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CHAPTER TWO

She had absolutely no intention of grabbing it while she could.

It was perfectly simple. This was the UK after all, not Lapland. How long could the snow possibly last before he would be winging his way to Barbados as planned? One day? Surely two at most. All she needed to do was keep her head down and stay out of his way until Liz got here, avoiding any further encounters. Unfortunately, her ready-made excuse of a travel companion still hadn’t shown up. A harried phone call later and she understood the reason why.

Turned out Tom Henley had a point. Liz’s train was delayed by at least three hours due to snow on the bloody tracks. Plans to simply hang out in the room for a bit until her friend showed up suddenly morphed into the most boring waste of time imaginable.

Half an hour later and she’d drunk two coffees and eaten all the complimentary biscuits in the room. She bounced on the bed and glanced through the hotel information brochure for the second time, thinking it over. She could stare at four walls while she waited for Liz or she could while away some time in the award-winning Spa.

No contest. She stood up and tugged her swimsuit from her case.

***

A gorgeously relaxing ambience, muted lighting, fluffy towels and complimentary robes. The Spa was virtually empty, it being that lull just around lunchtime, between check-in and check-out. With all the snowy London sights to take in swimming wasn’t a big daytime attraction. Ella swam a few laps of the pool, then climbed out and settled herself on a wicker lounger, magazine at the ready. Soothing background music filled the air. Bliss. Not a sign of Tom Henley anywhere. And of course there wasn’t. With a flight on standby at any moment, Tom Henley was hardly likely to change into swimwear and be parted from his mobile phone, right?

Wrong.

Ten minutes later and she glanced up from her magazine to see him stroll casually into the pool, a towel slung around his neck, dark blue swim shorts topped with perfect tight abs, broad muscular shoulders and damply tousled dark hair. It seemed that for all his grouching about missing eggnog parties, Tom Henley was in no rush whatsoever to get back to the airport. Her heartbeat immediately picked up as if she’d done a couple of circuits in the beautifully equipped gym. She saw him clock her from the opposite side of the pool and he sauntered over leisurely.

‘What, no friend?’ he said, when he was a few feet away as if he thought she was some billy-no-mates with a fictional travelling companion. He sat down next to her, although the room was full of empty loungers and her stomach knotted into a ball of tension.

‘Liz is delayed in the snow,’ she said. ‘A bit like you.’

She saw his eyes sharpen.

‘So you’re at a loose end, then? Time to kill.’

The look on his face was open and friendly. His smile was as melting as she remembered, the way it started slowly and then moved upwards to crinkle the corners of his eyes. And she’d forgotten he had a way of holding her gaze with his that made her limbs feel like they might turn to jelly. She forced herself to sound detached.

‘Not for long. Just until her train makes it through, then it’ll be on with the Christmas shopping weekend.’

‘I thought you didn’t do Christmas,’ he said.

He was referring to the fact that back in Devon she’d turned the festive season into nothing more than a work opportunity, waiting table or bartending all the hours she could muster, all geared towards glossing over the fact that there was actually anything to celebrate. She was surprised he remembered that kind of detail about her and had assumed his recollections would be all about the bedroom.

‘I don’t.’ She shrugged. ‘Liz won a competition. A weekend for two Christmas shopping in London. She asked me along.’ She glanced around the beautifully-finished opulence of the Spa. ‘It seemed a shame to turn her down for a principle. Shame she’s running late.’

He settled himself back on the wicker lounger next to hers, propped up on one elbow to face her, clearly intent on a proper conversation. And what the hell, maybe if she got it over with, did the whole small talk catch-up chat, he would leave her be.

‘So how’ve you been?’ he asked. She thought she saw genuine interest in his eyes now. ‘You had another waitressing job lined up didn’t you? Back in Devon. Did you finish college?’

A smile rose on her lips as she remembered her former self. Big dreams. Not on his scale of course with his medical training and his father’s footsteps, but big for her who’d dropped out of school and drifted from one temp job to the next.

‘I did,’ she said. ‘I did the jewellery course. I’m surprised you remember.’

