My heart was pounding so hard I felt lightheaded. Was he really saying what I’d wished he’d say?
But maybe this was just lust. Hormones. Maybe we were just destined to have another amazing forty-eight hours and then he’d wake up and look at me and close down again.
I shook my head. ‘Jamie, you really hurt me in Vegas... that morning, when you said it was a mistake. I mean... I wasn’t sure what I wanted then either, but I only agreed with you because I didn’t want you to know that I was... falling for you. I would have wanted more.’
He looked at me, eyes burning. ‘I’m so sorry... I couldn’t handle it Luce. You were the first person to connect with me in a way that I wasn’t ready for.’
‘Why didn’t you contact me this time yourself?’
‘Another six months had passed and I was terrified you wouldn’t even recognise me. It was the cowardly way to do it.’
I had to let him off the hook. ‘I only came up here because I thought you wouldn’t be here and then I could say that I’d at least served you the papers first, likeIwas the proactive one.’
He touched my jaw with a knuckle, his eyes glowing with an emotion I was too scared to try and name. The shell wasn’t just breaking around me now, it was dissolving.
Then he said, ‘Wait here.’
He left the room. George looked from the door to me, clearly feeling conflicted, but in the end he lay down again and I took that as a hopeful sign.
Jamie came back holding a sheaf of papers and the envelope. The divorce papers. My insides clenched. Maybe I’d totally misread everything. He stood by the fire. Then he very deliberately threw them in. The flames danced and leapt high into the chimney.
I looked from the fire to him. ‘Did you just..?’
He nodded. ‘Luce, I don’t want to divorce you.’
It was taking me a second to absorb what he’d just done and he said, ‘If I did the wrong thing, then we can get them drawn up – ‘
But I’d already jumped into his arms and we were kissing and telling each other without words,I love you, I love you too, yes, I love you.
Somehow I managed to pull back and take in a breath. Jamie was looking at me with those gorgeous dark eyes. Full of gold. And it wasn’t just the reflection from the fire.
I felt dreamy. ‘After my folks divorced and my dad left us,me,behind like unwanted luggage, I told myself I didn’t believe in fairytales and didn’t want a relationship or marriage. I judged all those couples getting married but secretly envied them. I’m a terrible person. But you saw right through me.’
Jamie laughed. I mock hit him. ‘It’s not funny, you exposed my weakness.’
He shook his head, ‘You are not terrible. And it’s not a weakness, it’s a strength, to go through all of that and still believe.’
‘But I didn’t, until you, and I wanted to believe.’
‘So believe with me now.’
We kissed again until we were on the floor, tangled up in front of the fire.
Jamie came up on one elbow and I looked up at him. I whispered, ‘Why did we do it? Keep apart?’
‘Maybe neither of us were really ready...Iwasn’t ready. And if we had tried to make it work, maybe we would’ve killed it.’
‘OK I’m glad we didn’t.’ The thought of not being here with Jamie now made me shudder.
Then he said, ‘Actually, it’s our third anniversary. Well, it was, in October...’
The fact that he’d remembered that made me feel mushy. I looked at him. ‘I don’t have an anniversary present... Or even a Christmas present.’
Jamie looked at me and pulled me up to sitting. I crossed my legs and faced him. I felt dizzy. Drunk. I wondered if this was all a very elaborate dream and I’d wake up in rainy damp Dublin, with the sound of the bin truck outside. It had happened a few times. Some variation on seeing Jamie again, only to wake up cold and feeling empty.
Had he really thrown the divorce papers in the fire? And had we kissed as if our lives depended on it?Yes. It wasn’t a dream.
He said, ‘I do have something for you.’
