He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I had to go to Paris, and then Skye was here for a visit... But I was going to come to you, Jess.’
‘OK... Why?’
He shook his head, his hair ruffling in the wind. ‘You ruined me, Jess. For years I’ve kept everyone at a distance. No one got close. Not evenher.’
The actress. I hated to admit it, but that satisfied me.
He went on. ‘Then you came along, inthatdress, and nothing has been the same since. I’ve never felt lonelier, because for the first time I really know what it feels like. Because I love you, Jess, and I’m so sorry I couldn’t see it sooner. But... After what we went through, me and Skye, the thought of opening myself up again, of risking that level of chaos and destruction...the violence...’ He shook his head. ‘It was easier to just push it away. Push away any chance of that.’
My chest ached for him. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that.’
‘I think I know that now... Or maybe it’s just that my fear of being vulnerable and traumatised again is so much less terrifying than the thought of not being with you. That is...’ he said. ‘If you meant what you said.’
I could see him almost brace himself. As if preparing for a blow. I had never been more vulnerable or as strong as in this moment when I closed the distance between us and wound my arms around his neck. ‘Brodie Montgomery, I love you too, and I’d really, really, like to keep seeing you, if that’s what you want.’
There was a second when he didn’t move, and then his arms were around me and he was lifting me off my feet and we were kissing, with London spread out around us, stretching as far as the eye could see. Not that we even noticed.
An insistent cough alerted us to the presence of someone else. A man with a walkie-talkie in a hi-vis jacket. Brodie held me close. ‘Sorry, I was just showing my girlfriend the view.’
Girlfriend.I felt dizzy from happiness. Brodie let me down and he kept my hand tight in his. I was never letting go. The man moved back to let us walk past him. As we did, he muttered, ‘You wouldn’t believe the amount of people we get sneaking up here to propose.’
Brodie looked at me and brought our entwined hands up to his mouth, kissing them. He smiled and said, ‘That’ll be for the next time.’
Epilogue
Eighteen months later, London
‘Brodie, this is so beautiful.’ I walked out ahead of him, into the garden that had been planted on the rooftop of the new HQ of Safe Refuge. It had been designed and planted by Skye’s husband, Jack. He’d also done an amazing job on the land at the back of the building.
Skye and I had become good friends, almost on sight. And Jack and Brodie had a bromance going on that we liked to tease them about mercilessly.
And, it turned out in these weird ways of the world that Skye knew Lucy, my sister-in-law. Lucy had worked on several events at Montgomery House. So now we had an extended connected family, from London to Edinburgh and Dublin. And New York, where Skye’s best friend lived and where Jack’s family lived.
Sometimes, when we were all together I looked around me and felt like I was teetering on the edge of a precipice, terrified at the amount of love flowing all around us. Terrified it might somehow disappear. Like the way Cal had disappeared. But Brodie always caught me in that moment and grounded me.
I walked along a path now bordered by allium and grasses. There were trees. And different levels. I came to a stop. There was a gazebo, set amongst young saplings. It looked vaguely familiar.
Brodie took my hand and I looked up at him. ‘Is that..?’
He said nothing, just smiled enigmatically and tugged me along with him. I gasped when we got to it.
‘This is the same gazebo...isn’t it?’ The gazebo from that weekend in the country.
Brodie said, ‘I had a job explaining to Gordon why I wanted it but eventually he sold it to me.’
There had been no hard feelings between Brodie and his old company and sometimes they even collaborated on big projects. But everything he did now was with a view to enhancing the community around it. Not in isolation.
I went up the steps ahead of him and almost tripped over my own feet when I saw the profusion of flowers covering almost every surface. Petals on the floor. And the seat along the inner wall. I remembered how desperate I’d been for him that night and how much I’d been trying to protect myself from getting hurt. Ha!
I turned to face him. He stood in the entrance, looking at me with those blue eyes that never failed to take my breath away.
‘Brodie..?’
He met me in the middle of the space. I realised he looked nervous. And then he got down on one knee and took my hands. I could feel his shaking. I could recognise what was happening here but I was also afraid to really believe...
He looked up at me. ‘I did always plan to bring you back to the Shard to do this...but somehow, I felt that I wanted to do this in the place where my life changed course for the better. Forever.’
He shook his head, ‘That night...that weekend...I knew I couldn’t live without you, Jess. But really I think I’d known it since I saw you in that red dress.’
