He pulled away, breathless, and watched Lara as her breathing gradually slowed and eyes flickered open. She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Fireworks have finished,’ she said.
‘Regatta’s over.’
Untangling her arms from around his neck, she let herself fall back onto her heels, introducing just a whisper of space between them.
‘Are we going to forget about this?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure I can forget.’ But his face was hard and closing fast. He might not be able to forget, but that didn’t mean that he thought this had been a good idea. That he wanted to repeat it.
‘We pretend then,’ she said, making the call for both of them. ‘We go back to how things have always been and pretend that this never happened.’
‘I don’t want to lose you, Lara. You know how much I like—’
* * *
Like. Nice. These banalities were going to kill her one of these days. Of course they liked each other. If she liked him less, maybe she could countenance the idea of breaking his heart one day. But she loved him, and that meant that she couldn’t be the one to hurt him. That he couldn’t be the one that she hurt, trying to work out if the damage that her heart had sustained was permanent.
‘I know. I don’t want to lose you either,’ she told him, the simplest version of what she was feeling.
‘So you agree that this would be a bad idea?’
‘I do. You know I do. But that doesn’t mean I can’t regret what I can’t have.’ She leant her forehead against him, because regret wasn’t a strong enough word for what she was feeling. She wanted this to work. Every bone in her body ached, knowing that everything she wanted was just within reach, and she wasn’t going to let herself grab it and hold it tight. She had to do this. If she wanted him in her life, she couldn’t pretend to him that she wasn’t damaged.
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I’d hurt you, Lara. And I don’t want to hurt you.’ It was as if his heart was echoing directly from hers. But he had this all wrong. She wasn’t the one that was going to hurt; it was him. She trusted him, even if he didn’t trust himself.
‘I’m not scared of that,’ she told him, even though it didn’t change where this was going.
‘But—’
‘I’m not scared of you hurting me, Jannes. But that doesn’t mean I want a relationship any more than you do. I’ve never been with someone without eventually pushing them away. You know that. I don’t want that to happen to us.’
He nodded, and she listened to the thump of his heart for just a few seconds longer, knowing that she was going to have to step away if they wanted to save this friendship.
‘I know,’ he said, his voice echoing through his chest. ‘So we agree. We pretend this didn’t happen.’
She nodded, and finally lifted her head. ‘If we’re trying to forget it, though, I think we need to stop pretending we’re together. This makes it too complicated—it will be too hard to ignore this feeling if we’re holding hands and kissing and pretending in front of other people.’
He let his arms drop from around her waist, and something inside her broke. Something she didn’t realise could fracture any more than it already had. ‘I agree. But I need to ask one last favour. A meeting with Spencer tomorrow morning. After that, you go back to London. Next time I come up it will be as if this never happened.’
* * *
He saw her swallow.
‘Okay, it’ll end tomorrow. And Mormor—you’re going to talk to Mormor about this? Get her to stop meddling.’
‘I’ll deal with Mormor.’
She smiled, and he knew she was imagining how that conversation might go. ‘I’m sorry I won’t get to see that.’
One corner of his mouth lifted, but he couldn’t bring himself to smile properly, not when he knew this was ending, when it had hardly begun. ‘Come. It might help.’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘I should go to bed,’ she said at last, and just the word bed on her lips had his heart beating faster again. If this was going to be over tomorrow anyway... No. It was going to be hard enough to forget a kiss. If they took this further there would be no going back. No way that they could pretend it had never happened. That would set him on a path that he wouldn’t be able to leave until it reached its inevitable painful end.
‘I’ll show you to the guest room.’
At the door, she hesitated, fingers on the handle.
‘Lara...’