The Liberation of Alice Love - Abby McDonald [97]
It didn’t work.
“But I could have helped!”
Alice’s expression must have betrayed her thoughts because Flora shot up. “I could have!” she cried. “I could have even come with you to Italy! But you didn’t even think of that, did you? You just left me that stupid note.” Her face crumpled. “You all just leave me sitting around, like I’m some kind of child. ‘Oh, let’s not worry Flora,’” she mimicked. “‘She’ll just get worked up over nothing. She won’t be any use.’ Well, I am. I can be!” Flora swiped angrily at her damp cheeks.
“Flora, calm down.” Alice was bemused. She was the one who went through all that peril, yet somehow, it was Flora shaking with self-indulgent sobs instead. “It’s OK. Everything worked out in the end. I’m fine, see?”
Flora sniffed loudly. “I’m just saying…You could have called.”
“Fine,” Alice agreed quickly. “I could have. And next time I get locked up in some foreign prison, you’ll be the first one I contact, I promise.” She patted Flora carefully, waiting until the tears subsided. “There, now do you want some of this tea?”
Flora nodded.
“And how about some breakfast—muesli, or something?” Alice fetched down a bowl and poured out some of her favorite brand, steering Flora back to the table and handing her a spoon before turning back to her own lunch preparations. And she wondered why nobody called on her in a crisis.
Alice stifled a sigh, thinking again of those angry portraits, and Flora’s insistence that everything was fine. She snuck a look at her stepsister, now carefully picking raisins out of the bowl, looking pale and delicate. Everything wasn’t fine—that much was becoming clear, but they were adults now, and if Flora didn’t want to confide in her, then Alice wasn’t quite sure what she should do.
“Have you got plans today?” she asked casually, sealing up a Tupperware container of salad for lunch. Somehow, she didn’t think Flora should be left drifting around the house alone another day.
Flora looked up. “Oh, yes…I have to go to the gallery and look over the final plans for the show. You’ll be there, won’t you?” She looked anxious. “On Friday?”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Alice reassured her. “Are Dad and Jasmine coming up?”
Flora shook her head. “They’re in France, remember? At the cottage until September.”
“Oh, right.” Alice remembered the summer holidays of her youth, complete with rickety caravans and outlandish mileage plans. “But you must be getting excited about it, hmm?”
Flora gave a weak smile. “Of course. It’ll be fun.”
Alice wasn’t entirely convinced, but she was already running late. “Great. I have to dash now, but how about we get some takeout tonight, and I’ll tell you everything that happened in Rome?” Well, almost everything.
Flora brightened. “Like a girls’ night in?”
“Sure,” Alice agreed, imagining the rom-coms and toenail polish that awaited her. “Why not?”
It wasn’t until she arrived at the office that Alice realized Flora was the least of her problems. Despite the fact her weekend had been full of adventure, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, nothing had changed in the slightest. The morning post was piled high in the entrance hall and the phone blinked angrily with messages. Alice surveyed the mess with a sigh. She could make short work of the backlog, she was sure, but slogging through the same tedious organization seemed, on this particular morning, to be a personal insult.
She felt rebellion spark in her veins.
Meandering past the front desk, Alice made her way back through the silent office rooms, passing empty workstations and forlorn desk chairs until she reached the notice board.
Kieran Bates and Julia Wendall—Alice ran her finger down the list until she found them. She’d plucked their names at random to throw at Vivienne the previous week, but now that she was back, they seemed full of new possibility. Just as she’d remembered, their