by Adele Parks
She did not plan to board to Pointe de Mossette, the place where they were supposed to have gotten married, and sit and look out upon the Portes du Soleil. It just sort of happened.
Tash sat in the snow and wondered what she had done to deserve this. She checked her watch. It was ten o’clock. If everything had gone to plan, she would have been Mrs Tyler by now. Tash knew what everyone back home would say. They’d tell her she’d had a lucky escape. That it was always better to find out about your partner’s philandering ways before making the ultimate commitment. It was far harder to be left like Sophie, after several years of marriage. She knew that people would sensibly comment that she was lucky that they had not planned a huge, lavish wedding with a hundred guests. If that had been the case, the humiliation (not to mention the cost) would have been compounded. Imagine, she would have been returning toasters right now. She could almost hear her old aunties whispering such rational words of consolation.
So why didn’t she feel lucky?
‘Hello.’
Tash knew that it was Rich without having to turn around. It wasn’t that she recognized his voice. His voice was disguised with an embarrassed cough and an unnaturally high pitch, brought about by nerves. She just knew it would be Rich. She sensed him. She’d known he would find her. Perhaps that’s why she had come to this point. After all, there were 650 kilometres of runs and 212 high-speed chairlifts in total in the five Portes. Les Portes du Soleil was one of the largest ski domains in the world. It was unlikely that they’d meet through coincidence. Tash had subconsciously given fate a nudge.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Rich. He was prepared to say the words a million times if they helped. It appeared they didn’t.
‘You said,’ replied Tash, clearly unmoved.
It didn’t stop him from saying them again. ‘I really am very sorry.’ He had never felt sorrier about anything in his life. The idea of Tash in pain was intolerable. The knowledge that he’d caused that pain was doubly so. ‘Can I sit down?’
‘Does it matter how I answer that question? You pretty much do as you please, don’t you, Richard?’
Rich sat down anyway. Tash stole a sly, sideways glance at him. He looked awful. He looked grey and drawn. It wasn’t possible that he’d lost weight since yesterday, but it seemed that all his muscles had melted from his body. He didn’t look like an Action Man; he looked frail and weak. This should have rendered him unattractive. Tash wondered why it didn’t.
‘I know I’ve fucked up.’
‘Yes.’
Rich paused. It was clear that Tash was not going to help him in any way. This already unfeasibly daunting task would require gladiator-type courage if he was ever going to complete it, but complete it he must. He knew that the general consensus had been that he and Tash had rushed into their engagement; it didn’t seem that way to him. Now that Rich had met Tash, he believed he’d been waiting all his life to meet her and that seemed a respectable length of time to him. He loved her. He’d messed up. He knew that. But he wasn’t going to give up, not on the best thing that had ever happened to him.
‘You were all, “Everyone makes mistakes” when Lloyd fucked up,’ said Rich. He was finding it hard to follow Tash’s logic.
‘Yes, and you were so condemning.’
‘Lloyd had an affair, I didn’t,’ Rich pleaded. He thought he was being hung by a kangaroo court. ‘I made a mistake. I know and I’m sorry. But I am part of the great unwashed, Tash. I made a mistake, everyone does. Can’t you imagine a day when you could forgive me? Not now, obviously, but some time in the future?’ Rich looked hopeful.
‘No, I can’t,’ deadpanned Tash. Tash wondered why it was easier to forgive someone you didn’t love. It didn’t make sense.
‘No one would consider this the luckiest start to a marriage,’ he said tentatively.
‘There isn’t going to be a marriage,’ stated Tash.
‘Tash, please give me a chance to explain. Jayne wasn’t a back-up plan.’
Just hearing him say her name made Tash recoil in anguish. She didn’t want to imagine him whispering to her in bed, calling out her name as he came. Over and over again for more than a decade!
‘She was a grubby secret,’ said Rich.
‘Oh, I’m sure she’d be thrilled to be described in such terms.’
‘Probably not. But right now I don’t care. It was just sex to me. I thought it was the same for Jayne.’
‘You’ve hurt her, too. You know that, don’t you? She’s lost the plot because no one in their right mind would do the things she’s done. She’s clearly besotted by you.’
‘I think she has become obsessed with a notion of me,’ admitted Rich.
‘Well, you must have encouraged that.’
‘I didn’t.’
Tash wondered if this was true. She didn’t want to think that Rich was so dishonourable as to have led a girl on just for sex. She didn’t want to think he was dishonourable or desperate, come to that. But was it possible that Jayne had developed such a strong attachment and Rich had remained entirely aloof?
‘It was a crush. She didn’t know me. It wasn’t love. It was akin to what you felt for Prince Andrew when you were thirteen. I remember you telling me that you used to kiss his photo every night and that you persuaded your mum to travel all the way to London, to go to the Cenotaph one Remembrance Sunday, because you thought he might see you from his balcony and ask you to marry him.’
