felt able to commit to a college course with her Gran behind her and a sense of steadiness at last, a place to stay during the holidays. She’d long loved the sea, right from her sporadic visits as a small child and her love of the coast had never left her. She’d even begun to think she might stay there herself when her course finished, perhaps do some waitressing to support herself while she tried to get her dreamed-of jewellery business off the ground. Her Gran had been full of encouragement.
He was watching her, sharp interest on his face.
‘What about when your course finished? Are you still based there now? How come you aren’t still living with your Gran? I don’t remember you mentioning her last time we met.’
She shook her head.
‘I never mentioned a lot of things last time we met,’ she said. She took a deep breath. ’She died nearly a year before I met you. She’d been ill for a while, it turned into pneumonia and she was just too weak to fight it off.’
How desperate Ella had been for her to fight. Yet still she’d slipped away. And security and love had slipped away with her. Ella had come to the conclusion that she wasn’t meant to have that kind of life. She could count on herself and that would have to do.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, and when she glanced at him she could see he meant it. ‘You should have said.’
She was long-practiced at glossing over the past. It wasn’t even that hard anymore.
‘It was a fling, Tom,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t about to give you my life story when I knew we only had one night. We were living in the moment, remember? The whole point of it for me was to have fun, not work through my grief and family issues. Can you imagine if I’d started in on that – you’d have run a mile.’
‘You don’t know that,’ he said, his tone indignant enough to make her look up. ‘You make me sound like I was just after sex.’
She laughed out loud at that.
‘Wake up and smell the mulled cider, you idiot,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t that exactly what both of us was after?’
****
A slow walk back to the hotel, the cold really biting in the air now. She could see the moisture in the headlamp beams as they crossed the road and the grit crunched beneath her feet. The what-next hung in the air between them, so strong she could almost feel it. She’d made it crystal clear to him. She had life rules. The steam room encounter had been no more than a slip. And this would be no more than dinner. Yet still she wondered if he would make a move or if this would really be an end. A proper end to them this time.
He walked with her up the stairs and through the lobby, both of them having collected their key cards at reception on the way past. No going their separate ways in the lobby. Her pulse rate was going crazy as she walked up the curving staircase, the surroundings paling because of her heightened awareness of him next to her.
Her door came first.
She stopped outside, key card in her hand, and turned to smile at him, trying to make it an arms-length breezy friendly smile, not a come-in-and-jump-my-bones one.
‘Thanks for a fun evening,’ she said. ‘It was good to see you again.’
‘You too,’ he said. She looked up at his easy smile, trying to imprint it on her brain so she could replace the previous memory with this older version of Tom. The same molten grey eyes but less of a starting-out-in-life sparkle in them. Instead, this version of Tom was broader, stronger and more serious.
He was close enough that one small movement would be enough for him to pull her against him or for her to step in and kiss his cheek perhaps. If either were to crack it would be him. She was sure of it. She was the one who’d left that morning by the sea, not him. She had the stronger will. Yet still he made no move. Anticipatory tension hung in the pause between them. It was so strong she could almost feel it crackle. Finally she could stand it no longer and turned to slide the key card into the lock.
‘Enjoy the rest of your weekend,’ he said from behind her.
She gave him a parting smile.
‘Safe journey,’ she said. ‘Merry Christmas.’
The lock clicked and she opened the door. With every slow motion moment that passed she expected him to make his move, reach out, tug her back, and then…who knew how the night would end. And then the door was closed against her back and she was alone in the dark hotel room.
Alone except for her stupid pride, of course.
Tom stared at the polished wood of the door with its glossy scarlet number plate, and shoved away the hideous plummeting sensation deep in his abdomen. It was that same desperately sinking feeling he remembered from five years ago, but this time it had an added twist of triumph because he hadn’t been the one left behind while she walked away. There had been a moment back there when to kiss her would have been so easy. The decision was within his control, his choice not to go any further. He’d wanted to redress the balance and now he’d done exactly that.
Dodged a bullet there, he was sure of it.
He walked down the passage and rejoined the stairs. Up to the top floor and his own suite where a fire had been lit and subtle lighting switched on around the room. The sitting room with its velvet sofas was the epitome of opulent luxury. But it could have been a broom cupboard for the amount he noticed it.
Triumph was a pretty hollow sensation, it turned out, when you’d won it by playing safe. He’d walked away because she walked away last time. Because his life now didn’t allow for it. Because it could only ever be a couple of days.
None of those reasons seemed remotely significant now.
****
After the steam room she’d thought it was a forgone conclusion how the night would end, despite the way she’d knocked him back afterwards in the shower. Had he been waiting for her to make a move? Was that what this was about? He’d taken her at her word then, decided to respect her choice not to let this second encounter end up in bed.
Or after an evening in her company had he now decided she looked a whole lot better looking back? She’d forced him to go out with her instead of eating a civilised meal in the fabulous restaurant. Her plans, apart from waitressing here and there, barely scanned into the following week, while his pretty much took him the full way up to retirement. She still didn’t fit in with his life and it was a hundred times more obvious now than it had been back then. She stared at her face in the bathroom mirror, cheeks pink, teeth gritted, barely able to stand still with unrequited tension. And finally, unsure what the hell she intended to say or do, knowing only that she would drive herself mad within the space of ten minutes if she didn’t at least ask the question and find out what he thought of her, she crossed the room at speed and threw open the door.
He stood inches away from her, knuckles upraised in a mid-knock of thin air. She caught her breath.
‘You see,’ he said, holding her gaze steadily with his own. ‘Fate.’
He
