Those words would never have left Rob’s mouth. ‘I wish I could come to New York.’
Then he said, very quietly, ‘So come with me.’
She stared. ‘Theo…’
‘I mean it,’ he said, brushing his thumb across her cheek. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot today. More than I should. It would be… incredible. Just picture it for a second.’
She hesitated, but he was looking at her like he genuinely wanted her to imagine it.
So she did. ‘What would we do?’ she asked, feeling curious.
Theo lay back against the pillows, pulling her with him so she stayed tucked into his side. ‘Well,’ he began lightly, ‘I’m staying in a tiny Manhattan flat that overlooks Times Square, and we could pretend it was actually ours.’
‘Go on,’ she said, smiling into his chest.
‘You’d make friends with the woman in the café downstairs within a week. She’d give you free muffins because she’d adore you.’
‘I do attract bakery ladies… Look at Clemmie when I arrived.’
‘I’d take you to all the museums,’ he continued, ‘and show you the oldest watches in the city. We’d grab coffee, ride bikes around Central Park, walk the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset. I could kiss you by the Bethesda fountain, on the top of the Empire State Building, while watching a musical on Broadway…’
‘Oooh, it all sounds wonderful.’
‘It would be,’ he murmured. ‘Everything would be wonderful with you there.’
She held her breath for a moment.
He meant it. Every word.
She gave him a warm smile. ‘I’d love all of that. Truly. But restoring clocks is what I do, and I can’t afford to go anywhere right now.’
‘The offer is always there,’ he said gently.
She rested her forehead back against his chest for a moment before looking up at him again. ‘But if it helps? I hope it rains for forty days and we stay stuck here.’
Theo grinned. ‘You like being stranded with me?’
‘A bit…’
His eyes crinkled as his smile grew. ‘Good. Because I like being stranded with you, too.’
Pippa leaned upwards and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.
‘Sebastian did me a favour, you know.’
Pippa blinked. ‘By sleeping with your wife?’
Theo laughed. ‘If you want to put it like that… But I was thinking more by ending something I should’ve admitted wasn’t right years ago. I feel like everything that’s happened… led me here.’
‘Thank God I ran from that wedding then,’ she said with a grin. ‘But seriously, I’m thinking more about me than you. If I’d gone through with it, I’d be stuck walking a golf course in Portugal losing the will to live.’
Theo laughed. ‘You need to think about you more.’
Pippa looked up at him, her expression deadpan. ‘I will, if you promise never to even think about booking me a golf holiday.’
He laughed. ‘I promise it would never have crossed my mind.’
Theo moved first– or maybe she did?– and suddenly their mouths were close enough that she felt his breath, and she kissed him. His lips were warm against hers, and she felt her whole body tingle. This felt right, but in the back of her mind, she knew that once the causeway was open, everything would change. They would leave the island and go their separate ways as they returned to their lives… But that really wasn’t something she wanted to think about at that moment, so she pushed the concerns away and focused on the present.
