33. Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Three
T he hot water from the monsoon shower pelted her skin, washing away the indulgent but complimentary shower gel. This is heaven. It was a far cry from the lacklustre, often cold, shower at home. Once snuggled in the soft luxurious white dressing gown, Willow padded into the bedroom, her bare feet sinking into the thick pile of the carpet. Nate snored gently, star-shaped on the king-size bed, naked apart from the sheet draped over him. She considered waking him, but a cup of tea called.
She perused the collection of teabags on offer while the kettle boiled. If Nate woke, he would insist on room service for tea in the pot despite the late hour. Her confession about her use of teabags had yet to be made. Pulling back the curtains, she sank into a chair. If she were at home, the sliver of the waning moon and sprinkling of stars would ground her heightened emotions, but here the lamps illuminating the historic city walls hid the night sky. The suite, larger than the footprint of her flat, oozed class, opulence, and money. How had she ended up in one of the poshest hotels in York? When he asked her not to go, she’d asked him why. His reply made her freeze as they echoed the words she wanted to say.
‘Because I miss you, and every time I think you are part of my life, you disappear. Stay.’
He stepped forward and kissed her. As their lips met, she knew she was in trouble. Her head caught up with her heart and accepted she was in love and couldn’t let him go. Her fate was sealed when he dragged her to the Christmas shop. His eyes sparkled as the shop’s magic took hold, revealing his childlike self when they held hands and browsed the decorations. His bewilderment at the traditional glass gherkin for a tree made her laugh until tears ran down her face until she explained the story behind it. He teased her when she confessed she didn’t own this essential decoration. Together, they studied the cuckoo clocks with awe and actively planned their ideal tree. Willow could visualise it standing in the flat’s corner while they celebrated Christmas again. From the shop, it was only a short distance to his hotel, and neither could turn away.
She watched his chest rise and fall with each breath. She loved him, but if they were to move on together, he needed the truth about her past and present. He had to decide if he wanted to stay.
Willow shrugged off the dressing gown and slid into the bed, snuggling close to him. He wrapped his arm around her, drawing her closer to the warmth of his body, and she rested her head against his chest, comforted by his sandalwood aftershave and hearing the pace of his heart in sync with hers.
‘Morning,’ he said, his breath kissing her hair. ‘Is it morning?’
‘It’s turned midnight, so technically it is.’ His hand trailed across her hip, and dipped to her lower back where his fingers lingered on her silver scar on her left side. Each circular movement cemented her resolve, he needed the truth.
‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘Hmm hmm. It’s been a difficult few months.’ Once they’d stumbled into his hotel room, there was no time to talk, no time for anything except to strip off their clothes and feel each other again.
‘The Clara and Sabrina feud?’
‘And some.’
‘Want to tell me about it?’
Cocooned in the safety of his embrace, she nodded and gripped his hand tight in hers, using his strength to bolster the courage needed to throw open the locked box of her past and reveal herself to someone else. For him to understand the present, he needed to understand what came first. Where to begin? The day she rolled up at Marian’s house with her rucksack and sleeping bag after her mum died, unable to live with her stepfather anymore, and how with her blessing and care she encouraged her to travel, setting everything in motion? Just the fateful day itself? Nate needed to know about him. Concentrating on an inky smudge on the hotel wall, the only blemish she could see in the perfection the room portrayed, she took a deep breath.
‘At Bettys, you said you fancied exploring the Mediterranean for your baking. Europe was my first stop for my globetrotting adventure. Prague, Paris for a weekend on my own but I promised to return when I was in love, then the Greek islands to catch some sun with plans to explore the rest of the Med: Italy, Spain, Malta and then over to Egypt, you get the picture. It didn’t happen.’
‘Why not?’
‘I got engaged. His name was Rafe. Raphael Amenábar. It wasn’t love at first, not for me anyway. He always told people differently. My first impression of him was he was a drunk, posh git with an inflated ego and I wanted nothing to do with him and told him so.’
