by Jane Lark
There were only about a dozen cars parked in there. I guess most people were not in a motorway services at nearly midnight on… I didn’t say the word, not even to myself, he was right, we should treat this like a normal day.
After he parked up, he looked at me. ‘Pull the hood of your parka up, then you won’t have to look at any of that festive shit. I’m wrapping my scarf around my head.’
I laughed.
‘We’re going in, doing what we need to do, then we’ll grab a coffee from Burger King. They’re right by the door and they’ll be quick, and we can drink it out here.’
‘Don’t you want a longer break from the car?’
‘No. I’d rather not put up with that fucking merry music playing.’
He pulled a beanie hat out of his pocket, slid it on and pulled it down to his eyebrows. Then he reached over the back, through the gap between the seats, and grabbed a scarf, folded it double and wrapped it around his neck, then pulled one half through the other. Finally, he settled both his beanie and his scarf so they covered his ears and nearly covered his eyes. ‘I’m ready.’
I flicked my hood up. ‘Come on, then.’ I opened the door when he did.
It was cold outside. I’d swear it was colder than London had been. I shoved my hands into my pockets as I shivered, walking towards the services. He caught up with me and his arm came around my shoulders. It felt nice.
We walked up to the door like that, with me leaning against him.
As soon as we walked in, though, we realised his plan wasn’t going to work, there was a metal grill barring access to Burger King – they’d already closed up and gone home.
Wizzard’s, ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day’, played out.
‘Shit,’ he said under his breath.
‘I fancy a change of seat for a bit, anyway, a hard chair in the café will wake me up.’
‘Alright, I’ll brave the good cheer for you. But I need the toilet first.’
‘So do I. I’ll meet you in the café.’
‘Okay.’
We parted ways.
When I came out he was standing at the entrance to the café, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, looking stupid with his hat pulled down and his scarf pulled up, but of course his striking blue eyes against his dark lashes and brows, and the bone structure of his cheeks were still visible. I’d bet, even half covered up like that, the women in here thought he was the best-looking man who’d been through here for days. The women in the café were watching him.
‘You owe me big time for making me stand here listening to this merry fucking music.’
The merry music, was now ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham.
‘Can we get something to eat? I’m starving.’
‘Sure, go on then. I’d be mean to make you wait another hour.’
I picked up a tuna-melt for the server to heat up. ‘Are you having something?’
He took a look at what was left in the chiller and chose a pasta salad. Then he shouted over to the girls who were waiting on our order. ‘I’ll have a cappuccino but with three shots, and a skinny, vanilla latte…’ He glanced at me with an eyebrow lift to check that’s what I wanted. I nodded.
When he got to the till he took out his wallet. While he looked out his card, he said, ‘Can you put that sign down for a minute please. I don’t want to see it. Not everyone is happy about that shit.’
The girl made an odd face, then knocked it over. I guess the customer was always right.
He held his card over the machine so it paid on the contactless connection.
‘We’ll bring the tuna-melt over, Ha—’
‘Don’t you dare say it.’
‘Who are you? Scrooge.’
Jack threw the woman a glare.
She flipped up her sign.
I laughed and grasped his arm, pulling him away before he decided to make it a full-on argument.
He picked up a plastic fork to eat the pasta with, and napkins and sugar. I’d never seen him take sugar before, but then he didn’t usually drink cappuccino either.
I took a sip from my latte, watching him as he opened his salad and took a forkful. I liked his hands. He was right, I had watched him a lot at work, but it wasn’t just his face I watched, and his hands were fascinating. I think he actually had his fingernails manicured; they were always perfectly shaped, with no cuticle. He had hands he could model with, his fingers were long and slender, and yet they looked as masculine as the rest of him.
I glanced up. ‘Can I have one of the serviettes?’
He smiled at me, ‘Sure, knock yourself out.’
