Is She Really Going Out with Him?

Chapter 23

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There’s a light on in Will’s cabin, which is enough to guide me. Brambles scratch at my legs as I veer off the narrow path. Taking two deep breaths, I lift my hand to the door, then knock twice, and Will—tanned, muscular, so perfectly himself—opens the door in his boxers. I immediately feel my cheeks heat.

“Well, well, this is unexpected,” he says, eyes sparkling with delight.

“I can’t get into my cabin,” I say, resting a hand on one hip. “It’s locked, and the information pack is inside. Do you remember the code?”

“You don’t remember the code?”

“No,” I say tightly. “If I remembered the code I wouldn’t have had to come knocking on your door, would I?” I pause, this situation sinking in. “Can you break the lock?”

“I’m not breaking the lock, Anna.” He pauses, turning to face me. “You’ll just have to bunk up with me.”

“I’m not bunking up with anyone,” I say, fuming now. The friendly dynamic by the fire has morphed into something else, and it feels as though he’s relishing this power shift.

“Okay then,” Will says, pulling on a sweatshirt and then turning into his cabin.

“Hey, wait, where are you going?” I cry.

“I’m going to get your phone out of my lockbox so you can walk up that hill, call Verity, and ask her for the code.”

I hover while Will fetches my phone. When he returns, I look slowly back and forth between Will and the pitch-dark horizon. “I don’t want to go out there on my own. I can’t even see where the hill is, I might fall in a ditch.”

Will looks exasperated. “You’ll have to sleep in here with me then.”

“Can’t you come?” I plead.

“You want me to put my clothes back on and walk up a hill in the dark?”

“Yes. Please.”

He lets out a groan. “Fine.”

Will is not happy about this outing, which he makes clear with an array of sighs and grunts, but he is more confident in the direction of the hill than I am. The moon and Will’s torch afford us little light, and it takes a good fifteen minutes to cross the field in the valley and find an incline. After walking in silence for a few minutes, I pluck up the courage to ask a question I’ve been wanting to ask all night. “Can I ask you something?”

“I imagine you’re going to,” he replies.

“What happened with you and your ex, Maeve? Why didn’t it work out?”

“Why do you want to know?” he asks, his voice uncharacteristically terse.

“When you mentioned it in Hay, I got the feeling there was a story there.” I pause, and he doesn’t answer. We walk in silence a few more steps and now I regret bringing it up.

“If you must know, I asked her to marry me in a busy restaurant, with her friends and family waiting in the bar next door to congratulate us,” he says with a sardonic laugh.

“Oh no. Will, I’m sorry,” I say, my heart tightening in my chest just imagining it.

“She said no, was embarrassed I’d made a scene.” He pauses, his voice strained in the dark. “She said I’d fallen too deep too fast, gotten carried away, that it was way too soon.”

“Was that it then, was that the end?” I ask, wishing I could see his face.

“She said she didn’t want to break up, but it’s hard to come back from that.” He pauses. “It was my fault, I misjudged it. Once I’m in, I’m all in. I thought she felt the same.”

“These things are rarely one person’s fault,” I tell him. “But yeah, if you ever propose to someone again, a crowded restaurant is never the way to go.”

He laughs surprisingly loudly, then reaches out his arm, pulls me into a gentle headlock, and messes up my hair. “Thanks for the advice, Appleby.” Laughing, I push him away. We walk a little way in silence, and then Will asks, “How did your husband propose to you?”

“In our flat in Bristol. I was already pregnant with Jess,” I tell him.

“I know it’s probably not a simple answer, but can I ask what happened with you?” His voice is cautious.

“Everyone has their own version of events, so I can only give you mine,” I say, pausing to look up at the night sky. “There was no big fracture, no third party involved, it was more a gradual slipping away. We met when we were twenty-one, we were different people back then.” I sigh. “For me, falling in love feels like gazing up at a dark sky. First, there is nothing but blackness, then gradually your eyes adjust, a few stars come into view, then suddenly, you see everything—thousands of stars, an infinite spectrum of light. It’s mind-blowing. Falling out of love feels the same but in reverse. One by one the stars recede, gray clouds sweep in. Then one day you realize you are alone in the dark, there’s nothing out there.”

“That’s a poetic answer,” Will says.

