The Last Kiss: A Standalone Romance Novel (The Notting Hill Sisterhood Book 1)

by Anna Bloom

  “You feel it don’t you, Julianna?” He smooths my hair.

  “Feel what?” I ask, but I know.

  Without words he presses my palm against his chest.

  “The bitter irony I’ve found you here, the one time in my life I am stuck where I am. Fate plays cruel games. She gives with one hand and then takes with the other.”

  I can’t argue with this. It’s fact.

  “I think irony is a running theme in my life.” I force away the dark brooding clouds in my head and force a smile.

  “Care to elaborate, ma petite?”

  Yes. I’m dying, but somehow you are this magical being that’s manifested into my life just when I thought it was over…

  “No.”

  A large droplet lands on my forehead. “Oh shit. We will get soaked.” My dress, beautiful as it is under my cardigan, is not meant for British chilled downpours.

  Henri grasps my face, tilting my chin. “This conversation isn’t over, but right now we need to…” his smile flashes. “Run!”

  “Nooo!!” I try to hold him back, but he has my hand and tows me along, my legs pumping to keep pace. The droplets turn into a cold torrent, slipping over my skin in chilled rivets, sneaking under my dress, mashing my scarlet cardigan into a soggy layer.

  “Let’s get in here, under a tree.” I point to a small park with railings. “I can’t run like this.” We are too far from the shops and the shelter of doorways.

  He swerves in, his dark hair smattered in soaked waves, his olive skin glistening under the streetlamps, blurred with rain drops.

  “Henri, I can’t run.” My chest. Oh my god. So tight. The beat uneven, as if it can’t remember how to make a rhythm, a useless drum kit in the hands of a child with chopsticks and not proper drumsticks.

  He turns, waves scattering more water. If I wasn’t struggling to breathe, I’d be admiring his soaked chest. Without hesitation, he swings me up in his arms and paces into the park, cursing as he searches for a bench under a tree, which of course there isn’t because—bird shit.

  Folding his legs, he settles us under a large oak, it’s newly unfurled spring leaves providing a light canopy against the onslaught.

  “Bloody British weather,” he growls.

  I chuckle, but it comes out strangled as I try to rid myself of the drums, the beating, the band of panic and failure.

  “Julianna, what is it?”

  I shake my head, hiding in his shoulders, fingers winding in what the elements have left of his lambswool jumper.

  “Julianna.” Firmer this time, he holds the back of my head as a great wave of emotion rolls over me, breaking on a shore of resistance in one sob, then another, then another.

  Strange I haven’t cried since that day after Dr Francis’ appointment. Now it wants to surge up and out of me and into his arms.

  “Shhh.” Gently he rocks us. His trousers must be ruined in the mud, yet he cradles me closer; lips on my hair, my ear, my cheek, anywhere that he can gain access too.

  “Sorry,” I mutter when I can finally breathe.

  “Don’t apologise.”

  I could sit forever under the gentle sweep of his hand.

  There is no forever.

  “Shall we go back to Liv’s? Does she have a pump?”

  What pump? Oh, he thinks I have asthma. That ice-cream scoop hollows my stomach again.

  “No, no. Let’s just go home,” I say, and he pulls back slightly, the left corner of his mouth lifting a tiny wedge.

  “Home.” He nods, and his eyes flash. “Tell me, ma petite, will I have to carry you the whole way?”

  “No. I have a better idea.” I scramble for my handbag and fish out my phone, trying to protect it from the persistent rain. I flick the screen and type. “Down the road there’s a late-night café. We could stop in there instead of trying to make it all the way to the Tube.” I try to peer through the park at the road. We are a little way off the main streets and there’s no traffic, no cabs.

  “Coffee at midnight. I think I’m turning you French.”

  I snort a laugh and it’s the perfect medicine to eradicate any lingering side effects of my turn. I flex my fingers and rotate my ankles one by one to check their circulation. All seems in order, so I shut my worries down into a deep, dark place to think about another time. I’m sure as hell not going to waste Henri time on it.