I took one then leant down to get my handbag; I’d put it by my feet. I couldn’t find a pen, but I had a black eyeliner. I took the lid off and then I wrote on the white serviette.
When I finished, I slid it across the table. ‘Just to make things official.’
Dear Jack
I’m giving you my notice. I don’t want to work for you any more. As of right now, you are not my boss. You’re my lover.
Yours sincerely
Ivy Cooper
He looked up and laughed. Then he folded the serviette and slipped it into his inside pocket. ‘I’m keeping that as evidence that you said yes to me. I might even have it framed and put up in my office.’
‘Don’t you dare.’
He gave me a grin as the woman brought my tuna-melt over.
Chapter 3
We’d come off the motorway about thirty minutes ago, and since then the roads had been gradually getting narrower and darker. The place looked like Middle Earth, the little of it I could see in the headlights.
I’d never been this far north before. I hadn’t known what to expect, but it hadn’t been gnarly woods, broad glass-like lakes and tall hills hemming us in on every side as Jack drove through twisty, narrow roads. It really was like something out of the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, even the little whitewashed cottages were like hobbit houses. ‘This place is cool, Jack.’
‘It’s more than picture postcard, isn’t it? It’s knock-you-off-your-feet stuff. Sometimes I just stand around here awed by nature. But you haven’t even seen it in the daylight.’
‘Have you brought anyone else up here?’
‘I brought Sharon here. But she hated it. I’m hoping you don’t.’
He glanced at me, then flicked the indicator on.
‘Are we here?’
‘We are.’ He turned off on to a track that ran across a field. ‘This is the driveway to the cottage and the house that’s next to it.’
I didn’t think I’d dislike it – it looked like I’d love it. ‘I can’t believe how out in the sticks it is.’
‘I told you, it’s my haven. This is where I escape to.’ He smiled, but he wasn’t looking at me.
Then I saw it. The moon had been hidden by clouds most of the way since I’d woken up, but now the clouds parted and I could see a two-storey whitewashed cottage glowing in the moonlight, nestled in a valley, in a meadow amidst the hills. It had a slate roof that glistened when the moonlight caught it. I saw the bigger house behind it, but the cottage was perfect. ‘That’s really awesome.’ Literally, the awe he’d talked about hit me.
‘Isn’t it? At least because Sharon hates it I know she won’t be going after this as part of the divorce settlement.’
I looked at him. ‘I love it.’ My words came out breathless as he pulled up in front of an old- fashioned-looking porch with a wooden carved frame and lamps on either side of it.
Someone had left a light on inside.
He got out of the car and stretched. I got out too.
He looked different; his shoulders had relaxed. He looked as if he’d dumped the weight of work and his problems from London in the car. He looked over at me, waiting for me to come around the car. ‘Thanks for saying yes and coming up here. I think I’d have hated being here on my own this time.’
He sorted through his keys and then held them out to me with one separated. ‘Open
up. I’ll get our stuff.’
‘Thanks.’ My heart went bump, bump, bump in my chest. While my stomach was no longer doing backflips, something warm and elemental was stirring within it instead. In this cottage was a bed, and I had come up here to get in that bed with him.
I unlocked the door as waves of surreal washed over me.
Was I really doing this? Who was this Ivy? The bad girl who’d turned Rick down.
‘There should be wine and food in the fridge!’
‘How come?’ I shouted back as the door opened.
‘There’s a woman who comes in and looks after the place. I had her stock it up ready for me!’
The door opened straight into the living room, there was no hall, and on the far side there was a staircase, and to one side a fireplace with a log-burner full of wood, waiting to be lit. But in the corner beside it there was a very bare fir tree. I dropped my handbag into a chair.
When he came in behind me, I turned. ‘You forgot to tell whoever bought the food you aren’t doing Christmas.’
His smile twisted with a bitter look, but then he leaned forward. ‘That’s a blindfold.’
