Kiss Me on This Cold December Night:. Charlotte Phillips

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       CHAPTER TWO

      She had absolutely no intention of grabbing it while she could.

      It was perfectly simple. This was the UK after all, not Lapland. How long could the snow possibly last before he would be winging his way to Barbados as planned? One day? Surely two at most. All she needed to do was keep her head down and stay out of his way until Liz got here, avoiding any further encounters. Unfortunately, her ready-made excuse of a travel companion still hadn’t shown up. A harried phone call later and she understood the reason why.

      Turned out Tom Henley had a point. Liz’s train was delayed by at least three hours due to snow on the bloody tracks. Plans to simply hang out in the room for a bit until her friend showed up suddenly morphed into the most boring waste of time imaginable.

      Half an hour later and she’d drunk two coffees and eaten all the complimentary biscuits in the room. She bounced on the bed and glanced through the hotel information brochure for the second time, thinking it over. She could stare at four walls while she waited for Liz or she could while away some time in the award-winning Spa.

      No contest. She stood up and tugged her swimsuit from her case.

      ***

      A gorgeously relaxing ambience, muted lighting, fluffy towels and complimentary robes. The Spa was virtually empty, it being that lull just around lunchtime, between check-in and check-out. With all the snowy London sights to take in swimming wasn’t a big daytime attraction. Ella swam a few laps of the pool, then climbed out and settled herself on a wicker lounger, magazine at the ready. Soothing background music filled the air. Bliss. Not a sign of Tom Henley anywhere. And of course there wasn’t. With a flight on standby at any moment, Tom Henley was hardly likely to change into swimwear and be parted from his mobile phone, right?

      Wrong.

      Ten minutes later and she glanced up from her magazine to see him stroll casually into the pool, a towel slung around his neck, dark blue swim shorts topped with perfect tight abs, broad muscular shoulders and damply tousled dark hair. It seemed that for all his grouching about missing eggnog parties, Tom Henley was in no rush whatsoever to get back to the airport. Her heartbeat immediately picked up as if she’d done a couple of circuits in the beautifully equipped gym. She saw him clock her from the opposite side of the pool and he sauntered over leisurely.

      ‘What, no friend?’ he said, when he was a few feet away as if he thought she was some billy-no-mates with a fictional travelling companion. He sat down next to her, although the room was full of empty loungers and her stomach knotted into a ball of tension.

      ‘Liz is delayed in the snow,’ she said. ‘A bit like you.’

      She saw his eyes sharpen.

      ‘So you’re at a loose end, then? Time to kill.’

      The look on his face was open and friendly. His smile was as melting as she remembered, the way it started slowly and then moved upwards to crinkle the corners of his eyes. And she’d forgotten he had a way of holding her gaze with his that made her limbs feel like they might turn to jelly. She forced herself to sound detached.

      ‘Not for long. Just until her train makes it through, then it’ll be on with the Christmas shopping weekend.’

      ‘I thought you didn’t do Christmas,’ he said.

      He was referring to the fact that back in Devon she’d turned the festive season into nothing more than a work opportunity, waiting table or bartending all the hours she could muster, all geared towards glossing over the fact that there was actually anything to celebrate. She was surprised he remembered that kind of detail about her and had assumed his recollections would be all about the bedroom.

      ‘I don’t.’ She shrugged. ‘Liz won a competition. A weekend for two Christmas shopping in London. She asked me along.’ She glanced around the beautifully-finished opulence of the Spa. ‘It seemed a shame to turn her down for a principle. Shame she’s running late.’

      He settled himself back on the wicker lounger next to hers, propped up on one elbow to face her, clearly intent on a proper conversation. And what the hell, maybe if she got it over with, did the whole small talk catch-up chat, he would leave her be.

      ‘So how’ve you been?’ he asked. She thought she saw genuine interest in his eyes now. ‘You had another waitressing job lined up didn’t you? Back in Devon. Did you finish college?’

      A smile rose on her lips as she remembered her former self. Big dreams. Not on his scale of course with his medical training and his father’s footsteps, but big for her who’d dropped out of school and drifted from one temp job to the next.

      ‘I did,’ she said. ‘I did the jewellery course. I’m surprised you remember.’

      A brief hesitation and then she held her small hand out towards him, a swirl of beaten silver on her forefinger. Without thinking he took it in his; the resulting flip in his chest at the touch СКАЧАТЬ