by Fiona Lucas
Anna frowned, the soles of her feet only an inch above the thick carpet. “But we’re supposed to be going to that open house Barry and Janet are throwing, aren’t we?”
“They’re our friends, not yours. And they’re going to have a houseful anyway. You’ll get another chance to meet them before you go home. Besides, I have a feeling you could do with this.”
Her mother gave her the firm look she remembered from her teenage years, then exited with the tray before she could argue. Anna dithered for a second, but then caught a glance of the snowy garden and decided that maybe doing what she was told today wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
When her parents left the house for lunch with their friends, Anna snuggled down in the duvet and stared out the window, just letting her thoughts wander where they wanted to, until she needed to change position and turned to lie on her back, and then she pulled the duvet up over her head.
It was just as white and calm there as the snowy world outside, but it wasn’t like her duvet cocoon at home, she realized. Back there, she’d climbed into bed hoping she would cease to exist, but as she lay there—breathing, relaxing, simply being—she didn’t feel dead and numb. She felt alive.
She felt like Anna.
When she finally had to leave the bed to head to the bathroom and grab a plate of leftovers for lunch, she decided that being alone and chilled out was good but having some company would be even better.
After checking the time, she worked out that it would be midafternoon back home. Her thoughts wandered to Brody. She picked up her phone and dialed his number, hoping fervently that he hadn’t been carted off to a buffet lunch with his parents’ friends as she almost had been but, thankfully, he picked up.
“Merry Christmas!” Anna said brightly, not so much because she was overexcited about the festive season but because she was really pleased to hear his voice. Brody just grunted, which made Anna laugh.
“How’s it going?” she asked him. “Are you wearing the socks?”
That earned her another grunt. “I kind of had to put them on this morning . . .” He paused and she stifled a laugh as she imagined him shaking his head in disgruntled disbelief. “This visit is about building bridges, after all, and it’s going okay, I suppose. A bit awkward, obviously, because I’ve kept them at arm’s length for so long. I can see they’re desperate to rush in, fill in the gap that’s been there all these years, but at the same time they’re wary, not wanting to push things.”
“I’m sure you’ll find your way with each other.”
“Yes. Yes, I think we will. Eventually . . .”
Anna smiled. “Even though I’m in a different house from the one that I grew up in—in a different country!—I still feel a bit like I’m regressing to my teenage self when I come to stay with my parents. Do you feel that way too?”
Brody laughed drily. “A little. I made the mistake of trying to start a conversation in the middle of the Queen’s speech and got a withering look from my father. I kind of liked it, because it was the one moment all day when I felt the years had melted away and we were just ourselves again.”
“Better watch yourself,” Anna said cheekily. “You don’t want your phone privileges taken away!”
“No,” Brody said, a real warmth in his tone. “That wouldn’t do at all.”
She knew he was talking about this . . . them . . . and it made her heart feel as light as helium. “No, it really wouldn’t.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a while and then Brody said, “I’m writing again.”
Anna almost leapt out of bed in surprise. Instead she ended up on her knees, almost bouncing on the mattress. “Brody! That’s incredible! I’m so proud of you! What brought that on?”
He coughed. Anna could almost imagine him blushing. “I didn’t want to say anything at first, just in case it was a fluke, but that was a few weeks ago now I’ve started, I can hardly stop. It’s as if all the words that have been caught behind a dam for the last nine years are suddenly pouring forth at once.”
If Anna could have done a somersault right there on the mattress, she would have done. “What are you working on?”
“Well, I don’t want to jinx it by saying too much at the moment, but you’ll be the first person to hear about it when I’m ready to share.”
Anna picked up a pillow and hugged it to herself. “Oh, Brody. I’m so pleased.” She sighed. “I wish I could give you a big hug to say well done.”
There was a moment of silence. “Well, in five days, you can.”
Five days. She could hardly believe it. For so long, New Year’s Eve had seemed an eternity away, and now it was practically upon them. “You’re definitely going to be there?” she said, feeling an unexpected swoop in her stomach, and another fluttery tickle, which she determinedly ignored. Brody had sometimes seemed a little tense when she’d mentioned their planned meeting.
“I’m coming,” he said firmly. “No matter what. I will be waiting for you up there, Anna. You can count on that.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Brody closed the hotel room door behind him and slumped against it. He’d made it. He was in London. A place that had once been his home but now, compared to the craggy, misty moor he spent most of his time on, it seemed totally alien. He remained where he was, leaning against the door, overnight bag in hand, and took a moment to catch his breath.
Once he’d collected himself, he stood upright again and walked forward, through a marble-tiled hallway with modern lines and high-end designer fittings. There were a couple of glass ornaments on a sleek console table that he didn’t even have a name for. Every object, every detail, oozed luxury.
He almost guffawed at himself as he stepped onto the plush carpet of the living area of his suite. It seemed he could see to the very edges of the city from this height. It stretched out beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, glittering against a dramatic sunset of purples, grays and pinks.
