Jesse was loading a large holdall into the back of the truck. Ned was already sitting in the front seat, his warm breath steaming up the window as he added nose prints to the glass. Jesse looked up at our arrival.
‘Good luck.’ She gripped my hand and waited for me to get out then, to my surprise, drove off. In my car.
I watched it leave for a moment, then turned back. My car being stolen wasn’t my biggest priority right now. My broken heart was.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
He didn’t even look at me, just turned and began walking back to the door. ‘What I should have done a long time ago. Getting away.’
‘From me?’
‘From everything. And now you can take your all-expenses-paid trip out to the Indian Ocean and get as rich as Croesus guilt-free.’
‘Don’t you dare!’
He stopped.
‘I swear to God if I had that piece of wood I knocked you on your arse with before, I’d smack you with it again! Maybe it might knock some sense into you.’
Stepping up to him, I halted him in his tracks.
‘I told you last night and I will tell you again now for the last time. I would never, ever, take a commission from him. Not now, not ever. I don’t know how much of the conversation in the café you heard…’
‘Enough.’
‘Good. Then I don’t have to go over it again. I’ve done the best I can, Jesse. I didn’t know who I was until I came here. I didn’t have what you have. No support network. No family. So I did what I thought I was supposed to. But then I came here and I found everything I was missing. I found you. But I can’t erase my past. I can’t erase that fear of being broke and alone, but I’m trying the best I can. And I thought you knew me. I thought you loved me! But thinking I would ever take that job shows you don’t know me at all and that…’ I swallowed. ‘It breaks my heart, and I don’t know what to do with that as I’ve never had my heart broken before because I never dared give it to anyone. Until I met you. So if you still want to leave, then leave. But don’t do it thinking I never cared about you or that I would ever put anything, or anyone, above you or your happiness.’
It seemed like an age until Jesse spoke and then his voice was deep and thick with emotion.
‘I do know you, Fliss. And I do love you. More than I could ever put into words. I should have known you wouldn’t have taken it. I did know, in truth. But we’d been apart so much, you living the high life, always jetting here and there first class, that I thought maybe you’d begun to regret things. I thought that you looking at it meant you were considering it, maybe thought even for a moment that the life you have here isn’t enough. I don’t think straight when that bastard is around and now I hate him even more because if this…’ he indicated himself and then me ‘…this doesn’t happen, then he’s helped to destroy the two best things I’ve ever had in my life. I’m so sorry I doubted you. Inevershould have doubted you and if you take me back, I promise, Iabsolutely promise, I will never, ever do so again.’
He took a tentative step towards me. When I didn’t move, he took another, then another, until he was close enough to take my hand. Lifting it to his lips, he kissed my palm, his eyes not leaving mine.
‘I would hope that we would never be broke, although I can’t guarantee it. But I can guarantee you this. That you will never, ever be alone again. Not as long as I live.’ He reached for my other hand. ‘Fliss. I never thought I would, or could, love anyone again. I wasn’t even interested. And then you walked into my life and literally floored me. And I will be grateful every single day that you did if you’ll just give us another chance.’
I looked into the eyes of the first, and last, man I would ever love.
I opened my mouth to speak but no words would come out. I nodded instead, my vision blurry with happy tears.
And then Jesse was kissing me, soft at first and then his hands were at my face, in my hair and pulling me close as though I could never be close enough and I knew how he felt because I felt the same. When we finally pulled apart, both our faces wet with tears, we were breathless and laughing with relief and joy and a tonne of other emotions we didn’t have the energy to name.
‘Can I just say something?’ he asked, pulling back from me for a moment.
‘Yes?’
‘You were absolutely magnificent in that café. If I hadn’t already been madly in love with you, I’d have fallen completely watching you stand up for yourself, and your friends.’
‘My friends.’ I repeated the word, loving the sound and the fact he had said it.
‘Yes. Your friends. And don’t you ever doubt it.’
‘I won’t. I promise.’
‘Good.’
‘Do you think one of those friends might give me a lift back to my house?’ I asked, laughing and sniffing as I wiped my face with the back of my hand. ‘Your sister appears to have stolen my car.’
‘Will I do?’