“The less poetic answer is too depressing,” I say with a smile. “Going through a divorce is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Halfway up the slope, my phone gets a bar of life, and I squeal with relief.

“You realize I get the chair now,” Will says.

“This doesn’t count. This is an emergency.”

“Oh, this definitely counts, Appleby,” he practically growls. On my phone, there are a few texts from Jess and one from Dan, several e-mail alerts. I scan through them, just to check there’s nothing urgent. “Anna, I’m not standing out here freezing my bollocks off while you check your e-mail.”

“Sure, sorry. One minute,” I tell him, bouncing from foot to foot to keep warm.

I find Reconnect Retreats’ number on an e-mail and dial it with numb fingers. It goes straight to answerphone. “This is Reconnect Retreats. The office is open from eight a.m. to eight in the evening. If you’re calling outside of those times, please leave a message and we will get back to you. If it’s an emergency, please call the emergency services.”

“It’s an answerphone!” I wail. “Now what? Hey, where are you going?” Will has started walking back down the hill toward the woods, and I’m forced to run to catch up with him.

“I’m going to bed,” he says. “I’m cold.”

“But she said we could call in an emergency.”

“Maybe she meant you could call an ambulance or the fire brigade, if it was a real emergency.”

“But this is a real emergency. I don’t have anywhere to sleep!” I cry. “How far did she say their office was, three miles away?”

“No one will be there now. You can have my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor. Please let’s just go back. We can’t call the emergency services because we only have one bed.”

He’s right, of course he’s right, but I’m still tense with frustration. How would this even work? The cabins are tiny, there’s hardly room for him to sleep on the floor. Could I call a cab, drive to a hotel? But we’ve walked out of mobile reception now, and I suspect Will might kill me if I ask him to escort me back up the hill to make another call.

When we reach Will’s cabin, the door is closed, and he pretends he can’t remember his code. “Not funny,” I say, elbowing him in the ribs.

When we’re finally inside, I’m shivering. Will puts a hand on each of my arms and vigorously rubs up and down. It warms me up immediately, and I mutter an awkward thank-you. As I’m wondering whether I should offer to do the same to him, he holds out an arm toward the bed.

“All yours,” he says as he picks up a pillow and a blanket, then lies down on the floor.

“You can’t sleep like that,” I say, looking at the pitiful scene of his six-foot-three frame curled into a floor space barely big enough to stand in. “There’s not even a carpet. Come on, it’s a double bed. We’ll just have to…” I can’t bring myself to say it.

“Try to resist ripping each other’s clothes off?” he asks, finishing my sentence, but his tone sounds matter-of-fact rather than flirtatious.

When he stands up again, his broad, firm, hot body is only inches from mine in the confined space. Then he turns and passes me a T-shirt from his backpack. “Something to sleep in.”

Wordlessly, I take it, then slip into the tiny toilet cubicle to change because I don’t want to get into his bed in my muddy jeans. I inhale the smell of his T-shirt as I put it on; it’s clean but still smells of his aftershave. I curse him for smelling so good. His shirt skims my thighs, and I come out, tugging it down, trying to hide my white legs. Thank God I waxed before I came, and that I happened to wear my nice new underwear.

Will is sitting on the bed. “Do you want this side or the wall?” he offers.

“The edge. That way, if you roll on me in the night, I’ll just fall out of bed rather than get crushed beneath you.”

“I will try not to crush you,” he says. He briefly looks me up and down in his T-shirt before squeezing his eyes closed and turning onto his side to face the wall. I flick out the bedside light and climb into bed beside him. Now that I’m lying in it, I discover how small this double bed is. It’s almost impossible not to touch each other, even though Will is pressed right up against the cabin wall.

“I’m sorry about this,” I say quietly in the dark.

“It’s okay,” he says gently, and I can feel the heat radiating from his body. “Would you have offered me your bed if it was me who locked myself out?”

“Of course I would,” I say, biting back a smile.

“Liar,” he says, gently kicking my leg. “Night, Anna.”

“Night, Will.”

We lie there in silence, totally still. Is he really just going to go to sleep? Of course that’s what I want, but I’m surprised. Why isn’t he teasing me about the situation? Was the “no strings” proposition just banter? Was he just toying with me to make me blush, while the reality is, he would never follow through?

