“If not, I’ll make room.”

All too soon, they were on the road to Heathrow, her luggage in the boot of his car.

He was strangely disappointed there wasn’t more traffic that day. Of course there wasn’t; it was the morning of New Year’s Day, and everyone was recovering from the night before. But it meant they got to Heathrow faster than he’d anticipated.

He cleared his throat as they approached her terminal.

“This week was lovely, Vivian. Thank you for spending it with me.” That sounded so formal, and didn’t at all express how he felt, but he supposed it was better than nothing.

He could feel her eyes on him.

“I had a wonderful time. I’m so glad we did this,” she said.

She put her hand on top of his. He looked over to see her smiling at him, and he smiled back. He knew she knew what he really meant, that no matter how formal he sounded, he’d loved the time he’d talked to her and laughed with her and played with her more than any few days he’d had in years.

“Let me know if your flight gets delayed, all right? Or anything like that?”

She nodded.

“I will.”

They pulled up at the curb, then it was the frantic rush to pull her bags out of the boot and get her on her way. He wished he’d spent more time saying good-bye to her in the car. He felt cheated that he only had seconds to do so.

He bent down and kissed her for as long as he dared.

“Good-bye, Vivian,” he said against her ear. “I’ll miss you.”

She looked up at him, her eyes full of tears. He hadn’t expected that. He wanted to pull her close, to wipe the tears from her eyes, to tell her he’d see her next month. But he couldn’t do any of that.

“Good-bye, Malcolm,” she said. She took a step back, slung her purse over her shoulder, and took hold of the handle of her luggage. “Take care.”

She turned and walked into the terminal, and he watched her until she was swallowed up into a sea of other travelers.

As he drove back into the city, he tried to take his mind off Vivian, and to think of things he had to look forward to. This month was a slow one for work, with the Queen still at Sandringham until early February, which had meant he’d spent a lot of time with his nephew in the past few Januarys. They’d gone on weekend adventure trips—one year Paris, another Barcelona, last year Berlin; he’d forgotten about that, with everything else going on, and Miles hadn’t reminded him.

Was Vivian right about Miles?

He sighed. Of course she was right; that wasn’t the question. The question was whether he was too pigheaded to apologize.

Before he even realized what he was doing, he was on his way toward his sister’s house. Miles probably wouldn’t even be home. He was likely off somewhere with his friends; he didn’t need his uncle. He should text him instead of just showing up like this. But no matter what Malcolm told himself, he didn’t change course.

When he pulled up outside of Sarah’s house, he took out his phone.

Are you at your mom’s? I’m in the neighborhood. Can we talk?

 

He pressed send, then shook his head. That wasn’t good enough.

I’m sorry about how I acted on Christmas Day. I’d love to talk to you about your plans again. I

promise I’ll listen.

 

He decided he’d wait for two minutes, no more, to see if Miles would respond, then he’d drive away.

No, that wasn’t enough time. Ten minutes. He could wait ten minutes.

But his phone buzzed almost immediately.

Ok. How close are you? I’m just waking up.

 

Malcolm shut off his car.

By the time you get out of the shower, I’ll be outside.

 

He sent a silent thanks to Vivian.

Wait, why did it have to be silent? He wanted to be able to thank her for real. Should he text her?

He shook his head. This might make her think he was pushing for a booty call, as she had put it. She hadn’t seemed exactly offended by that, but she hadn’t seemed thrilled, either.

But he wanted to find a way to let her know he’d listened to her advice, and that it had helped.

Vivian unlocked her front door and dropped her umbrella in the basket in her entryway. She’d been home from England now for a full week, and it had rained almost every day. She knew she was supposed to be grateful for the rain; California was in a perpetual state of drought, after all, and her garden would be better for it, blah blah blah. She couldn’t muster up any gratitude, though. She just felt as gray and depressed and lonely as the outside world looked.

She kicked off her shoes, dropped her stack of mail on her kitchen counter, and poured herself a glass of red wine.

Maybe if it stopped raining, it would get her out of this funk she’d been in ever since she’d gotten back from England. Maddie had picked her up from the airport when she’d gotten home, and she’d cheerfully told her all—well, most—of the things she and Malcolm had done in their days together in London, and had managed to laugh at Maddie’s questions about if they were going to see each other again. But she’d barely even pretended to laugh since then.

She wasn’t in denial; she knew why she was in such a funk. She’d spent five almost perfect days with Malcolm—ten, if you counted their time together at Sandringham—and she’d fallen deep into infatuation with him, and now it was all over. She was angry at herself for how ridiculous she was being—really, Vivian? Moping around because of a man? Come on.

It also didn’t help to be back at work, because every day made her mourn the impending end of her current job. Yes, as the director, she would have so much more authority, and a good bump in salary, but she wouldn’t get the daily interaction with patients that she treasured. There were hard days; days when she drove home full of unshed tears for how difficult some people’s lives were, days when she wished so much she could have helped more, days when she was so frustrated with other people she wanted to scream. But even on days like that, she was grateful she’d been able to help a little bit, glad she’d been able to improve someone’s life with her advice or her knowledge or just her presence. She knew there were lots of other great social workers who would be able to take her place; the patients would be okay. But would she?

She sipped her wine and looked at her phone. Jo had called just as she was leaving the office; she needed to call her back. But she didn’t feel up to chatting with Jo right now and pretending she felt fine. Maybe she’d call her back in the morning on her way to work.

She thumbed through her stack of mail: what looked like some belated Christmas cards, some envelopes from charities she’d supported, probably asking for more money, a postcard that was probably junk mail. Nothing interesting, in other words.

She took the mail over to her couch with her anyway. She read through the Christmas letter from someone she’d worked with years ago—far too much detail, but then, she read the whole thing, didn’t she? She looked at the Christmas card from the daughter of one of her old friends and cooed over the pictures of their new baby. And she picked up that postcard to see what it was about.

Wait. The picture on the front of this postcard was that tiny sapphire and diamond tiara from the V&A.