She reached behind her and placed the flat of her palm against the wall, something solid to steady herself against. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I want to know.’
Ben nodded. ‘You told me your name was Lili.’
Lili.
Such a short word. So simple. Yet it felt like a discovery on the same scale as the law of gravity or that the earth revolved around the sun. It was world-changing.
‘It’s been killing me not being able to tell you, it really has. You don’t know how many times I almost cracked. And the longer it went on, the worse I felt about it, you’ve got to believe me.’
‘I don’thaveto believe you.’ But she did. Even though the echoes of air raid sirens were still ringing in her ears, deep down in her gut, she did. She knew this man. Even without the memory of ever having seen his face before Saturday morning, she knew him.
And Ben hadn’t planned to come on the train with her, had he? He hadn’t known she was going to have a meltdown on the station concourse. He couldn’t have anticipated that. There was no reason to suspect he had any ulterior motive. ‘Is there anything else you know about me? Anything at all?’
‘Not much,’ he said wearily. ‘You said music was your passion, that you played the violin.’
‘The violin?’
He nodded. ‘You were studying it somewhere in London, but I’m not sure you ever mentioned the name of the music school, or if you did, I forgot.’
Well, she could hardly blame him for that, could she?
Despite the fact she still felt a little shaky, she peeled herself from the wall and went around the other side of the bed, sat on the edge and faced him so they were only a few feet apart. ‘You said you weren’t sure at first …’
‘No,’ he said, dark eyes fixed on hers, unblinking. Honest.
‘What made you sure?’
Ben swallowed, and then his gaze drifted lower. Was he …? Was he looking at herboobs? She was about the jump up, run and lock herself in the bathroom when he reached out and pinched the thin silver chain where it sat on her clavicle and pulled it so he was holding the little bee pendant away from her chest. ‘Because I gave this to you.’
Oh.Her mouth made the shape, but her vocal cords declined to provide the sound. Their faces were almost touching as he held the tiny silver charm so gently between his fingers and her whole body felt as if it were humming with electric current.
‘I thought you said we met sightseeing. Do you usually buy presents – jewellery – for women you meet sightseeing?’ And since he’d told her that very day that he’d travelled all over the world, that would be an awful lot of bee pendants.
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I only did it once.’
Even though it was past two in the morning and the hotel was utterly quiet, the silence around them thickened. Ben seemed to notice it too because he dropped the silver charm as if it had grown lava-hot,then scooted away, pressing himself against the back of the sofa bed, putting as much distance between them as possible.
Oh.
‘Were we …? Did we …?’
The discomfort on Ben’s face almost told her the answer to her question. She could have left it there, but she knew she needed to hear him say it out loud. ‘Were we in a relationship?’
For a second, he looked concerned, as if he was thinking hard about what to say next, and then his features relaxed, and he breathed out. ‘No. We never dated. And we never …’ He paused, shook his head. ‘We only spent a day or so together, and then I carried on with my life, and you carried on with yours.’
‘Ships in the night,’ she whispered.
He gave her a lopsided smile that looked slightly pained. ‘It was a very hot and sticky July, so mostly in the sunshine but, yes, something like that.’
Alice closed her eyes and yawned. Her head was starting to ache. After feeling as if there had been nothing inside her skull for so long, it now felt rammed full of information, and she wasn’t sure she had any energy to process a single bit of it. ‘I need some time. I don’t even know where to start unravelling all this at the moment. Do you think … do you think we can just … shelve this for now, talk some more in the morning?’
‘I think it might be best,’ he answered, hiding a yawn with his hand. ‘We’ve to be up in a few hours. Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?’
I will if you climb into bed beside me, if you hold me the way you did before.
Where hadthatthought popped up from? ‘Um … no … I mean, yes,’ she stammered. She shook herself and started again. ‘I hope so.’
He nodded, lay down on the sofa bed and pulled the duvet up over himself and looked at her expectantly. What? Was he waiting for her to join him?
