.

it could possibly have been about anything else. This was her life after all, he was only doing the inevitable. It seemed everyone she ever came across had an exit strategy from her life. There was something about her, something intangible that she’d never been able to identify, that put people off, that put their teeth on edge, like running fingernails down a blackboard. Unable to work out what it was, her only option had been to stop people mattering so it wouldn’t hurt when they made the inevitable exit.

      She’d got in first last time and the no-second-time rule would have meant she left it at that. But no, she had to meddle with it, didn’t she?

      The sick feeling of disappointment in the pit of her stomach was only matched by the anger she felt at herself for making the same mistake she’d made so many times before.

      ****

      Back to Plan A, from which she should never have deviated.

      Half an hour later and she was showered and dressed, ready to head out. The whole point of the weekend had been to Christmas shop, not that she had a shedload of people to buy for, but there were lots of Christmas markets to check out, full of crafts and gift stalls, and even if she didn’t have a big shopping list, she could look for some inspiration for her own jewellery designs. Perhaps next year she might be able to take a stall here instead of doing the usual waitressing. In a few years time she might even be able to drop the backup waitressing work altogether. The only area of her life with any long-term plan was her work and she refocused her mind on it, hard.

      The brief double-tap at the door came just as she was ready to leave and she opened it, assuming it would be housekeeping wanting to service the room. Not one tiny speck of her thought it could possibly be Tom. That’s how resigned to this kind of thing she’d become. She’d learned not to hope because there never was hope.

      The gorgeous lopsided smile on his face as he leaned casually against the jamb melted away when he took in the expression on her face and the fact she was wearing an outdoor coat.

      ‘What are you doing?’

      He stood up straight. She floundered for a grasp on the situation and went with her original plan. OK so he might not have disappeared under cover of darkness, but reality had still bitten. She should never have let things get this far. She’d been swept up in the magic of Christmas and fun excitement and she’d taken her eye off the ball. And that led to nothing but trouble, and down the line, hurt.

      ‘What I came for,’ she said, winding her scarf around her neck to make a point, although the temperature inside the room was tropical. ‘I’m going shopping. Christmas lights on Oxford Street. What’s the point of coming here if I don’t go and look at them?’

      He stared at her with a bemused expression on his face.

      ‘Did I miss something?’ he said.

      ‘Your flight, maybe?’ she said, picking up her enormous tote bag from the luggage rack beside the door and hefting it over one shoulder.

      There was a sudden movement behind him and she looked up to see him step aside to let a skinny hotel porter through the door, pushing an enormous silver trolley in front of him that was groaning under the weight of silver platters, plates and cutlery. He glanced between them, Tom still waiting to be invited in and herself in her coat and scarf.

      ‘Room Service?’ he said doubtfully.

      She locked confused, questioning eyes with Tom’s mellow gaze.

      ‘Full English breakfast, selection of pastries, toast and preserves, coffee, tea, muesli and selection of fruit…’ the porter’s voice trailed off as neither of them acknowledged him ‘…for two?’

      A pause, and then Tom said, ‘I ordered a selection. I wasn’t sure what you’d like.’

      Her mind reeled and heat began to work its way slowly up her neck to burn in her cheeks.

      ‘You ordered breakfast,’ she said, as if saying it out loud might make it seem more believable. She could hear the surprise in her own voice. Far from hightailing it out of her life without so much as a word, he’d ordered half the dining room to be carted up to her bedroom.

      ‘Showered, changed, ordered breakfast. I would have used your ensuite but there was…’ he coughed ‘…a lot of your stuff in there. And I didn’t want to wake you. I’m an early riser,’ he added to the porter, who was staring at them as if they were both insane. He jumped a little and shifted from one foot to another while Tom dug out cash for a tip. Then he left the room as if it were on fire. Tom turned back to face her. Just the two of them now.

      Tom turned back to her.

      ‘Where did you think I was?’

      She could see from the cynical look in his eyes that he was making the connection himself and knew it was far too late to talk her way out of the situation. She’d jumped to the wrong conclusion about him; one that didn’t paint him in a very happy light.

      She shrugged.

      ‘On your way to Barbados,’ she said. ‘I assumed the airport must have reopened-’

      ‘And that I’d just had what I wanted from you and left without a word. Treat you with zero respect. Get you back for Devon, right?’

      Her cheeks felt hotter than ever. He was annoyed. And really, he had every right to be.

      ‘You were the one that walked out back then,’ he pointed out unnecessarily. ‘I didn’t leave you hanging then and I wouldn’t now. I let you sleep in, I didn’t see the need to disturb you when all my stuff was in my room. And the conclusion you jump to, without so much as checking, is that I’d run out on you. Well, I’m not that kind of person.’

      And by implication of course, he clearly meant she was.

      ‘Why didn’t you call my room?’ he went on. ‘Or check in with Reception if you were worried?’

      She hadn’t done either of those things because she hadn’t needed to, so certain was she that he’d gone. She had a lifetime of experience to back up her jump to that conclusion and to hear it as concrete news from the receptionist would have made it all seem far too real and wounding. Better to just gloss over the whole thing as if it never happened.

      Clearly she was insecure to the point of irrationality.

      Her brain now told her to carry on as she had been doing, to just leave him and his insane feed-an-army breakfast and head off shopping. He hadn’t behaved as she’d expected and she didn’t need this, didn’t need the unpredictable caring of it.

      Yet at the same time she felt absurdly, uncharacteristically touched by it. His thoughtfulness in not wanting to wake her, the over-the-top but no less sweet for it gesture of surprising her with half the breakfast menu.

      Really, how was he meant to know he was dealing with a basket case here?

      She crossed the room to the table, unwound her scarf, and sat down on the edge of one of the chairs. Plates of food, teapots and cutlery covered every inch of it. She glanced up as him as he joined her.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ she offered. ‘I thought—’

      ‘You thought I’d run out on you,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you if I’ll still be in the country tomorrow. Fantastic as I am, I can’t actually control the weather.’ He reached across the table for her hand and her stomach began to flutter as his fingers closed over her own. He held her gaze in his. ‘What I can promise you is that I won’t drop off the planet without saying goodbye.’

      She felt so childish now, like a kid running away to avoid getting in trouble, that the urge to offer some kind of explanation, however crap, was irresistible. That in itself rang alarm bells. Why, if she didn’t care what he thought of her, should she feel any need to justify herself to him?

      ‘I just have this thing,’ she said. She took a slice of toast onto her plate, began to spread it with butter, so she wouldn’t have to look him