Nicola Marsh - Valentine's Day

‘Right now?’ He gaped.

‘My flight leaves in three hours. A car’s coming for me soon.’

The wine sagged towards the stone floor. ‘Why?’

‘Emergency at work,’ she lied.

He lifted one brow. ‘A seed emergency?’

Defensiveness made her rash. ‘I don’t remember signing anything that gave you say over what I do with my private time.’

He didn’t bite, though he did glance around him in the dim hallway. ‘May I come in?’

‘I’m packing.’ Truth was she was already packed because, even though she desperately needed it, sleep had evaded her. But her suitcase lay conveniently open on her luxurious, plump bed. She stood back so he could enter.

‘What’s going on, Georgia?’

‘Nothing. I just have to get back.’

‘Your seed emergency. Right.’ He placed the wine on the table. ‘What’s really going on?’

He had to know. Surely.

She shrugged. ‘We’ve done Göreme. We’ve done the ballooning. We’re done.’ In more ways than one.

‘But you were so keen to see Cappadocia.’

‘And I’m already planning on coming back for a longer stay.’

‘This is about last night.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Last night was...’ What did more cosmopolitan people say at this moment. Fun? Wild? Memorable? ‘Last night was a one-off.’

The eyebrow quirked again. ‘Really? And you felt the need to fly out of the country to avoid a repeat?’

‘I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.’

He snorted. ‘Right. This is much easier on my feelings.’

His sarcasm triggered hers. ‘I’m not really up on the protocols of dis-entanglement.’

He repeated the word, silently. ‘Wow.’

‘Zander—’

‘For someone inexperienced in the art of casual sex you certainly are a quick study at the kiss-off part.’

‘This isn’t a—’

‘Yeah, Georgia, it is. But what makes you so sure I was even offering a round two?’

‘I...’ That took the wind from her sails. ‘You turned up with wine.’

He held the bottle up. The text was in Turkish but the image on the label was of a big balloon flying over Cappadocia. ‘It was a keepsake. I got me one, too.’

Oh.

‘If I hadn’t knocked would you have even told me you were leaving?’

‘Of course!’ But not until the very last minute. And he seemed to know it.

‘You don’t have to leave, Georgia. If last night was a mistake for you, then fine. We can keep our distance until tomorrow. But this is your trip. You’ve wanted this for ages.’

‘I can’t—’ Be here. With you. And not be with you. ‘It’s time to go.’

‘You don’t trust me.’ Again, not a question.

‘Of course I do.’ She sighed. She didn’t know anyone she trusted more. Dan included.

‘So what’s the problem?’ Awareness blinked to light in his grey eyes. ‘Unless you don’t trust yourself.’

She just stared.

‘That’s it, isn’t it? If you stay you don’t trust yourself to stick to your own resolution.’ Triumph glossed over his anger. He stepped closer. ‘So if you want me,’ he went on, ‘why are you leaving?’

‘I don’t want you.’ I don’t want to want you.

‘Liar.’

Yeah, she was. ‘This was an aberration, remember?’

He frowned. Clearly he didn’t remember saying it.

‘Besides today, tomorrow, what does it matter when we finish it?’ she asked. ‘Or do you just like to control the use-by dates on your affairs?’

Lord. That word sounded both very grown up and very old-fashioned at the same time.

His lips thinned. ‘I just want to understand it, Georgia. To understand you.’

Something made her ask. ‘It would have finished tomorrow, wouldn’t it, Zander?’

He tensed up.

‘Because this isn’t real. You said it yourself, you and me in this fantasy place. We would have ended the moment we touched down in London.’ He didn’t contradict her. ‘So what’s a few hours between friends?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Friends?’

‘Unless I’ve misunderstood you,’ she risked. ‘If you wanted something more long-term, Zander, now’s your chance. Just say.’ Because she’d be up for it.

His lips pressed tighter together. His eyes roiled.

She held on longer than was good for her dignity, just in case. But still he stood silent. As expected.

‘So, now that we’re on the same page,’ she said, heartsore, ‘I’m exercising my right to choose. And I choose out.’

She sounded much calmer than she felt.

‘I guess I should thank you,’ he said after a long, silent age.

‘What for?’ Giving herself so wholeheartedly to him?

‘At least this time I won’t have to explain myself to two hundred people.’

Her heart sank. She hadn’t even considered the similarities to his runaway bride. But the two situations were nothing alike. Were they?

‘I’m not running out on you.’ Yeah, she was. Avoiding the whole situation. ‘I’ll see you in London.’

‘Business as usual.’

‘Is there another way?’

She longed for him to say there was. She longed for him to say, Stay and we can be a couple. She longed for him to tell her she meant enough to him to break his work-only rules for.

But he wouldn’t.

And they both knew it.

He scooped the wine up and placed it carefully in the centre of her open suitcase protected by her intimates. Then he turned back to her and spoke.

‘See you in London.’

And then he was gone.

TEN

November

Thwack.

Her arrow hit the target, not quite as close as she was aiming but at least it found purchase. She lowered the bow.

Indoor archery—the latest on her list. Actually, it was supposed to be outdoor archery but it was the dying days of November and autumn had already dragged as interminably as her mood. The Year of Georgia was galloping by and would be over before there was any further warm weather, so indoors it was.

She and Zander were back to the early days of her Year of Georgia classes—politely civil. He came to exactly as few classes as he needed to get the monthly segments done and he seemed to have lost his enthusiasm for recording everything—much more sound than he needed. But the segments were proving unexpectedly popular with EROS’ listeners and so he had to keep producing them, even when she thought he would probably have preferred to just let the whole thing go. Maybe buy out her contract personally to be rid of the hassle.

They’d had their promotional value well and truly. Twice over. Every time a segment aired people remembered Dan, too, and there was a flurry of general media attention about where he was. What he was doing.

Who he was doing.

He’d been seen around town with someone. A woman. The same woman. So at least one of them had managed to find their way out of the mire to a regular sort of relationship. Although as fast as the gossip had come that they were on, it seemed as if maybe they were off again.

For her part, she surprised herself by discovering that even being given everything money could buy got old. She was tired of the Year of Georgia. She was tired of smiling politely at Zander and speaking into his digital recorder and pretending everything was fine.

Everything was not fine.

He filled her consciousness when he was around and plagued her thoughts when he wasn’t. She sat in life-drawing class looking at a phenomenally proportioned naked male model and all she could think about was Zander’s proportions. The curve of his strong shoulder. The gentle undulation of his throat. If her drawings never looked like the man she was sketching it was because they generally looked more like Zander.

Having asked Casey to strip her schedule of anything resembling Egyptian stone therapy and deep muscle massage, she begged Zander’s assistant to put them back in. If only to relieve the new tension she lived with these days.