Not that he had any particular sense of excitement about going. Anything lost its charm when you’d done it twenty-eight times. But of course the Christmas trip had nothing to do with his own excitement or his idea of what might constitute R and R. It was about duty and responsibility; had been for years now. And in his world those were things that weren’t to be messed with.
‘Ah well, that’s what you get when you tie yourself into tradition.’ An amused voice drifted across from the adjacent check-in line, a faint west-country burr lacing it, and he turned to look at the girl checking in next to him – obviously another snow-lover, was he completely surrounded? His intended cutting response never made it out of his mouth.
Ella carried on filling in the check-in documentation without looking up.
‘Get hooked on traditions and you just set yourself up for a ton of stress when things don’t work out,’ she carried on. ‘Can’t see the point myself. Go with the flow and make the best of the situation, enjoy London in the snow for once. No one’s died, although my will to live is on its last legs listening to you lamenting about some eggnog get-together. I’m sure your family will all still be there in a few days.’
Unlike her own, who’d never actually managed to be present often enough to qualify any situation as ‘tradition’. To her the snow was an exciting twist to what would otherwise be a fun weekend away. Christmas shopping in London had been elevated to something a bit more magical.
She finished signing her name and glanced across to look at him, knowing she was probably about to get a mouthful but really not caring because he was sucking the joy out of the room. She looked straight into the eyes of the one person she’d never expected Christmas to throw at her again.
***
His mind slipped back down the years to the last time he’d looked into those almond-shaped hazel eyes with the slight tilt at the outer corner. Her hair was still the same light brown, not windswept by the sea air today but curling against her neck beneath a knitted beret. The fine-boned face gave her a fragile look that belied the girl he remembered. She had known exactly what she wanted and she took it without hesitation. His blood was pumping faster just at that recollection. Her nose and cheeks were pink from warmth of the lobby after the icy cold outside and her eyes sparkled with the cheeky grin that now faded from softly curving lips. Her eyes widened as she looked him in the face and he knew instantly that she’d recognised him too.
‘Ella Scott,’ he said, her name returning easily to his lips without the slightest need for searching his mind. Wherever he’d buried that brief encounter - it must have been five years ago almost to the day - it clearly wasn’t half as deep as he’d thought it was.
A brief pause as she clearly debated whether to acknowledge him or possibly deny she even knew him. Maybe even make a sharp exit. After all, that was what she’d done back then.
‘Devon. Christmas 2008,’ she said. The hazel eyes now wore a guarded expression. As well they might. She’d left without saying goodbye, leaving him to sleep on alone in his hotel room on the misty-cold seafront that last freezing morning before he flew out to Barbados, the Christmas family get-together not to be missed even back then. He’d never seen her again.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ he said.
***
He took his key card from the receptionist on autopilot, not even glancing her way, and took a step towards Ella, a light disbelieving frown touching his eyebrows as he looked her up and down. She pressed her teeth together hard and arranged her face into what she hoped was a neutral expression that would hide the fact that her brain was flashing a series of progressively more vivid recollections through her mind. Recollections that made her heart pound in her chest and her cheeks feel like they were on fire.
Oh my fuck he’s seen me NAKED! Oh my life did I really DO all those things? With a STRANGER?
The whole point of a one-night stand was that you didn’t have to worry about your behaviour being cringeworthy or about shocking your partner with uninhibited suggestions. Who gave a toss about a little thing like embarrassment when you were never going to see the other person again? You were in it for the moment, no consequences to think about. All you needed to do was make sure there were no repercussions that could come back and bite you on the arse in the future. She’d learned that from her parents, both of whom had failed epically on the no-consequences front, and there was no way she was going to repeat their mistakes. She’d made a clean break of it and walked away, no phone numbers, no addresses, no comeback.
Until now.
***
‘You remember me then,’ he said.
How could she not remember? One scorching night in her memory with nothing to taint it because she’d made sure she walked away immediately, before any of that could happen. She hadn’t hung around to listen to him backtrack and talk his way out of the situation. She knew better than anyone what one-night-stands turned into in the cold light of day, and there would be no awkward morning-after goodbyes in the cold for her as he exited her life as quickly as he’d entered it. She’d circumvented that completely.
‘I should have known it was you just from the complaining,’ she said, not looking him in the eye in the hope that he wouldn’t notice her blushing. ‘I’ve never met anyone else before or since who goes to eggnog parties. Still heading out to Barbados every year then?’
She saw his eyes narrow at that and another memory came from nowhere, filling in one of lots of fuzzy blanks that fitted around the not-so-fuzzy images of hot sex. He’d been negative about the Barbados Christmas back then too, while she’d been fighting down a spike of jealousy. Not about Barbados, although of course if someone ever happened to offer her a ticket there she would rip their arm off in her eagerness for a luxurious beach break. More about a Christmas filled with your entire family. Christmas 2008 had been particularly sparse for her on that front, though she was used to it now.
‘It’s a family tradition,’ he said. ‘The whole point is that you repeat it on a regular basis.’
Family had come first with Tom Henley, she remembered that too. And clearly it still did. One-night stands were meant to only be about sex, but there had been hours of talking too, lying awake with the soft background sound of the tide and the slant of moonlight in the velvet darkness of the seafront hotel room. Maybe that was why he hadn’t been relegated to totally forgettable in her mind. Sex was one thing, but they’d had more of a connection than just that. And maybe that was part of the reason she’d left, because she’d had a glimpse of what it could be like between them if there had ever been more than one night and it had been crystal clear at the time that one night was all it would be. No suggestion of more had made it to being verbalised by either of them.
When it came to leaving, all she’d really done was get in first.
He moved closer, not quite into her personal space but close enough to make her pulse jump. The intense expression on his face, as if he was remembering how she looked without her clothes, the way his eyes were fixed upon hers, the knowing smile touching the corner of his mouth, told her that hers wasn’t the only mind being treated to a hot rerun of their last encounter. The burn in her cheeks refused to stand down. She needed to get out of here, away from that boiling hot gaze that was making her stomach feel like it was melting.
‘So what are you doing in London?’ he said, an interested smile crinkling the gorgeous grey eyes. ‘How have you been?’
Oh my life it was beyond awkward. Her toes curled at his attempted polite small talk when surely his mind must be full of x-rated images from what happened last time they were in the same room. She glanced around her for an easy escape route and shifted her bag from one arm to the other, keeping her door key card in her hand as walked toward the curving staircase. He kept pace with her while she groped for a brush-off comment that would allow her to make a fast exit up the stairs.
‘It’s a long story,’ she said, in a closed tone of voice that she hoped would