Why indeed?
Because apart from the ache to see her again, to see if... what they’d had was as real as it had felt... he’d known he had to talk to her about this place and he’d wanted to do that somewhere neutral. Nothere, at least not initially, because this was where his childhood had ended when his older brother had tragically died, splintering their family apart.
Where his faith in all things good and benign had ended.
But then, his father had died and he’d forced it all underground again as other more pressing matters had taken precedence. After that... He’d had no idea how she’d respond to seeing him again and so he’d asked his solicitor to contact her.
In Vegas, he had been in no place to commit to anyone, not that he’d ever wanted to. Not after seeing his folks’ toxic disaster of a relationship and not after the fallout of everything that had happened after Callum had died.
And yet he’d married her. Made the ultimate form of commitment. To a veritable stranger. He could tell himself it had all been a drunken Vegas dare but she’d been the first person who had reached deep inside him to a place he’d thought he’d lost. Where some ounce of light and hope andfunhad survived. And he’d grabbed at it, greedily and then ruined it.
The words bubbled under the surface, but the prospect of laying it all out for her, when all she’d come for was to end things, made him push them down.
So, like a coward, he said, ‘The same reason as you, to end things.’
CHAPTER 9
Lucy
Iwaited for the sense of rejection to hit like a blow. But it didn’t come, because Jamie wasn’t looking at me as if he wanted to end things.He’d found me six months ago.
And he was looking at me like he wanted to devour me right here in the snow. I said carefully, ‘You’ve had three years to end it, Jamie.’
‘So have you.’ He threw another snowball and I ducked and gathered up snow and reciprocated with a little more force.
I was vaguely aware that I should be shivering with cold but I wasn’t. Because something was crackling between us and I felt hot all over.
‘We could have had it annulled the morning after.’ I fired across another missile and this one landed inside his coat, near his collar. I was jealous. I wanted to lick the snow off his neck.
‘But we didn’t.’ He threw a lump of snow at me and it landed on my breast. I looked down at the wet patch and back up. I said, ‘No. That’s interesting though isn’t it?’
I took more snow and walked towards him. His eyes were so dark – like bottomless pools, but I knew they had gold flecks of light.
He said, ‘We had to get flights. We didn’t have time.’
But it sounded like a weak argument.
I said, ‘We could have made time if we’d really wanted to, and then we wouldn’t have had anything binding us for the last three years.’ I was close enough now to have to tip my head back to look up at him.
I saw something flare in those dark depths. ‘What are you saying Lucy?’
Ha! He wasn’t going to get me to fess up to something I hadn’t even fully articulated to myself yet. ‘Nothing, just that it’s... interesting.’
I still had snow in my hand and I reached up and pulled out his top and dropped it down his chest. He sucked in a breath. ‘You’re playing a dangerous game, Collins.’
‘Am I now?’ I felt breathless and giddy. Something had shifted out here and I felt we were being honest for the first time since I’d arrived.
He bent down and got snow and had it between his hands moulding it into a perfect ball. Then he calmly pulled my (his)jumper out and the jumper underneath and the flimsy silken T-shirt and dropped it down. I gasped at the shock of cold against my skin.
My fingers were almost blue and numb but I barely noticed. I dropped down, gathered up a pile of snow and then reached for Jamie’s trousers but he put a hand on mine.
He was looking at me so fiercely that I nearly combusted on the spot. There was no doubting what we both wanted now, the air was thick with it. Desire.
He said, ‘It’ll take a lot more than snow to put that out.’
I looked down and my eyes got bigger when I saw the bulge of his erection. I almost whimpered. It had been a long time.Three years.But I’d been too cowardly to be honest about that, alluding to having been with someone. But before I could say anything Jamie had his hands on my arms and the snow wasout of my hands, on the ground, and our mouths were clamped together and I was climbing him like a tree, drowning in sensations I thought I’d never feel again, arms clamped around his neck.
He had one hand under my bottom and another on my back and I wanted to climb into his skin.