Tash allowed herself a small grin at the memory and the fact that she’d shared such an embarrassing confession with Rich. ‘I was thirteen,’ she pointed out.
‘Yes, but Jayne never grew out of her crush on me. Honestly, I was as oblivious as Prince Andrew was to you.’
‘Prince Andrew Albert Christian Edward wasn’t knobbing me,’ pointed out Tash.
Rich laughed, ‘You still remember his full name.’
‘I was very serious about him,’ said Tash. Half of her wished Rich couldn’t always make her smile. The other half was eternally grateful that he could.
‘I’m very serious about you,’ said Rich sensing, or at least hoping, that Tash might be thawing. ‘Deadly serious.’
Rich reached out to take hold of Tash’s hand. The action was comically clumsy because they were both wearing padded gloves. Yet, his touch tingled. His nearness seemed natural to her, despite her anger and hurt.
‘Tash, I should have told you about Jayne. I see that now. Then she wouldn’t have been able to cause all this confusion. I’m sorry I’ve made this mess, but is it possible that we could get through it?’
Rich was banking on Tash’s optimism. Was it an unlimited supply? Or had the events of the past week depleted her supplies?
‘I feel stupid for being so honest with you when you had secrets.’ Tash admitted the grimy truth about painful love affairs. The most intense pain is often the one you cause yourself.
‘No, I was the stupid one,’ insisted Rich.
‘And I feel stupid because despite the no secrets, no lies, just 100 per cent respect and honesty rule it wasn’t just you who fucked up.’
‘It wasn’t?’ Rich was amazed and more than a little bit relieved.
‘I thought I was immune to the petty and ugly aspects of love. But I’m not. I was still infected by jealousy. I am burning with jealousy.’
‘You have nothing to be jealous of.’
‘It seems that rationale has little to do with this.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe love is too magnificent to be controlled by a rationale or even a rule, however well intentioned that rule is. Maybe love is about the messy bits too. Jealousy might be part of love. It might be an essential part.’
‘Is this the bit when you tell me that lying is an essential part of love, too?’ asked Tash impatiently.
‘No. Lying has nothing to do with love. I am sorry, Tash.’ But he was thrilled to hear she was jealous. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it? It showed she cared. ‘It’s not possible to be in love one moment and
then not the next,’ argued Rich. ‘And I know you were in love with me. I felt it, Tash.’
Tash agreed with him. It was not possible to switch off love, like credit. Yet it seemed her fortunes could still change in an instant like Ted and Kate’s financial status. Tash looked at Rich and was at once furious and in love with him. As far as she was concerned, he was the most stupendous man on earth to have inspired such love in her and the most stupid man on earth to have thrown it away. She had never felt such an enormous sense of loss, waste and grief.
‘I just don’t think I know you any more,’ Tash sighed. ‘Being with you would be too much of a risk.’ She wished she didn’t believe it to be so.
‘If I could, I’d sit here until the sun goes down, and overnight, all tomorrow and the next day, and tell you everything there is to know about me. Everything from the colour of my exercise books in junior school right through to my PIN number. But it’s not possible. There’d always be something I’d forgotten to tell you.’
Tash shot Rich a look of disgust and distrust.
‘Not anything else as big as Jayne, honestly,’ he rushed to clarify. ‘What I’m saying is that marriage is a risk. The couples that are in for trouble are the couples that don’t know that. Even if we knew absolutely everything about one another now, there would still be discovery. In the future I might do something you don’t like, or you might do something to offend me. There are no guarantees. But maybe, just maybe, we’d be OK. And you’d like the things you discovered about me. Maybe the discovery is the magical bit. The bit it’s all about. I think we’d have a pretty good chance, Tash. I like everything I know about you. I love it all. Even the fact that you cut your toenails over the loo. And frankly, if anyone else ever had done such a thing in front of me, I’d have thought it disgusting.’
Tash wanted to laugh. But could she? Should she?
‘I love you, Tash. And if you’d just let me, I’ll do my best to be as good a husband as I possibly can be. And I honestly don’t think that would be a bad best. I know I broke our rule about no secrets, no lies, just 100 per cent respect and honesty. And I realize that 95 per cent is not good enough for you. But I have learnt by my mistake. Tash, please, will you marry me?’
Rich realized that he’d come to the end of what he wanted to say. It had been a long speech. Had it had any impact? When he’d chosen the words and practised saying them last night, he’d had no idea what Tash’s reaction would be. He didn’t know if she would interrupt him with counter arguments or if she would just board off into the distance and out of his life. He’d hoped that she would fling her arms around him and insist that she’d love him for ever, assure him that his mistake had not been insurmountable. But, true to form, Tash was surprising him. The one reaction he had not expected, or considered, was silence.
