Chapter 31
31
I’m dragging in huge lungfuls of cold, crisp air when I hear heavy footsteps crunching on the snow behind me. I don’t turn but hear him stop. ‘You came back!’ I say. ‘You left, and I thought you’d gone.’
‘I did,’ he says matter-of-factly and as if I hadn’t just ruined his well-thought-out speech. ‘I had. But now it looks like you’re the one running out on me, when I’ve just told you I love you.’
I snap my head round to see him standing there, in his long coat, the snow landing and settling in his hair, like icing sugar. ‘Could you say it again?’
‘I said I love you and you left!’ He throws up a hand. ‘It doesn’t matter. I realize I got it wrong. And I’m sorry. I thought you felt the same as me. Clearly my instincts are not quite as restored as my taste is. But I meant what I said in there. You may not have got the residency here at the chocolate school, but you’re everything I said you are in there. And if you felt you could, without me telling you I love you, you’re the person I want to work with to create the chocolate guesthouse at the farm.’
I say nothing. He’s got it all wrong!
‘I didn’t run out on you! I mean, I didn’t leave. I should have told you how I felt when we kissed. That I’d fallen in love with you. That that kiss was everything. I thought you were leaving so I couldn’t let myself get in any deeper. So … I went to make a chocolate! I wanted to capture how I felt when I knew I loved you, that moment, and remember it for ever.’ Suddenly I feel ridiculous.
He throws back his head and laughs, his curls shaking.
‘Now I know you’ve finally become one of us! A true chocolatier!’
‘ Phhhffff . It was my final chocolate for my signature collection. The end of the journey!’ I look at him. ‘It was the kiss I never wanted to end.’
A smile sits on his lips and he moves closer to me. My body immediately feels a pull towards him.
‘What was in it?’ he asks, as our arms seem instinctively to slide around each other’s waists.
‘A lot of love,’ I say. ‘And a lot of you!’
And then we kiss, and it feels just as I hoped it would: as if I want it never to end. Slowly and gently, though, it does.
‘A kiss in a chocolate, you say?’
I smile and nod.
‘And you came back here, didn’t go back to Daniel?’
I shake my head.
‘And you came back?’ I say.
‘Made it nearly to the airport. Lorelei gave me a stiff talking-to. Said I had to stop running out on my feelings and being scared to say what’s in my mind.’
‘So you did! You came back.’
‘I did. What did I miss?’
‘Sébastien’s father has just offered Michel a job.’
‘Well, that’s a turn-up for the books. A traditional Swiss chocolate-making family bringing in a Belgian. Now I know the world is moving on.’
‘Oh, and I won the single chocolate. I’ve even got an award! And, of course, I have my certificate to say I’ve completed the course here at the chocolate school.’
I look back at the building that has become so familiar to me. ‘I’ll miss it.’
‘So you’ll consider my idea? You’ll stay?’
‘You don’t need me.’
‘I don’t need you, you’re right. I can taste again. But I want you, if you want to be here. I want you working with me.’
I look up at his face. I’m about to do the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
I shake my head.