Chapter 34
The clear, crisp Sunday evening draws crowds for the Christmas carol service.
People flow towards St Paul’s, its illuminated Baroque facade ablaze against the black December sky.
From within, the first strains of the organ drift outward, fragments of familiar carols carried on the cold air like a promise.
Warm golden light spills from the tall windows onto the stone steps as Teddy and I weave through couples and families, all in winter coats, breaths misting in the air.
He steadies me with a gloved hand as a little boy ducks past us, laughing in a game of tag with another.
“Not here for us?” I nod at the discreetly placed security staff, and two tall men in dark suits with earpieces.
“No,” Teddy says, tilting his head at a black Jaguar convoy nosing around the corner. “Might be a few royals expected. A government minister, maybe. Though if the paps don’t lay off us soon, I might need to employ someone.”
“The price you pay for having a Christmas love story.” As if on cue, there’s a sudden burst of white flashes to our left.
The tabloids have crowned us this season’s feel-good story.
It won’t last, so we may as well enjoy it before they decide either to turn on us or turn their attention to someone else.
A bolder photographer pushes forward, elbows wide, roughly blocking our path.
Teddy shoots him a glare and steps around the man, towing me with him.
Behind him, a young woman, huge camera in hand smiles at us politely.
She’s kind of cute, with a Santa hat jingling and a pair of dangly snowman earrings twirling drunkenly.
“Grab a pic and perhaps a little quote, Rachel and Teddy?” she says, all youthful enthusiasm.
“Sure.” Teddy’s smile warms as he pulls me in close.
The camera clatters, but I barely notice. His hand on my waist, his cheek brushing mine, the familiar smell of his cologne. It’s all I need to anchor me when the curiosity of the outside world invades our bubble.
She pulls out a notebook. “And a quote? If you don’t mind.”
“Just here for candlelight, carols, and the woman who keeps my heartbeat in time.”
I shake my head, smiling—only Teddy could come up with that on the spot.
With her gushy thanks echoing behind us, we start moving up the steps again.
“And that’s why they love you,” I whisper.
And it’s why I think I might love him, too.
Behind the angry crash of his drum solos, this leather-jacket-clad motorbike rider is a teddy bear who’s known for never saying an unkind word.
And it’s no act just for the fans and the media.
Strip everything else away, and you still get the same Teddy, sweet as a box of Christmas chocolates, and I’m the lucky one who doesn’t have to share.
I’ve never known such gentleness, such tenderness in a man, until him. It’s addictive.
“Teddy!”
A striking, vaguely familiar woman detaches herself from a nearby knot of people and glides our way on impossibly long legs.
The man beside her, buttoned into a peacoat that practically screams designer, eyes us suspiciously as she threads an arm through Teddy’s.
A pair of perfumed air kisses hover in the space between them.
She leans back, one brow arched at me.
“So this is...” The question tapers off, as if she knows better than to guess the name of the woman on Teddy’s arm.
“Correct.” Teddy laces his fingers through mine. “This is Rachel—my girlfriend. Rachel, meet Tessa Kingsley, a friend of Briar’s.”
And a top model. Possibly one of Teddy’s exes.
Yet I don’t flinch when she leans in for the obligatory brush of cheeks.
My confidence holds; my stomach stays calm; my heart beats steady.
Teddy’s done that in a matter of weeks—made me feel like the one, the only one who matters.
His past, like mine, isn’t worth a second thought.
What counts is us, here, now—and the future where I’m trusting him to keep choosing me.
Tessa gifts us a bright, knowing smile. “Lovely to meet you, Rachel. I mustn’t abandon my crowd for too long.
” With a flick of glossy hair and the faintest waft of expensive fragrance, she pivots away and slips back to her waiting entourage, leaving nothing behind but the soft shimmer of her perfume.
The organ music gathers and grows as we approach the great doors, adorned with enormous Christmas wreaths.
“Can’t believe how your firm’s milking this,” Teddy says as we join the queue. “They’re lucky you haven’t billed them for the free press.”
Oscar and—hypocrite that she is—Miranda have both been asked for comment on Teddy and me; each is crediting a little pre-Christmas surge in client enquiries to their high-profile employee. Me.
“Call it my insurance policy. Think how bad they’ll look if tomorrow’s vote goes against me. They can’t pass over the tabloids’ darling for some bloke in pinstripes—not with new clients queuing at their door.”
It’s not something I could ever have imagined—people wanting me to handle their contracts simply because I’m dating a rock star. As my Yorkshire granny always said, “There’s nowt so queer as folk.”
Teddy squeezes my hand. “One more carol service, then decision day.”
“Whatever happens—” I kiss his cheek. The silver-haired woman with the pink rinse beside us tsks her disapproval. “The most important decision’s already made—the decision to choose you.”
He flushes under my gaze, and ignoring our neighbour’s glare, plants a kiss on my lips. Another flash bursts.
