Chapter 17
Their last meal together had been like a glimpse through the looking glass. A glance back to an era when Jude and Hannah had been good, platonic friends – or perhaps a sideways look at an alternate future, where things between them were easy and uncomplicated.
Tonight, Jude felt like he’d time-travelled back to the days of his deepest obsession with her.
To the period when his yearning to be close to her had felt like physical pain, and the inevitability of their crashing into one another – despite Hannah’s fear that romance would ruin their relationship – became clear to both of them.
In the summer before the final phase of his PhD, they’d spent more time alone together than at any point in the previous few years.
Hannah was working on the management team at a plush hotel by then, but still dreaming of starting her own event planning firm.
Jude helped her work out how much initial investment this would require; what the books might look like for the first couple of years.
Meanwhile, she – somewhat painstakingly – helped him learn to drive.
Throughout, they were like two magnets, inching closer together with every seemingly innocuous encounter. Every moment of eye contact, every accidental touch, every innocent brush of skin on skin brought them nearer to some invisible centre of gravity that was inexorably pulling them in.
This evening, the atmosphere between them was similarly laden with promise.
As Jude, Joe, Ed and Hannah tucked into a variety of tacos, quesadillas, burritos and salads, he found himself being scrupulously polite – supremely careful every time he reached for more food, in case of initiating accidental contact with her.
He felt raw and vulnerable, like he’d been robbed of the protective carapace he’d managed to forge over the past four years.
He’d never kidded himself that he would completely stop wanting Hannah, or stop loving her – it was part of him, elemental, like a strand of his DNA.
Still, it was disturbing to feel the full force of his emotions again; to know his control over them was wafer-thin and could snap at any second.
It was humbling – terrifying – to realise how completely in thrall to her he still was.
How unreservedly he’d hand her his whole heart again, if she wanted it.
Conversely, although he was now sure she still felt something for him, he knew the depth of Hannah’s emotions didn’t match his own.
They never had. This, he thought grimly, was the sum total of the problem between them.
It was why she’d spent years refusing to look directly at his obvious feelings for her; why she’d been able to end things between them without warning, upending his whole life like a tsunami.
It was why she’d do the same again, if he let himself get too close to her – even if she didn’t mean to.
He should slope off and sort himself a hotel for the night.
Jude knew this, and yet he didn’t do it.
He had all the necessary information: you’re in love with her, not to mention crazily in lust with her, and trying to sleep under the same roof as her is a Very Bad Idea.
He’d analysed the data and drawn the obvious conclusion, yet he couldn’t make himself act accordingly.
The rational, self-preserving side of him was – for the first time in as long as he could remember – asleep at the wheel.
As dinner wound down and even Ed declared himself full, Joe insisted the night was young.
Before anyone could protest, he’d procured another round of cocktails and a tray of tequila shots.
Foolishly, and for the first time since their food had arrived, Jude let his eyes find Hannah’s in the low glow that shone from the pendant light above them.
They were opposite one another, a safe distance apart – but the space between them seemed to hum with possibility.
Her pupils were blown wide, dark against her pale green irises.
The expression in them was pensive . . .
heated, but almost shy. It made his heart leap in his chest; made him want to reach for her hand beneath the table and tell her that whatever she needed, he would give it to her.
She had him, still, if she wanted him. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
As they drank their cocktails, conversation turned to the joint ‘shag’ party that was coming up: two days and nights of activities for the important men and women in the grooms’ lives, hence the portmanteau.
Hannah had somehow organised this, at the same time as running point on the wedding itself, not to mention the array of other events she was in charge of this summer.
She was, Jude thought, the single most impressive person he’d ever met.
‘How do you manage it all?’ he asked, before he could stop himself. ‘It must be such a challenge to deliver for so many different people – to understand what they need and make their version of a perfect day happen, seemingly without breaking a sweat.’
‘Ha! I sweat,’ Hannah said, laughing as she finished what was left of her Mexican mojito. ‘I just use heavy-duty deodorant.’
‘I can see why you’d need Livi helping out, though,’ Jude said, smiling at her joke – trying not to think about Hannah sweaty, or how sweet she always smelled.
