Of course, he hadn’t actually told her he wanted her for more than one night…
God, couldn’t she just lie back and enjoy the afterglow? Tomorrow, she could deconstruct the whole thing with Lara, or call Jenna and tell she had risen to the challenge. Or rather, Jake had.
She bit back a laugh. This was ridiculous. She was supposed to be a grown woman now, but here she was having sex on her parents’ sofa because she didn’t have anywhere else to go, and thinking about what she’d tell her friends tomorrow. She might as well be sixteen and back in school again.
No, the only person she needed to discuss this with was lying beneath her on this couch.
Sighing, Jake shifted to raise himself up on his elbow, looking down at her. “What are you obsessing about? I can practically hear your thoughts whirring.”
“Just thinking about how this feels like me circa age sixteen,” Molly admitting, waving a hand to indicate the sofa.
Jake raised an eyebrow. “Not all of it, I hope.”
“No, not all of it.” Her cheeks felt warm at the memory of him inside her. She’d definitely never had anyone like Jake when she was sixteen.
“Which parts, then?” Jake asked.
“Location, mostly,” Molly admitted. “Almost had me thinking about what I was going to tell my friends at school tomorrow.”
“Oh God, you’re going to tell Lara, and she’s going to tease me about it for all time.”
“Probably,” Molly admitted. “But actually, I was mostly thinking about my friend Jenna, in London. I promised I’d let her know if…” she trailed off, realising too late what she was about to admit.
“Let her know if you managed to get me into bed?” Jake guessed.
Molly’s cheeks burned as she nodded.
“So, you had a plan for this?” Jake shook his head. “I should have known. Especially after your suitcase burst open.”
“I wasn’t exactly subtle about it,” Molly pointed out. “Besides, Jenna challenged me. You were my last unfilled resolution.”
“Resolution?” Jake’s forehead crinkled up in confusion. It was a cute look on him.
“Yeah.” Molly snuggled a little closer for warmth, and covered her mouth as she yawned. “This year is the first time ever I’ve managed to actually keep all my new year’s resolutions.”
“And I was one of them?” Jake asked, his voice curiously flat. “What were the others?”
Molly ticked them off on her fingers. “Move to London, get a real job, and sleep with you.”
“And you scored the full hat-trick.”
“I did.” She smiled up at him. “But I definitely think this one was my favourite.”
She’d expected him to kiss her, or to return the smile at least. But instead, Jake stared down at her, his eyes cool and assessing.
“And, I mean, that wasn’t the only reason I… that we…”
“Had sex,” Jake finished for her. “I should hope we’re both grown up enough to actually say it.”
“Of course. It’s just… the other two things had been on my list for years, and after last New Year’s Eve, I added the one about you almost as a joke. Except not, because I really, really wanted it. I just didn’t think that you did.”
“Why? Because I stopped kissing you when your brother walked in? That was just self-preservation, Molly.”
“Because you avoided me afterwards. You didn’t even come to my leaving party.”
“Did you ever think I just didn’t want to see you go?”
Molly stilled at his words. She’d been cross with him for six months about not showing up for that party, and with twelve words he’d cut away all that anger.
“Is that true?”
Jake sucked in a deep breath, and lay back down beside her, pulling her head onto his chest before he spoke again. “I wanted you to go because it was what you wanted. You’ve talked for years about moving to London and getting a job that didn’t involve working weekends and holidays.”
“Turns out you might be the only one who took that talk seriously,” Molly muttered, but he didn’t react to it.
“I wanted you to have the life you dreamt of. Still do. But the selfish part of me? That part really didn’t want to see you move two hundred miles away.”
“Why not?” Molly was almost afraid of the answer, but she couldn’t not ask.
“Why do you think?” Jake sat up, the blanket falling away from his perfect chest. “Molly—”
He cut off as the lounge door opened, and they both twisted to see who it was.
“Are you two – Oh God! Sorry… I… Never mind.” Dory shut the door firmly behind her, as Molly felt the panic rising in her chest. This truly was her teenage years all over again. Humiliation, and the possibility of ruining everything through sheer stupidity.
“I need to talk to her. I need… clothes, to start with.” She could reason with Dory. Her sister had kept her secrets before. No one needed to know how badly she’d screwed this up – risking one of the most important friendships in not just her life, but her whole family, just to keep some stupid resolution. To win a dare with a friend she’d only known six months. What had she been thinking?
Jake handed her dress over. “What are you going to say to her?”
“What do you think?” Molly tugged the dress over her head. Underwear and tights would have to wait. “I’m going to tell her it was a mulled wine fuelled mistake and beg her never to tell my parents. Or Tim.” That, at least, should make Jake happy. “As long as no one else ever finds out, it can be like this never happened. We can go back to how we were before.”
“Do you really believe that?” Jake was still naked, sprawled on the couch before her, the blanket barely covering all the relevant parts.
“Why aren’t you panicking about this more?”
“Because what’s done is done. We just need to figure out what we want to do next.”