A brief hesitation and then she held her small hand out towards him, a swirl of beaten silver on her forefinger. Without thinking he took it in his; the resulting flip in his chest at the touch of her soft skin took his breath away. When had he last been this on edge with a woman? His love life had been a bit of an afterthought these last months as his family piled on the work pressure. Without realising what he was doing he automatically checked beside the silver ring for a wedding band. There was none. She withdrew her hand and he let it go.

‘I sell some of it online now,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trying to build up a business but it takes time. I do craft fairs, that kind of thing. And in between I still give good waitress.’ She smiled. ‘What about you?’

He shrugged.

‘After you left Christmas went pretty much as planned. Then I went back and got on with my medical training.’

Again, pretty much as planned. As planned played a big part in his life.

She smiled. Her light brown hair was pinned up on her head and she wore a blue and white striped bikini which was far from skimpy but which still did nothing to hide her slender frame and long legs. Just looking at her like that made heat begin to course through him.

‘We’re from different worlds, you and me,’ she said. ‘You had your rugby playing, your future medical career, your public school background, your family, your life plans. I waited tables at a hotel in Ilfracombe that Christmas and I was sofa surfing my way around my friends. It’s amazing we ever hooked up at all really.’

He remembered that. How she’d had no real base, no family ties, and most of all how she made that seem liberating instead of lonely.

She looked away, and he followed her gaze back across the glassy surface of the swimming pool.

‘For a while I stayed with my Gran at this time of year but now I just go wherever the mood takes me,’ she said. ‘Last year I waitressed in a hotel in the Lakes – the Christmas lights were just the prettiest thing ever, but it was freezing cold. Even more than this. The year before that I did charity work in a soup kitchen and the year before THAT I was working my way round France.’

She counted off the Christmases on her fingers. He only needed one finger for his last four Christmases. Every single one had been the same.

‘And this year?’

‘I’m doing this weekend with my friend Liz. She entered some competition on the back of a breakfast cereal packet. It’s supposedly for Christmas shopping, all expenses paid and some spending money thrown in. But I’m going to try and drag her round the sights a bit. Shopping’s not really my thing.’

‘What about after this weekend?’

‘Well then I’m working again. I’ve got a waitressing gig back in Cornwall. In Looe. I lived there for a while with my Gran. Brilliant time for earning, Christmas, if you’ve got nowhere else you need to be. My speciality is unsociable hours. When this weekend is over I’m booked up right through Christmas and New Year, I’ll barely have a minute to think. Whereas you’ll probably be having cocktails at sundown and a leisurely break – right?’ She sat back in her lounger and looked at him with interest. ‘Come on then, give me a rundown of your last four Christmases.’

‘Well I don’t need to use my fingers to count them off, if that’s what you mean,’ he said. ‘Touch down in Barbados a few days before Christmas. Catch up with friends and family. Head back after New Year.’

His tone was throwaway, unenthusiastic. Then again, mustering up excitement when you’d done the same thing year on year since you were a kid couldn’t be easy.

‘Your life is one big déjà vu,’ she said, and seeing the fed-up expression on his face she couldn’t resist adding, ‘And where’s the fun in that?’

There was a spark in his eyes as he held her gaze a moment too long and smiled, and she realised, too late, that he’d considered that comment a flirt. She whipped her eyes back down to her magazine, feeling warmth rise in her cheeks. She really ought to get her mouth under control and get this encounter over with right now.

‘I’d better get back,’ she said. ‘Check my phone, see when Liz is getting here.’

She tossed the magazine onto a low wicker table and climbed off the lounger, being careful to swing her legs off onto the floor first to avoid giving an impression of beached whale. And since she really didn’t have the confidence or the heeled wedges to pull off flouncing out in a bikini, she settled for wrapping the towel around her hips sarong style. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked away from him and then, just as she thought she was home-free, in her fluster she managed to take the left turn toward the crystal steam room instead of the right turn into the ladies’ changing room.

The option was there, of course, to scuttle back the other way, thereby losing the unruffled poise she was doing her best to channel. But he’d shown no sign of following her so instead she opened the glass door and sat down on the tiled bench in the small square room, letting the hot mist wash over her skin. She could while away five minutes in here and then nip off to the showers with her poise intact.

