic that I’m not sure you even want to be discussing.”
I swallowed. “I was always leaving. We discussed that before we slept together. We haven’t known each other that long—ten days. It’s insane to think there’s anything more to this than just lust.”