AllFreeNovel
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Recovery sounds good, but I fear my journey will be long. Although I slept better, the panic attack in the club troubles me.
When I mention a certain man who seems to be helping me connect with these memories, and that I’m staying with him in London this weekend, Tilly is perfectly, attentively quiet.
I tell her everything. Well, almost everything. I’m worried she’ll think this is too fast, even though we’re cut from the same cloth. Five months after meeting Nate, they got married.
“I want to meet him,” she says, “Check him out for myself.”
I nod. “I’d like your opinion.”
She smiles. “Wow,” she says, a little deadpan. “What an eventful four days.”
I laugh, knowing I haven’t even told her about Josie yet.
Sometime later, I manage to do an hour’s work, though it’s really hard to motivate myself. Reading through scientific research was a regular part of my job, but now I read through the unpublished versions, highlighting sentences that are unclear. Once I have the revised version returned to me and I can sign it off, it can be published.
After I was found, it was a good way of keeping involved with science. And working from home to hours that suited me was something lab work doesn’t allow.
But right now my mind is elsewhere, specifically on a tall, handsome Dutch-Canadian.
Preoccupied, I make a start on dinner while Tilly feeds her daughter a small bowl of lumpily pureed vegetables.
Inevitably, the conversation turns to Christmas, just three weeks away. As it’s Isla’s first Christmas experience, Tilly wants to go all out, buying a real tree and decorating every square inch of the house. When I remind my sister that it’s very unlikely Isla will remember,I’mreminded that the photos will last forever, and it will be good to look back on.
Talking about photographs reminds me that I have several of Max—he sent them to me on the drive home. I show one of them to Tilly.
“Sweet Lord,” she responds, raising her eyebrows with an impressed smirk. “No wonder you were tempted.”
Despite Max offeringto collect me from my door on Friday afternoon, all the driving was unnecessary. Keen to push my limits further, I catch a train into King’s Cross, finding a seat near a group of women. When I arrive an hour later, I text him.Just pulled in.
Following the disembarking crowd, I head towards the concourse when a message comes through.Black Jaguar I Pace idling in the drop-off/pick up area.
I hurry through the crowds, bumping a suited and booted man with my little suitcase. “Sorry!”
He’s already gone, rushing for his train.
The station is freezing, a vicious wind cutting through my coat as I near the exit. The signs lead me outside where I spot Max through the open window of his car.
He’s keeping a lookout for me.
My heart jolts at seeing him again, but also because he’s here and I’ve found him, without errors or miscommunication in locating one another.
I’ve packed sensible clothes, but I’m wearing what I consider to bedateclothes: fitted black jeans, a cashmere caramel jumper, a black overcoat that is more style than substance, and black leather ankle boots to finish. I’ve put a little make-up on and styled my hair, though heaven knows what the wind has done to it.
When he sees me hustling towards him he exits the car, leans against the door, and just blatantly watches me. Slowly, his lips hitch into an arresting smile, his hands tucked inside the pockets of a black down jacket.
“I’m disappointed,” he says when I’m in earshot.
My face falls. “Why?”
“Where’s your hearts-disguised-as-oranges scarf?”
Relieved that it’s nothing serious, I laugh. “Fear not, Head of Design. I brought it along just so that you can look at it and weep when you realise how much better my knitting is than yours.”
He smirks at that, stepping into my body and cupping my face. The kiss he gives me has me lifting onto my toes, my body responding to him instantly.
“Who said,” he asks kissing me, “I was knitting you a scarf?”
“Weren’t you?”
