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few years. They weren’t together but he still seemed to make an effort. Maybe that was part of the problem.’ She looked down at her hands, thinking back. ‘In my head I built him up to be so perfect.’ A rueful smile touched the corner of her mouth. ‘When he stopped making that effort I made excuses for him. Told myself my mother made it impossible for him to be around. They didn’t exactly get on like a house on fire, if you get my drift.’

      He smiled at her, but the expression on his face was troubled.

      ‘Anyway, when my mother moved in with Gordy a few years ago I was old enough to make my own choices and I tracked my father down again. I think I expected to be welcomed into his life with open arms. I thought he’d be so pleased to see me again.’

      ‘And how did it go?’

      Her stomach churned with the remnants of the awful disappointment she’d felt that day. It was dull now, not sharp and all-consuming as it had been then.

      ‘He was so far from delighted it wasn’t even funny,’ she said. ‘He shut the front door behind him and talked to me on his doorstep, fobbing me off, talking his way out of it. And all the time I stood there I knew it was because he had a proper family behind that front door. He’d never told them about me, I was just a secret, something to be hidden, kept away from his new, perfect life.’

      He touched her hand.

      ‘Ella, I’m sorry. That’s awful.’

      She shook her head furiously.

      ‘Don’t apologise. Not for him. I am SO over him. He was a total arse. Why the hell would I want to get to know someone like that? But you understand now, why I walked away without saying goodbye back in Devon. That perfect night could never be the foundation for anything strong or long lasting. You see that, don’t you? You can’t build a lasting relationship on a one-night stand.’

      ‘But you’ve gone way beyond that. It’s you against the world and no compromise. You’ll end up going through life on your own because you’re never prepared to let anyone else in.’

      ‘Because I know I can rely on myself. I’m not about to let myself down or disappear out of my own life because I’m too much trouble, am I? What I’m trying to say is that I should never have revisited it. I should never have tracked him down but I did because I believed things could be better second time around. That everything was worth a second chance.’

      She looked up at him.

      ‘That’s why I was reluctant to speak to you at first, when we bumped into each other again. Not because I didn’t want to, or because I regretted what happened between us, but because I didn’t want to ruin it. I loved it, every second of it. I didn’t want to take the risk of finding out that you weren’t all that after all.’ She forced a smile up at him. ‘As it turned out, you were.’

      ‘I don’t care about any of that. When I get back from Barbados, we can get together. Let me show you things can be different for us.’

      She sat up in bed and looked into his eyes, saw the determined expression. When he got back from Barbados. There was the point, right there. Family first. She could never compete with that, not in the long-term.

      Self-preservation won out and she leaned forward to kiss him softly on the mouth.

      ‘You need to get going, Tom. You’ll miss your flight.’

      ****

      He was back in the lobby, but checking out this time. Taxi booked, under time pressure now. Had it really only been a couple of days since he’d stood here and she’d teased him for grouching about the snow?

      He glanced around the lobby and there was no sign of her. No sign that the weekend had even happened. He should have expected this. She’d made her excuses, left him alone to pack and hadn’t reappeared since. Why was he even surprised? After all she’d made it pretty clear that she didn’t do goodbyes. This was the way she wanted it, clearly she was able to move forward without looking back. It was a trick he really needed to perfect for himself.

      For a moment he wondered if part of the perfection of this was that he knew it wouldn’t last? Knew because she wouldn’t let it. Easy to put things on a pedestal when they weren’t subjected to the test of time and daily life. Maybe she was right to let this go – he wasn’t happy in his own life, how could he drag her into it and expect her to be happy too?

      Then he turned to head for the revolving doors and there she was. Thick sweater, jeans and her hair in soft waves, still lightly damp from the shower. He crossed the lobby toward her, put his bags down next to her. He could pick up the warm citrus scent of the hotel shampoo.

      ‘I thought you were going to skip the goodbyes,’ he said.

      ‘Yeah well,’ she said, smiling. ‘I thought I’d try a different approach this time around.’

      He opened his mouth to speak and she stopped it with three fingers.

      ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t ruin this by trying to make it into more than it can be. Let it be what it is. Let it be that perfect couple of days.’

      ‘That’s what you really want?’

      Part of him wanted to shake her, talk at her until she gave in. Her infuriating insistence that this was nothing more than a fling. So entrenched in her own way of living that she had no room to consider anything else. No different from the last time. And yet she had changed since last time, hadn’t she? She’d gone through with the goodbye this time.

      ‘Maybe we’re destined to only ever meet by chance,’ he said instead. ‘Who knows, in five years we might run into each other in the street.’

      She smiled into his eyes at that.

      ‘I’ll see you in five years then,’ she said.

      And because his flight was on the brink of leaving, and his responsibilities were well overdue, and because she’d made it crystal clear how this was going to be, he turned and walked toward the waiting taxi.

       CHAPTER TEN

      She’d got through this once before and she could do it again.

      Shopping break weekend over with, Lavington Hotel behind her, and Christmas Day now out of the way. A working Christmas, just like every other year. Card and phone call from her mother but no invitation to visit over the season. As predicted, they were off to Benidorm, which suited Ella perfectly since any moment spent under the same roof as the hideous Gordy would be a moment too many, especially with mistletoe thrown in. Christmas worked perfectly well for her as it was. Triple time on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Double time for much of the rest of the holiday. The big thaw was well under way now, especially on the coast, and the only evidence that there had ever been a weather front that had thrown her and Tom back together was in the shrinking heaps of greying snow in lay-bys and at the edges of the road where the snowploughs had piled it up. The slushy, miserable aftermath of all that magic. Which was pretty much how it felt when she thought of Tom, and the reason why she was now hurling herself back into work as if her life depended on it.

      She’d taken a job this year at the Harbour Hotel in Looe. The first year she’d gone back there since her Gran had died, and she hadn’t been sure even as she’d contacted the owner and offered her services, that it would be a good idea. She could earn more working in one of the cities. Yet it seemed easier now, to go back to the tiny coastal town where she’d been so happy for a time. Comforting, rather than painful. Instead of feeling the loss this time she was able to enjoy the icy cold salt air and the Christmas lights strung around the harbour. It occurred to her that maybe that was the key, maybe five years was some kind of a cut off point for getting over things.

      If that were the case then she’d just set herself right back to the beginning when it came to Tom.

      For Pete’s sake, there

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