She had the steam room to herself and she sat back with a sigh on the bench and leaned her head against the smooth tile of the wall. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the soothing scent of the aromatherapy oils clinging to the steam.

And then the glass door slid open and closed, letting the steam clear a little, and she was looking through the mist right at him.

Oh hell.

***

He ignored the empty bench opposite and instead sat down next to her. Up close the steam was clearer, she could see tiny droplets of water clinging to his hair.

‘I thought you were heading out?’

Heat was pulsing through her that wasn’t entirely down to the steam room.

‘Changed my mind,’ she said airily. ‘Thought I’d have a quick steam first.’

As if she were a carrot or a stem of broccoli.

A pause that was long enough for her to wonder if he might actually just want to sit in silence next to her and take in the relaxing facilities, and then his deep voice echoed slightly in the tiled room.

‘You ever think about it, what it was like back then?’

From time to time, when she couldn’t sleep, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

Her heartbeat had leapt into instant thundering mode. Instead of answering, mad laughter cackled forth at the utter craziness of the situation.

‘Ahahahaha! It?’ she questioned preposterously. He didn’t so much as flinch.

‘Us,’ he clarified. ‘You ever think about us?’ He lifted a hand and tucked a damp stray curl of hair behind her ear. ‘I do.’

Her pulse was going crazy at his light touch and part of her, the part she really needed to crush into submission here, wanted to go with the flow. What the hell, let him go ahead, just to see if his kisses were as bone-melting as she remembered. She made a last-ditch effort to hang on to sense.

Rules, Ella, think about your life rules. They’re there for a REASON!

‘Tom,’ she said, speaking slowly in the hope that it would make her voice steady and that he might actually listen to what she was saying. His thumb continued to stroke her jaw lightly. Her stomach was pooling with heat that had nothing to do with the steam. ‘You’re here for – what – a couple of nights while you wait for your plane to be rescheduled? If what you’re hoping for is some kind of rerun, it’s just not going to happen. I’m not that kind of girl,’ she said. ‘I never really was.’

‘Where would be the harm?’ he said. ‘What would be the big deal? It’s not like we haven’t been here before.’

And of course he had a point. Any reservations had been discarded five years ago. They’d been intimate on such an intense level that maybe it was really no leap at all to pick up where they’d left off all that time ago.

She drew in a breath, ready to list all the reasons why, actually, it was a big deal. How it would be a regression, how it couldn’t possibly end well, and then he stopped all planned protestations with a kiss. His hand slid back from her jaw to cradle the nape of her neck, his tongue slipped softly against hers and her stomach dissolved like melting toffee.

His hand slipped to her bare thigh, began stroking its way higher. Her mind followed it, inch by slow inch, although her eyes were tightly shut. He reached the delicate skin of her inner thighs and then his fingertips teased their way beneath the edge of her bikini bottoms. She gasped into his mouth as he slid two fingers inside her in one smooth movement and she felt him smile.

‘Tell me again, why this is a bad idea,’ he whispered, the ball of his thumb now beginning to circle her most sensitive spot, while his fingers continuing their slow rhythmic grind in and out. The sweet friction made her feel weak. Reasons jumbled into a mess of words in her mind.

‘I don’t do second-time-rounds,’ she managed. ‘Of anything. It’s kind of like a personal rule of mine.’

‘Still living in the moment then?’ he said, holding her gaze. ‘You haven’t changed.’ He smiled, moved his lips to her ear. ‘No one around but us,’ he whispered. ‘I could have you right now and no one would see.’

The recklessness of it all had its own seductiveness, it took her straight back to the last time they were together. At the time, her own situation had been what drove her, the need to escape from the yawning absence of family and love that Christmas had been throwing at her from every angle. He had been the perfect distraction, a reason to disengage from everything that was going on around her.

No such excuse this time. In fact, all sense of rationality warned her off. Yet still there was the voice in her mind breaking through, reasoning with her, working with that physical desire for him. Where, really was the risk? He’d be gone in a couple of days, maybe even sooner. She would return to her life again just as she had before, unscathed. Couldn’t she just step back into that moment again, enjoy a rerun of the delicious past encounter?

