Chapter 2 #2
Clemmie put the van in park. ‘Let me get your suitcase. I’m assuming a key must have been left for you in the lock box?’
‘Yes, and I can’t thank you enough for the lift. I was minutes away from being thoroughly waterlogged in my wedding dress.’
Clemmie smiled. ‘You’re very welcome. It looks like you have limited supplies with you, so take these…
’ Clemmie handed over a pile of sandwiches, cakes, and cookies.
‘These are today’s leftovers. You should take them, and if you pop by the café in the morning I’ll make sure there’s a full English waiting for you before the convention starts. ’
‘Thank you, that’s very kind.’
‘But I’d suggest changing out of the wedding dress before then, otherwise tongues will wag.’
Pippa laughed. ‘It’s first on my to-do list! Thank you again.’
After Pippa climbed out of the van and Clemmie grabbed the suitcase out of the back, she watched her drive away, the tyres spraying water through the puddles.
She stood at the gate, the bottom of her dress now thoroughly ruined, but all in all, she felt slightly steadier than she had a few hours earlier.
Clockmaker’s Cottage looked beautiful and she couldn’t wait to get inside. This was just what she needed – a place to escape today’s chaos, and to spend the weekend immersed in the thing she loved the most before she had to go back and face the music.
The email had suggested the competition would have more than one winner, and Pippa assumed it would be someone as mad on clocks as her, or maybe it was one of the organisers of the convention?
Instead of unnerving her, the idea of spending the weekend with a fellow clock lover – even if they were a stranger – made her almost giddy.
It would be nice to spend time with someone who actually spoke her language, who wouldn’t glaze over the moment she said the word ‘escapement’. They’d have so much to talk about.
As per the instructions, she punched in the number 0210 on the lockbox and it swung open. But it was empty. Next, she tried the front door, and to her surprise it was unlocked. Pippa stepped inside.
It was properly cottagey. An umbrella stand stood next to a tiny table and there was a coat hanging from one of the mismatched hooks. She definitely wasn’t alone then!
She glanced into the living room to find the TV on, some kind of renovation show murmuring away in the background.
The air smelled of freshly brewed coffee, with a hint of roasted garlic and herbs drifting in from the kitchen.
She could see through to the dining table – Walter Vale’s actual dining table!
– where a place had been set for one, complete with a napkin and a waiting wine glass.
She unzipped her coat and hung it on a hook, left her suitcase at the foot of the stairs, balanced her rucksack on top, and propped the bag of food Clemmie had given her on the bottom step.
‘Hello,’ she shouted out. ‘Anyone home?’
She took a cautious step forward, her soggy wedding dress trailing behind her like a damp ghost. Then she heard it. Water running. And was that singing?
It was the chorus of Cher’s ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’.
The words were echoing through the walls, but sadly not sung by Cher herself. This voice was male. Dramatic. And unapologetically off-key.
She wondered whether to go about her business and settle in, or should she join in the chorus? Instead, she walked towards the singing and shouted ‘Hello’ again.
The water shut off.
Silence.
Pippa backed up a step.
Then, footsteps.
The bathroom door swung open and there he was.
Soaking, startled and stark naked.
‘AHHH!’ he screamed.
‘AHHHHH!’ Pippa screamed back, clamping her eyes shut before her hands flew up to cover her face.
‘Why didn’t you say you’d arrived?’
‘I shouted hello!’
‘Why are you wearing a wedding dress?’
‘Long story.’
‘You can uncover your eyes now.’
Pippa dropped her hands slowly. Thankfully, he’d grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist.
His eyes widened as he scanned her from head to hem, and her heart began pounding as she came to a very unwelcome realisation.
His eyes met hers and the horror written all over his face perfectly matched hers.
Surely not.
Pippa was dying on the spot, opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish as they stared at each other.
She’d thought this day couldn’t get any worse, but now it had plummeted even lower.
Theo Blake. The man she loved to hate, and the one man she’d hoped would never cross her path again in this lifetime.
What the hell was her university nemesis doing here?
He squinted at her, his entire body frozen in shock. ‘No. No. No. It can’t be … you.’
‘And yet it is.’ Her voice cracked with equal parts incredulity and exasperation as she flashed him the fakest sweetest smile.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Theo?’ she demanded.
For a moment he was speechless, then he somehow managed to compose himself. ‘Considering I’m a doctor of horology and there’s a clockmakers’ convention going on, I have every reason to be here. As for you… Are you actually real, Pippa, or am I hallucinating?’
‘All too real, unfortunately. But you aren’t meant to be here. This is my escape. My new chapter. My post-wedding-implosion recovery weekend. You’re not supposed to play any kind of role in it!’
‘Trust me,’ he muttered, adjusting the towel, ‘you’re not supposed to be in mine either.’
They stared at each other, one in a dripping wedding dress and the other in a towel that seemed ready to slip off with the slightest movement.
The property show on the TV inserted unasked-for commentary into the silence.
‘Sometimes, a clash of styles can lead to unexpected beauty.’ Pippa made a noise that could have been laughter or sheer exasperation as the absurdity of the situation fully registered.
She looked down at her dress, then back at Theo’s bare chest. ‘I don’t know what’s worse,’ she said finally, ‘the fact you saw me like this, or the fact that you were singing Cher with … conviction.’
Theo raised a single eyebrow. ‘At least I’m not wearing miles of crushed and stained tulle that suggests I’ve made some very bad life choices recently.’
‘Because nothing says stability like a man in a towel fresh off his home cabaret act,’ she muttered, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes.
He smirked, the action small but entirely infuriating, and muttered, ‘Did you win the competition?’
‘I did,’ she said, her voice flat and her eyes slightly narrowed. ‘I’m assuming you did too, which means—’
‘You get to enjoy my company for the whole weekend,’ Theo interrupted.
‘You mean we’re stuck here. Together.’
Theo’s expression didn’t lighten. ‘Yeah. Fun, right? What could possibly go wrong?’
‘I started today running away from a wedding,’ she blurted out, ‘and somehow I’m now ending up being trapped with my university nemesis. Can my life get any worse?’
‘I was thinking exactly the same,’ he said dryly.
They stood in tense silence for a moment, simply glaring at each other as every clock face in the cottage bore witness to their shared humiliation.
Pippa couldn’t help but notice the way his towel clung to him, and the stiff line of his – very muscled – shoulders.
She wanted to roll her eyes and show him how unbothered she was by his nakedness, but instead she felt a reluctant flicker of something else; a feeling she’d tried to bury since week one of university.
Yet here it was resurfacing. She tried to push it down by reminding herself exactly why she didn’t like him.
Theo sighed and muttered, ‘So … I suppose we need to … you know … survive the weekend without killing each other?’
She snorted. ‘That’s optimistic.’
‘Practical,’ he corrected. ‘Not optimistic.’
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Pippa registered the absurdity of it all: two people who had spent years trying to outsmart each other academically were now stranded together in a cottage, rain cascading down the windows like a waterfall in a scene that could be straight out of a romance book.
Pippa stepped into the living room and flopped onto the nearest sofa, while towel-draped Theo awkwardly hovered in the doorway.
Resting her head and briefly closing her eyes, she groaned.
They might be enemies, but they needed to prepare to coexist for at least the weekend.
Somehow. The only thing certain was that this weekend might be far more …
interesting than she’d ever imagined it could be.