A forfeit. I smacked his arm and laughed with a nervous sound, because the way he’d said it, and what he’d said, made my tummy do even weirder stuff. It was like a coil twisted down through it.
‘You check out the fridge. I’ll put the cases upstairs.’
He had my rucksack on his shoulder, my case in one hand and his in the other.
I didn’t ask which room he’d be putting my case in.
‘There’ll be some champagne in there. Get that out, for a start, and anything else you fancy.’ I watched him walk upstairs, my gaze hovering on his bum. He’d said he liked watching mine, but his was nice too.
I turned to the kitchen. Ravenous, suddenly, but probably not for food. My heart pumped so hard. I couldn’t wait to find out what sex with him was going to be like, but I was terrified of making myself look stupid.
I sighed when I opened the fridge. Rick would be playing charades with our parents about now. Go him! He could keep ‘nice’.
There was caviar, paté, smoked-salmon mousse, prawns, salad stuff and chicken, along with a dozen varieties of local cheese. Jack knew how to eat well. The problem was, I didn’t.
My phone buzzed in the other room.
I pulled out the champagne and looked in the cupboards for glasses. I found wine glasses. They’d do. I took out two and held them with the stems between my fingers, then picked up the champagne and went back into the living room.
Jack was just coming downstairs.
I held the champagne up.
He came over and took it from my hand. ‘Take your coat off.’ He’d taken his leather jacket off.
I put the glasses down on the table, which stood in the far corner of the room, then slipped off my coat. There were coat-hooks behind the door and I hung it up there. But the room was really cold without a coat. I rubbed my arms.
He’d undone the foil on the champagne and had the cork ready to pop. His thumbs gently pressed it up. Bang; it went off and made me jolt as it flew up and hit the ceiling while a mist of champagne evaporated out of the bottle, but there was no spray. I guess he’d learned how not to waste any over the years.
He picked up a glass and filled it, then filled the second glass before putting the bottle on the table. He handed me a glass. ‘To a holiday of naughty sex.’ He tapped the rim of his glass against mine, just as a clock somewhere in the house chimed midnight.
‘I feel like Cinderella. Shall I peek out and check the Jag didn’t turn into a pumpkin. Something must be suddenly going to change or disappear.’
He shook his head. ‘I wish a week of sex could change stuff. But no. This isn’t going to change anything, Ivy, except it’ll either mean we look at each other more in the office, or we look less. More if we have hot memories we are continually thinking about. Less if we manage to burn out the flame of lust entirely.’
‘Have you done this before?’
‘Brought people up here? As I said, no. Had sex with people to kill my desire for them? Yes. It works. But some infatuations take a little longer to burn out.’
‘So, is that why you invited me, because you want to stop getting hot when you look at my bum in the office.’
He grinned rather than smiled. It was a more relaxed expression. This place changed him. He drank a large gulp of champagne, then set his glass down. ‘It’s cold in here. I’ll get the fire going.’
He knelt down at the hearth and picked up a pack of matches. The log-burner was set up, ready to be lit – all he had to do was light a match and when he held it to the paper on the fire, the paper burst into flames. He shut the door on the burner. The fire raged into life as it sucked oxygen through the grate.
He knelt back on his heels, watching the fire.
‘Why is that here?’ When he looked at me to see what I meant, I glanced at the naked fir tree.
‘I may have forgotten to tell the housekeeper that Christmas wasn’t happening.’
‘You said the word. Now I get a forfeit.’ I drank some of my champagne, pretending to think, but I already knew. ‘When you’ve finished with my blindfold, I’m going to use it to tie you up.’
‘I might say the word more if you’re going to come up with that kind of forfeit.’
‘Then I’d change the rules.’
‘You can’t change the rules, it’s my game.’
‘But you’re not the boss any more, Jack. You’re just my lover.’
He stood up suddenly and came towards me. ‘Do you know how sexy that sounds?’ His hand came about the back of my head. ‘Feel.’ His other hand gripped mine and pressed it against the front of his trousers.
