Chapter 31
Three hours later, Jamie was still with them, but now Fen was glad.
Shortly after their arrival, Tonia had cornered her in the kitchen and said firmly, ‘Hey, relax, everything’s fine.
We think he’s great. And look, it’s not as if you’ve been set up on some awful blind date, is it? He’s just a friend.’
Somehow the blunt reminder had done the trick.
It also helped that Tonia and Hendrik were outgoing, endlessly sociable and loved to host impromptu get-togethers.
The drinks flowed, there was plenty of food, and within an hour the four of them had launched into a laughter-filled, fiercely competitive game of Pictionary.
For the first time in ages, Fen had found herself relaxing and genuinely having fun.
By ten thirty, they’d moved on to Articulate, and an hour after that, it was charades.
Having not had much to drink in recent months, Fen discovered she’d found the answer to a dilemma that had been bothering her before.
Faced with the prospect of saying goodbye to Jamie on the doorstep earlier, she had decided a businesslike handshake would be the best way to go.
But that had been several hours ago, and it was now glaringly obvious that this would be a ridiculous thing to do.
Especially now, having proved themselves to be such a world-class team when it came to Pictionary and charades, if not Articulate, which they’d lost to their hosts. Who’d definitely cheated.
The remaining small-but-sensible part of Fen’s brain reminded her she should probably stop drinking now if she didn’t want a bone-crushing hangover in the morning.
Knocking back the last half-glass of wine, she rose from the sofa, about to execute her genius plan.
Beaming around at the three of them, she proudly announced, ‘Just going to the bathroom,’ and headed over to the door before turning and waggling her fingers at them. ‘Back in a minute.’
As she left the living room, she heard Tonia say, ‘God, I love her when she’s like this!’
Two minutes later, Fen left the bathroom and tiptoed up the staircase to her own room, delighted with her plan because she’d waved goodbye without them even realising it had been her way of saying goodnight. See?
Total genius.
Hearing their laughter down in the living room, she silently closed the bedroom door behind her. The proximity-to-Jamie problem had been neatly averted, no zings had occurred and all she had to do now was go to sleep.
I am a genius.
The high-pitched yowl of a frisky cat woke Fen much later. It was still pitch black outside, far too early to be awake, and her head was letting her know the hangover had already begun, but some sixth sense was telling her there was something else amiss.
She lay there on her side realising she hadn’t taken her make-up off, which was why her eyes felt gritty. That wasn’t it, though. Lying still and trying to figure out the answer, she realised the bed appeared to not be as flat as it usually was, which was . . . weird.
Then she heard it, and her heart began to bounce against her ribcage, because that was the sound of breathing, and it wasn’t coming from her.
What the hell? Surely not. But there was definitely someone here in this bed with her, and it was their weight that had fractionally altered the angle of the mattress.
Was it . . . Jamie? She could hear his slow, regular breaths.
Which meant he’d come to her room. The last part of the evening was distinctly hazy.
Fen was frozen to the spot, her thoughts shooting into overdrive.
Surely . . . surely she hadn’t invited him to join her.
Except if she had, did that mean anything more had happened?
No, of course not, she wouldn’t have done that.
And nor would Jamie. It had to be some kind of innocent mistake.
Instead of heading back to his hotel, he’d most likely dozed off on the sofa, and rather than wake him up, Tonia and Hendrik had gone to bed, leaving him there.
Then, when he’d woken sometime after that, in his sleepy stupor he must have come upstairs in search of somewhere more comfortable to crash out.
See? Completely innocent. No shenanigans had occurred. She’d been out for the count, and within seconds of sliding under the duvet, so had he.
Fen smiled to herself in the darkness. It was quite funny when you thought about it.
He’d be embarrassed when he woke up and realised where he was.
Now that she’d worked out how it had happened, she was actually enjoying the comedy aspect of the situation.
Sharing a bed was always regarded as such an intimate thing to do, but compared with being squashed up against several complete strangers in an overcrowded Tube carriage, it wasn’t even—
Movement. Beneath the duvet, he was shifting position. Fen held her breath, her eyes widening as his foot made contact with hers. It brushed against the back of her heel, then stayed there.
Well. How did that feel?
It was some time now since she’d shared a bed with anyone, and the conflicting emotions were swooping in.
Guilt, because it wasn’t Leon. And sadness, because it could never be Leon again.
But there was also a weird kind of happiness adding into the mix, because lying in bed with another person, his bare foot resting against your own, was undeniably comforting, one of life’s harmless pleasures.
The sensation of physical contact was delicious.
Yesterday she’d been mortified by the adrenalin rush she’d experienced when Jamie had pulled her against him, but that was because he’d been awake, and the last thing she needed was for him to become aware of how she’d felt.
Whereas this was completely different. He was fast asleep, his breathing still slow and peaceful.
Concentrating all her attention on the sensation of their feet intertwining, Fen slowly, so slowly, adjusted the angle of her instep so the degree of contact could be increased.
Closing her eyes, she found herself smiling again.
