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‘He left it to you?’
Luce nodded. ‘When he died, yeah. We grew up there, you see. My father left when Dolly was a baby, and my Mum...that’s when she retreated to her own bubble. Grandad moved us in, helped bring us up. Grandma had been dead for years, and the house was too big for just him, he always said.’
‘You were his favourite, though,’ Ben said. ‘If he left you the house instead of your mum or your brother and sister.’
The unfairness of that act caught in Luce’s chest every time she thought about it. ‘It wasn’t that, exactly. He relied on me to take care of them. The house needs a lot of work, and I don’t think he thought they’d manage it. They all know it’s still their home, too.’
‘So you even give them your house?’ Ben’s eyes opened wide to stare at her. ‘You really do give up everything for them, don’t you?’
The cosy warmth of the fire started to cool and Luce pulled away a little. ‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ she said, leaning back against the arm of the sofa.
Ben shrugged. ‘Like I told you, home for me was hotels, after Mum left and Dad gave up the house. I used to think maybe I’d missed out, when I was a kid away at boarding school. But I like moving on—finding new things, new places.’
‘But you bought this cottage,’ Luce pointed out. ‘You did it up, made it a home. You brought me here.’
She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. She knew she shouldn’t read more into that than a whim, an emergency pit stop in the snow. But it was so hard not to.
When she looked up his face was closed, his eyes staring over her head. ‘The cottage is an investment. I’ll probably sell it soon.’
The thought of Ben giving up his escape, the closest thing he’d had to a home in years, without even realising what it meant, was too depressing to contemplate.
Looking away into the fire, she said, ‘Doesn’t look like the power’s going to come back on tonight.’
‘Yeah, I doubt it.’ Ben gave her a look she couldn’t quite read, then added, ‘We’ll have to see how the roads look in the morning.’
No. No way. Maybe she understood him a little better now, but that didn’t mean she could stay here any longer and not go crazy. ‘I’m sure they’ll be fine.’ Getting to her feet, she added, ‘And a good night’s sleep will do us both some good before the drive. I’ll see you in the morning.’
She didn’t look back, didn’t check his expression, didn’t wait for him to wish her goodnight. Even so, she barely made it to the door before the sound of his voice stopped her in her tracks.
‘What if I said you were worth breaking my rule for?’ he asked, so low she almost thought she must have misheard.
She turned back to face him, her heart thumping against her ribcage. ‘But I’m not. I’m just the same Lucinda Myles you made fun of at university.’
Ben shook his head. ‘You’re so much more than I ever saw.’
Luce gave him a half-smile. ‘So are you.’
And then, before she could change her mind, she shut the bedroom door behind her and climbed, fully clothed, into the freezing bed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BEN HAD PASSED a fitful night on the sofa, his dreams filled with dark hair and brick walls. But at least he’d been warm, he reasoned. Luce must have been half frozen in her lonely bed, if the way she’d appeared in front of the freshly banked fire before the sun had risen was any indication.
‘Happy Christmas Eve,’ she murmured as she held her hands out to the flames. Her suitcase leant beside the front door, just as it had in Chester, waiting to leave.
He sat up, blankets falling to his waist, and motioned at the case. ‘You’re still hoping to make it back to Cardiff today, then?’
‘I have to.’
‘To cook dinner for your family,’ he said, a little disbelievingly.
‘To spend Christmas with them,’ she corrected. ‘Don’t you want to get back to London to spend it with your brother?’
‘I think Seb wants me there for a business meeting rather than to sing carols round the piano.’ Come to think of it, what did Seb want him there for? He’d been so preoccupied with Luce he’d barely given the strange conversation with his brother another thought.
‘Fine. Maybe you don’t care about family, or home, or Christmas. But I need to get back. Will you drive me?’
She looked down at him, eyes wide and dark, her hair curling around her face, and Ben knew he couldn’t say no to her.