  That tick of my internal clock vibrates loudly. A scream of frustration builds in my chest.

  “Julianna, what are you thinking about?” Henri clutches my face, pulling me closer until we are nose to nose.

  “Nothing.”

  “Liar.”

  I breathe a little weak exhalation, saying, “Just that I wished I met you sooner,” and then drop my gaze. “Sorry, I know it’s not what we discussed. This is just a thing, a casual… fling.” The last word is a stretch to say.

  His lips seek mine, still warm. His tongue sneaks into my mouth, stealing my half-mumbled thoughts and words like he can read them directly from the source rather than what I’m attempting to say. I lean into him, sighing with the perfection of it. His hand grasps my knee, running across the damp rain washed skin.

  Eventually he pulls away and I’m breathless for all the good reasons and none of the bad. “I wish we had too.”

  “This is crazy right?”

  He pulls back slightly. “Would you be saying that if we’d met at your local pub or met at work? How quick would you fall in love with me then?”

  I freeze at the L-word. Did he mean to say that? A slip of the tongue?

  I try to read the expression on his face, the shadows, a solemnity that makes the world stop turning.

  “The moment I met you.”

  He nods.

  Is that what this is? Love.

  It can’t be. I can’t offer love because it isn’t mine to give. I’m no longer me to give. I’ve got a date with destiny that no one can avoid.

  I clamber off his lap and then hold out my hand. His face darts with an expression I can’t read. “Come on then, show me how to be French.” I laugh, forcing it out into the night sky. “Because I’m sure as hell ordering a cup of warm, sweet tea.”

  His face is adorable.

  “You should try it; it’s good for the soul.”

  I take a sip of the coffee, ready to pull a face. I don’t have a personal vendetta against the drink; in fact, I like a latte with my breakfast. This is no latte.

  Henri is standing behind the counter of the small café. His almost dry shirt sleeves pushed up. The jumper got discarded somewhere with disgust and some muttered guttural French.

  Midnight eyes watch me carefully as I wet my lips and lick. I purr like a cat under his satisfied smile. I’m a quick learner and I’m learning Henri’s ways like an A-Star student.

  “It’s sweet.” I meet his eyes in surprise.

  Samantha, who should be on the other side of the counter but is instead sitting with me, takes a sip of hers. I smile smugly as she fails the lick and taste test. Ha. See. A-Star student.

  Henri is behind the counter because when he’d seen her assaulting the coffee machine with barely concealed disdain he’d started offering pointers to help. Enough pointers that she’d then said, “Do it yourself then,” and stropped her ripped jean-wearing ass all the way around to my side.

  “This is what we would have after dinner to settle the digestion.” Henri’s focus is all on me, not the punk-haired twenty-something next to me. I twinkle like a little star in response.

  “After dinner? How do you ever sleep?” It’s sweet. I take another sip to reconfirm, but there’s a smooth power there.

  “No one sleeps straight after dinner, ma petite.”

  “I thought the French ate late?” I ask. “Isn’t that a European thing?”

  He nods, his smile telling me he’s pleased I know this. “Yes, nine.” A shrug, but I’m looking on aghast.

  “Nine! I’d be passed out in hunger on the floor.”

  “Our workday
is entirely different. Well, how we run things is. I guess in the cities things have changed, maybe to keep up with the modern world, but the flow of our life will never change entirely. You have to remember it’s so hot in the summer. We work early, then break, work again late afternoon, and then eat our meal late.”

  “Still going to bed on a full stomach. My Nana said you should always have three hours before sleep,” Samantha tells him.

  “Believe me, there is plenty of time before the end of the meal and sleep.” His eyes are on me and I light into a slow but steady bonfire. One puff of wind and I’ll be burning like a beacon in the sky.

  I am more than happy to occupy that time before dinner and sleep with him.

  “Our evening meals are different to yours too. A meat-based dish, something simple, followed by a salad, then a coffee, and a small slice of something sweet to finish off.”

