‘You know perfectly well what I mean. You and my brother. And don’t deny it. You’re both acting totally out of character round each other.’
‘He just gave me a lift home last night,’ Claire said, crossing her fingers under the table. It had been a lot more than that.
‘Hmm.’ Ashleigh folded her arms and gave Claire a level stare.
Claire gave in. ‘Ash, it’s early days. And you know Sean; it’s probably not going to last.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because when it all goes wrong I don’t want our friendship to be collateral damage.’
Ashleigh hugged her. ‘Idiot. Nothing would stop me being friends with you.’
‘Sean doesn’t want you to be collateral damage, either,’ Claire pointed out.
Ashleigh rolled her eyes. ‘I won’t be, and don’t you go overprotective on me like my big brother is—remember I’m older than you.’
‘OK,’ Claire said meekly.
‘I thought something was up when he helped you make coffee, and then when he offered you a lift home...I knew it for sure,’ Ashleigh said.
‘It’s still really, really early days,’ Claire warned.
‘But it’s working,’
‘At the moment. We still fight, but it’s different now.’ Claire smiled. ‘Sean’s not quite as regimented as I thought he was.’
Ashleigh laughed. ‘Not with you around, he won’t be.’
‘And he’s stopped calling me the Mistress of Chaos.’
‘Good, because you’re not.’ Ashleigh hugged her again. ‘I can’t think of anyone I’d like more as my sister-in-law. I’ve always thought of you as like my sister anyway.’
‘We haven’t been together long,’ Claire warned, ‘so I’m not promising anything.’
‘I think,’ Ashleigh said, ‘that you’ll be good for each other.’
‘Promise me you won’t say anything? Even to Luke?’
‘It’s a bit too late for Luke,’ Ashleigh said, ‘but I won’t say anything to Sean.’
‘Thank you. And you’ll be the first to know if things move forward. Or,’ Claire said, ‘when we break up.’
* * *
In the two weeks before the wedding show Claire was crazily busy and had almost no free time for dates. Sean took over and brought in takeaways to make sure she ate in the evenings; he also made her take breaks before her eyes started hurting, and gave her massages when her shoulders ached.
Even though part of Claire thought he was being just a little bit overprotective, she was grateful for the TLC. ‘I really appreciate this, Sean.’
‘I know, and you’d do the same for me if I had an exhibition,’ he pointed out. ‘By the way, I’m in talks with a couple of manufacturers about joint projects and licensing. Talking to you and brainstorming stuff like that,’ he said, ‘really helped me see the way I want the company to go in the future.’
‘Following your dreams?’
‘Maybe,’ he said with a smile, and kissed her.
* * *
The week before the wedding show, Claire took Sean to meet her family—her father, her grandmother, Aunt Lou and her cousins. Clearly she’d talked to them about him, Sean thought, because they already seemed to know who he was and lots about him. Then he realised that they knew Ashleigh and his background was the same as hers.
Even though they were warm and welcoming and treated him as if he were one of them, chatting and laughing and teasing him, he still felt strange. His grandparents would’ve been older than Claire’s and had died when he was in his teens. This was the first time for years that Sean had been in a family situation where he wasn’t being the protective big brother and the head of the family, and it made him feel lost, not knowing quite where he was supposed to fit in.
It didn’t help that Claire’s father grilled him mercilessly about his intentions towards Claire. Sean could understand it—he shared Jacob’s opinion of Claire’s previous boyfriends, at least the ones that he’d met—but it still grated that he’d be judged alongside them.
And he could also see what Claire meant about her dad not believing in her. Jacob didn’t see the point of spending time and money making six sets of wedding clothes that hadn’t actually been ordered by clients, and he’d said a couple of times during the evening that he couldn’t see how Claire would possibly get a return on her investment. Claire had smiled sweetly and glossed over it, but Sean had seen that little pleat between her brows that only appeared when she was really unhappy about something. Clearly she was hurt by the way her father still didn’t believe in her.