*
‘The last supper.’ Jonathan winked at her across the table that evening.
‘Don’t be daft.’ She speared a piece of roast chicken and dipped it in gravy. Her stomach was already doing somersaults at the thought of saying goodbye to him.
‘When do you return to work?’
‘I’ve got a day to recover,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll be back in the office.’
Unlike previous dinners, they didn’t linger at the restaurant this time. It was as though all either of them could think about was that this was their last night together, for who knew how long.
They settled the bill and back at the door to her hotel room, the place Jonathan always walked her to before saying goodbye, she looped her hands loosely around his neck. ‘Thank you for making this a holiday to remember.’ She brushed his lips lightly with her own.
‘Wait, are you ending this?’ He pulled away. ‘All I am to you is a holiday fling?’ He put a hand against his heart jokingly but soon pulled her in close again.
‘Do you want to see me again?’ She hadn’t been sure, not with Theo and everything she’d told him, and she’d hardly dared to let herself hope.
‘I can’t imaginenotseeing you again, Lydia.’ With his fingers beneath her chin, he looked deep into her eyes.
Her hands could feel the muscles in his back as they hugged and she thought about his body at the spa. She’d been coy in her midnight-blue bikini, the least amount of clothes he’d ever seen her in. There was a strange kind of confidence hiding behind a pair of salopettes and a chunky ski jacket, even beneath a jumper and jeans in the evening, but the cloak had been taken away that day and she’d seen him looking more than once.
‘I fly back tomorrow as well,’ he said, ‘only a few hours after you, but I don’t have any plans. Can I see you?’ His hands wrapped around her waist even tighter.
A smile lifted the corners of her mouth, the doubt erased. ‘Yes.’
‘Can I come to the house, or would you rather…’
‘Jonathan, I’d really like you to come to my house.’ Theo’s rugby boots were still at the back of the downstairs cupboard, knick-knacks shoved in the bedside cabinet that wasn’t hers, lots of his odds and ends in the loft, but it was her place now rather than somewhere she shared with anyone else. She hadn’t chosen it that way, but life had evolved and made it so.
He kissed her with a passion she’d felt before, but this time he didn’t pull away and by the time she opened the door to the hotel room, neither of them said another word. They simply went inside and in Jonathan’s arms that night Lydia knew she’d fallen in love for the second time in her life.