  “What? You don’t have your salad with your main meal?” Samantha blasts.

  Henri looks repulsed, a grimace turning his kissable mouth down at the edges. “Why would you want to mix all your flavours? The salad is to palate cleanse, to savour.”

  I want him to savour me, and I’m pretty sure we should be getting home now. Home. Funny word. It’s ringing with a different note in my head. I glance at the time on my screen. “It’s midnight!”

  “Do you turn into a pumpkin?” He smirks and Samantha chuckles. I throw her some major side-eye. Back off bitch.

  “No, but don’t you have to get a train in the morning?”

  He waves his hand dismissively. “Whenever.”

  God, I hate the little tightening in my stomach.

  “So not first thing?”

  His eyes meet mine. “Non, unless you want me to?”

  I think we both know the answer to that. I down my coffee in one. He’s right, it’s perfect, but I can think of other things equally perfect, and I can definitely think of things to do to fill three hours before sleep.

  Sleep is for the weak anyway. I can sleep when he’s gone.

  The thought hits me in the stomach but I ignore it.

  The Tube takes forever. I bounce my legs the whole way. The walk to the apartment is a sprint. Neither of us talking, fingers tightly bound. It’s a race to satisfaction.

  We burst through the door. “Cat,” I shout as I start peeling off my wet clothes.

  Henri launches through to the kitchen, mutters to the cat, blasts some biscuit into the bowl like bullets against china and then races back. Hands reaching for my face, clutching me in close and tight, pressing his mouth to mine. I tug at his shirt, fingers quicker at the buttons as I throw it to the floor in record time, and he cages me against that warm and smooth olive skin. “We should have come home hours ago. Just given Paige her present and left. What a waste,” I mutter with small kisses, pressing one after the other on his lips.

  “Plenty of time.” He hauls me up and steps for the bedroom, kicking the door shut on Barney.

  Hours later I’m fulfilling my new favourite role in life as a jumper across Henri’s chest. His fingers are dancing that path down my spine that makes sleep impossible, although I think the coffee might have put paid to that anyway.

  We lay in silence listening to the odd car rumble down the road, distant from our cocoon of satiated safety.

  “Are we leaving this to fate again?” I ask his chest.

  I know he’s going to want eye contact for this, and the fact I know that fact is life altering. He lifts me as expected, hand cupping around my ear. “Do you want to?”

  “Do you?”

  “I asked first.”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  He seals the deal with a kiss.

  “Henri, I can’t offer any more than this.” My eyes sting, emptiness flooding my limbs until they are laden and heavy.

  “I know. And neither can I.” His lips press into a firm line and I wished I knew what they meant.

  I don’t ask. What would be the point? I lie down and settle back into my favourite place, waiting for dawn to come.

  17

  What’s at the end of the rainbow?

  Goodbyes are my new most despised thing. The middle of April and all I can hear is the tick and the tock, the tick and the tock.

  Henri hasn’t been back. We’ve had the odd telephone call, late night, me snuggled under blankets, Netflix forgotten. He’s busy. His voice strained, a tightness running through the lyrical notes that hasn’t been in existence when he’s here.

  I might not see him again. I know that.

  The ice-cream scoop has been replaced by a razor-sharp Stanley knife that every so often casts me down with a quick flick of its blade.

  “How’s it looking?” I ask. Dr Francis is reading my charts. He’s got me on the outpatient ward today so he can monitor me for longer. Three hours longer.

  “Julianna,” he starts and I physically wince.

  “That bad?”

  “I’m worried about your oxygen levels. It’s just not high enough. They are far too low, in the seventies. How is the breathlessness?”

  “Fine,” I say, smile tight.

  “Uh huh.” He reads on a bit more. “Nothing from the transplant team?”

  Why is his face so grey? What does he know that I don’t? I kind of figured I’d got all the bad news back in January?

  “Ankles swelling?”

  “No, just the usual tingles.” I answer honestly and he sweeps a swift glance over me, reading my previous lie.

