“Bianca,” she corrected. “I will not shake your hand.”
In a cloud of perfume, she wrapped her arms around him and patted his back. Lucas’s longing for his own mother increased, self-recriminations warring with fear. He’d lived his life a certain way for so long that he wasn’t even sure he knew how to change it.
“Working with your daughter has been such a fabulous experience,” Lucas told them. “You should be very proud of her. She adjusted to life on Astoria as though she’d been to tons of crisis-hit areas before.”
“Thank you.” John Hamilton nodded. “I look forward to working with you, but we’d better get ourselves home before the media arrive.”
“I understand.” Lucas looked between Frankie and her parents. They waited, expecting something.
Feeling more awkward than ever before he stepped towards her, wanting to touch her one last time but hardly daring to. Saying goodbye on Astoria had been hard enough. Doing it in front of her parents was so much worse.
Who was he kidding?
It wasn’t the audience, it was the fact that he was letting her go.
She planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. Lucas caught her before she moved away. “I’ll miss you.”
“That’s not enough,” she whispered. “Not nearly enough.”
#
The following week, Frankie sat next to her father at their enormous dining table, trying not to stare at Lucas and hoping like hell her father didn’t realise the reason for the tension in the room.
They had unfinished business. They may well have said their goodbyes on Astoria, accepted that their brief affair was over, but there were still things left to be said. From the awkward way Lucas kept avoiding her eyes, he knew that, too.
“I like this idea, sir.” Lucas pointed at the idea her father had put forward to gather local media attention he hoped would lead onto national attention. “Who are you thinking should meet with the media and front the campaign?”
“You, of course,” her father spoke abruptly, as though the question had been completely absurd. “This is your baby. Francesca and I will work in the background; I will lend my name when necessary, but this is your project. People will be giving money to you, so you should be the focal person.”
“No one knows who I am.” Lucas slid a look towards Frankie, one that warmed her through but for all the wrong reasons. “It should be someone the public are already used to seeing, someone they would give money to.”
“That rules me out then.” Frankie assessed him coolly. She thought she’d made it more than clear that she didn’t want to be involved with television ever again. She wanted her life to be her own, the new life she’d begun to forge for herself. “After Joey’s stories, no one would trust me to walk their pet dog, let alone administrate a fledgling charity.”
“I think you’re underestimating the love the public have for you.”
“Really?” Frankie raised an eyebrow, making no attempt to hide the sarcasm in her tone. “Do you have Twitter?”
“Twitter? No, why, what does that have to do with anything?”
“Here.” She slid her phone across the desk to him. “Read the messages I’ve received. The ones from the last hour will be fine, they’ll give you an idea of how the public feel about me. Though, if you want, you can scroll through the mentions I’ve had since that photo of us in Astoria hit the papers.”
“These…these are poisonous.” Lucas looked up, outrage printed across his features. “You need to do something about this. Argue your corner, tell them the truth.”
“People aren’t interested in the truth, Lucas, they are only interested in what they think they believe. Once they’ve made their mind up, they’re not going to be swayed by anything I tell them.”
“It looks mostly like disgruntled football fans who think you cheating on Joey is going to put him off his game, and women who’d like to take your place and have the ring he put on your finger.”
“Does it matter who they are?”
“Perhaps those aren’t the people we would be looking for to invest in the charity,” her father interjected. “We’re going to want people who can sponsor the charity, have their names on our literature, or send items we need. The general public aren’t really our target audience, although their donations would still be useful.”
“So what do you suggest?” Frankie knew the answer. She’d seen the look that had slipped between the two men.
“You have a face made for television, darling.”
“Whereas I do not,” Lucas said, with a wry twist of his lips.
“It’s not what I want to do.” Frankie remembered only too well coming back into the country and the questions that had been shouted her way. Public perception of her had changed drastically. “It would be humiliating. People are bound to ask me about Joey even if I am trying to promote the charity.”