Chapter 1 #3
I don’t realise I’ve stopped walking completely until someone brushes my shoulder as they pass me, making me stumble a few steps forward.
I right myself quickly, catching my bag as it falls off my shoulder.
“Excuse me,” I murmur, leaning back on my heels when a huge bubble appears before me.
It hits the tip of my nose and pops, and an eruption of laughter breaks out, startling me more than the bubble.
I glance around, seeing all attention pointed my way, and the six-foot elf responsible for blowing the bubble is approaching me.
I can see what’s about to happen a mile off.
I’m going to be used as a prop. Of course he’d find the most wretched person within reach.
The person who looks like a challenge. I’m certainly that.
“Oh, no,” I say, backing up as I lift my hand, warning him back with that too.
“Oh, yes!”
“No, no, no.” I laugh, nervous and wary, as children in the line outside the store start jumping up and down, egging the elf on.
“Yes, yes, yes,” he sings, putting the bubble wand at his lips.
I feel the inevitable churn of my stomach as I back up, the unbearable slice of pain through my heart.
“Please, I’m really not in the mood for fun and games.
” My eyes dart from the elf to the kids in the line, taking in each of their smiles, their happiness, their excitement.
And then the parents all delighting in the sounds of their kids’ happiness.
Another bubble comes at me, and I lean back, as well as step back.
Too far.
“Fuck!” My heel slips off the edge of the curb as a collection of loud, horrified gasps fill the air. Bracing myself to hit by the ground or be taken out by a car, I clench my eyes closed, holding my breath.
“I got you.”
I’m suddenly buried face first in a chest, and the smell that hits me saturates my senses.
Clean. Manly. Sexy. I look up and meet eyes I’ve seen before this evening.
The impact of them staring into mine so closely steals my breath and makes my heart ping.
“Are you following me?” I break away, uncomfortable with the warmth rising from my toes into my belly, the same warmth I felt when he held my hand to shake it.
He steps back too. “I’m not following you.”
“So you often hang around toy stores, huh?”
“No, I don’t. But you do.”
I flinch, stung, pulling my bag onto my shoulder again, being forced to look away, to escape the scrutiny I’m under.
Kids outside the store turn to their parents, expressing their outrage as they point at me.
The lady on the street who’s just turned the pure, Christmassy air outside their favourite toy store blue with her foul language.
My cringe has my shoulders rising and my eyes returning to Dec to escape the condemning parents’ glares.
“I should leave before they come at me with pitchforks.” Stepping back, I take in the man before me.
Beautiful. My silent observation jars me.
I don’t see beauty in this world anymore.
I’m a robot going through the motions of life, limping my way through each day, constantly wondering if this unrelenting pain will fuck off.
Wondering if I’ll ever appreciate colour again.
Hear laughing and not want to curl into a ball and cry. “Thanks for saving me.”
I get nothing from him, not one hint of . . . anything, so I turn and walk away, before I’m drawn into his warm chest again.
“Where are you heading?”
I stop, staring at the street ahead. “Home.”
“I’ll walk you.”
I turn, just as he reaches me. “That didn’t sound like you were offering, more telling.”
“Correct.” He passes me but stops when he realises I’m not following him, looking back.
“You don’t know where I’m walking to.”
“I don’t need to. I assume you know the way.” That eyebrow lifts again.
“Camden.”
“You’re walking to Camden? That’s a long walk.”
“Maybe fifty minutes. Changed your mind?”
“No.” He watches my every step as I approach him, and he falls into stride beside me as I continue past, our walk slow and silent. But it’s not awkward. It’s strangely comfortable. A man by my side. Just there, relaxed. Few people are relaxed around me anymore. Most avoid me.
I look up at him, taking in his profile, thinking again how lovely it is.
His lashes are long, some strands of his dark hair falling across his forehead.
His stubble is on the longer side of tidy, some flecks of grey peppering that too.
After a few moments, he starts to slow, and I naturally drop my pace until we stop in the middle of the pavement.
Then he turns his eyes onto me. In this moment, I decide they’re my favourite part of all the parts of him.
His eyes. They’re expressive without giving anything at all away.
“Changed your mind?” he asks.
“About what?”
“If I’m very handsome.”
“No.”
“Good. My turn,” he says, and I tilt my head in question, just as he reaches for my cheek and encourages me to face away again.
The warmth of his skin on mine, even if it’s just his fingertips, makes every muscle in me tense to sustain the pleasure.
His gaze burns into my profile as I remain still, my breathing slowing, letting him have his time, not feeling at all uncomfortable.
That in itself is odd. I hate attention on me.
Will avoid it at all costs. But Dec looking at me? I like it.
I eventually turn my eyes but keep my head relatively straight. “Done?”
“No.”
I chew on the corner of my lip, and I realise it’s to stop a smile from breaking. Just feeling my face muscles twitch is unusual.
“Okay, I’m done.” By the tiny twitch of his eyes, I can tell he saw my brief smile. But he carries on his way without another word, and I watch him, releasing my lip and taking in air as I catch up, the silence falling again. And it’s comfortable again.