Tash looked out on to the beautiful vista in front of her. Was he making sense? Tash thought back at all she’d been through and all she’d seen in the past week. What had she learnt from it?
She had seen love in many manifestations. Ted and Kate’s love had allowed forgiveness, loyalty and hope. Their love did not allow room for blame, fickleness or despair, but did allow room for mistakes. Lloyd’s love for Greta had cost dearly, way more than he’d expected to pay. But could he ever put a value on the happiness he’d felt last night when he opened the door and Greta had fallen into his arms and vowed to stay in his life? Mia and Jason’s fear of the clout of their love had sent both of them chasing around the globe, in separate directions. They’d plunged themselves into lives of lonely, brief encounters. But even they, with their disproportionate amount of stubbornness, cynicism and pride, had eventually recognized that they were a team and that love isn’t something to be afraid of.
It’s something to be embraced.
Love allowed forgiveness, comfort, trust, compassion and new starts. Love was not a one-strike-and-you-are-out game. Like anything in life worth having, love demanded effort. Being in love – genuinely loving someone – meant you had to be brave and gracious, and well intentioned. Rich was talking sense. Tash took a deep breath and a chance.
‘Is this the point where our friends and the Registrar jump out from behind the trees and throw confetti?’
‘No, babe. I didn’t dare presume,’ said Rich. Did he dare now? Was she saying what he thought she was saying? ‘They are waiting for us back at the hotel,’ he added sheepishly.
‘The rule about keeping it good, no secrets, no lies, just 100 per cent respect and honesty?’
‘Reinstated, Tash. As of now.’ Rich stared into Tash’s open face, and he willed her to take the plunge because he knew it was the right thing for them both. He knew that he would put every iota of his strength and soul into making her happy. Ever after. Tash smiled.
‘OK,’ and then more firmly, ‘yes, yes, I’ll marry you, Rich.’
Thank You
Once again I’d like to thank my editor, Louise Moore, and the entire team at Penguin for continuing to make my dreams come true. You are such a warm, committed and enthusiastic bunch.
Thank you Jonny Geller, Deborah Schneider and Carol Jackson, who are outstanding agents and friends.
Thank you to the staff at Hôtel des Dromonts à Avoriaz, all of whom ensured that research had never been so pleasurable! Particular thanks to Mehdi Dehmane, Assistant Manager, who was amazingly patient, helpful and hospitable. Your pride in des Dromonts is completely justified, and I only hope that I have done justice to this stunning hotel.
Thank you to Christelle Lacombe, Manageress at Avoriaz Tourist Office, for your time and expertise.
Thank you to all the lovely readers who have sent me e-mails and letters, and all the lovely readers who haven’t written, but have bought my books. Without you this whole process would be pointless.
Thanks to my family and friends, who continue to overwhelm me with their support and love.
And, thanks to Jim. Oh, for lots of things: for teaching me to snowboard and giving me marvellous insight into ‘boy thinking’ and for wearing T-shirts to tell people to buy my books, for believing in me, caring for me and for loving me. You make my days joyful.
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Still Thinking of You
1. Rich and Tash
2. Meeting and Greeting
3. Introducing Kate and Ted
4. Introducing Jason and Mia
5. Polite Small Talk
6. Mia’s Bomb
7. Clearing Up
8. Lloyd
9. Tash’s Reaction to the Dublin Trip
10. NFI and RSVP
11. Ted’s Baby Sister, Jayne
12. Departures
13. Jayne’s Pain
14. Up, Up and Away
15. Flying High
16. Touchdown
17. Arriving
18. Appetites
19. Good Times
20. Hanging on the Telephone
21. Not so Polite Small Talk
22. It’s Cold Outside
Sunday
23. Slippery Slope
24. Ladies at Lunch
25. 95 Per Cent Honesty
26. Bar Flies
27. Another Night in Paradise
28. Minuscule Talk
29. Sleigh Ride
30. Not Tonight, Darling
Monday
31. Not So Good Morning
32. Jason’s New Love Interest
33. Black Run Monday
34. Kicking Back
35. Hot Water
36. Après-Ski
37. Ted’s Story
38. Showtime
39. A Big Joke
40. Lost the Plot
Tuesday
41. The Morning After
42. Rich and Jayne’s Story
43. Alone Together
44. Retail Therapy
45. A Lot to Digest
46. The Bar Sce
ne
47. Alone at Last
48. Cold Comfort
49. Kiki
50. Kate’s Response
Wednesday
51. What Kate Did Next
52. Big Breakfast
53. Put the Kettle on
54. In the Deep Stuff
55. In the Library
56. Rich and the Barman
57. Rich and Jayne Share a Bloody Mary
58. Rich and Tash Share a Bloody Mary
59. Jase and Mia Have Dinner