She let her own hand slide over his hot, damp skin, over hard muscle. He caught her fingers in his free hand as she reached his shorts. Her hand was drawn away and held still while he continued to stroke her, adding a third finger, increasing his pace, stretching and teasing until she could think of nothing else but the sensation. The steam room was forgotten, hotel was forgotten, self-preserving life rules were forgotten and she cried out against his neck as he took her over that delicious edge.

As consciousness began to slip back she realised shadows were moving outside the glass door, the heat was intense now and they were both dripping sweat. He withdrew his hand, not rushing, just as the door clicked open and a middle-aged couple took the bench opposite, vague outlines in the steamy air. She kept her head down as if they might by some super power know what they’d just been doing in here, stood up and tugged him by the hand out of the steam room and immediately turned left into the circular aromatherapy shower. He curled his arms around her waist, pulling her hot skin against his and she forced herself to STOP THIS RIGHT NOW. Her body might have been conquered by the heady combination of hot steam and his intoxicatingly expert touch but her mind still just about had a handle on reality.

‘What now then?’ he said, his voice was thick and she could feel his rigid erection hard against her. ‘We could go up to my suite.’

The way they had five years ago? She’d been there, done that and moved on.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, disentangling herself.

‘Really?’

‘It’s just not a good idea.’

He looked down at her, grin creasing the corners of his grey eyes.

‘You’re actually going to leave me hanging like this?’ He glanced downwards.

She gave him a sweet smile.

‘Of course I’m not, let me just fix that for you.’

She pressed the button labelled COLD and pushed him into the shower well.

CHAPTER THREE

He caught up with her by the exit, as she walked through the spa bar, cheeks still pink as she attempted to pull off a swift exit.

‘Dinner?’ he said, clearly not remotely put off by the cold shower.

She carried on walking, heading back through to the lobby while her heart made a mad sprint. Even without their history, he was asking her to dinner, and there was that niggling little question of when she’d last been asked out. Two years was it now? Liz would know, she was always trying to pressgang her into dates she didn’t want. But her heart could sprint as much as it pleased, there were rules to be adhered to here, rules that she lived by for very good reasons and Tom Henley was a clear-cut case.

For speed, she figuratively threw Liz at him as an excuse instead of giving him the full on broken down reason that dinner was a non-starter, not least because her list of life rules seemed to bring out the exasperation in those of her friends that knew about them.

‘It’s been lovely to see you,’ she breezed, ‘but my friend should be arriving any time now and I really need to get properly settled in the room. And then of course we’ll be busy, shopping, sightseeing, you know how it is.’

Her mobile burst into life in her jeans pocket and she fumbled it out. Perfect timing. The screen informed her it was Liz. Obviously she must have arrived at Paddington and was checking in with a progress report. She flashed Tom Henley a confident see-how-busy-I-am roll of her eyes, and picked up. The line was awful. She came to a standstill on the thick pile carpet and moved to one side of the corridor to let other guests pass. Tom Henley didn’t excuse himself, simply leaned against the wall and watched her with an amused expression in his slate grey eyes.

‘You sound like you’re shut in a fridge,’ Ella said.

‘That isn’t so far from the truth.’

She had to focus hard to hear Liz’s voice over the background crackle.

‘You’re where?’

Surprise made Ella forget herself and exclaim without thinking and she clocked, a second too late, his eyebrows raising almost imperceptibly.

There went her perfect excuse.

Liz’s voice was faint.

‘I’m in a train carriage somewhere between Newark and some other station at the ends of the bloody earth, waiting for someone to rescue me. And the buffet car’s just run out of coffee.’

‘How long are you likely to be?’

She turned her body away toward the wall and tried to talk into the phone without moving her lips while Tom made no attempt whatsoever to avert his eyes or look busy. Instead he was watching her, a small smile touching the corners of his mouth. For Pete’s sake, where were his manners? He couldn’t have eavesdropped more openly if he’d grabbed her mobile and pressed speakerphone.