He instructed himself not to remember how much he’d always enjoyed inhaling lungfuls of her perfume, or sleeping on pillows that smelled like her sun cream.
‘Liv’s been amazing,’ Hannah said. ‘Just having an extra pair of hands and eyes on stuff has stopped me dropping several balls lately. She’s especially brilliant at marketing and communications – she’s had offers for grad schemes from a few big firms already.’
‘She won’t stay working with you after the summer, then?’ he asked.
‘I won’t let her!’ Hannah exclaimed, laughing.
As Jude waited for her to go on, her tone became more serious.
‘Actually, she says she wants to, but I worry about her turning down the opportunities she’s got on the table.
She aced her exams and got a first-class degree.
She’s more than qualified for a proper job. ’
‘What’s not “proper” about working for a thriving family business?’ Jude asked, defensive of her in the face of this excessive modesty.
Hannah shot him a harder look then – one that contained no trace of the wariness he’d seen in her face just a minute ago.
It was searching, but almost combative, too, like she was daring him to remember how she’d started Eventurous, challenging him to consider how he’d reacted when she was approved for a start-up loan.
Suddenly, Jude felt steeped in shame, but he didn’t let himself look away from her.
In that moment, he felt a realisation that had been creeping up on him by degrees claim residence in his mind: she’d been right to be furious with him four years ago.
Entirely justified in her disappointment – if not in how she handled it.
And what a triumph she’d wrought, in spite of his thoughtlessness.
She’d achieved everything she’d set out to, even without the support he should have offered her.
He’d given her lemons, and out of them she’d made a meringue pie.
‘Hear, hear,’ Ed said, clinking his glass against Jude’s. ‘Livi wants nothing more than to keep working with you, Han. In fact, she’s going to take it very personally if you sack her.’
‘I’m not going to sack her!’ Hannah cried. ‘It’s not – she isn’t . . . It was a temporary thing. That’s what we agreed!’
Joe handed round the tequila shots, to reluctant groans from everyone.
‘Something tells me that after our wedding, you’ll definitely need a full-time assistant,’ he said.
‘Maybe even two. And if Livi wants the job, well . . . it would be odd to discount her, no? Under the circumstances, that would certainly feel like a sacking, so—’
‘Oh, shut up, Joe,’ Hannah said, smiling wearily. ‘I’ve not got the energy for an argument with you at the best of times – let alone after three cocktails. Chin-chin, everyone.’
They all raised, then drained their tiny tequila glasses. Jude winced at the burn in his throat and tried not to cough.
‘Home time, I feel,’ Joe said. ‘Uber back to ours?’
‘Sure,’ Hannah said, nervously sinking her teeth into her bottom lip – a gesture Jude immediately wished he hadn’t seen. ‘All four of us, is it?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Ed said. ‘Shit. I forgot you’d both need a bed for the night.’
‘I’m on the couch,’ Jude said decisively. ‘No arguments. None whatsoever.’
‘If you’re sure,’ Hannah said, brows pulled together.
‘I’m one hundred per cent certain,’ he told her. Which was ironic, because it had never been clearer to him that there was nowhere he’d rather spend any night than next to her.
Within moments of arriving back at the flat, Joe and Ed disappeared up the reclaimed wrought-iron staircase that led to its upper floor.
There was a mezzanine above the kitchen and living area, beyond which was the apartment’s ‘master suite’: a huge bedroom, two walk-in closets, a dressing room and an en suite with a freestanding stone bathtub.
Jude had felt his jaw drop when he saw it during the tour Joe had given him yesterday.
Though he’d initially been troubled by how rapidly things between his brother and Ed became serious, he couldn’t deny it must have taken considerable restraint on Ed’s side not to move in here immediately. The place was like a luxury hotel.
Downstairs, Jude and Hannah were alone – left to navigate sharing the guest bathroom, dividing up pillows and bedding and attempting a chaste goodnight.
Jude felt jittery, not least because the last, whispered thing Joe had said to him before bounding up to bed was, ‘Neither of you is hiding it very well, you know. I must say I wonder why you’re bothering. ’