“No.” Nothing was ever that simple. And if she screwed this up, she knew her family would never let her forget it. It would be one more flaky Molly story to tell at Christmas dinners long to come. “What we need to do is make it look like it never happened at all.”
And with that, she left the man she’d been fantasising about all year naked on the sofa and went to talk to her sister.
The kitchen light was on and, when Molly walked in, she found Dory making tea in the tiny stainless steel pot only she ever used.
“Okay, so what you saw…” Molly started, but Dory cut her off.
“I told Tim I wasn’t imagining that there was something different between you and Jake this year.”
“I know. I heard. You told him that if he told me not to get involved with Jake it would be the first thing I’d go out and do.”
Dory winced. “You weren’t meant to hear that. But, you know, I was kind of right.”
“No you weren’t.” Molly shut the door behind her and sank into the nearest kitchen chair. “It’s not… it wasn’t like that.”
Grabbing two cups and saucers from the shelf, Dory poured them both tea. “Then tell me what it was like,” she said, placing one cup in front of Molly.
Molly scrunched up her nose at the smell. “Peppermint?”
“It’s calming,” Dory said, sitting opposite her. “And, after three courses plus mince pies, good for the digestion. Now, talk.”
Where to start? “Well, you remember last New Year’s Eve?”
It took embarrassingly little time to recap everything that had happened between her and Jake in the last year, mostly because hardly anything had. Until tonight.
“So what now?” Dory asked. “Was this really just a one night thing to fulfil some stupid resolution?”
“I thought it was.” Molly swallowed, remembering Jake lying there telling her what was done was done. “I thought that was all he would want either. But now… I don’t understand why he’d suddenly be willing to risk everything.” Although she had a horrible feeling it had more to do with her family than her
.
“Don’t you?” Dory gave her a small smile. “Then maybe you should ask him.”
Chapter 16
The front doorstep was cold through his jeans, and Jake wished he’d taken time to grab his coat when he got dressed. But he’d needed fresh air, needed to move away from that room, to get out of the house, even if he hadn’t gone far. The front door was on the latch behind him, and he could vaguely make out Dory and Molly’s voices in the kitchen, although not what they were saying.
He could imagine, though. Molly was probably explaining to her sister how this whole thing was a big mistake. A stupid resolution she had to follow through on. One night only.
As if he could go back to being her pseudo-big brother now. Back to pretending there was nothing between them. He’d had a taste of her now, a preview of everything they could be together.
Except she was heading back to London on the second of January, and hadn’t so much as hinted that their relationship might last beyond tonight. Instead, she’d pretty much confirmed the opposite.
He’d thought it wouldn’t matter and that if this was his last Mackenzie Christmas, at least it could be the best yet. One he’d remember his whole life.
Well, he’d managed that much. No way was he forgetting this one in a hurry.
But he’d thought he’d be able to move on, live his life without looking back. And that, he knew now, was impossible.
That damn fortune telling fish was right. He was in love with Molly Mackenzie, and he hadn’t even realised it until the moment she said that sleeping with him was a mistake.
God, how much more could he have screwed this one up?
“Jake?” The door creaked open behind him and Molly stood there, fully clothed now in tights and, presumably, underwear. “What are you doing out here?” She stepped out and sat down beside him, wincing at the cold stone.
“Thinking.”
“About?”
“What happens next.”
Wrapping her arms around her knees, Molly looked up at him, her eyes wide and green even in the faint light from the hall. “And what have you decided?”
Wasn’t that the ultimate question? Except, it wasn’t entirely up to him, was it?
But some of it could be. He could take charge of his own life, even if he had no say in hers. He could stop waiting to be kicked out, to finally outstay his welcome. Instead of always waiting for the other shoe to drop, he could move on, like everyone else had.
“I think it’s time for me to go home.” The words felt good, right. Just making a decision felt like a step forward.
“You’re supposed to be staying until New Year,” Molly said, her voice even. “Mum will be sad if you miss the party.”
“I’ll come back for the party.” One last hurrah before he made his own resolutions for the next year.
“And we still haven’t really talked. About us.” Was that fear in her eyes? Or just confusion? Jake couldn’t tell.
“I think we’ve said all we need to, don’t you? You got what you wanted – your one night to complete your list of resolutions. And you said all along that that should be enough to get it out of our systems, right?” He just hadn’t believed her. Had known that if he gave in to that temptation, one night would never be enough – and he’d fooled himself into thinking it would be the same for her.
“Dory’s not going to say anything,” Molly said, the words coming out a little rushed. “I mean, you don’t need to worry about Tim, or Dad, or anything. No one will know. It can just be like it was before. Right?”
Did she honestly believe that? Or was she just trying to make herself feel better? Jake couldn’t tell. But if she was feeling bad about everything, then she had to know that his expectations were rather different from hers.
After days of not managing a full conversation, it was finally time to put everything on the table.
“Look, Molly. This is the situation as I see it.” Laying out the blueprints for what might have been, he wanted to show her that what they’d actually created missed the mark. “After last year, I knew that I wanted you. That I was attracted to you. But I also knew I couldn’t do anything about it. If you didn’t feel the same – or even if you did, but things didn’t last – I’d be risking not just upsetting your whole family, but losing my place here. Your family matter to me, Molly.”