‘It isn’t looking good.’ Liz’s voice was apologetic.

Conscious of his eyes on her, she took a few paces away from him, out of earshot and lowering her voice just to be sure, although why she was bothering she had no idea. It was perfectly clear that her big fob-off was trapped in the snow somewhere up North.

‘You can’t give up,’ she pleaded through gritted teeth. ‘I need you here. I’ve bumped into some guy from my past, we had a…’ she searched for the right word. Just exactly what had they had? ‘…fling,’ she said eventually. ‘A few years ago. He’s asked me out to dinner.’

She couldn’t bring herself to mention their more recent steamy (literally) encounter in the spa. It had been a lapse of judgement, nothing more. He’d caught her off-guard.

‘And that’s bad because?’

‘Because I don’t do the past. You know I don’t.’

That attitude had afforded her a lot of face-saving and bravado in the past. It was tried and tested.

‘That’s just some stupid principle, Ella. It doesn’t mean you’re incapable of it.’

She might have known Liz wouldn’t see it her way. Her friend was forever trying to fit her up with blind dates.

‘You would say that though, wouldn’t you?’ she countered. ‘You and Alfie are on-again off-again so often I can’t keep track.’

‘That’s how the rest of us do it, Ella,’ Liz said patiently. ‘It’s called give and take. That’s how you get to know someone.’ A pause, then, ‘what’s he like?’

Ella glanced back down the corridor at him. Tom smiled at her and nodded and her stomach gave another of those small melty flips. She tightened her grip on the phone.

‘Too good-looking for his own good and won’t take no for an answer,’ she said out of the corner of her mouth. ‘What are the chances of you getting here tonight?’

Liz’s laughter was just audible over the crackly line.

‘Tonight? Try the whole weekend. Have you seen the forecast? Imagine a snowball in hell and then lengthen the odds. By a mile. I’m getting back home before we resort to eating the weak.’

‘For Pete’s sake, Liz!’

‘It’ll do you good,’ her so-called friend said. ‘When did you last have a date? And look at it this way, if it’s as bloody freezing there as it is here, at least you’ll have someone to share body warmth with to survive.’

***

A couple of days stuck in the snow in London had suddenly taken a very nice turn for the better.

‘Have dinner with me tonight,’ he said again, as soon as she pocketed the phone.

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not? Your better offer is stuck in the snow somewhere for the rest of the weekend.’

‘That was a private conversation.’

He shrugged and grinned.

‘Yeah well, it was kind of hard to miss. Come on, you’re on your own now, I’m offering to buy you dinner. What exactly is it that you’re afraid of?’

‘I’m not afraid!’ she snapped.

‘Then what?’

She looked down at her fingers.

He watched as she took a deep breath before the knockback, not that he had any intention of taking no for an answer, no matter how many times or how many different ways she said it.

‘I don’t do the same situation twice,’ she said.

‘Living in the moment.’ he said, holding her hazel gaze. ‘Of course. I get that.’ That had been something else so enthralling about her all that time ago. Unlike him, with his mapped out future and responsibilities, she’d had no agenda, no grand life plan other than to squeeze every drop out of every single experience she had. The memory of what that had meant in bed made heat begin to simmer in his veins. ‘But still we didn’t part on bad terms back then. Where would be the harm in us having dinner?’

Gentle fob-off clearly wasn’t working so she cut to the chase.

‘I just have rules about that kind of thing,’ she blurted. ‘Life rules.’

He was staring at her as if he thought she might be insane.

‘Life rules,’ he repeated.

She emphasised each point by counting them off on her fingers.

‘I never go over old ground. I don’t do the same situation twice. The past is the past. I leave it there and I only ever look forward – which are actually all the same rule said in different ways but that’s how important they are to me’

She held his gaze boldly for a moment, giving him a chance to process.

‘What kind of nutty way to live your life is that?’ he said at last.

‘You can mock if you like but it’s actually stood me in good stead.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s nothing personal. We had a great time but it was over with five Christmases ago.’

She held her hand up, five fingers extended, to press the point even further.

‘You’re knocking me back because of some crazy life rules? Is this some recent thing? How come you never mentioned them when we last met?’