“Money shot,” he laughs.
As we shuffle to our seats, I crane my neck. Candlelight gilds the soaring dome, shards of gold bouncing off mosaics. The festive altar gleams. Huge arrangements of evergreen and white flowers crowd every alcove.
The service starts with the cathedral choir, voices rising and falling in ancient religious melodies. As they move into more traditional carols, the choirmaster invites the congregation to join in. Song sheets snap open row by row, a papery whoosh that lifts towards the vault like startled doves.
When the choir begins ‘Little Drummer Boy’, Teddy’s gloved fingers slip free and—middle, ring, index—he taps a perfect triple-stroke on the pew, the same saucepan-lid rhythm he once played in his mother’s kitchen. Parishioners glance over; he doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.
We catch eyes mid pa-rum-pum-pum-pum.
“Play your best for him,” I mouth.
“For you,” he mouths back.
As the final rum-pum-pum-pum spirals into the dome, it dissolves into a hush so complete I can hear my own heart keeping time with his.
In the beat of quiet, restless children pipe up. “Can we go now?” and “I need the loo, Mummy.”
The music director has evidently anticipated this.
There’s a conspiratorial twinkle from the choirmaster.
Then—boom—the organ flips to calypso, and the choir goes full gospel.
Breaking into an exuberant Boney M-style ‘Mary’s Boy Child’, soon even the stiff-backed Duke and Duchess in the roped-off VIP area pat-clap along. It vibrates through every pew.
Afterwards, the space still hums when they lower the lights for ‘Do You Hear What I Hear.’ The final high note hangs in the nave like spun glass. My vision blurs; I clasp Teddy’s sleeve so I don’t float away with it.
When we wander down the steps, my gloved fingers laced in his, I’ve never felt so at peace.
He squeezes my hand, thumb steady on my knuckles—no grand gesture, just his quiet constant presence, and the knowledge he’s prepared to show up for me in all the small but important ways.
Teddy is not the sort of man I wanted. But turns out the man I needed was hiding in black jeans all along.
The night air is crisp, the sky clear; a few faint stars compete with the city lights. There’s one or two paps still lurking, but they’re preoccupied with a couple of minor royals trying to exit gracefully without running. Long live the monarchy.
“No Gavin?”
Teddy steers me away from the line of cars idling by the kerb. “No, I told him to take the rest of the night off. Spend some time with his family instead of waiting at my beck and call. We’ll catch a cab.”
“Might be pushing it when it’s so busy. We can walk a bit.”
On St Paul’s Churchyard, the sweet coal-smoke of a chestnut stall curls through the cold. A patient queue coils back towards Millennium Bridge from a lone ice-cream van.
“Get a drink at Madison, maybe? Celebrate another box ticked? Take me to a Christmas carol service.”
I nudge him with my elbow. “That leaves only one, drummer boy: Tell me something you’ve never told anyone. Been dodging it, have you?”
A faint grin, then a small shake of his head. “No. I saved the easiest for last.”
“Easy to bare your soul, is it?”
“With you, yeah.” He exhales, a tiny fog of breath in the winter air. “Ready?”
“Fire away.”
He steps in, foreheads touching. His lashes flutter once—as if steadying the beat—then the words drop, low and certain. “I love you.”
My heart stutters, the city noise fading to a hush. Impossible.
I pull back just enough to search his face. “You’re serious?”
“Deadly.” His thumb strokes the corner of my mouth. “I’ve said the words before—never meant them. Until now.”
A memory flickers—me, years ago, blurting I love you to a man who went on to throw it back in my face; shattered me. I thought I meant it. Maybe I didn’t know what love was. Because this—this honeyed warmth flooding my ribs—feels nothing like that brittle hope.
I swallow, voice shaky. “I told someone once. Thought it was true. Turns out it was practice for this moment.”
His eyes flare, hopeful. “Rachel…”
I slide my hands to his jaw, feeling the stubble rasp under my thumbs. “I love you too, Teddy. And I actually mean it.”
He laughs—half disbelieving, half ecstatic—then kisses me hard enough that the bells of St Paul’s might as well be ringing just for us. The chestnut smoke, the Christmas lights, the rooftop bar waiting nearby—none of it matters as much as the pulse beating wild under my palm.
A soft tinkle of bells jingles behind us. The young photographer from earlier steps out from beside the chestnut cart—same floppy red hat, same battered notebook.
“Oops—sorry, Teddy, didn’t spot it was you. I won’t bother you again.”
He tightens his arm around my waist. “No worries. Go on, take another.”
The flash pops. I’m still blinking when he adds, calm as a drumbeat, “And here’s your caption: Couple in love.”
My pulse leaps. The girl’s pen stalls on the page, eyes wide. She nods once, already backing away to file her scoop.
Teddy turns to me, a grin curving under the street-lights. “Public enough for you?”
I answer with a kiss that feels like the real headline.