It would not be an overstatement to say he’d splurged a bit. But it was nothing to do with pampering himself and absolutely everything to do with being practical. At the beginning of December, he’d drawn up a plan with Ibrahim to give himself the best chance of making it through this evening without a major slip. In the run-up to tonight, he’d been to both Totnes and Dartmouth numerous times, and had even fitted in a trip to Exeter. It had been a hard slog, sometimes feeling like one step forward and two steps back, but he thought he was ready. He hoped he was ready. While he still wasn’t comfortable with large crowds for extended periods of time, he did have a variety of tools to help himself cope with them.
Part of the plan for tonight was to limit the triggers, not deal with packed spaces more than necessary. So, when he’d discovered there was a hotel in the Shard itself, and that it had parking facilities, meaning he’d be able to drive all the way from his front door to the hotel, it had been a no-brainer. It hadn’t mattered how much it cost, which was just as well, because availability on New Year’s Eve had been slim, so he’d ended up with one of the fancy suites.
He was already in the right building, so no need to deal with taxis or crowded public transport, or even herds of excited revelers in the streets below. And if he felt a panic attack looming, maybe he and Anna could come down here to get away. It would solve a dual purpose, because he had something to give her—if his courage didn’t fail him.
In less than seven hours he would meet her, and they would speak face-to-face the way they talked on the phone. He’d be able to see her frown in concentration as she chewed an idea over, or watch her eyes light up in delight. He’d imagined what her smile would look like a thousand times, but tonight he would see it for real, and that meant he didn’t really care about the two-thousand-pound price tag for this stupidly ostentatious suite. It was worth every penny.
Don’t dream about midnight, though, mate. She’s not Cinderella and you’re definitely not Prince Charming.
Brody nodded to himself and walked through to the immense drawing ro
om of his suite, complete with seating area, dining table laid for six, and a telescope on a tripod. He turned right and headed into the bedroom, then sat down on the end of the sumptuously bedecked bed, stared out the window at the darkening sky and wondered what to do next.
ANNA EMERGED FROM London Bridge station along with what seemed like half the city. Everyone was in groups. One such sprawling collection of friends flowed around her on the pavement, as they joked and sang, dawdling along the road in the vague direction of Borough Market. Anna waited until they’d passed and then she looked up. The height of the glass building above her was dizzying. She was still a little jet lagged, thanks to her flight home from Canada only two days earlier. Why else should she feel so jittery this evening?
She checked her watch. Ten-forty. It might take a while to get through security and queue for the lifts. This was it. Time to go inside.
She flashed her ticket at the man in red livery by the door then headed up the stairs to the security area. Once through that, she stood in line for the lift to the thirty-third floor. Everyone was dressed up to the nines and in high spirits. Anna couldn’t help being swept along a little with the buzz. She was excited, she realized, more so than nervous, not that it made any difference to her skittering pulse.
One ear-popping ride later, she queued for a second lift to take her all the way to the top. She emerged on the sixty-eighth floor and inhaled deeply as she took in her surroundings. There wasn’t much square footage when you were this high up in the needle-like structure of Europe’s tallest building. A wide strip of floor ran around a central block that housed stairs and lift shafts, and what little other space existed was filled with people. Some milled around the long bar, others sipped their cocktails and looked out through the overlapping layers of glass and metal to the twinkling city beyond.
Anna turned and faced the stairs. She and Brody had agreed to meet on the top floor of the View from The Shard, where it was open to the air. She buttoned her coat up at the top, took a deep breath and headed up a few short flights of stairs to the seventy-second floor.
It was busy when she arrived up there, but not as crammed as it had been below in the warm. Music played and low lighting in different hues illuminated not just the guests but the large glass panels that rose jaggedly into the sky above their heads, cycling through the colors of the rainbow. She stepped forward and peered around. She’d told him she didn’t need a photo, because she already knew what he looked like, but she now realized that relying on the grainy and out-of-date black-and-white photo from his website to make an identification hadn’t been the best idea.
While a couple of the men within view might have fitted the bill, they were all with partners or friends. Anna took a deep breath and headed off in a counterclockwise direction. A few moments later, in the opposite corner of the structure to the one she’d entered from, she spotted a lone figure staring out across the city skyline. Although he was less than ten feet from the nearest group of partygoers, he seemed separate, totally self-contained.
It was him.
Anna’s heart skipped but she remained where she was, content to study him unobserved for a few moments. He was taller than she’d imagined. Broader too, although not bulky, and he gripped the railing in front of him not so much as if he was resting on it but clinging onto it. It made her feel a bit better that he might be nervous too.
He straightened slightly, as if he’d heard a noise, or had sensed something. Anna held her breath as he turned and looked around. He didn’t spot her straightaway. His gaze swept past her, and she could see him scanning the crowd, looking more tense than hopeful.
Now she could see his face properly, she realized he did indeed look very much like the photo on his website. Older, yes. A little more battered around the edges, but pretty much the same. She should have expected that. The Brody she knew would never allow himself to be airbrushed.