His breath slows as though he might be about to fall asleep, and now I can’t help but feel slightly offended. There’s a half-naked woman in his bed, and he’s just nodded off within a few minutes. He’s not lying there tormented by my proximity. He’s not even going to try his luck—Will, who tries his luck with everyone . With an unnerving, aching clarity, I realize I am disappointed. Every muscle in my body is tense, every inch of my skin alert with goose bumps. I’m not going to be able to sleep while I can feel the heat of his huge, firm frame right beside me, when my mind is running wild.

I squeeze my eyes closed, tell myself to block it out, to pretend he isn’t here, but my body wants to nudge toward him, to have him wrap his arms around me, to do things in the dark that we don’t have to talk about in the morning. There’s a throbbing pulse between my legs that’s getting heavier and more insistent. No, no. I pull my legs up and hug my knees; I’m just confused, this is unfamiliar territory for me. Will is undeniably attractive, his body is incredible, I haven’t had sex in over two years, it’s no wonder I’m feeling …Stop thinking about it.

“Anna?” Will’s voice is quiet in the dark.

“Yup,” I say, my voice a squeak.

“Are you okay? You sound like you’re hyperventilating.”

“Do I? Sorry,” I say, but my voice comes out as a whimper, and I put a hand over my mouth. Get a grip, Anna. Anyone would think you’d never been in a small bed with a ridiculously hot male colleague. Of course I haven’t. Who has?

I’m probably just freaking out because Will joked about us having sex; he put the idea in my head. He wasn’t serious, he was just teasing me, but… What if he wasn’t? His body shifts, and his breathing sounds shallower. Is he also too distracted to sleep? Now my mind slips into a new gear. Would it really be so bad if something did happen? He’s planning to leave Bath, to leave the magazine; my nerve endings fizz when he looks at me a certain way; he doesn’t want a relationship with someone like me, it could be delightfully uncomplicated… No. Stop thinking about it. But I can’t stop thinking about it, and after ten minutes of tossing and turning, I find myself casually reaching my hand beneath the covers and resting a hand against his back.

As soon as I touch him, he flips over, grabs my hand, and pushes me back, holding my hand down against my pillow. A small moan of anticipation escapes my lips.

“What are you doing?” he asks, his voice low, serious.

“Um, I don’t know,” I reply, biting my lip. I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to think, I just want to kiss him, to break this unbearable tension between us.

“Anna,” he says, still holding my arm on the pillow, “I’m not going to touch you or kiss you unless you ask me to.” His voice is a low growl, as though he’s struggling to keep his composure. “I need to be sure I’m not taking advantage of this situation.”

“You can, you’re not,” I say quietly, my hips gently pushing forward. “I want this.”

“What do you want exactly?” His voice is calm and still. I feel like I might die of embarrassment or want, or both. I reach for him with my free hand, but he only clasps it with his other hand and pushes that hand back onto the pillow too. He rolls over so now he’s hovering above me, both my hands pinned against the pillow. I let out an unconscious groan. I have never felt so turned on in my entire life.

“Words first, Appleby,” he says. “Because you’re sending me a lot of confusing signals here.”

“What do you need me to say? I want you,” I say, exasperated. Every cell in my body is alert, all doubts banished. “I want you to touch me, kiss me, fuck me,” I go on, breathless but confident. Did I just say that? I don’t recognize myself.

“Really?” he asks, his eyes locking on to mine in the darkness, his body suspended above me, rock-still. For a moment, there is no sound except for our breathing, there is nothing except him.

“Yes.”

And then it’s as though the rigid spell of control he is under breaks, and he lets himself go, twisting us around, pulling me on top of him, finding my lips with his, pulling my lower lip into his mouth, kissing me hungrily, hot and hard, running a hand through my hair. Every cell in my body explodes.

“My God, you’re sexy,” he whispers into my mouth, and I buck into him, wanting more, wanting everything. A feral sex-starved beast inside me has just been unleashed and my head has relinquished all control. His hand strokes down my thigh, up the T-shirt I’m wearing, finding the edge of my underwear, yanking it aside, and I let out a whimper, burying my face in his shoulder.

“You want me,” he says, one finger slowly circling its way up my inner thigh. “Say it.”

“I want you, Will,” I say, my voice breathy as my whole body throbs with anticipation. And then finally there are no more words, only excruciating bliss.