‘I don’t have a fiancée?’ Dev replied, looking as confused as I felt.
‘You don’t?’
‘Nope. Iwasengaged but we called it off months ago.’
‘What?’ I was completely incapable of processing this information. Dev was single? ‘Why? How? When?’
‘It’s not much of a story, I’m afraid. It just wasn’t right,’ he said with a half shrug, as if it was the most casual thing in the world. ‘She wanted to get engaged before her thirtieth birthday and we’d been together for ages, so on paper, it seemed to make sense. A week after her birthday, after I proposed, we both realized it didn’t. So we called it off.’
‘You called it off?’ I was still struggling with the concept. ‘Amicably? No one cheated, no one left, no one had sex with their receptionist?’
Dev frowned. ‘That’s a very specific question but no, not to the best of my knowledge. I don’t think she has a receptionist and mine is a sixty-year-old lesbian who’s been with her wife since they were eighteen so I don’t fancy my chances there.’
‘So,’ I took a deep breath in and held it, the heat of the hot tub suddenly overwhelming. ‘You’re not engaged?’
‘I am not,’ he confirmed, that dangerous smile very slowly returning to his face. ‘And you don’t have a boyfriend?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘No boyfriend. No girlfriend. No partner of any kind.’
‘That’s interesting, isn’t it?’ He moved back towards me, gliding through the water until his hips pressed against my knees and I realized I was still holding mybreath. Relaxing my legs, he slid between my thighs and I blew out a long, slow exhale.
‘So interesting,’ I whispered.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled him in closer, Dev’s hands exploring my hips, my waist, my back, his touch igniting sparks across my skin. This. This was how it was supposed to be. The hot water swirled around us, tracing the path of his fingertips along my body, and I slid my hands up into his hair. I hardly dared to open my eyes, but I had waited for this for so long and I had to see it all, remember it all. How his teeth caught on his bottom lip, the way his eyes filled with wonderful disbelief. Excruciatingly slowly, Dev dropped his head towards mine and I could feel his breath on my face, our foreheads resting against one another, teasing out the moment until I couldn’t stand it for a single second longer. I brushed my lips against his, just barely, as if to test the moment. Was this real? Dev’s lips on my lips? Dev’s heart beating hard against my own? Everything turned hazy as our lips met, colours, shapes and feelings, a sharp intake of air, the smell of the chlorine on his skin and water lapping against my body when I pulled away. He pulled me back to him, holding my body so tightly I gasped, and when he kissed me again, time stopped and nothing else mattered. I was completely lost and, for once, I had no desire to be found.
It could have been one minute or one hour, I really couldn’t say, but I pulled away first and when I was brave enough to raise my eyes to Dev’s, I saw all my longing reflected back at me.
‘Well,’ he said, still holding me close enough to feel every hard line of his body.
‘Well,’ I replied, not quite sure what to do with myself.
‘We could go back to mine,’ he said, a promising growl in his voice. ‘But my mum says I have to keep the door open when I have a girl over.’
I laughed but it really wasn’t very funny. I felt as though I might explode but it seemed rude to explode in someone else’s private pool, especially when you weren’t supposed to be there in the first place. With endless regret, I slid my hands down his neck and rested them on his chest, widening the gap between us. So this was what it felt like to be in the moment. I had never felt so present in my life. Certainly not in my four years with Michael.
‘If you could wish for anything, what would it be?’ I asked as he ran a line of kisses down my neck and along my collarbone, each one exploding on my skin and making me gasp with delight.
‘Anything?’ Dev murmured.
‘Anything.’
‘The same thing I’ve been wishing for since I was thirteen.’
‘We really should go somewhere,’ I murmured as my resolve weakened and his lips found their way back to mine, irresistibly drawn.
‘We are somewhere,’ Dev replied, whispering directly into my ear and unlocking every ounce of desire in my body. ‘And there’s nowhere on earth I’d rather be.’
We melted against one another, my legs locked around his waist as my back scraped against the tiles and I pressed my mouth to his as hard as I dared, forcing everysingle thought out of my head. Somewhere above us, fireworks exploded in the sky and just for a second, as Dev moved against me and my back arched against the wall of the hot tub, I found myself wishing this moment would never end.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The bottom of the garden was quiet the next morning. The perfect place for me to sit with myself before the day began. There was so much to do, the walk, the lunch, the pub, the party. I clutched my cup of tea and settled on the swing, looking out over the fields and revelling in that weird sense of calm that blanketed the outside world on Christmas morning, like we’d all agreed to treat it like a Sunday even if it wasn’t one. Although maybe it was? I couldn’t really remember anymore, it was just like lockdown all over again, baked goods were plentiful and time meant nothing.
I’d tried everything I could think to try but the wish still hadn’t been granted. I’d helped my mother, found a way for Dad to reconnect with his loved ones and if last night didn’t count as sorting out my love life at Nan’s request, I didn’t want to know what would. I’d even gone above and beyond, helping Manny and Cerys for extra brownie points, but I was still here on Christmas morning number ten with more questions than I had answers. Butperhaps, I thought as I blew on my hot tea before taking a sip, that was OK.
Three months ago, I was so sure of my place in the world. I was a proud, ambitious workaholic on the fast track to partnership at my prestigious job. I was Michael’s girlfriend, hoping to be promoted to fiancée any day. I was the youngest of the Baker kids, the one who happily kept the peace and had an unrequited crush on the boy next door. Now I had to wonder how much of that had ever been true. Were any of us the people everyone thought we were? Good Time Guy Manny was lonely. Tough as Nails Cerys was afraid. Mum was overwhelmed and my dad had never truly found a way through his grief.
Then there was Dev.