Abigail Gordon - Swallowbrook's Wedding Of The Year

She was hugging her top coat more tightly around her, shivering in the night air, and he said, ‘Come on. I’ll buy you a hot drink at the hotel and then, unwelcome as my presence might be, will see you safely home.’ As she was about to refuse, he added, ‘Don’t argue!’

They drank their coffees largely in silence and Julianne didn’t think she could feel more uncomfortable in Aaron’s presence until he asked quite suddenly, ‘How is it that you’ve never married?’

‘That is soon answered,’ she replied. ‘The man I was attracted to didn’t love me and I’ve never felt like that about anyone since.’

‘It would seem to be that we do have one thing in common, then,’ he said sombrely, and looked at his watch.

She saw him and said, ‘Do you want us to make tracks?’

He shook his head and as if his thoughts were elsewhere said absently, ‘Whenever you’re ready will do.’

‘I’m ready now,’ she replied, with a sudden urge to be back where she belonged, away from this strange encounter that was the last thing she’d been expecting when she’d left the apartment earlier.

Once they were outside the bakery Julianne said, ‘Thanks for the coffee, Aaron. I had no intention of breaking into your evening, just the opposite, in fact.’

‘Don’t fret about it,’ he told her. ‘It was just a one-off,’ and even as he spoke he was turning in his tracks and with a wave of the hand was gone.

Unlocking the door, she began to climb the stairs and for the rest of the evening sat by the fire, wishing she hadn’t had her boots on when a band had begun playing for dancing in the hotel. It would have given her the chance to test just how deep his aversion to her was.

In the days when he’d been courting Nadine and the two of them had gone out leaving her alone in the flat, she had used to pretend that she was dancing in his arms and would float around the place dreamily, but only she knew that .

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