***
The bar buzzed with the holiday excitement emanating from the tourists and the excessive consumption of ouzo and cocktails. Edging through the crowd, she hadn’t expected to gain the attention of a suave chino-wearing Adonis with breath smelling like a brewery. He hadn’t accepted her rejection following a corny chat-up line that made her eyes roll but instead a tray of complimentary drinks arrived for her and the backpackers she’d befriended earlier. Rather than act on her first instinct, she accepted the red wine while refusing to acknowledge him. Who was she to turn down a free night out when funds were low, and she needed to save for the next leg of her trip? While the bar wasn’t her preferred venue, unlike the small quiet taverna some locals introduced her to, she appreciated the hustle and bustle of people that allowed her to slip out unnoticed back to her room. Willow never expected to see him again.
Greek life suited her, and she’d just sent Marian and Louise another postcard explaining her intention of spending more time there. The job she’d found at a hotel offered her the security of cheap accommodation, the pay wasn’t bad and she liked the staff she was working with. The azure sea and white sand were her constant companions. Her heart lifted with the sound of the cicadas serenading from the olive trees lining dusty roads. With no responsibility apart from herself, and connecting with the sea, earth, and nature, she walked taller, slept easier, and was eager to start the day. ‘You’re healing,’ Marian declared when they last spoke, and she had to agree. The pain of the last few years, looking after her mum after her leukaemia diagnosis with little help from Stuart, had taken its toll. His preferred help focused on how much he could drink and womanising. Never mind his anger. Marian had done her best to soothe her, but travel was what she needed. It was a good life.
The second time she saw him, he wasn’t drunk but standing at the hotel reception desk. Holding her hand up, she forced him to wait while she snatched up the display of white lilies someone had placed on the desk.
‘What have they done to you to deserve that?’ he said as she pounded them into a nearby bin. ‘Don’t you like flowers, or are they just not perfect enough for you, Ricitos de Oro?’ He laughed at his own joke. Her beginner Spanish lessons had paid off when she recognised a name she hadn’t heard for years: Goldilocks.
‘I like flowers, just not lilies.’ She refused to say why, but the next day she came in for her shift and a fresh bouquet arrived with no lily in sight. More followed every day. Daily he greeted her with her Spanish nickname that sounded wildly inappropriate in his silky voice followed by a new proposal for a drink or meal. He wore her down to agree to one date. She was flattered by his determination and her inability to move in her room for floral displays. There were only so many she could tolerate before they felt claustrophobic.
The evening wasn’t as bad as she imagined. She agreed to another and then another, swept up by his certainty, endless charm, and his lifestyle. It seemed nothing was out of reach, or impossible in his quest to make her life, his Goldilocks, perfect. He always offered her three options in line with the fairy-tale persona he’d appointed her. She felt special, like the queen of the story, not realising until later she’d learnt to recognise the subtle inflection of voice, the shift in his stance urging her to the correct decision. Why go camping, which she loved, when he could afford a posh suite in a five-star hotel? Forget trekking across dusty roads, with a rucksack on your back loaded with water and cheap sandwiches, and relying on vintage buses. He had a car ready to use. His rational arguments were impossible to defy until all her own plans paused, and then were forgotten, but she was adored, happy, and believed this was the devotion Louise felt.
***
‘Those around me thought his actions were romantic. It was close to mass hysteria when I came into work, and they unpicked my dates or when he spontaneously delivered a gift. This frenzy escalated when he proposed in a private cove with only the seagulls to witness it. If I’d told Louise and if Grandma Jax were there, they’d have told me to run a mile. To take heed of the alarm bells I’d tried to silence but still clanged in my head every time he took control of my life, rearranging my shifts so I could spend time with him and commandeer my time. They’d have recognised his family name and warned me what the inevitable outcome would be.’
‘You didn’t tell Louise?’
‘Not Marian either. Not until after the event. I wanted to keep him secret until I could show him off when I came home. Show how far I’d come from the angry teenager who relied on nobody on the top of Whitby’s headland. Stupid, really. Paid for it tenfold.’
Nate tensed behind her, and his arms circling her drew her closer to him in anticipation of the next instalment of her story. It was tempting to stop, roll over to kiss him, and push the past away—
‘What happened next?’ He refused to let her backtrack. She’d come this far.
‘We went to visit his family to share the news of their engagement. In his native Spain.’