Chapter One #2
“Oh, I’m good, you know, the usual. But how are you ? Tell me everything. Is it Zanzibar now?”
“It is, ” her mum says. “It’s just after 10 p.m. here, and we’ve been settling in.
We got here this morning, and I have to say I’m very much looking forward to going snorkeling tomorrow.
They tried to convince us to try scuba diving when we booked, but we thought that’s a bit too much for us, didn’t we, Gavin? ”
“Far too adventurous,” her dad agrees.
“That’s so cool! How long are you there for?”
“Just a couple of weeks—but we’ll be here over Christmas and New Year, which we’re both very excited about. I’m not sure what we’ll do over New Year, actually. I’ve heard there are a lot of parties, but I’m not sure which one to go for.”
“Well, make sure you do your research,” Mel says, thinking of the Full Moon parties some of her friends have been to when they went off traveling.
Although, so far, she’s been impressed. Her mum and dad have thrown themselves into every new experience since leaving for their trip of a lifetime two months ago.
Both now retired, they rented their house out for six months and set off jet-setting around the world—perhaps with slightly fewer hostels than the average backpacker.
They had never traveled much farther than the British Isles while Mel was growing up, and though they were far from deprived, Mel knew it was because her parents had never been able to afford the holidays some of her friends went on.
It made her so happy that they’d been able to save some money, enjoy it in their retirement.
Now that you’re sorted, her mum had said, we thought now is the time, while we’re both still young enough.
Sorted. Mel knows her mum had been referring to her business, but she’d had to fight the urge to laugh bitterly at the word. Because she doesn’t feel “sorted,” despite appearances—not in the slightest.
“But this reminds me,” her mum says, “what are you doing for Christmas, darling? And New Year? Because your dad and I were thinking—why don’t you come out and join us? I’m sure we can find you a last-minute room here. Everyone seems very friendly, don’t they, Gavin?”
“Lovely chaps,” her dad agrees.
“Oh, that would be so nice,” Mel says—thinking of white beaches and snorkeling and the sun.
And then thinking of Lillian Hart. “But I really can’t.
I’ve got way too much work to do. I can’t take the time off.
I’m so sorry.” And while she can, technically, work from anywhere, Zanzibar feels a bit risky, what with unreliable Wi-Fi and time differences and no doubt her dad’s pressure to take time off.
“But what will you do? All by yourself in your flat? Won’t you be a bit lonely?” Mel hears the undertone in her mum’s voice. The skirting around the thing they never talk about, because of the way Mel used to burst into tears whenever it was mentioned. The reason she will be lonely this year.
“Priya’s coming home.” The lie comes a bit too easily—but she doesn’t want her mum to worry, and she doesn’t want to think about Christmas alone in her flat, macaroni and cheese ready–meal for one. “I’m going to spend Christmas with her.”
“Oh, that will be nice!” Her mum beams. “Won’t that be nice, Gavin?”
Her dad seems to have zoned out a little, but blinks rapidly at the sound of his name, his bushy gray eyebrows straining upward as he tries to concentrate. “Hmmm? Yes. Priya. Lovely girl. Australia, wasn’t it? Long way to come home.”
“Says the man in Zanzibar,” Mel teases.
“Darling,” her mum continues, “I was telling someone here about your business and they were very impressed. Their daughter wants to get into fashion—so I said you might be able to do an internship?”
Mel could tell her mum that she doesn’t, technically, work in fashion, and that the majority of these teenagers do not, in fact, want the internship that their parents secure them, but it’s easier to say, “Sure. Give her my email.”
“Oh, email’s a bit impersonal, Melanie.” Her mum pushes back her dark hair—they used to have almost the same hair color, before her mum started dyeing it. Now her mum’s is a warmer shade, in comparison to Mel’s almost black.
“It’s the best way to get me,” Mel says firmly—she draws a line at giving out her phone number to all these people who her mum encounters.
There’s a knock at her front door. Mel frowns, glancing over at it.
It can’t be a delivery—she hasn’t ordered anything, and they usually have to buzz to be let up.
A neighbor, trying to spread Christmas cheer?
One neighbor brought around Christmas biscuits as a welcome present last year, and Mel feels so guilty that she (a) never returned the gesture and (b) has completely forgotten the woman’s name that she tends to walk with her head ducked down whenever she enters or leaves the building.
The knock sounds again, more insistent this time.
“I’ve got to go,” Mel says. “There’s someone at the door. But send me photos of snorkeling, won’t you?”
“Well, I doubt we’ll be able to send you photos of the snorkeling itself,” her dad says with a little laugh.
Mel rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“Okay, bye, darling!” Her mum swings the phone about as she says it, making her parents’ faces disappear momentarily in favor of a desk. “We love you!”
“Love you too. Have fun!”
She throws her blanket off and pushes back her hair as she pads to the front door, belatedly noticing a hole in the toe of her black tights. She opens the door, fully expecting to have to engage in small talk with someone she barely knows—or else politely direct a stranger to a neighbor’s flat.
Instead, her stomach drops. Her heart gives a painful thud and something hot and uncomfortable sizzles in her stomach as she stares at him.
At the gray-green eyes that can change from stormy to bright depending on his mood.
The dirty-blond hair that’s always on the longer side, because he can never be bothered to get a haircut.
The stubble growing out across his jaw. She remembers the feel of that stubble, grazing her cheek.
She’s spent six months trying to forget this man. Six months trying to convince herself that she’ll be fine without him in her future, that maybe it was for the best, that she doesn’t need him to make her happy. Six months trying to understand what happened.
And now here he is, at her doorstep. The last person she ever wants to see again.
Finn. The love of her life.
Or, more accurately, the man who broke her heart.
Dumped her in front of his whole family.
The man she spent weeks crying over, pretending she had the flu so she didn’t have to go to any meetings, curling up in bed instead and staring numbly at the ceiling, until Priya dragged her out of it, forcing her to get back to work.
She feels a surge of anger and is grateful for the way it heats her blood. She feels her face harden, and knows he sees it when his mouth—that gorgeous, lopsided mouth—twists into half a smile.
How dare he show up here, unannounced? After what he did to her?
She goes to slam the door in his face, hard, but he catches it with his hand, braces against it.
He always was far stronger than her. He sticks his foot into the doorway—those stupid boots that are scuffed and that he should have thrown out years ago.
“I thought you might have that reaction,” he says evenly.
She tries to push the door shut again, but it won’t shift the solid weight of him. She glares at him. “What are you doing here?” she snaps.
He takes a moment, scanning her face like he’s studying her. “What would you say,” he says slowly, “if I said I had a proposal for you?”