This Could Change Everything(70)

Ah, shame the trousers were too small. But never mind . . .

Before the dreaded sorry-you-were-out card could be shoved through the letter box, she yanked open the front door and stopped dead in her tracks.

Stopped breathing, almost.

‘Hello, Essie,’ said Paul.





Chapter 33


Lost for words, Essie stared at Paul. How many times had she fantasised about this happening? Maybe on fewer occasions in the last week or so, but still more often than she would willingly admit to a living soul.

Except in her fantasies she hadn’t been wearing stripy red-and-black trousers that were too small to fasten at the waist and too short to reach her ankles. It wasn’t the most flattering look.

She saw his gaze slip, his attention inexorably drawn to the unfortunate trousers. Tugging the hem of her sweatshirt over the gaping zip, she said, ‘Paul, what are you doing here?’

‘I came to see you.’

‘Why?’

‘Can I come in?’

She had no clue why he was paying her a visit. The shock of seeing him again had caught her completely off guard. She hesitated for a second, weighing up the options. ‘OK then. My flat’s on the second floor. You can go first.’

Because the thought of him following her up the stairs while she was wearing these trousers was too much to bear.

‘Right, wait here,’ she instructed when they reached the landing. Closing the door on him, she rapidly wriggled out of the terrible trousers – with the big ￡3 price tag dangling from the waistband – and back into her jeans. Then she opened the door. ‘Now you can come in.’

Once inside, he seized her by the shoulders, pulled her against him and kissed her, hard.

Crikey.

It was so unexpected, Essie didn’t even have time to respond, either to protest or to kiss him back.

Finally releasing her, he held her face in his hands, which were on the chilly side, and gazed into her eyes. ‘I’ve wanted to do that for weeks. Essie, I’ve missed you so much.’

It was still like one of those daydreams you never imagine actually coming true. In a state of disbelief, Essie realised her knees were trembling. ‘Can we sit down?’ she asked.

She stepped back, then perched on one end of the pale-blue sofa, facing Paul as he took a seat at the other end. His face was just as she remembered it, handsome and contained. He’d had a haircut within the last week or so. His grey cashmere Hugo Boss jacket looked immaculate, as always, and he was wearing a sage-green shirt she hadn’t seen before. His cologne was the Tom Ford one she’d bought him for his birthday; it had been eye-wateringly expensive, but as he’d explained beforehand, rather one cologne you really liked than half a dozen cheap ones you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing.

Grey Vetiver, that was the name of it. She couldn’t say she loved it herself, but it definitely smelled expensive.

The highly polished shoes were new too. Essie glanced down at her own bobbly tartan socks and tucked them out of sight beneath her.

‘What are you doing?’ Paul glanced down.

‘Hiding my bobbly socks.’ It was a purely Pavlovian reaction; they’d always been one of his pet hates.

He exhaled. ‘Essie, I don’t care about your socks.’

OK, what?

‘I care about you,’ Paul continued. ‘I tried not to, but I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t able to stop thinking about you. Christmas was miserable. I kept wondering if you were missing me. Then I kept trying to call your number and realised you’d blocked me. That was like a punch in the stomach, I can tell you.’ He stopped speaking and studied her intently, searching her face for an answer.

Essie swallowed. ‘It was Scarlett’s idea, she said it’d be easier. I was jumping a mile every time my phone rang, thinking it could be you. Once you were blocked and couldn’t leave messages, I didn’t have to think about that any more.’

‘I didn’t know where you were,’ said Paul. ‘It was a horrible feeling.’

‘We’re only in Bath. It’s hardly New York City. You could have found out if you’d wanted to.’ Essie remembered how she’d felt racing downstairs to answer the doorbell on Christmas morning, wondering if it was him and finding Lucas on the doorstep instead.

Back when Lucas had been her least favourite person . . .

‘I know.’ Paul shrugged. ‘But I was pretty torn at first. You’d written that thing, humiliated my family. I missed you, but I told myself I needed to get over it, put you out of my mind. And that’s what I’ve been trying to do ever since.’ He sat back. ‘Except it didn’t happen. Here we are in the middle of March and . . . Well, here I am. I had to come and see you.’ He spread his hands. ‘Turns out I couldn’t stay away.’

Essie pictured the look of disapproval on Marcia Jessop’s bony face. ‘And how does your mother feel about it?’

‘It’s my decision, not hers.’

This was fighting talk. ‘Have you told her yet?’

‘No. But I will.’

‘Is she still angry with me?’

‘That’s irrelevant,’ said Paul.

Of course his mother was still angry with her. So many questions. Essie said, ‘Out of interest, how did you find me?’