The Seven Pieces of a Feuilleton

Chapter 9

She had never told him.

She berated herself for never telling him.

No, actually, she berated herself for letting Chloé talk her into taking the stairs all the way up in St. Peter's Church during their Munich trip the previous summer.

Finn had been there alongside. He had watched her climb stair after stair, three hundred and six to be precise. He had seen her awestruck at the scenery. He had viewed her in full acting mode.

Finn Cavendish boasted many wonderful characteristics, but he wasn't a mind reader.

He hadn't known that her stomach dropped out a little more with each step. He hadn't known that, when they reached the top and did see a spectacular view of the city, she was barely able to glance at the ground below without feeling dizzy.

So he would obviously not know of her utter terror of heights, unless she had told him - which she never did.

Finn was frightened of the sea; with the sole exception of plane interiors, Brenda was frightened of the air.

A hot air balloon flying over the Californian landscape was not a plane.

She just knew that Dylan's mother, Iris McKay, would have something to say about this, about an engaged couple being oblivious to each other's greatest fears. Hell, her own mother would have something to say about it.

She was adventurous. Finn was adventurous. It had been one of the traits that had attracted her to him. Therefore, it stood to reason that two adventurous people would both jump at the idea of embarking on a hot air balloon ride.

He was excited to take her. Using his connections, he had been able to secure a thousand dollar ride over the scenic Temecula Valley for a notable discount which made it practically free. He had packed a basket for tea - their tea in the air. The weather was perfect. He was perfect, in all his sweetness.

Perfect and fucking gorgeous, especially with that smile, the one that made every woman weak at the knees until they all ended up in his surgery with alleged knee problems.

The tilt of the balloon, however, was not perfect. The flock of birds soaring directly nearby was not perfect. The nauseating feeling that they were going to freefall down to earth - much as she and that woman known as Kelly Taylor had once done during a terrifying skydiving experience which only became enjoyable the closer they flew to the ground - and this time, end up in body casts, was not perfect. Feeling like the titular character of Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, which Grandma Walsh had read to her and Brandon each time she babysat when they were children, was not perfect.

But she couldn't tell Finn that, not with those adoring eyes, that chiseled chin and that smile which she knew glittered only for her.

So she went into acting mode. She pretended it was perfect. She pretended she wasn't terrified. She pretended that flying over California in a hot air balloon with a well-proportioned, well-formed, fucking handsome lad - an experience many women and men would have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for - was the best damn adventure she had ever had.

Even if it wasn't.

Not by a long shot.

She was a Walsh, the daughter of a Beevis, and she had been raised to always seek gratitude in her circumstances, even if those circumstances led her to the fucking horrifying interior of a hot air balloon.

"Brenda, I've heard the saying a penny for your thoughts, but I think you've collected a wad of fifty pound notes by this point." Finn reached out, gently pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Or perhaps a few hundred euro."