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He smiled—definitely a smile—and she felt her heart physically swell with anticipation. ‘I think this is an I’m falling in love with you thing,’ he said. And she thought her heart might actually burst. ‘An I can’t believe we’ve been so stupid thing.’
She dropped the cushion, and he frowned as his eyes followed it to the floor.
‘What the heck are you doing to the sofa?’
‘Looking for my phone,’ Jess said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. ‘I needed to call Lara. It was urgent.’ He was by her side in a second, his hand disappearing down the back of the sofa and re-emerging a moment later with her phone.
He held it out to her, but she didn’t take it from him. Instead, she just smiled. ‘I don’t think I need it now.’
‘You said it was urgent.’
‘It was. I needed Lara to drive me. To you. But you’re here.’
He took a step closer, and his hands dropped to her hips. Bending his head, he caught her eye. ‘And what were you going to say when you got there?’
‘Well, I was thinking about telling you that I was an idiot to make you leave. And I’m sorry. And can we talk about what we want and what we’re both scared of? And maybe being grown-ups about this relationship that we seem to be having?’
She was madly in love with every single one of the lines that appeared around his eyes as he smiled at her. ‘O
kay. Well, I think I would have liked it if you’d turned up on my doorstep and told me all that. Maybe you could tell me all of it here instead.’
‘Instead you turned up on mine. And told me you’re falling for me.’ She looped her good arm around his neck, reached up on tiptoe, and pulled herself a little higher.
‘So what does this “being an adult” thing entail?’ he asked, his voice a murmur.
‘I think telling me you’re falling in love with me was a good start.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. I’m thinking of trying it out.’
His lips curled into a smile. ‘I think I might like that. When you’re ready. And if you’re not, we’ll talk. There’s nothing that we can’t deal with if we talk. And if I’m going to spend half my life on the motorway so that we can do that face to face I don’t care. I’m still in. It broke me to walk away from you thinking I wasn’t going to see you again. I never want to feel like that again.’
She brushed a kiss against the corner of his mouth. ‘So if I told you that I had a job offer from the university, and I was thinking of taking it, you wouldn’t think I was jumping the gun?’
‘I think that would be just about the best thing that I’d heard all year. I’d beg you to take it. To give me a chance. To give us a chance.’
‘Okay,’ she said on an out-breath. ‘Okay, then. I’ll take it. I’ll take you. I’ll take everything.’
EPILOGUE
THERE REALLY WERE an ungodly number of buttons on this dress.
She fidgeted as Lara fastened them up her spine, and she twitched at her lace sleeve.
‘Stand still,’ Lara said, flicking her spine with a finger, ‘or this is never going to end.’
‘Ow, that hurt.’
‘Good. Now stand still.’
Jess looked down at her wedding dress, the same one she had tried on her first Christmas at Upton, and smiled. As if she could even think about wearing anything else to marry Rufus.
The past year had seen changes at Upton—film crews, back-to-back bookings, a subtle but steady climb in the bank balance. And it had never looked more beautiful than it did this morning, decorated in holly and mistletoe, fires burning, candles everywhere. Just as it had the first time that she’d seen it.
And then the dress was finally fastened and her hair was perfect and Lara was handing her a bouquet, and she couldn’t believe that she was really doing this.
Marriage had looked like a trap her entire life, until she’d met Rufus and he’d made it feel like an adventure. And her parents, who had seemed so entombed by matrimony, had decided that it was worth fighting after all, and her whole worldview had been tipped upside down and thoroughly shaken.
