Chapter 15
A few evenings later, Ollie realises that I still haven’t followed through on my promise of finally watching Home Alone, and asks if I want to watch it with him.
I’ve spent most of the week focusing on decorating the castle exterior, and learning just how cold the sea wind can be on the Mull of Kintyre.
During the rapidly decreasing daylight hours, I’ve been putting lights on anything that doesn’t move.
The fountain is filled with glowing pebble lights, the edges of every high-peaked gable are outlined by white fairy lights, the columns on either side of the door are wrapped with fairy lights and sparkling ribbon, and even the nutcracker is wearing a Santa hat.
In the evenings, I’ve been putting finishing touches up inside, from bow-fluffing and perfecting garlands to watering poinsettias.
Tonight I’m still trying to warm up after a day of clipping up lights and arguing with Hamish that it’s perfectly safe to climb a ladder to the top of the spire to put a star up there, and curling up on the sofa with Ollie and his favourite Christmas film sounds like the perfect way to spend an evening.
We share the sofa with a box of After Eights and a peppermint hot chocolate each, but the distance between us has vastly narrowed now.
I’m sitting right next to him, my knees up and resting against his legs and we’re sharing the same tartan blanket, and I’m trying not to think about how effortlessly he could slide his arm around me or how easy it would be to lean my head on his shoulder, and it’s getting increasingly harder to resist, especially after that hug at the weekend.
I’m hyperaware that there is less of December left than what has passed, and in under a fortnight, this is all going to be over. I have a return train ticket for the 28th and I can’t imagine how I’ll feel when I use it.
He looks down and meets my eyes, and I see it reflected back at me.
The bosses arrive next week. Our time of pretending to be together is running out, and whichever way the promotion goes, this will end.
I didn’t expect the time to fly by this quickly, and now I’m trying to make every moment last as long as possible.
Throughout the film, he keeps glancing down at me with a smile, like he wants to make sure I’m enjoying it as we watch a young Macaulay Culkin setting inventive traps for his would-be burglars, and there really is something that feels so special about being with Ollie, even when we’re doing nothing at all.
‘One more day of work,’ he says as we walk up the stairs after young Macaulay has caught his burglars and his family have come back to him. Ollie hasn’t let go of my hand yet, but I tell myself it’s just getting into character before the visitors arrive.
‘You’re counting down the days until a break, and you really want a promotion that means you work more?’
‘No, but it’s the only way. And I’m not complaining about being closer to where you are.’
It simultaneously makes me melt and makes disquiet prickle at me again.
While Ollie living in the same city might be a good thing – a chance to get to know him for real, where he isn’t my boss and we aren’t caught up in this strange pretence – I’m also sure it isn’t the only way.
To own somewhere as spectacular as this…
it can’t make sense that the only way to save it is to leave it.
Those photos from the 1920s float through my mind again. ‘People would pay good money to stay here and do exactly what I’m doing now.’
‘Exactly, hmm? I don’t think people would pay to hold my hand…’ His eyebrows rise and his grip on my hand loosens as his fingers graze up my inner arm, but I stop him before they go any further.
‘I’m serious, Ol.’
‘And I… I can’t think about that.’
‘Why not?’
We’ve reached the second-floor hallway outside our bedroom doors before he thinks through an answer.
‘Because of you, Lula. Because you make me feel like anything’s possible.
You make this place feel like home again.
You make it feel like it did when I was younger, like magic is hiding inside the walls just waiting for me to find it, and that’s not real, and what is real are the bills, and the repairs, and the never-ending list of things falling apart that need fixing or replacing, and if I think about that and I think about you and I think about this idea that people would want to stay here then I think about work and the promotion and the fact that I’m filled with dread and I’m drowning every day and I didn’t think about those things before I met you, and—’
I throw my arms around him and he gasps for breath because he clearly didn’t intend for all those words to come out that fast, and it’s unquestionably the first time he’s ever voiced those thoughts.
If nothing else, at least I know I’m not imagining it.
I know Ollie isn’t happy, I know he has doubts about the promotion and about leaving the castle, just as I know that now isn’t the moment to push him, and it is the moment to squeeze him tighter and rub my hands up and down his back.
