himself ever harder into her until he could control it no more and she cried her own ecstasy softly into his hair as he reached the height of his pleasure.
Every second that ticked by was something to treasure.
Her breathing slowly evened, and her body relaxed against his as she melted into sleep. He didn’t move, even though he was too hot to sleep, revelling instead in the scent of her hair and her warm breath against his chest. He didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to wake up and have just moments left with her. And there it hit him. What the hell was he doing, just accepting her unreasonable terms without question? He’d made that mistake five years ago and really, what did he have to lose by talking to her in the morning, maybe arranging a meeting when he made it back from Barbados?
‘It doesn’t need to stop here,’ he said.
He leaned up on one elbow, the pillow rucked up beneath his naked chest, dark hair tousled from the night they’d spent tangled together. Golden shards of morning sunlight slipped into the room through the chink in the silk curtains and her stomach churned miserably at the ticking away of minutes until he would be leaving. Part of her wished she’d just left while he slept, like last time. It had been infinitely easier than this.
Her heart gave a tiny leap and she forced it back down. To go along with this would have no better outcome, she’d just be delaying the loss for a few weeks. The moment he was back in the midst of his family with all that history, all that responsibility, she would lose her charm. She didn’t fit in with a family. She’d never been able to hold her own with her parents, so why the hell should she assume she’d do better on that front with him? Better to let him go now, no matter that it was a wrench. She’d managed it before and she could do it again.
She smiled.
‘Of course it does. It was always going to stop here. Just like it was always going to stop back in Devon. Don’t try to make it into something it isn’t.’
He sat up in bed next to her.
‘I’m not. I’m just asking. Why it has to come to a standstill at all.’
She sighed.
‘It is what it is, Tom.’
‘And what is that?’
He held her gaze, waited for her answer.
‘It’s a fling,’ she said, slowly, as if explaining to a toddler. ‘It’s down to circumstance. Five years ago you and I were a spur of the moment one-night stand. It was a fluke. Hotel room. Same place, different time. If you want to pin a name on it, I guess you could call it a holiday romance.’
‘And now?’
‘Basically the same thing. Same rules, same situation. Both of us are taking time out for a few days from our normal lives – you’re stuck here because of the weather and I’m on a shopping break. You and I have never existed in the real world, so what the hell makes you think we could?’
‘Fate is on our side.’
She rolled her eyes.
‘Will you stop going on about bloody fate? I control fate, not the other way around. It’s the only way to make sure I don’t get kicked in the arse by it.’ She sat up in bed herself now, as if warming to her subject. ‘Nothing that stands the test of time can be built on such a whim. Think about it. It makes sense really. Two random people brought together by a random situation, who barely even get to know each other beyond a couple of hours’ flirting. The chances of them having what it takes to go the distance are miniscule. The whole thing is built on physical attraction, on lust. It isn’t the foundation for anything long-lasting. You can’t possibly argue anything else. So what I’m saying is that this has been a fantastic couple of days. Just the way it was a fantastic night back then in Devon. But don’t pretend it can ever lead to anything more than that. We threw that possibility away at the outset because of the way we got together.’
He bunched fists together with sheer frustration at her smooth, determined, non-emotional bloody certainty.
‘You said the chances are miniscule and you might be right, but miniscule allows for the odd exception – right? We could buck the odds.’
He reached for her hand but she gently disentangled her fingers from his.
‘I know a hell of a lot about one-night stands and short-term flings,’ Ella said. ‘I know what I’m talking about.’
The horrified look on his face would have been funny in any other situation.
‘Not like that,’ she said quickly, shaking her head madly. ‘I’m not talking about me. I don’t actually make a habit of this. You’re…’
‘What?’
‘Well, you’re an exceptional case.’
‘How so?’
She looked him in the eye.
‘I have absolutely no idea. Maybe you’re just incredibly persuasive.’
‘So if you don’t make a habit of this kind of thing, what do you mean, you know about it?’
She took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling with its gleaming chandelier.
‘I wasn’t talking about me. I was talking about my parents.’
‘Your parents?’
She nodded.
‘I’m the result of a one-night stand,’ she said. ‘Some drunken fumble in a dark alleyway outside a nightclub, fuelled entirely by too much alcohol.’
She had no idea of the proper circumstances, had never been able to stomach asking her mother for more details. Just her mother’s drunken revelation of the fact itself had been too much information for a fifteen year old girl, without all the surrounding details. But that was how she imagined it had been. Seedy. Not driven by love, or even by proper attraction. Just beer-goggles and lust.
‘My mother went ahead with the pregnancy,’ she said. ‘Obviously.’
‘What about your father?’
‘They were both teenagers,’ she said. ‘I saw him on and off for the first few years. They weren’t together but he still seemed to make an effort. Maybe that was part of the problem.’ She looked down at her hands, thinking back. ‘In my head I built him up to be so perfect.’ A rueful smile touched the corner of her mouth. ‘When he stopped making that effort I made excuses for him. Told myself my mother made it impossible for him to be around. They didn’t exactly get on like a house on fire, if you get my drift.’
He smiled at her, but the expression on his face was troubled.
‘Anyway, when my mother moved in with Gordy a few years ago I was old enough to make my own choices and I tracked my father down again. I think I expected to be welcomed into his life with open arms. I thought he’d be so pleased to see me again.’