What was she doing just standing there? It was stupid. This was the moment she’d been waiting for all year. In a few short seconds, she’d be standing in front of him, and she knew without a doubt that the first thing she was going to do was wrap her arms around him and pull him close. How could she do anything else?
She started walking toward him. He must have sensed the movement out of the corner of his eye because his head turned, and he looked straight at her. Their gazes locked.
Anna stopped, momentarily winded, her smile petrifying on her face. She couldn’t quite describe the sensation that had rolled over her the moment they’d made eye contact. It was like . . . It reminded her of . . .
Running into a brick wall at full pelt.
The world shifted beneath her feet, causing her to shoot out a hand to steady herself, inadvertently grabbing onto the arm of a fellow partygoer. She couldn’t think straight. Her head was swimming. Only one thing made sense at that moment. Only one person.
Brody.
This was Brody.
Everything she felt for him—all the emotions she now realized she’d wilfully ignored or mislabeled—erupted from deep inside her, leaving her breathless. She’d only experienced this rush once before in her life, and she’d foolishly assumed she’d been safe, that it had been a one-time thing.
This wasn’t just Brody. It was her Brody.
“Hey,” the guy she’d grabbed onto said. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Anna snapped her head round to look at him. That was a very good question. She let go of the arm of his suit, shook her head in apology and stepped away. Then Anna did the only possible thing she could do.
She began to run.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Brody had arrived the moment the doors of the observation deck opened to the public for the New Year’s Eve party. He’d reckoned it would be easier to find a quiet place to wait and let the crowd build around him, rather than having to push through all those people just before he was due to come face-to-face with Anna. He’d hoped it would help to become slowly accustomed to the space, to the rising numbers of bodies, and he’d been right.
Yes, he was still hyper-aware of the people behind him that he couldn’t see. Yes, the music was too loud to his ears and the city lights stung his eyes. By his reckoning, he was somewhere between a six and a seven on his panic scale, nine being the point at which he started to slide into the full-blown attack of a ten. He probably would have got to that point already, but there was one thought he clung to as the sea of anxiety churned around him.
Anna.
She was his anchor.
It felt as if he’d been standing in this corner of the observation deck for days, but it must have only been two hours. He checked his watch. Ten-fifty-eight. She would be here at any moment. She might be here already.
Taking a deep breath and keeping one hand on the rail in front of him, he turned, searching the crowd. It was hard to focus, the rising panic making things blurry, but as he began to breathe his familiar counts of three, it slowly became easier to fix on one person at a time.
Movement to his right caught his eye and he turned, looking toward the flash of midnight blue beneath a coat of the same color. His heart almost stopped.
It was her.
He would have recognized her anywhere, even though he only had that one photograph to go on. She started to smile, to lift her hand in a wave, but then she kind of . . . froze. The smile died on her lips. Before he could even make out what was going on, she was running. Running back toward the door she’d just come through, the skirt of her coat flying behind her.
Brody’s first instinct was to chase after her. He felt the pull of momentum inside his chest, but his brain hesitated in sending the message to his feet. His hand gripped the railing as if it were welded to it. It took a second or two before he managed to uncurl his stiff fingers and move.
She was out of reach, beyond the sea of people now. There was only one way he’d be able to catch up, and it didn’t involve skirting round the edge of the space nervously, one hand steadying h
imself against the glass and steel.
He had to find out what was wrong. He took a deep breath and plunged through the mass of bodies, not even caring as he bumped against them, as they turned to give him disdainful looks.
Anna had disappeared down the staircase she’d emerged from, the one that read Emergency Exit and Disabled Only. He tried to dart after her, but a burly security guard blocked his way and jerked his thumb in the direction of the staircase on the opposite side of the observation deck. He didn’t have time to argue, so he dashed through the people again, circling the central block until he reached it.
His feet pounded on the wooden risers edged with metal and he flung himself round each turn in the narrow staircase until he emerged on the sixty-ninth floor, panting and looking around wildly. His face was beginning to tingle, and his hands felt as if someone was jabbing four-inch pins into them, a sure sign that he was over-breathing, that his stress levels were through the roof. Under other circumstances, he might have found that funny, given that this was the highest point in the city and there was no roof above him save the heavens.
Anna must have come down to this level, but because he’d used a different staircase, it was impossible to guess which way she’d gone. The lift shafts and staircases ran up the center of the building, so there was no clear line of sight from one side of the space to the other. Brody swallowed down his panic and did the only thing possible. Somehow, he managed to ignore the throng of strangers jostling against him as he moved through the crowd and completed a full circuit of the floor, but he arrived back where he’d started without even a glimpse of her.
Had she gone down one more level to where the lifts and the toilets were? It was the only place left to look. He headed down yet another staircase to check, thinking as he did so that, with two viewing decks and two different staircases, he and Anna might circle round this place for hours, finding endless ways to evade each other. The most sensible thing would be to go back to where he’d been standing when he’d first seen her. If she was looking for him too now, it was the obvious place for her to go. He was looking for the “up” staircase to do just that, when he passed the bank of lifts that had brought him up here earlier.