This was fun. And foolproof too, because if Jamie did happen to wake up, all she had to do was pretend to have been asleep and completely unaware that he’d even been here in her bed.
Next, she shifted very slightly further onto her side, then froze as Jamie moved too, his arm sliding up and over until his hand came to rest on her waist.
She hadn’t expected that to happen. But the sensation of his warm fingers against her torso, where the thin white pyjama top had ridden up, was even more incredible.
Then something weird happened. An echoey snuffling sound appeared to be emanating from the other side of the bed. What was going on?
The next moment, Jamie’s breathing changed and he shifted beneath the duvet before muttering, ‘Shh, it’s OK, she’ll go back to sleep.’
Except he didn’t, because the voice Fen heard didn’t belong to Jamie. Rolling over, she yanked the duvet away from the head buried beneath it and saw Tonia blinking up at her.
‘What’s going on?’ Fen checked the other side of the bed. ‘Where’s the baby?’
‘Sorry. Hendrik was snoring like a train. When he snores, I move into the spare room.’ Reaching out for something on the bedside table, Tonia located the baby monitor and showed it to Fen.
‘I brought this in here with me in case Sonja woke up. But fingers crossed she’ll go back to sleep now, then we can too. ’
‘Waaaaahhh,’ Sonja cried tinnily through the monitor.
‘Or maybe not.’ With a sigh, Tonia sat up and rubbed her eyes. ‘I’ll go and get her.’
It was ten to six. Fen went downstairs and made coffee, then they sat up in bed together while Tonia fed her daughter and they chatted companionably about last night.
‘Was it rude of me to disappear?’ said Fen.
‘These things happen. I came to make sure you were OK. You were zonked out.’
‘I was tired. What time did Jamie leave?’
‘Not long after you left us.’ Tonia lovingly stroked Sonja’s silky blonde head. ‘Isn’t he great, though? And even better in real life than when you see him on TV.’
‘I suppose.’ Fen kept her tone casual. This might be her oldest friend, but still she couldn’t bring herself to confess the muddled feelings – a confusing blend of forbidden attraction and overwhelming guilt – that made her friendship with Jamie so problematical.
She knew that Tonia would be on her side, would loyally insist that it was nothing to be ashamed of and completely normal, what with Jamie being so fit .
. . but that was beside the point. It was how she knew she felt about it that mattered.
Plus, Tonia was her best friend so of course she’d shower her with reassuring reasons why it was all fine, but deep down she still might be secretly thinking: You can’t have loved Leon that much, can you?
Not if you’re getting all zingy with his best friend, you heartless tart.
‘He’ll be over there getting ready to leave for the airport around now— Oh noooo.’ Tonia was diverted by the ominous noise emerging from Sonja’s nappy. ‘We’re going to have to change you!’
There were times when Sonja became slightly less irresistible. Fen wrinkled her nose. ‘Less of the we.’
Tonia carted her smelly daughter off to the bathroom and Fen drew back the curtain, looking out of the window at the hotel opposite, its own elongated lit-up windows reflected in the glistening black water of the canal.
There was a male figure standing outside the entrance with a carry-on case at his side, and she turned away, heart thumping.
Twenty seconds later, her phone lit up with a message: Is that you over there at the window?
OK, so he’d seen her. Fingers trembling slightly, she replied: Might be. Who’s asking?
Was he . . . laughing? Looking up from his phone, he raised his free hand in greeting, then typed: Someone you recently unblocked.
Fen replied: I could always do it again.
The next words on the screen appeared: Please don’t.
What he didn’t know was that until thirty minutes ago, he’d been someone she’d thought she was in bed with, someone whose bare foot had tangled with hers and whose hand had curled around her waist.
He was definitely never going to find out about that.
She typed: Sorry about crashing out last night. I was so tired.
He replied: No worries. Yesterday was fun. We must do it again soon.
Fen took a shuddery breath, because it was something she knew she would want to do. But it was wrong, wrong, wrong.
And even if it wasn’t wrong, it could never end well.
Headlights lit Jamie up as his taxi made its way along the narrow street towards him. She typed: I’m going to back to sleep now. Have a good flight.
Then switched off her phone and made her way downstairs to join Tonia and Sonja.
Six hours later, following a productive morning’s work for a new business client in Sunderland whose appointment system for her dental practice had become hopelessly muddled, she stopped for a break and found herself scrolling through Instagram.
She didn’t follow Sadie Ingalls’ account but had looked at it often enough for Instagram’s algorithm to know she was interested.
And there it was, popping up to playfully jiggle the knife between her ribs, a series of photos of Sadie and Jamie greeting each other at the airport.
Sadie had posted: Ships – or planes – that pass in the night! Our schedules might be crazy, but as I arrived at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 this morning heading for Copenhagen, I managed to meet up with Jamie on his way home from Amsterdam.
Fen exhaled and switched off her phone. The moral of the story being, if you don’t want to see something, don’t go on Instagram. And if you really can’t help being nosy, it serves you right.