She chuckled and a warm feeling spread in my stomach, dissolving the knot.
"It's okay. Now lie down."
"No we need to talk."
"We'll talk in the morning, you need to sleep now."
She tucked me in, the way I'd tucked her in for the last couple of days.
"Kayla stay."
She hesitated but then went to the other side of the bed and climbed in. I grabbed her nightdress and pulled her closer to me, feeling sedated and calm as I smelled her skin close to me. She laid her head on my chest.
"I love you Kayla."
I fell asleep for a second but woke up again by the sound of her voice.
"I love you too Matt."
Everything was going to be okay. She loved me too. I smiled and drifted off, with her warm body next to mine.
I woke up and saw Kayla sleeping next to me. The snow was falling silently and serenely outside my window and for a moment I wondered if I had dreamt our conversation last night? Did we really say "I love you"? I looked at her, she looked like she didn't have a care in the world, and slowly she opened her eyes. My stomach did a back flip the instant I saw the spark in her sleepy eyes.
"Hey." She yawned and I smiled goofily back, in all fairness I was aiming for coolness, but I think I ruined that with my drunken one-man show last night.
"Thanks for the suitcase." The tension fell away and we were back, maybe a little more undressed than usually, but I could relax.
"Nice icebreaker!" I teased her, feeling like we'd passed the first and most difficult hurdle.
"I know, right?" she giggled into her pillow and I couldn't resist her, pulling her closer and leaning in for a kiss, she warned me of her morning breath, but I felt her lips part and meet mine and soon we were entangled, trying to get closer to each other's bodies.
"Rise and shine!" Jackson's high-pitched voice dropped instantly at the sight of us wrapped up in each other. Kayla giggled loudly and Jackson tried to exit discreetly, failing miserably.
"I guess we don't need to fill the boys in now." I grabbed her again, this time kissing her neck and shoulder.
"Lock the door" she whispered. I locked the door and went back into the warm bed, undressing myself on the way. This time the sex was wilder, the fragile Kayla was gone and we got lost in each other. She was grabbing my back with brute force as she came; our bodies were wet and clashing against each other in an almost desperate way. Afterwards, I lay panting on top of her for a moment, feeling her soft skin on mine, I kissed her nose and felt closer to her than ever. I rolled onto my back next to her, contemplating how this was going to work, if she was going to be my girlfriend and assistant at the same time.
"What are you thinking?" her dimples asked me, letting her fingers trace my collarbone.
"I'm dying for a cigarette." I protected myself from the punch I already knew was coming.
"No really, I am!" I laughed, but quickly kissed her soft lips and told her, that I was thinking about the future. I told her all my worries about losing an assistant while gaining a girlfriend, and I felt my stomach flip several times, leaving me queasy. I was searching her face for clues on how she felt about the situation.
"So I'm your girlfriend now?" Her finger circled the hairs on my chest. I panicked for a nanosecond, maybe I shouldn’t have used the G-word?
"I like that." She stretched a little and went back to circling her finger on my chest.
"I like that too, would you like to be both?" I asked and hoped she would say yes. I hadn't even begun to think about how much apart we would be if she wouldn't stay on as my PA, and I didn't want another PA, I wanted her! There was a brief pause before her beaming smile told me, she would like to be both. The grip in my stomach loosened and it felt like jumping out of a plane; tumbling tickling butterflies that wouldn't stop swirling.
Charles De Gaulle airport, Paris
January 6
"Are you ready for this?"
"I don't know, are you?" her eyes sparkled.
We giggled and our lips met across the armrest. The flight attendant smiled warmly at us as she checked the overhead compartment.
I squeezed her hand and buried my nose in her hair behind her ear, taking in the faint vanilla scent. I thought back to the last couple of days and felt grateful and a little apprehensive about the future.
"Welcome aboard flight 1535 to New York"
The captain's voice drifted into the background as I concentrated on kissing the soft spot behind her ear. She became a bit awkward at my constant touch.
"Matt, maybe we shouldn't...we're out in public and people are looking"
"Let them look."
"Baby? I don't want you to completely stop, just don't do it so much"
She smiled at me and I gave in. We were both a bit weird about now being together and her still being my assistant. I wouldn't know how to be apart from her for long stretches of time now I'd only just gotten together with her, so I'd persuaded her that we could remain professionals by day and be a couple by night. As the plane began to move on the tarmac and leaving Charles De Gaulle behind, she let out a sigh and leaned back into the seat and speaking to the seat in front of her.
