‘Thank you. I think.’ She frowned. ‘You’re actually suggesting that we should date?’
‘That we should help each other out,’ he corrected. ‘You want to be swept off your feet, and I need to practise my dating skills.’
She frowned. ‘Why do you need to practise your dating skills?’
Grace had been brave enough to tell him about her life. Roland guessed he owed it to her to be brave back. ‘I assume Bella didn’t tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’
‘That my wife was killed in a car accident nearly two years ago—a year before I moved in here.’
She reached across the table and took his hand briefly, squeezing it gently for just long enough to convey sympathy, then letting his hand go before the contact dissolved into pity. ‘I didn’t know her, and it’s a horrible cliché, but I’m really sorry you had to go through losing someone you loved like that.’
‘It was hard,’ he said. ‘And I miss Lynette. A lot.’ Mostly. Apart from the one sticking point in their marriage—the thing that had made him jump at the chance to get away for a few days and be rid of all the pressure. And he still felt guilty about it, even though he knew that the accident hadn’t been his fault. But part of him still felt that if he’d been here instead of a couple of thousand miles away, maybe Lynette wouldn’t have gone out in the car, and she wouldn’t have been hit by the drunk driver. Or, even if the accident had still happened, at least he would’ve been by her side when she’d died, later that night.
He pushed the thought away. ‘But missing her won’t bring her back—and there isn’t such a thing as a time machine, so I can’t go back and change the past. Though, if I could, I’d stop the other driver from guzzling her way through a bottle of wine and several cocktails and then getting behind the wheel of her car.’
* * *
Now Grace understood why Roland didn’t drink—and why his house was immaculate but didn’t feel quite like a home. Because he’d lost the love of his life to the selfish actions of a drunk driver. ‘That’s so sad,’ she said.
He said nothing, but gave a small nod of acknowledgement.
‘But I still don’t get why you’re asking me to help you practise your dating skills.’
He reached across the table and took her hand, then drew it up to his mouth and pressed a kiss into her palm.
And Grace tingled all over. Nobody had ever kissed her hand like that before.
‘My friends,’ he said, ‘and my family have tried to find me someone suitable to heal my broken heart.’
‘Too soon?’
‘Partly,’ he agreed. ‘But I know Lyn wouldn’t have wanted me to spend the rest of my life on my own, mourning her. She would’ve wanted me to share my life with someone who loves me as much as she did.’
For a moment, a shadow crossed his expression. It was gone before she could be sure it was there. Maybe she’d imagined it, because hadn’t he just pretty much told her that Lynette was the love of his life? Or maybe that shadow had been grief that he was still trying to be brave about.
‘So,’ he said, ‘I’m going to start dating again. Put my life back together. But I’m finding it hard.’
‘Because you’re not ready to move on?’
He dragged in a breath. ‘And I’m out of practice. I need to date someone who won’t mind if I make mistakes and will help me get better at dating. And you want to be swept off your feet, just for a little while. So that’s why perhaps we can help each other out. For two weeks.’
‘Until Bella and Hugh are back from honeymoon. And no strings?’ she checked.
‘No strings. We could just clear our diaries outside work for those two and a bit weeks and spend time together.’
‘Like a holiday?’
‘I guess,’ he said.
A holiday with the best man. Part of Grace wanted to say yes; but part of her wondered just how sensible this was. Roland Devereux wasn’t the surly, barely civil man she’d met at Bella’s wedding. He was kind and sensitive—and this side of him was seriously attractive. But he still had a broken heart; and, even though he thought he wanted to try looking for love again, that made him vulnerable.
She knew that she was vulnerable, too. Her life was still all up in the air. She wanted to stand on her own two feet and work out what she wanted from life. And did she really want to take the risk of dating someone who wasn’t going to be available and maybe falling in love with him? Or would this be the thing that changed her life and made everything right again? ‘Can I have some time to think about it?’ she asked.