Just for the Rush. Jane Lark

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      ‘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.’

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