Kiss Me Under the Mistletoe

by Fiona Harper

  What was the harm in a little crush? To feel her blood pumping and all those endorphins speeding round her system. It was good for her. And no harm ever came from a little bit of daydreaming.

  Laura had done it. It had kept her sane to think of Dominic when everything else had seemed grey and lonely. She gave silent thanks to the woman who had stopped her going mad fighting with herself. This way, she could indulge her crush but she’d be safe.

  Daydreaming was all it would ever be. It was all she’d allow herself.

  It would have to be enough, because she’d felt this way before—worse even—and it hadn’t ended well. She’d fallen so totally in love that she’d lost herself completely, had allowed herself to become completely overshadowed. It would happen again if she let it. When she fell, she fell hard, completely.

  She took a sideways look at Ben as he joined her and they silently started walking towards the kitchen. Jas and Jack had already disappeared inside and were probably trying to work out how they could raid the biscuit barrel without being rumbled.

  He was walking with his head bowed, looking at the ground in front of his feet, but he must have sensed her looking at him, because he mirrored her and the smallest of smiles crossed his lips. Without warning, another sigh snuck up and overtook her.

  Ben Oliver was all the good things she’d once believed a man could be: strong and kind, thoughtful and funny—although sometimes without meaning to be, but that just made it all the more charming. Honest. That was a big tick on the list, honesty.

  He was all wrong for her, of course.

  Or, maybe, more to the point, she was all wrong for him. She could picture a new wife for Ben quite clearly in her mind: someone who was capable and strong. A woman who had a quiet confidence, a gentle heart. And when evening came, and it was time to turn out the light, he would reach across and stoke her face with the palm of his hand, look deep into her eyes …

  Tiny pinpricks behind her eyes took her by surprise and she was glad they’d reached the back door and she could busy herself removing her coat and hat and putting the kettle on before she had to face him again.

  He hadn’t said it out loud, but she knew he would do anything to keep his and Jas’s life on an even keel. And so it should be. It was just such a pity that the only thing she could bring him were the ups and downs of a roller coaster life—a life that was way out of control and she was powerless to stop. She didn’t wish it on herself, so how could she wish it on him when he’d worked so hard to build a solid foundation for himself and his daughter?

  Louise watched Ben as he sat down with the kids at the kitchen table and refereed as they argued about who had had the most cookies. Another sigh. And this one hurt right down to her toes. If only this could be real …

  No. Dreaming was fine, but wishing was dangerous.

  She shook herself and made the tea. There was no point wishing for things that couldn’t be, but something about Ben made her feel like a proper person again. So she was going to hang on to that feeling as long as she could and use this crush, this infatuation—whatever it was—to help her heal.

  And, one day, when she was good as new, she wouldn’t need to dream about him any more. Then she’d let the fantasies go and watch them swirl up into the air and blow away like the autumn leaves.

  Louise looked round the boathouse. It was finally finished. The wooden floor was painted, the walls smooth and even in the off-white colour she’d chosen, and now the day bed had arrived and two armchairs faced the fireplace. The desk still sat in its corner near the window, and she’d also added a bookcase on the wall opposite and a small sideboard which housed a camping stove and tea and coffee-making supplies.

  And she’d done it all herself. From choosing the soft furnishings to painting to walls and varnishing the floor. Okay, she’d had help getting the furniture down here, but she wasn’t superwoman.

  In the grand scheme of things, it was a tiny triumph. It shouldn’t have made her feel so good, but it did. Maybe because for the first time in a really long time she’d done something for herself. Not because anyone else wanted her to. Not because anyone else needed her to. But for her. To make herself happy. It was quite a giddy feeling.

  As a reward, she unlocked the desk drawer and pulled Laura’s diary out. It had sat unread in there for quite a few weeks. She hadn’t quite been able to bear finding out how Laura’s story ended for a while. At the moment, they were two lonely women battling against the world. If Laura found her happy ever after, Louise would have been all on her own again.