‘I didn’t need to mention them then. It was the first time around.’

She saw exasperation fight with determination on his face. Apparently determination won because he came right back with a different approach. She had to hand it to him, he didn’t give in easily. Most men she came across who showed an interest were easy to discourage with a firm no. Not that she was particularly snowed under in that department, her last date having been a brief affair months ago.

‘You do realise you’re working against higher elements here,’ he said.

‘What?’

She looked at him through narrowed eyes.

‘Fate,’ he said. He was watching her intently. ‘Think about it. Everything about this encounter is down to luck. How many probabilities do you think we’ve bucked here?’ He began to count off on his fingers. ‘You’re here because of a competition win, must be thousands of entrants, and now your mate can’t make it through and you’re here alone. Pure chance. And me? White Christmas in the UK. When did we last have one of those?’

She couldn’t stop a smile at his refusal to give in. Obviously taking it as a sign of weakening, he leaned in towards her. She caught the clean woody scent of his shower damp hair. ‘We were meant to meet again and do you really want to be the one to slap fate in the chops?’

‘Fate, in my experience has a crap sense of humour,’ she said. ‘Best not to engage with it at all. I control my life, not the other way around.’

‘I’m asking you to have dinner with me not jump into bed with me,’ he countered.

She could feel her heart quicken, because wasn’t there a part of her that wanted dinner? Wanted more than dinner? That brief hot encounter in the steam room still held her body in its grip. In terms of physical want and need, wasn’t there something about him now that felt…unfinished?

Her mind, not completely turned to mush by his stomach-softening lopsided smile, and by what he could do with his hands, took the opportunity to remind her that however lightly she might portray it now, walking away back then had been no picnic. It had been a bit of a wrench in fact. By the end of that night she had been smitten and there had been a part of her that wanted to swap addresses, make future plans, see how it went. But her resolution had never truly faltered because she didn’t need a crystal ball to know how things would turn out if she did.

Tom Henley was from a different world. Back then and still now. It could never have lasted. Why taint the perfect night by trying to prolong it? Long-term happiness could not be built on a chance encounter. OK so they might have made a strong connection, but it was still just a one-night stand. And she knew better than anyone that you couldn’t build a future on one of those. Not the kind of future that fostered happiness at least.

Why resurrect all this now? It had been neatly filed away in her past and Ella Scott didn’t do the past. She did the future, she did optimism, she turned a fresh new page every day and made her own happiness because she couldn’t rely on anyone else to do it for her.

‘It isn’t about dinner or about sex,’ she said. ‘It’s about principles. Something that’s great the first time around shouldn’t be revisited. You shouldn’t mess with perfection, it will only be a let down in the long run. Nothing’s ever better the second time around.’ She gave him a breezy smile as she walked away. ‘I hope your plane is rescheduled quickly and you have a good journey.’

‘You’re wrong,’ he called after her.

She turned back and looked him straight in the eye. He was staring at her as if he thought she might be crazy, so she took a couple of paces closer so he could see she was serious.

‘Classic movie remakes,’ she said. ‘The first time you visit Paris. Horrible cover versions of great songs. First kisses. Amazing meals. A new book.’ She paused and added, ‘Relationships.’ She stood for a moment looking at him. ‘It was a perfect night, a fantastic memory. How the hell could I possibly improve on it? Why would I want to?’ She gave him a parting smile. ‘I’m sorry. It was nice to meet you again but I never should have let it get beyond a quick hello.’

****

So he was a fantastic memory? His pride took a well-needed boost from that comment because for a while there as she gave him the brush off despite the way she’d melted into him in the spa, he’d been wondering if he was losing his touch. He’d wondered exactly the same thing five years ago in the weeks following that cold morning after a mind-blowing night when he’d woken up to an empty bed.

Finding out that the abrupt end of their time together had been down to her own reasons alone, completely insane though they were, was threaded through with relief that it hadn’t been down to something lacking in him or his performance. And if it had been a perfect night and a fantastic memory he was surely in with a chance of talking her into a second round.

A winning smile for someone called Lucy at the reception desk was enough to get her room number.