“I know that.” She pulled a face, then looked down at her knees, twisting the fabric of her dress between her fingers. “That’s why I couldn’t figure out what had changed. Why you were suddenly willing to risk it.”
Jake sighed. It had all seemed so logical at the time. Now he felt like he’d twisted every fact and possibility to fit what he wanted – Molly Mackenzie naked.
“I figured that this was the last Christmas we were all likely to be together like this. With Tim moving overseas, Dory and Lucas getting married… things are changing. And there won’t be a place here for me any more.”
Her body tensed beside him. “And so you thought that if you seduced me, maybe even pretended to love me, you’d always have a place in my family, right?”
“What? No!”
“It’s okay, Jake.” She huffed a small, sad laugh. “I always knew they mattered to you more than I did.”
“You’ve got this all wrong, Molly.” Panic was rising in his chest now, more potent than mulled wine and heavier than mince pies. “And anyway, how the hell can you say I seduced you?” That wasn’t the point. He needed to focus. “Look, I didn’t even realise it, even after the thing with the fish—”
“The fish?” Molly stared at him in confusion. “Jake, seriously, stop. It’s okay. I’m going back to London soon anyway. Like you said, I got what I wanted from this. And Dory won’t talk, so you get what you need too. We don’t have to be together, or anything. I’ll still be coming home every Christmas, so of course there’s a place for you here. You’re family.”
“No.” The word came out stronger and louder than Jake had intended, and Molly flinched away from him. But he had to say this. He had to make her understand. “I’m not family. I’m definitely not your brother. And I won’t come back here every year and watch you getting on with your life without me, Molly. I can’t sit back and see you find some guy down there and bringing him home to meet the family. I thought I could. I thought I could let you go live your life and just watch from the sidelines. But I can’t because I’m in love with you.”
-
Don’t gape, Molly. It’s rude.
Okay, she really didn’t need her mother’s voice in her head at a time like this. She didn’t know what she needed, but it wasn’t etiquette advice.
“No you’re not.” She winced as soon as the words were out. Challenging someone else’s feelings wasn’t terribly polite either. But, really, he wasn’t. He couldn’t be.
Could he?
“Trust me, Molly, my life would be a hell of a lot easier if it wasn’t true.” Jake sighed, sounding bone weary. “Look, it’s okay. I’ll get over it. You have your dream life now. I know that, and I’m not going to stand in your way of getting back to it.”
Her dream life. London. Molly wasn’t sure whether to laugh at herself or cry when she remembered the original plan. Sleep with Jake and get it out of her system, so that she could go forth and seduce the handsome young men of London next year.
As if any of them held a candle to Jake.
But love? That was something different altogether. That was the kind of thing you really didn’t want to screw up, or flake out on. Especially when it meant risking hurting one of the most important people in your life.
And Jake had always been that, long before last New Year’s Eve.
“I don’t know what to say. Or do. Or…” She took a deep breath. “What do you want from me?”
“From you? Nothing at all.”
“But I…” What? Want to make it better? Like a child’s bumped knee or a middle school fallout that could be resolved with a muttered sorry and a new game?
&
nbsp; Jake inhaled, low and calmly, then got to his feet. “I’m going to go home for a few days, like I said. I’ll be back on New Year’s Eve and, after that, you won’t have to see me again if you don’t want to.”
“Of course I want to! I just…”
“Yeah. Exactly.” Bending down, he kissed her on the top of the head. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you on the thirty first.”
He headed inside, and Molly listened to his footsteps all the way up the stairs, until they faded as he got towards the attic. But she sat there in the cold until she couldn’t feel anything any more.
Chapter 17
NEW YEAR’S EVE
“I can’t believe you have to work New Year’s Eve.” Molly straightened the registration forms for loyalty cards on the hotel’s front desk. “You’ll miss the party.”
“You mean I won’t be there to protect you from Jake,” Lara said, rolling her eyes. “Besides, you’ve worked more New Year’s than I have in the last five years. In fact, if you’d been working last year you wouldn’t even be in this mess.”
“Very helpful. Thank you.”
“Be honest, you miss it.” Lara leant across the reception desk. “Don’t you?”
Molly considered. “More than I thought I would,” she admitted. “It’s not that I don’t like my new job. It’s just that, well, every day is kind of the same.”
“Sounds boring,” Lara said. “Unlike your love life. So, come on. Have you decided what you’re going to tell your poor lovelorn Jake?”
“He’s not lovelorn. Or mine. Or anything, really. If he shows up at the party tonight he’ll probably just blame it all on the mulled wine and go back to ignoring me for the next year. Nothing to worry about.”
Lara gave Molly a long look, one that seemed to see too deeply inside her. “Is that what you’re hoping for, or what you’re afraid of?”
Damn it. Lara really had known her too long and too well. “Both.”
“Thought so.” Lara sighed. “Sorry I can’t be there with you.”
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