  But now she thought she was ready to take a peek.

  She hugged it to her chest and took it over to the day bed, piled high with cushions so it could be used as a sofa, and sank back into them.

  New Year’s Eve, 1953

  I can hardly believe the blissful state in which I began this new year—with Dominic’s lips on mine. I feel that everything has turned around, that finally I can shake this sense of heaviness that has plagued me since last summer …

  Slow down, Laura. Start at the beginning. You’ll want to remember this later, because this was the moment when everything changed.

  Sam Harman, director of A Summer Affair, invited me to one of his legendary parties at the Ritz. Alex was travelling again—off to Greece to do some deal—and I thought ‘why not?’. I had nothing else to do.

  I didn’t expect to see Dominic there, so that wasn’t why I went. After the last party, I knew I couldn’t bear seeing him and Jean there together, so I checked—very subtly—with Sam. He told me that Jean had written to tell him they’d been invited by the Duke of Argyll to stay in his castle for Hogmanay. I thought it would be safe.

  I was doing such a good job of pretending to be the sparkling film star—circulating the party with a champagne glass, laughing at people’s jokes, flirting with the young men—and then it felt as if I’d run into an invisible glass wall.

  There standing on the other side of the room, stealing all my breath and commanding my gaze, was Dominic. He looked more handsome, more wonderful, than I’d ever seen him. I hadn’t realised how much I’d been yearning for him until that moment. I’d thought I was doing better. But don’t they say that the starving man loses all sense of hunger eventually? And then I saw Dominic and my appetite for him was back, twice as powerful, twice as desperate. It was all I could do not to run across the room and fling my arms around his neck.

  The only thing that stopped me was that I could see matching famine in his eyes too. If we’d touched, right there, right then, no one would ever have been able to pull us apart, and this party of Sam’s would have become legendary, not for the bucket loads of champagne or famous performers, but for the scandal he and I would have created in the centre of the dance floor. I wouldn’t have stopped, not until I’d had everything I’d ever dreamed about having from him and more.

  That’s shocking, isn’t it? To know that a well brought up girl like me could think such wicked things. I surprised myself.

  It was agony, continuing to mingle with the other guests, when every molecule in my body was focused on him. I knew who he talked to, how many drinks he had. I was the compass needle and Dominic was my North. So I knew when he stopped keeping away and started to make his way, group by group, person by person, towards me, and—God help me—I didn’t move. I waited for him.

  But I’ve spent every moment of my life since last summer waiting for Dominic. How could I do otherwise?

  He held out his arms as he reached me and I walked into them, placing one hand on his shoulder, one hand in his. The dancing had begun maybe an hour before, and this was one way we could be seen together and not start tongues wagging. Even so, even with only my palm and fingers touching his, I felt I could melt into a puddle at his feet.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ I said. Very sophisticated, wasn’t I?

  Dominic shrugged. ‘Sam invited me and my other plans fell through.’

  My heart stuttered. Jean. I’d forgotten all
about Jean. Was she here too? I’d been so consumed by seeing Dominic again, I hadn’t even remembered she existed! He must have read my mind—or my panicked expression—because he told me they’d cancelled their trip because Jean had been feeling under the weather. They’d been staying with her mother over Christmas, so they’d just stopped there instead of going home. She’d insisted he get out and enjoy himself instead of being cooped up with such a bore, he said.

  ‘I hope it’s nothing serious,’ I said. Being polite, but not being honest … as much as it pains me to admit it.

  He shook his head. ‘She’s just been very tired recently. And she thinks the rich Christmas food disagrees with her. Her mother does tend to go a bit overboard.’

  I nodded. I really didn’t have anything else to say. I didn’t want to talk about Jean. I didn’t even want to remind myself she was real. I wanted this night to be our little bubble of time—mine and Dominic’s—and I resented her for nudging her way in, even in conversation.

  So we didn’t talk. Just moved. Looked. Breathed each other in.