I hear the distant sound of Mariah Carey singing, getting progressively louder, until it’s upon us, unbearably loud, and yet today I can bear it.
A rickshaw drenched in multicoloured Christmas lights and dripping in tinsel passes, the two passengers singing along, arms in the air.
I can feel Dec looking at me again, but I return my attention forward.
And we walk.
And walk.
No more words, no conversation, but plenty of fleeting looks.
No facial expressions.
Not until we reach Camden High Street. “So what was the document that needed signing?” he asks.
“Why do you assume it needed signing?”
“Because no one gives a document that much attention without it needing a signature.”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
“Yes.”
I look up at him, just as he looks down at me, and there’s that flutter in my stomach again. And this time, not a ping, but an explosion in my chest. I have to look away. “What do you do?” I ask.
“For a living?”
“Yes.”
“Acquiring and merging. More acquiring. You?”
“CFO.”
“Of?”
“A shipping company. TF Shipping. I was brought in to get it in a healthy financial shape ready for the owner to bring in a team who’ll prepare it for public debut.”
“So that was the paperwork.”
“No, the paperwork was my divorce papers.” I don’t know why I peek up at him now, maybe to see his reaction? I should have known, though. There is no reaction.
“Struggling to sign them?”
“No.” I have no idea where these words are coming from. And yet they won’t stop coming. “I’m struggling to accept the reasons he’s cited.”
“Which are?”
“Not going to be discussed with you.” I swallow down the predictable lump growing, frustrated it still exists. “And you?” I ask, moving things along.
“Me, what?”
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
My steps falter a little too much to go unnoticed.
What is that inside? Disappointment? I frown to myself, my gaze dropping to my feet.
And now I have no clue what to say. The silence has been comfortable.
The conversation had been surprisingly easy, and I don’t want that to change. “How long have you been married?”
“Technically, five years.”
“Technically?”
“I’d have been divorced four years ago, but I don’t know where to send the papers.” He looks at me. Holds my eyes. Now he’s searching for my reaction and, like him, I don’t have one.
“You don’t know where she is?”
He shakes his head as we turn onto my street, and naturally my mind races. What’s his story? Where is she? Why did they break up? But more than my endless questions about Dec, what is happening inside me?
The heat, the flutters, the breathlessness.
“I’ve never met someone who also enjoys walking, despite the cold,” he says, breaking the silence.
“I walk everywhere I can. It’s something my mum and I used to enjoy.”
“Interesting. My mum was similar. She used to say that walking in the cold staved off sickness because it built our immunity. I don’t think it’s true anymore, but I still equate the cold with good things.”
“I like that sentiment.” I like this man.
This walk has stirred something inside, and it isn’t just intrigue.
“This is me,” I say, pointing to the door into my apartment block.
Dec looks up at the building as we stand at the bottom of the steps, only a few feet between our chests. “Thank you for walking me home.”
“Wouldn’t want you to get attacked by any killer bubbles again, would we?”
My smile is small, definitely unseen. “Want to come in?” The question jolts me. What am I saying? I don’t want him to see my home. I find myself holding my breath as he slowly turns his eyes back onto me.
“I probably shouldn’t.”
“Don’t you trust yourself?”
“Not in the least,” he whispers, his gaze falling to my mouth. My lungs start to burn, my eyes on his mouth too.
And suddenly his lips are coming closer.
Closer.
I breathe out slowly, starting to shake, asking myself repeatedly what the hell I’m doing. What’s happening? How did we arrive at this intimate, close moment?
I close my eyes.
Yes, what are you doing, Camryn? This isn’t how you operate.
I come into myself and pull back, at the very moment Dec pulls away too. He glances away, his eyes squinting in silent contemplation. “I definitely don’t trust myself.” Two steps back puts more space between us, but I don’t breathe easy again. Nowhere close. “Goodnight, Camryn.”
“Goodnight, Dec,” I whisper.
His tall body turns, and he walks away, his gait smooth, his strides long but not fast. And when he reaches the end of my street, he looks back to find I haven’t moved a muscle.
Stopping, his body slowly turns. And I’m holding my breath again, anticipating his next move, shaking where I stand.
He starts coming back, and I inhale sharply, but when he gets halfway, he stops abruptly again.
Then he takes a moment, thinks, watching me, while I wait, breathless.
Begging.
But he eventually backs up slowly, turns, as if fighting an unseen force, and walks away, rounding the corner. I catch a rake of his hand through his hair. Frustration? It’s the most emotion he’s shown since I encountered him in the hotel bar.
Exhaling, I lift my hands and watch as they tremble, clenching them into fists to try and stop it. I fail.
My legs shake as I take the steps up to the glass door, letting myself in and walking slowly down the corridor.
As soon as I’m in my cold, clinical apartment, I strip and get in the shower, standing under the hot spray, letting the water pour down on me.
It’s soothing, and it should help me get to sleep tonight.
If I can get his handsome face out of my head.