Thudto his chest.
‘You, with... ’
Anotherthudto his shoulder.
‘Anyone?’
A final snowball right to his balls.
Jamie suddenly felt lighter and alive for the first time in a long time. As if he was coming out of some kind of stasis.Three years.Alive and hot and frustrated and full of seething emotions he’d kept a lid on for three years. Shite, longer than that.
The thought of anyoneelse was absurd. Couldn’t she see that? He’d actively taken the less family-friendly work assignments just to put off coming home sooner. Classic avoidance tactics.
But he was all out of avoidance tactics now and there was no escaping the electrical charge between them. But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, because clearly they had some other unfinished business to attend to before they went their separate ways.
He hurled a snowball at her and she ducked neatly.
He said, ‘No, I’m not seeing anyone.’
She gathered more snow and packed it together and threw. It bounced off his arm. She asked, ‘Why didn’t you ever try to contact me?’
Jamie went still. ‘I did. A couple of times. But you weren’t working with that events company anymore. They said you’d gone back to Dublin. I didn’t have another number for you.’
She went red, lobbed a snowball from hand to hand. ‘Um... yeah, OK fair enough...’
But then she pointed at him, eyes narrowed. ‘I was still in New York for a year after Vegas, you had all that time to get in touch.’ She threw the snowball. It glanced off his thigh. He barely felt it. He wanted her, on her back, right here in the snow.
He forced his brain to work. ‘I was in Africa and South America working on projects back to back for that year.’ Trying to forget the connection he’d made with a woman who had called into question every tenet he’d lived by until then. Do not get close to people. Do not risk such a massive loss ever again. So he’d let her walk away.
He aimed a snowball at her and it landed at her feet. An ineffectual throw.
She rolled her eyes. ‘They still have phones and email.’
‘Hang on, I did at least try to contact you. What aboutyou?’
‘I did too, but every time I called your phone it made weird noises.’
‘It was barely ever in service. My sister had the producer’s sat nav phone number in case of emergencies.’
‘But not your wife.’
Wife.That landed in his chest like a physical thump. He looked at her. ‘Lucy... we weren’t really man and wife. We both agreed it was a mistake.’
‘We were man and wife for a few hours. We consummated the wedding.’
Yes, they had. And he could still remember the scorching heat of that night. And how he’d tried to convince himself that it hadn’t meant anything. It was just sex. But now she was standing in front of him and his insides were crumbling.
He said the thing he’d told himself he wasn’t going to say. ‘I did actually find you, six months ago.’
She gathered more snow and was about to chuck it and then stopped. ‘Wait a second, you found me?’
Jamie nodded. Feeling exposed he said, ‘I was on my way to Dublin but then I got the call about my Dad and I had to turn back...’
‘You were on your way to Dublin?’ she asked, looking stunned.
He nodded.
‘Why?’ she asked now, snow falling thicker around her, coating her in soft white flakes.