  But it couldn’t last. We had to break apart, talk to other people, dance with other people, otherwise it would have looked bad. However, every now and then we found our way back to each other, stole another few moments, another few touches.

  When midnight came close, I realised I couldn’t see Dominic anywhere. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I could kiss him, but I wanted to be able to see him, share at least that with him. I turned round and round, scanning the room, started walking this way and that as Big Ben’s musical peals boomed from a wireless somewhere, but he’d gone. It was so unfair.

  The chimes started and I just froze to the spot, tears welling in my eyes.

  That’s when a warm hand touched my arm. I knew before I turned that it was him. Maybe it was his smell, or the unique feel of his skin on mine. Maybe it’s just because something inside of me recognises him.

  I turned and pressed my face against his cheek, hardly daring to move my arms so I could hold him. All around us the party was heaving. No one was paying any attention to us. For a few snatched seconds we could be ourselves.

  And then everyone was cheering and shouting and clinking glasses. Dominic just leaned in and pressed his lips softly to mine. Just for a second. A peck that could have been as innocent as it looked.

  ‘I need to go,’ he whispered.

  I placed a hand on his chest, searched his face as one tear escaped and dripped down my face. ‘I can’t say goodbye again,’ I sobbed, and I bunched his lapel in my fist.

  Slowly, he stroked my fingers until they unclenched and flattened. He waited until I looked at him, until I focused on him properly. ‘Neither can I,’ he said. And my world flipped upside down. ‘Have lunch with me next week. I have to come into town to see my agent.’

  I nodded, barely able to breathe, let alone speak. Inside, I felt feverish and shaky. I knew what this meant. That lunch may well not just be lunch. I also knew it was wrong, but I just didn’t care any more.

  Who says love is pure and lovely and wonderful? Not me. It has turned me into something I despise—a grasping, weak, greedy creature, who is willing to selfishly take what she wants and everyone else be damned. Yes, even him. I try to care that this might end his marriage, spoil his perfect family, but I can’t.

  Louise closed the diary, her eyes wide.

  This was not easy to read. She felt slightly nauseous. Was this how Toby had felt about Miranda? Had he thought so little of Louise, been so consumed by his need to have the other woman that he’d turned into something awful and greedy?

  She looked at the closed leather book on her lap. She’d wanted Laura to find happiness, she had, but did it have to come at such high a price? While the portrait Laura painted of Dominic’s wife wasn’t very flattering, Louise knew all about skewed perceptions. Half the people she’d ever met, and thousands more who’d never had the pleasure, thought she was a miserable old cow. If Jean’s husband was obviously in love with someone else, why wouldn’t she have been sour and whiny?

  But Louise had to admire Laura’s guts. She drank life in, lived every emotion to the full. Whereas what did she do? She hid away in her big house, scared of meeting anyone new, lavishing her attention on soft furnishings and floor plans. At least Laura had lived.

  She placed a palm on the diary, as if by doing so she could absorb some of Laura’s boldness and courage. In comparison, she seemed pathetic. Laura dreamed of her man, but she was about to make those dreams come true. All Louise did—all she was prepared to contemplate—was the first part of the equation.

  She replaced the diary back in its drawer, turning the key and then pocketing it. She wasn’t ready to read more yet. Not while she was only ready to wish instead of do.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Louise had convinced Jack to help her make gingerbread decorations for the Christmas tree. However, she’d overestimated the attention span of an eight-year-old less than a week before Christmas. Once Jack had consumed vast amounts of biscuit dough—mainly while she’d been demonstrating how to use the different-shaped cookie cutters—he’d run off. She’d had to tell him off for sliding down the banisters twice already.

  Carefully, she removed another tray of golden-brown angels from the oven, replaced them with uncooked stars, and shut the oven door, smiling. She really should stop, but she was having too much fun. As it was, they’d have enough biscuits for ten Christmas trees!

