Chapter 20
His mouth had tasted like apples. Clean and bright, like gently sparkling cider and the breath mint he’d crunched after drinking it.
What was the point in pretending? She wanted to taste him again – over and over, deeper and deeper, with no hope that any amount of kisses could ever be enough.
Hannah was inflamed. Electrified. She was also panicked; aware that she couldn’t afford her self-control to keep slipping.
She was alone, walking across the still-sunny glampsite to change for the evening’s celebrations: a boozy barbecue-slash-hot tub party.
By any standard, today had been bizarre – a faintly ludicrous mix of ideas and activities that shouldn’t have worked together, but somehow did. It was the very essence of Ed and Joe.
Though she’d booked the farm, organised food and drinks and co-ordinated the guest list, Hannah hadn’t known which challenges the shag party guests would be expected to compete in.
She’d left Hugo, the owner of the place, to fix those details with the grooms. As it turned out, even they’d remained ignorant until today, and still had no idea what was coming tomorrow.
They’d specified a mystery mix of ‘hard and soft’ activities, so prior knowledge couldn’t lend them any advantage.
Wanting to maintain a level playing field was very Ed; her brother was nothing if not a good sportsman.
Conversely, Joe had about as much interest in playing fair as a card counter in a casino.
He’d clearly engineered for Hannah and Jude to be paired up today and had gambled – correctly – that she’d be too polite, as well as too professional, to make a fuss.
As he might well have intended, his machinations had provided incontrovertible proof that Charlie was right.
Hannah was entirely, undeniably in love with Jude, and – even if she could keep it from everyone else – there was no longer any hiding it from herself.
She felt febrile with wanting him, like her blood was too hot.
Like it was simmering in her veins, and if she cut herself pink steam might pour out.
Aside from the fact that she felt compelled to climb him like a tree, being with him was so easy.
And it was so much fun. The more time they spent together, the clearer it became that the connection between them had never broken.
Instead, it had stretched until it was thin and barely perceptible, over four years and ten thousand miles, snapping back into place now they were together again – almost as though he hadn’t been away.
But he had been away. And throughout that time, Hannah had convinced herself his endless silence – the years she spent stoking her own righteous anger at it – would protect against this.
She’d thought her justified fury would prevent her from feeling so helpless, so utterly and completely his, if he ever came back. She’d been wrong.
She was still hurt, and it seemed Jude still wasn’t sorry.
Or not quite sorry enough. But he was also still her home.
He was the person her heart and body recognised as right – as the place where they could rest – even if her head told her that was rank madness.
Jude could still be everything to Hannah, if she let him.
There was no way she could let him.
In their teens and early twenties, he’d thought he had the monopoly on yearning.
He had fully believed that Hannah didn’t care enough to try being with him, and she’d known it.
It was a misapprehension she allowed – even encouraged at times – because although this seemed cold, it kept her safe.
Safe from the possibility that she’d give him all of herself and he’d take her, but only temporarily.
Safe from losing all of him, when by staying his friend she hoped she’d always have some of him.
She’d told herself it protected him, too: from distraction, from Lillian’s disapprobation and from whatever guilt he’d feel when he eventually moved on.
For years, the depth of her feelings for Jude increased in direct proportion to the risk that, if they started something, it wouldn’t last. As they grew up, his leaving Beckford, maybe even the UK, became inevitable; his status as a bona fide genius put him on a trajectory she had no hope of tracking.
The stakes for Hannah’s heart grew higher, even though she’d never told him it was his.
Day by day, week by week, she loved him more – and month after month it became clearer that, at some point, he would go.
The knowledge sat in Hannah’s gut like a brick, heavy from the first moment she ever thought about touching him.
They were sixteen, walking home together on a dusky autumn afternoon.
As the low sun shone through red leaves, it turned his dark blond hair golden.
She considered reaching up to push it back from his brow; imagined how it might feel to run her fingers through it.
She recognised the desire for what it was: something better, and somehow worse, than nascent sexual attraction.
It was innocent, yet far more potent than pulsating teenage hormones.
Hannah promised herself then that she would never hold Jude back – not least because she recognised his need to escape his mother, even though he didn’t yet. As she eventually discovered, though, she couldn’t simply follow him either. It wasn’t in her to spend her life riding pillion.
That hadn’t changed. In fact, nothing material had changed.
She and Jude were at the same impasse they’d reached on that day at the airport; standing on either side of the same faultline.
She loved him, but she also loved her independence, the life that she’d built.
She was proud of it. His feelings for her still seemed strong, but soon he’d be leaving again – flying back to his important job and brilliant future the week after Ed and Joe’s wedding .
. . which she was still responsible for arranging.
Starting some sort of doomed love affair part way through planning it could surely only be labelled ‘completely fucking stupid’.
She couldn’t – wouldn’t – do it to herself.
As she unlocked the door to her shepherd’s hut and then closed it behind her, Hannah didn’t dare ask herself what Jude’s departure would do to her.
The answer came anyway, and with crushing certainty.
It was going to break her heart all over again – and the closer she became to him in the coming weeks, the more shattered she would be.
So no more kissing. No more touching. And absolutely no pretending – no hoping – that things between them might end differently this time.
Wearing a swimming costume in front of the ex-boyfriend she was obsessed with had not been on Hannah’s bingo card for this evening.
However, she found herself donning a black one-piece anyway because, as the organiser of this event, it was her job to participate fully and make sure everyone was having fun.
In a bid to preserve some modesty, she tied an old sarong around her waist in lieu of shorts: a black and white polka dot thing that, when she rejoined the party crowd, Ed said made her look like a 1950s film star.
It was still twenty-eight degrees outside, but the slight breeze that had kicked up kissed Hannah’s bare shoulders, and she revelled in the sensation.
The sun’s rapid progress towards the horizon meant that – for once – there was no rush to cover them up for fear she’d burn.
The delicious scent of slowly charring food was in the air.
Above the melody of the latest Sabrina Carpenter single was the sound of ice clinking in glasses, and a low murmur of conversation that Hannah knew would get louder and more raucous as the night wore on.
There were six large hot tubs set up in the spaces between cabins, shaded by swags of striped canvas.
The soft, inviting burble of the water could be heard from the barbecue area, but Joe assured everyone its temperature had been set to ‘barely warm’.
They’d provide soothing, welcome relief from the relentless heat of the day, rather than feel uncomfortably toasty.
It was a gorgeous evening, and this was a gorgeous place.
Ed and one of his old rugby friends, Zak, were manning the gigantic barbecue, resisting all attempts at direction from Joe, who, despite having no interest in cooking, had appointed himself head chef.
A safe distance away, squishy outdoor chairs and bleached-wood coffee tables had been set up in a large, open-topped pergola.
It had been decorated with string after string of fairy lights, and candles in storm lanterns flickered from every corner and tabletop.
Everything looked . . . romantic. There was no other word for it.
Frankly, it was the last thing Hannah needed.
Likewise, it was beyond inconsiderate of Jude to be out here looking the way he did.
He was dressed in shorts and a light linen shirt, like they were on one of the holidays they’d dreamed about but never taken together.
His collar was open far enough to show off the golden skin of his throat, and Hannah blushed at the memory of how she’d pressed her lips to it earlier today.