‘Just the tea is fine, thanks,’ Sean said with a smile.
They had a last walk along the beach, then Claire drove them home. ‘Shall I drop you back at your house, or would you like to come back to my place and we can maybe order in some Chinese food?’ she asked.
Given what she’d said to him by the sea, Sean knew what she wanted to hear. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘we’ll go with the flow.’
Her smile was a real reward—full of warmth and pleasure rather than smugness. ‘We won’t go home on the motorway, then,’ she said. ‘We’ll find a nice little country pub where we can have dinner.’
Except it turned out that every pub they stopped at didn’t do food on Sunday evenings.
‘I can’t believe this,’ she said. ‘I mean—it’s the summer. Prime tourist season. Why on earth wouldn’t any of them serve food on Sunday evenings?’
Sean didn’t have the heart to ask why she hadn’t planned it better. ‘Go back on to the motorway,’ he said. ‘We’ll get a takeaway back in London.’
‘I’m so sorry. Still, at least we can keep the roof down and enjoy the sun on the way home,’ Claire said.
Which was clearly all she needed to say to jinx it, because they were caught in a sudden downpour. By the time she’d found somewhere safe to stop and put the car’s soft top back up, they were both drenched. ‘I’m so sorry. That wasn’t supposed to happen,’ Claire said, biting her lip.
‘So we were literally going with the flow. Of water,’ Sean said, and kissed her.
‘What was that for?’ she asked.
‘For admitting that you’re not always right.’ He stole another kiss. ‘And also because that T-shirt looks amazing on you right now.’
‘Because it’s wet, you mean?’ She rolled her eyes at him. ‘Men.’
He smiled. ‘Actually, I wanted to cheer you up a bit.’
‘Because today’s been a total disaster.’
‘No, it hasn’t. I enjoyed the sea.’
‘But we didn’t get to the Pavilion, we missed out on a cream tea, I couldn’t find anywhere for dinner and we just got drenched.’ She sighed. ‘If I’d done things your way, it would’ve been different.’
‘But when I planned our date, we ended up rushing and that was a disaster, too,’ he said softly. ‘I think we might both have learned something from this.’
‘That sometimes you need to plan your personal life?’ she asked.
‘And sometimes you need to go with the flow,’ he said. ‘It’s a matter of compromise.’
‘That works for me, too. Compromise.’ And her smile warmed him all the way through.
On the way back to London, he asked, ‘So are you seriously going to buy this car?’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Apart from the colour? I was thinking, it’s not very practical for transporting wedding dresses.’
‘I don’t need a car for that. I’m hiring a van for the wedding show,’ she said.
‘So why don’t you have a car?’ he asked.
‘I live and work in London, so I don’t really need one—public transport’s fine.’
‘You needed a car today to take us to the seaside,’ he pointed out.
‘Not necessarily. We could have gone by train,’ she said.
‘But then you wouldn’t have been able to sing your head off all the way to Brighton.’
‘And we wouldn’t have got wet on the way home,’ she agreed ruefully.
‘We really need to get you out of those wet clothes,’ he said, ‘and my place is nearer than yours.’
‘Good point,’ she said, and drove back to his.
Sean had the great pleasure of peeling off her wet clothes outside the shower, then soaping her down under the hot water. When they’d finished, he put her clothes in the washer-dryer while she dried off. And then he had the even greater pleasure of sweeping her off her feet again, carrying her to his bed, and making love with her until they were both dizzy.
Afterwards, she was all warm and sweet in his arms. He stroked her hair back from her face. ‘You were going to tell me how come you’re not a doctor.’
‘It just wasn’t what I wanted to do,’ she said.
‘But you applied to study medicine at university.’
She shifted onto her side and propped herself on one elbow so she could look into his face. ‘It was Dad’s dream, not mine. It’s a bit hard to resist pressure from your parents when you’re sixteen. Especially when your father’s a bit on the overprotective side.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Luckily I realised in time that you can’t live someone else’s dream for them. So I turned down the places I was offered and reapplied to design school.’