Page 68 of Winter Magic at Hollybrae Castle

My mouth has fallen open because I can’t work out what’s going on, and the woman starts banging on the windows and frantically pointing to me, just as Ollie is being frog-marched along the platform by a couple of police officers.

He looks over and his face brightens. ‘That’s her! Give me one second, please!’

‘She’s here!’ the woman shouts. ‘You can’t let a man chase down a train at Christmas and not let him on!’

I’m about to go out to him, but the conductor has opened the door to our carriage, and there’s a few looks between the police officers, and eventually one of them pushes Ollie forward.

‘Pardon the interruption, folks,’ the officer says as they board. ‘Not sure if we’ve got a complete walloper on our hands or if we’re witnessing the greatest love story of our time.’

‘Oh, thank God, Lu!’ Ollie moves so fast that he drags his police escort along with him as he skids onto his knees in the aisle beside my seat. ‘Stay. Stay, stay, stay. Please don’t go. I will do anything for you to stay.’

Considering how much I’ve cried so far today, I did not expect to burst into tears again, but those words, and the sight of him, and the fact that he’s here… chasing down my train to stop me. It’s all too much when I’ve already been an emotional wreck all morning and the tears spill over again.

His hands are handcuffed behind his back and a burly police officer yanks him upwards by a painful-looking grip around his bicep. ‘Do you know this man?’

‘I’m married to him.’

Ollie laughs an unbalanced laugh that sounds like he’s close to tears too.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting myself arrested, evidently.’ He wriggles his arms around, making the handcuffs rattle.

‘He’s climbed down in front of the train and been messing about on the tracks, madam.’ The policeman fills me in.

‘I wasn’t messing about on the tracks. I’d hammered on the door but the train was about to pull out and the conductor wouldn’t let me get on. I had to stop it leaving the station. How else was I supposed to do it?’

‘Ollie! You could’ve been killed!’

‘The driver was watching my every move and the train had barely started moving. He was always going to stop.’

‘God, you’re an idiot.’ I reach over and stroke his face, and the carriage is filled with ‘awws’ from my fellow passengers. ‘How did you even get here? There’s not another plane until five o’clock tonight.’

‘I paid a guy with a boat in Campbeltown harbour an obscene amount of money to get me across the water to the mainland.’

‘You couldn’t have called? You couldn’t have phoned me and told me not to get on the train? It would have been a tad less dramatic and certainly cheaper.’

‘I… did not think of that.’ He drops his head onto my knees. ‘All I had in my head was catching up with you. I was either going to get here for this train or get on the next one down to London and find you there.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I was wrong.’ He lifts his head and looks me in the eyes. ‘I was so wrong in everything I said earlier. Life can change in a month. You can hire someone to be your fake wife and then actually fall in love with her. And I can’t believe I’m having this conversation in handcuffs.’ He looks up at the police officer imploringly and receives nothing but a hardened stare in return.

I reach out and rub over his shoulders, bulging from where his arms are yanked behind his back, and he moves his chin until his jaw brushes against my wrist.

‘Yes, I got swept away by Christmas magic, but I want to be swept away by Christmas magic every day, of every year, for the rest of my life. I accidentally let you into my home, my life, and my heart. But they weren’t – it wasn’t my home, or my life, or my heart, until you came along and made everything feel exactly as it should do. I don’t want life to carry on as it has been – I want you in every moment with your jingling socks and your sparkle and your endless Christmas trees and seventy-eight poinsettias. I even want us to adopt a pony together. Please stay, Lu.’

‘What about your job? The promotion?’

‘I’ve turned it down. I’ve already emailed my resignation to Dand and Halston and told them everything. The whole truth about us and what you’ve made me realise about myself this month.’

‘What’s that?’ the woman in the next seat along chimes in. She’s watching so intently that the only thing she’s missing is a bucket of popcorn.

Ollie doesn’t look away from my gaze. ‘Fifteen years ago, on a Sunday afternoon in March, three people died in our car, and I was one of them.’

I can’t help the intake of breath even though he, hopefully, means it in a metaphorical sense. It’s the most heart-rending thing I’ve ever heard, and I only realise my tears had started to dry when my eyes fill up again. All I want to do is hold him and never let go. That can’t be an easy thing to admit, especially when we’re not in private.

‘I haven’t been living since then. I’ve been floating around that castle like a ghost, living the life my father didn’t get to live himself, and making myself feel more lifeless every day, until you burst in with an explosion of fountain water and Christmas glitter and made me remember what it feels like to be alive again. To be me again. The only thing that’s made me happy in years walked into my life a month ago. The only thing my parents would truly want for me is someone who makes me as happy as you do. Someone who makes that place feel like home like you do. I love that castle, and I don’t want to leave it.’ He swallows hard and meets my eyes again. ‘And I don’t want you to leave it either. It deserves more. It deserves the love and the laughter it’s had this Christmas, and I can’t do that alone.’