‘Shit. I’m in for some fun.’
‘You are.’ His lips came down on mine and I spilt champagne on the stone-flagged floor as his tongue pushed into my mouth. Forget jelly, my stomach was lighter than that; it was soft snow melting into slush. A sexual tingle teased between my legs, while heat raced across my skin, four chilli symbols of heat. I’d felt nothing like that when Rick kissed me. Had I never really fancied him?
Jack broke away. ‘I think you spilt your drink down my jumper.’
‘Sorry.’
‘No need to be. It was my fault.’
‘I feel guilty about Rick—’
‘You’re not pulling out now we’re up here?’ He looked at me, his body stiffening.
‘I wasn’t saying that. I meant I feel guilty for staying with him so long. You’re right. I’ve fancied you since I started. I don’t think I ever fancied Rick. I should have let him move on years ago. Oh, I forgot. I got a text.’ I finished off the champagne, put the glass down and went over to my bag. I pulled out some tissue to wipe up the spilled champagne, but took my mobile out too.
‘Rick: Hey, I miss you. You should be here. If you change your mind over Christmas I can drive up and get you. I still love you, Ivy.’
Daggers pierced through my chest, a hundred of them… All dipped in guilt.
‘What is it?’
I touched my thumb against the screen to unlock my phone, then went into Rick’s messages and held the phone out to show Jack.
He took it from my hand. ‘He wants you back,’ he said after he read the first one, but then he started scrolling through them. ‘Oh shit. Are you sure he hasn’t got some sort of problem?’
‘I think his problem is just me. I walked out on him.’
‘There are hundreds of these things.’
‘I know. I stopped replying a fortnight ago. He still sends them. They generally start about ten and then, as the night goes on, they get more and more desperate. I think he’s drinking a lot.’
Jack looked up from the phone, at me. ‘You must feel like shit.’
I closed my lips and nodded. Stupid tears welled up. He pulled me into a hug. Crazily that did stuff to my innards too, just in a different way than the kiss.
‘It’s alright
to feel shit when you’re breaking up. No matter what side of it you’re on. And you’re not obligated to have sex with me just because you came up here.’
I pulled away. ‘But I want to have sex with you.’ I sounded petulant.
He laughed as he dropped my phone into an armchair, then his fingers braced the back of my neck and he kissed me.
My arms reached around his neck, one hand still gripping the tissue I’d got out to wipe up the spilt champagne.
He was taller than me, but in my heeled boots, not all that much. We felt like a perfect fit physically—but otherwise, I only knew him professionally, getting personal and touching and exposing myself was scary. But that was why this felt so tummy-churning.
He broke the kiss. ‘If you had a skirt on I’d lift your legs up right now and do what I’ve been wanting to do to you for two years.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Have sex with you on my desk.’
‘Your desk isn’t here.’
‘No, but the table would do.’
He let me go and I squatted down to wipe the champagne off the floor. He turned to the fire, opened the burner door and poked it with a metal poker to make sure the wood caught properly, then shut the door again. ‘I thought we could get the cushions off the sofa and the chairs and put them out on the floor.’
‘Okay.’
My phone buzzed again. Jack picked it up and then read out the text. ‘Ivy. Please. I want to spend, the C word, with you.’
I looked at him. ‘See, it’s like the first text is a nice tester to see if I’ll reply and now I don’t, then he dives into being more and more pressing. But even when I was replying they used to end up desperate when I wasn’t saying what he wanted.’
‘You have two options. I call him and tell him to get lost – you’re here with me. Or we switch your phone off. I’m not listening to him texting and you shouldn’t be reading them.’
‘Just switch it off.’ It was nice to have someone else know about them. I hadn’t been able to talk to anyone because everyone was on Rick’s side.
‘Done.’ His thumbnail flicked the little switch, then he threw my phone back down on the chair.