  Later this afternoon, once Jack calmed down a little, they’d decorate the tree in the drawing room. She couldn’t wait to see his little face when they dimmed the house lights and hit the switch for the twinkle lights. Yes, late afternoon would be best, when the sun was behind the hills and everything was getting gloomy.

  In the meantime, she had twelve minutes to kill until the next batch of biscuits was ready. As she scooped the slightly cooled angels off the baking sheet and onto a cooling rack she drifted into one of her top-ten daydreams …

  It was a balmy summer day. A large picnic blanket was stretched out in the walled garden. Somewhere in the distance children squealed. Her eyes were closed and her head lay on Ben’s lap as he twisted lengths of her hair around his finger, then released them again. Time had slowed, the seconds now hummed out by the bees in the lavender rather than the hands of a clock.

  Louise sunk into a chair and rested her elbows on the kitchen table. Supporting her chin in her hands, she shut out reality by lowering her lids.

  In the daydream, she opened her eyes. He was looking down at her, pure admiration on his face, and she knew he saw into every part of her. It took her breath away. For so long, all she’d seen in men’s eyes was a certain predatory hunger. They admired the packaging, but very few were prepared to take the trouble to unwrap it. And those who did, like Toby, considered the gift inside disposable.

  She shook her head. This was supposed to be the bit where Ben leaned in to kiss her, and she was not having it invaded by the likes of Toby. He had no place here in her summer garden.

  Just as the imaginary Ben blocked out the sun by leaning forward, leaving her in a cool shadow, better able to see his darkening pupils … just as she could feel his breath on her skin …

  The phone rang. The real phone.

  Damn!

  Louise snapped her eyes open and she jumped up from the chair. She could let the answering machine get it, but whoever it was would only ring back and interrupt her later. Reluctantly, she grabbed the handset from its cradle on the kitchen counter.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Lulu.’

  The rich deep voice was as familiar to her as her own. All thoughts of bees, lavender and sunshine vanished.

  ‘Toby.’

  She wasn’t going to ask him how he was; she was past caring, actually. And she certainly didn’t need to hear about his cosy new life with twenty-year-old Miranda, thank you very much.

  Toby said nothing, and she was tempted to put the phone down on him. He’d always d
one this—made her do the talking, ask the questions, prise information out of him. Well, she wasn’t playing his games any more. He obviously had something to tell her or he wouldn’t be phoning. He could just spit it out all on his own.

  He coughed. Nope, she still wasn’t biting. Not even to say, What do you want? This time he could do all the work, do all the giving instead of the taking.

  ‘Louise? … I wanted to talk to you about Christmas.’

  ‘Talk away.’ She leaned against the counter and waited.

  ‘Well, you see … I’ve been given a freebie, a holiday in Lapland. And I wondered if you’d mind if Jack came with me.’

  Louise’s stomach went cold. She’d been trying very hard not to think about the fact that Jack was spending Christmas Day and the following week with his father. It would be her first Christmas without him. But Lapland … Jack would be enthralled!

  ‘That’s fine with me, Toby. I’ll pack warm clothes for him. Are you still coming down on the twenty-fourth to pick him up?’

  There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds.

  ‘Toby?’

  ‘The flights are booked for the twenty-first.’

  Monday? That was a whole three days early! Just like that, the bottom fell out of Louise’s Christmas.

  ‘Can’t you change it?’ she asked, forgetting to hide the panic in her voice.

  ‘Sorry. It’s now or never.’

  ‘I … I …’

  Toby let out an irritated breath. ‘Come on, Louise. Lapland. Jack will love it—and I’ve missed seeing him since half-term because I’ve been on location. It will be just Jack and me. Father and son time. He needs it.’

  Unfortunately, Toby was right. Jack did need it. He’d missed his dad terribly since he’d left London.

  ‘Just you and Jack? What about …’ she wanted to say her, but she managed to force her mouth into the right shape ‘… Miranda.’

  There was a short silence on the other end of the line. ‘Miranda decided she’d rather see her family.’