Page 6

“I want to be the one to break up with you.” She waves a hand in the air. “Fake break up with you in this fake relationship. At the end of the holiday. I want to end things, in front of your family.” She wants to take control of the narrative—she doesn’t want to be seen as the victim, the one to feel sorry for. She’ll use the time to say goodbye to his mum, his family. And then she’ll get her own back.

He hesitates. “On Christmas Day?”

She bites her lip, then shakes her head. If she’s doing this, she has to give Susan that, at least. “Boxing Day. When everyone’s packing up to leave or something.” Then she can get the hell away from there, after it’s done.

He presses his lips together, thinking it through. Then, “Okay. That seems fair.” Fair. Bitterness rises up inside her. He doesn’t get it, does he, just how in love with him she was? Just how hard she’s worked, these last few months, to pull herself together. It isn’t fair, not in the slightest. But this way, she’ll get the closure she needs. She’ll be able to put Finn Hawthorne behind her for good.

“Okay, then.” She draws herself up to full height. She’s nearly as tall as him when she does that. “You have yourself a deal.”

He lifts his hand, as if he’s going to hold it out for her to shake. Then, as if the thought of touching her is too much to bear, he drops it. A flicker of a smile softens his slightly crooked mouth, and his gaze does not drop hers as he nods. “Deal.”

Chapter Three

Six days to Christmas

It’s dark outside as the train pulls into Aberdeen station. Mel lugs her suitcase off the carriage and winces at the bitterness of the air—definitely colder here than in London. Of course it is, she thinks with a snort—it took seven and a half hours straight north to get here.

There are a surprising number of people making their way off the platform, and Mel briefly wonders what they’re all doing. Heading home for Christmas—or is it still a few days early for that? She sometimes enjoys people watching on trains, wondering where everyone is traveling to and why, but she’d spent the entire journey today working, cursing as they constantly went in and out of signal, then reaching for her notebook to sketch out a few more designs. Not that she’ll likely show anyone—she has people for that now. But, still, it was a welcome distraction from the mounting nerves, and a way to avoid thinking about why the hell she’d agreed to this totally ludicrous idea.

Her stomach twists with anxiety as she crosses the station bridge, then she heads toward the car park as instructed. She feels knackered and wants to change out of the jeans and jumper she’s wearing. Her insides give another annoying squirm as she reaches the ticket barrier and she tries to tell herself she just feels a little sick from the journey.

She gets out her phone to scan her e-ticket, sees a WhatsApp from Priya.

I still say this is a terrible idea.

Mel beeps herself through the barrier without answering. Priya has spent a solid week trying to convince her not to go through with Finn’s plan since Mel left her a long and detailed voice note explaining the whole thing. She has told Priya, repeatedly, that she is over him and therefore she is in no danger whatsoever of anything going wrong, that she’s doing this purely to even the scale between them. She’d gotten a long line of emojis back after sending that particular message—emojis she was sure were trying to convey some kind of narrative, though she hadn’t been able to figure out what. But Priya is in Australia, too far away to stop her, and it’s too late now, anyway.

Because there he is, waiting for her in the ticket office. He’s staring intently at his phone, shoulders hunched slightly in that long black coat, eyebrows pulled together in what she recognizes as his “thinking expression.” Her traitorous heart lurches at the sight of him—and she’s grateful that she’s the one who has noticed him first, so she can school her face, make sure she looks nothing other than mildly irritated by his presence. They’d headed to Scotland separately today—thank God, as she couldn’t have done the whole journey sitting next to him—but he’d insisted that it would look odd if they didn’t arrive at the cottage together.

She manages to get right up next to him without him noticing. She clears her throat and he jolts, then smiles. And for a second it’s a warm, unfiltered smile—the way he used to smile at her when they were first dating and hadn’t seen each other for a while. It’s a smile that makes her want to return it, a smile that was so often followed by his arms coming around her, that scent of pine enveloping her.

Right now, though, she forces her face to stay impassive as he reaches for her suitcase. “I can take it.” Her voice is not quite a snap, but it’s getting there.

“Don’t be silly. I’ll do it.” He tries to take it from her, and she yanks it back.

“I think we can agree that me carrying my own suitcase is not the ‘silliest’ thing we’re doing right now.”

He looks as if he might argue for a second, then gives her a “fair enough” type of nod. “Car’s this way.” He jerks his head toward the car park, leads her out of the ticket office. The air is so cold it sears her cheeks, and their breath mists out in front of them as they walk. She shivers—she packed several scarves and a hat, but they’re currently in her suitcase, taken off during the too-hot tube ride to King’s Cross more than eight hours ago.

He unlocks a little red Yaris that seems distinctly un-Finn-like. Neither of them had a car when they lived in London together, but she’d always imagined him with something less…neat.

“You bought a car?” she can’t help asking.

“No, it’s a rental. Can’t get to where we’re going without a car.”

He heads around to the driver’s side, and she folds herself awkwardly into the passenger seat. It’s too quiet—and still just as cold. Finn switches on the heating, programs the internal GPS, then switches on the radio. Immediately, a Christmas song comes on—Mariah Carey belting out at full volume.

Mel stares out of the window as Finn pulls away from the station and starts weaving his way through the city. Soon the streetlamps are lost behind them, meaning Mel can’t really form much of an impression of Aberdeen with only passing car headlights to light up the dark around them. She’s been to Scotland a few times, but never this far north.

“So how was your journey up?” Finn asks, his tone falsely bright.

“Oh, just dandy.”

He either doesn’t notice or ignores her sarcasm. Probably the latter. “Get much work done?”

She glances at him—at the assumption there—but he looks straight ahead as the GPS tells him to turn right. “Some.” In truth, not enough, but she’s not going to open up to him about that. She doubts he even cares anymore, just fishing for small talk.

“I drove up from Wales yesterday,” he says, apropos of nothing.