Everything will be okay, I tell myself. Things have a way of working out at Christmas.
Maybe he won’t even get the promotion and this will all be for nothing.
I pull back and look at him. Not nothing.
‘Sorry, I don’t know where that came from or why I said it. Ignore me, please. Can we just… goodnight?’
We can say goodnight, but he needs to be held for a bit longer first so I pull him in for another hug.
Every evening, it gets harder and harder to say goodnight to him, harder to stop the hug at the bedroom door from turning into more, and harder to get any sleep because every time I close my eyes, all I do is think about him.
He wraps me in his arms again, bending at an awkward angle to save me having to lean too far upwards, and I’m cocooned by his body, surrounded by his aftershave – mint and something softly floral.
I’m so overwhelmed with affection for him that, without allowing myself to overthink it, I touch my lips to his jaw.
He lets out a moan and curls even further around me, and presses a kiss to the back of my neck where his lips touch, and holds me tighter as a shiver so deep runs through me that it threatens to knock me off my feet.
The hint of his stubble grazes against my skin as he murmurs, ‘Please don’t make me let go yet.’
‘You don’t have to let go ever.’
‘We’ll need to eat sometime, that could get difficult, and I don’t even want to think about what happens when one of us needs the bathroom…’ he says, holding me even tighter when I dissolve into giggles. ‘Thank you.’
‘What for?’
He gives it some thought before answering. ‘It’s not the decorations that have made the castle feel alive – it’s you. It’s everything. The little things, like the tree in the living room. You did that for me. Not for the guests, just for me. It’s special.’
‘Thank you too. Thank you for believing in me. From day one, you’ve trusted me. Even when you come home to find twenty-three poinsettias in your dining room and hundreds of metres of undecorated garland, you’ve never questioned it or doubted me. That’s special too.’
A tornado of butterflies fills my stomach at the look in his beautiful blue eyes as he gazes down at me like I’m the most valuable thing he’s ever held.
His fingers stroke my hair, and I have never felt so desired in all my life.
He breathes my name. His hand is on the side of my neck, stroking my hair aside.
His eyes drift to my lips, his breathing getting faster.
I’ve never felt this desperate to kiss anyone. He can undoubtedly feel my chest heaving as I try to force my sensible head to fight for control over my pounding heart. If I kiss him, really kiss him, I’m not going to know how to draw the line between pretence and real.
It’s impossible to resist the temptation to wrap my fingers in his grey and cream-striped hoodie, and the bells on my socks jingle as I push myself onto tiptoes.
I’ve barely stopped thinking about kissing him again since the mistletoe blunder at the office party, because even a peck done for show was one of the best pecks of my life, and it left my imagination running wild about what it would be like to kiss him behind closed doors.
When he lowers his head to mine, there’s no possible reaction other than to surge upwards and meet his lips full on.
It’s a soft, tentative kiss, shy and careful, everything Ollie is in one tender movement, and a feeling of complete bliss washes through me, making me glad he’s strong enough to hold us both upright.
When we pull back, his lips are still pressed against mine. ‘I’m well aware I shouldn’t have done that.’
His voice is a delicious whisper that sends even more shivers through me. He makes no attempt to move away, and my fingers are curling into his body, holding him close, leaving him in no doubt that I don’t want him to move a millimetre.
The attraction to him has been building and building, and I can’t hold it back any more, and it breaks, bursting like a wave crashing against the cliffs below.
I kiss him again. I push myself up harder, claw him closer, and this time, it’s less shy and tentative and more frantic and needy, because I have needed to kiss him for weeks now, and the fact he’s feeling it too brings out a wild side in me that makes me grab his hair and twist my fingers into his clothes, panting against his mouth, spurred on by the noises he’s making.
‘Or that,’ I murmur when we pull apart this time, making us both giggle.
‘But I’m glad I did.’
‘So am I.’ I lean up to kiss him again, and again, and many more times, until it’s so late that we can’t stand outside the bedroom doors canoodling any longer, but we’re both drawing it out.
I don’t want to say goodnight to him. I don’t want this night to end yet.
I don’t want to think about what happens in the morning.
If this is a mistake… If we go back to being boss and employee come daylight…