Before they’d fallen asleep again earlier, Lucy’s head had been on his chest and he’d said, ‘You know... at the airport in Las Vegas...’
‘Hm?’ She’d said sleepily.
‘I turned around to see if you were looking back at me.’
‘To see if I was looking back at you?’
He’d said, ‘Yes.’
She’d just said sleepily, ‘Yes, I did, but you weren’t looking at me.’
And then he’d felt her grow heavier against him, her breaths deepening as she’d fallen asleep. He’d lain there stunned. Shehadlooked back. They’d just missed each other.
‘Oh wow... Jamie...’
He turned around and suddenly felt a prickle of exposure. Was he just in danger of letting amazing sex cloud his judgement again? But he knew it was more than that. It was her. She was the one. The only one.
Lucy’s eyes were wide as she took it all in from inside the doorway.
‘When did you do this?’
Jamie wanted to be blasé but it was a bit hard standing beside the candle he’d just lit along with the others on the mantelpiece. Along with the fire that was crackling cheerfully in the grate.
The fire seemed to crackle almost mockingly now.
‘I got up a while ago.’God. She probably despised Christmas. He’d certainly been ambivalent ever since Cal had died. And after his parents had split, it had either been a cold and sterile Christmas in their mother’s flat in London or, if she’d been away, which she invariably was, they’d come up here. In spite of Rhona’s attempts to make things cheery, though, there’d been a dark cloud over the whole place.
Today, when he’d woken up, it was the first time he’d felt like he used to feel when Cal had still been alive. And now that felt a bit like a betrayal.
Lucy came into the room. ‘I love it, it looks so festive now.’
And suddenly Jamie didn’t feel like he was betraying anyone. He felt like he was home again. For the first time in years.
Lucy looked at him and it went right to his chest. She asked, ‘Would you have done this if you’d been here on your own?’
His mouth quirked. ‘No. I would have taken down the decorations and trees like a proper Scrooge, and sat here in the gloaming, drinking whiskey and feeling sorry for myself.’
‘Jamie, there’s something I wasn’t entirely honest about, I wasn’t with anyone else... in the past three years.’
A surge of elation ripped through him. ‘Good.’
‘Good? I hope that means what I think it does.’
‘I wasn’t with anyone either. And there’s something I wasn’t entirely honest about.’
‘What?’
The air around them felt very still, as if the castle itself was listening in.
‘When I was going to Dublin six months ago, it wasn’t with divorce on my mind. Ever since the appendectomy I’d known I had to tell you about the castle, but primarily, I wanted to see you again to see if what we’d had was...’ He trailed off, suddenly scared he’d said too much, thinking of those divorce papers.
‘As amazing as we thought?’
He nodded. His chest felt so big it almost hurt and something wild was rushing through him. Hope. ‘Lucy... I want to start again. Or, continue from where we were, in Vegas...’
CHAPTER 16
Lucy