  “We need to decide whether to operate on the valves again.” He perches on the end of the bed and it’s a death bell of warning.

  “Again? You said before that it wouldn’t work again.”

  With a thoughtful nod, he puts my clipboard to one side. “And I can’t say it will. I’m just wondering if it’s worth the risk.”

  “What’s the risk?” I push up higher on the creaky bed.

  “It could make things worse; the heart could be put under just too much pressure.”

  “Then what?”

  “It really depends how the heart reacts. It’s a strong machine, Julia, but it’s only an organ. The stress of the anaesthetic could put you into arrest.”

  “A heart attack?” I gasp.

  “Or it could be total failure and you don’t come around again, and if we don’t get to revive you, the heart won’t start again.”

  “Wow, that’s some risk. I don’t think I’d want to take the chance.”

  He looks at me with such earnestness. How does he face this as a job? “Julia, you could go into arrest at any time. Your stats really are very low.”

  “But I feel fine.”

  “Do you?”

  Damn him and his mind reading.

  A gust of a sigh blasts from my lips. “No. I’m really, really tired. It’s getting harder and harder to get through every day. Work is a slog.”

  “That’s because your heart can’t cope. It’s under enormous pressure. Enormous.” He repeats the key word for emphasis just in case I missed its importance the first time.

  “Do I need to stop work? Will that help things? You told me twelve months in January.”

  He shakes his head and rests his hand on mine. “No, Julia. I said a few months, twelve at the most.’

  Silently I absorb what he’s saying.

  “That changes things,” I mutter. “That changes things a lot.”

  Pulling my knees up to my chest, I drop my head onto them as hot tears burn my eyes. It’s only April. I haven’t done anything yet, been anywhere.

  Henri

  His name whispers through my brain.

  “I’ll leave you to get dressed. I’d like to see you again in two weeks please.” With a motion he rubs my sobbing back. “I think it’s time to talk about end-of-life care so please can you bring your sister?”

  I swallow down a rising tide of vomit pressing my eye sockets so hard into my knees they ache.

  I can’t answer so I nod. The pull of the bay’s curt
ain on its rails tells me he’s gone. A woman in pieces left alone to have a private moment. How many times has this trained medic seen people just like me? To know when to go, or maybe to now be immune to it? When I’m alone I sob, hard and fast.

  “Oh my god, what on earth is wrong with you?” Liv pulls me into her house, her Dyson is still running in the lounge. “I’ve been so worried about you, why didn’t you call straight after your appointment?”

  “I…” I heave, my chest has a boulder pushing down on it, my ribcage unable to move. “I saw Dr Francis.”

  Liv’s face falls and she tugs at the Marigolds on her hands. “Okay, what did he say?”

  I can’t repeat the words. Can’t find the vowels and consonants to articulate them. So instead I cry. “Oh, sweetie.” She winds her arms around me and crushes us together. “What are we going to do?”

  I shake my head and press my face into her neck. “There isn’t anything to do, Liv.”

  “I’ll make tea.”

  My watery grin breaks through like weak sunshine after a storm. “Tea would be good. Although I might need something stronger. I’m going to call Mum and Dad.”

  Liv’s alabaster skin sickens to a dove grey. “Fuck. This really is it, isn’t it?”

  I nod. “Yeah, sis, I think it’s time to start realising the fact.” I walk for the kitchen, her zombie ghosting behind me via a detour to the humming vacuum cleaner. The space feels good. I don’t have to see her heartbreak while I’m crunching through my own. I turn the kettle on, ready for the next bombshell. “Dr Francis wants you to come to my next appointment in two weeks because we need to discuss end-of-life care.”

  I meet her gaze and she stares at me in horror. “What does that even mean?”

  I lift my shoulders to my ears. “I actually don’t know.” Then unable to stand up any longer, I crumple to the floor.

  I’m curled on the plush armchair, a sweet cup of tea balanced on the arm, a coaster underneath of course. I don’t want to die right this minute.