for you. No one should deny their own hopes and dreams in favour of someone else’s.’
He looked away, kept walking. She stayed alongside him.
‘I don’t expect you to understand. You’re obviously not from a close-knit family, you’re self-sufficient. You’ve followed your dreams in a way I could never think of doing.’
‘Why not?’
He’d already said more than he meant to, he could hear the hard edge in his own voice.
‘It’s complicated, Ella. It’s not just about me. I can’t just put myself first and then sleep like a baby at night. I have people relying on me. It’s about duty and loyalty.’
‘Surely your first loyalty should always be to yourself.’
How could he explain to her, when her family had clearly let her down so epically, that his entire existence for as long as he could remember had been geared towards fulfilling his family’s expectations?
‘I’d like nothing better than to have a proper family but it still has to be about give and take, doesn’t it?’ she went on. ‘Otherwise it’s just one-sided isn’t it?’
‘There has been give and take,’ he said. ‘For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a doctor; that’s never changed. My parents have always supported me in that, and that ambition has always delighted both of them. My father has always talked about the day when I would join the practice and carry on the family tradition.’
‘And now you have.’
‘Yes.’
‘And it isn’t all it was cracked up to be.’
He dug his hands into his pockets.
‘I guess I just never thought further than qualifying at first – it’s such a slog to reach that point. You invest so much in it. Sacrifice so much. When I met you last time my long-term dream was to work abroad, maybe join Medicins Sans Frontieres, go somewhere where I could do some real good. On the frontline if you like. At that point it seemed an achievable goal. But then, when I qualified, it became clear very quickly that the path my parents expected me to follow was very different. And I’m just not sure I can bring myself to disappoint my father by blowing all his dreams out of the water, not when his health is so shaky. And it’s not like I haven’t gone along happily with those dreams all these years.’
‘There must be some middle ground you can find, some compromise,’ she said.
If only he could see a way to achieve that without risking further stress to his parents.
****
Early evening darkness had fallen now and the day had slipped past easily in her company, even with shops thrown in. Unheard of for him. They reached Trafalgar Square and Ella stopped and stared up at the twenty foot fir tree covered in hundreds of white lights. Fountains were lit up and crowds of people lingered in the cold to listen to carol singers.
‘This is gorgeous,’ she sighed.
‘Even for someone who doesn’t do Christmas?’
‘You can talk,’ she said. ‘You’ve lost touch with the English Christmas. Not that it probably isn’t lovely to lie on a sandy beach somewhere and sip cocktails. But you’re hardly invested in all the magic stuff, are you?’
‘And you are?’ he countered.
She grinned. He had a point.
‘Maybe I am,’ she said. ‘A little bit. From the outside looking in, that is. I’m not going to be scoffing Christmas turkey and mince pies, and I don’t even have a Christmas tree where I rent, but that doesn’t mean hot sunshine and a bikini would ever float my boat. That’s just wrong. Christmas is meant to be freezing cold and you’re meant to live in UGG boots.’
As she watched the carol singers, he slipped arms around her from behind and breathed in the sweet scent of her hair, liking the way she leaned back against him.
‘It’s snowing,’ she said, and he looked up.
It was. Tiny, fine flakes of snow fell in the glow from the tree lights. And what had invoked teeth-gritting anger and frustration yesterday morning as it thwarted his travel plans, had no such effect now. She turned in the circle of his arms to face him, her arms sliding around his waist, her face upturned to his, nose pink from the cold air. Specks of snow clung softly to her hair.
‘Question is, is it the wrong sort of snow?’ she said, pressing an emphatic finger to his chest.
He realised with a spark of uneasy surprise that he hoped it was exactly that. Let the whole of the UK be buried in feet of the stuff. He didn’t care if his flight never made it off the ground and it had nothing to do with boredom at the much repeated family Christmas traditions.
He wanted to be with her.
‘Let’s hope so,’ he said.
A day out around the London sights and now dinner for two in his suite. Like a proper couple. It was as if this was a mini-break and they had a real life somewhere to go back to. She let her mind follow that fantasy for a while as they shared a bottle of wine and talked. She had thought limiting this to a fling would somehow automatically pitch them at that level and make it entirely about sex. She hadn’t expected talking and getting to know him. This time around she found herself liking him way beyond those parameters, and dangerous though she knew it was, she couldn’t help finding signs in his own behaviour that he felt the same. The way he’d spoiled her by ordering half the restaurant for breakfast, the way he’d listened to her plans for her jewellery business as if they hadn’t already been to bed and he still had to jump through those hoops.
And now he refilled their glasses and she stood up to follow him over to the velvet sofa and the crackling fire in the grate, anticipation knotting in her stomach at the thought of being intimate with him again.
And then his mobile rang. She watched as he checked the screen, literally saw the change in his face, and when she ran it through her mind later on she recognised it as the instant when the real world kicked back in.
He took the call, phone pressed to his ear, subconsciously or not, his shoulder was now tilted in her direction as he turned away and took a few paces away. She could pick up the gist of the call just from picking up the odd word from his side, she could hear him discussing departure times, transfers, social plans. It didn’t take a genius to know what the call was about.
‘My mother,’ he said, when he’d hung up. His expression was thoughtful and his focus was not there in the room.
‘Is everything OK?’ she asked, although any fool could see it wasn’t.
He shook his head lightly as if to clear it.
‘She’s just stressing because I’ve been delayed. My father’s had a couple of bad days apparently.’
She gave him a questioning look.
‘It’s not been easy for her,’ he said. ‘He’s needed a lot of extra support. Especially at first when he first had the stroke, but the rehab has been slow and he gets so frustrated at the time it takes to make progress.’
Sympathy twisted in her chest.
‘It must be very tough. I can remember when my Gran was ill. It was awful.’
Tom’s mind spiralled back eighteen months. He toyed with the phone absently, thinking that he should check in with reception for any messages, call the airline. She was watching him, leaning against the back of the velvet sofa, her glass of wine in her hand and giving him her full attention.
‘It was a tough time. At first there was just this awful shock, and the worry that he might