"I'm so glad you came to Paris with me."
She turned her head towards me and looked at me with watery eyes.
"I'm glad you met my mom."
My mind flashed back to the day at the cemetery in Paris. She'd shown me the place her mom had been resting for the last 5 years. I understood now why she never talked about her family.
"It's complicated."
"Well, I wanna know."
She had opened her mouth to say something but closed it again and instead a deep v appeared between her eyes. Looking at me with narrowed eyes she'd stood for a while looking at me, taking me in. I was being assessed. Maybe she had been afraid I wouldn't be able to handle whatever the story was. I had taken a step forward and reached out for her hands.
"I can handle it, I promise I won't judge. I just want to know more about you. Nothing you say will change the way I feel about you."
"It's just difficult you know?"
I nodded and hoped she could see how sincere I was. I had no intention of using whatever she would tell me against her. I wanted to share her grief, carry some of it for her if possible.
"My mom...she came back to Paris with me, when I was 15."
I found her hands and took them in mine, but didn't move any closer as I'd sensed she needed a bit of space to tell her story. She was nervous and her hands shaking and when she spoke again her voice was trembling.
"She left because my dad was having an affair. For a while things were good for us, living in Paris, you now? Then my dad came to Paris and said he wanted her back, so we went back to England. Things were good, I went back to my old school and my parents were happier. But then she found out he was still having the affair and from then on, she just got more and more depressed."
She looked down at her mother's gravestone, turning her head to her side and holding up one hand to signal a pause. When she spoke it was barely a whisper.
"Just a second."
I couldn't help but be affected by the grief in her voice but I respected her wishes and didn't move closer. I could see it was incredibly hard for her to share this story from her past with me, but a part of me felt loved by her doing so and I liked that it brought us closer.
"Sorry. I didn't want to cry."
Dabbing her tears away with her jacket sleeve, she continued.
"Then my dad moved out to live with...the other woman and it was the final straw for my mum."
I shivered as I wasn't sure I was ready for what was coming. I glanced away from Kayla and down to the stone. Claudette Masson 1961-2004.
"She took her own life."
"I'm so sorry Kay."
"And every year I come here to visit her on New Year's Eve because that's the night she died.”
I took the final step towards her and she let me hold her. We stood still
for a while and when we finally pulled back we both had tears in our eyes.
"What about your dad and...?"
"It's hard, you know? I hated him so much. I blamed him. And I blamed her! It was their fault. So I moved down to London as soon as I could get away from home and considered myself an orphan. Then I came to Los Angeles and began getting work as a PA. It's only last year I began speaking to him just a little bit...but it's hard."
I came back from remembering and I put my hand on her thigh stroking her jeans.
"I'm glad I met her too." She sent me a loving smile.
"So how's this gonna play out, are we telling Nick?"
"I don't know what are you most comfortable with?" I asked. I had no idea what his reaction to our new arrangement was going to be like. He wasn't opposed to us dating I knew, but his client and his PA dating and working together, might not be my manager's favourite scenario.
"Hmm I don't know, he might find out if we have one of our spats."
She had a cheeky grin on her face.
"Spats? I don't know what you're talking about, you and I never argue."
Her eyes twinkled and she got comfortable in the seat.
"Hmm I don't know about that, but maybe if you don't stick your pretty little head into more fireplaces I won't have to scold you"
"Hmm, I don't know...you're kinda sexy when you scold me."
"I am?"
"Hmm yes, I seem to remember being very turned on by it."
She giggled and I smiled and under us somewhere Claudette Masson lay, hopefully smiling at her daughter's happiness. I silently wowed I would do everything I could to never let her down the way her father had done to her mother.
I had high hopes for this year.
The end.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank the people who have helped me shape this wintertale. My husband K, who read it very enthusiastically in spite of his initial reluctance when I labeled it “Romance”. Your input on how to see the world from a man’s point of view was invaluable.
Rachel Rice for your feedback, without you this book wouldn’t be here. Your sharp eye for details made me a better writer.
Maria Cymborski for being such a good beta-reader, thanks for the conversations about my characters, especially on Matt.
Betina Juhl for beta reading and giving valuable feedback.
About the author
Sophia Greene is a Danish author, she lives in Copenhagen with her husband and their dog.
The New Year’s Wish is her first piece to be published.
Find out more on www.sophia-greene.com
The New Year's Wish Page 5