A Surprise Christmas Wedding - Phillipa Ashley Page 0,1

also involved careful planning, she loved spontaneous things – an impromptu picnic on the fells, a last-minute trip to the theatre – unlike Connor, who preferred to plan in advance. He liked to discuss where they were going, research it in great detail and make sure they were both happy – right down to insisting they both looked at any hotel or resort on Google Earth to make sure there was no rubbish tip next door and you really could walk to that ‘charming bistro’ in the ten minutes the website claimed. It had to be a joint decision, often involving spreadsheets weighing up the merits of several different options and giving them a score.

Which made it all the more surprising that he’d sprung this week in Cornwall on her. She already had the time off work booked and thought they were going to spend it redecorating the sitting room – after due diligence with relation to paint charts.

However, when she’d come home from work on the Friday, Connor had informed her to pack her holiday clothes because they were spending a week ‘by the seaside’ from the very next day.

Lottie had first reconnected with Connor when his company had held a charity ball at the hotel where Lottie worked. He’d volunteered for the firm’s community fundraising team and was helping to organise the event.

They’d recognised each other immediately, because Connor’s family had, for a time, lived in the same village as Lottie’s. When he walked into the meeting at the hotel, Lottie had thought he was ambitious, efficient and very good-looking. She’d been surprised by the amount of attention he’d paid her. At first, she’d dismissed it as polite flirtation, but at the end of their third meeting, when they were alone having a coffee in the hotel bistro, he’d asked her out.

The rest was history, and she’d allowed herself to be swept away by his charm, his energy and sheer determination to go for what he wanted in life. This, she remembered thinking, must be what a ‘whirlwind romance’ was. They did happen. A couple of months after they’d met, Lottie had moved out of the house she shared with her sister Steph and her lively two-year-old twin girls, to move in with Connor.

Now, two years later, they were ‘partners’ and had bought their own cottage in Langmere. The flame of romance was still very much alive, and Lottie had started to envisage a long-term future that included, hopefully in time, a family. For now, she was going to simply enjoy the moment and her surprise visit to Cornwall.

Over the next few days, they walked the coast path, dined in the harbour restaurants, sunbathed on the beach and swam in secluded coves. Connor made no reference to his mysterious errand, and Lottie wondered if he’d merely gone to buy something for her birthday – she’d be thirty-three in just a few weeks.

Then, on Thursday evening, after dinner on the cottage terrace, Connor whisked her down to the cove next to Porthmellow. It was a mild September evening, still warm enough to wear shorts. They left their shoes on the rocks, and walked barefoot in the frilly edge of the surf. The sun sank lower, tingeing the sky with coral. They kissed, with the sound of the waves breaking on the sand and the gulls crying above them.

Glowing from the sun, Lottie thought she had never been so happy.

In high spirits, she broke away from him and shouted: ‘Bet you can’t catch me!’

‘Bet I can!’

He ran towards her. She dodged him, though both of them were laughing too much to take the chase seriously. She waded into the sea, the surf wetting her calves.

‘You’ll have to come in to get me! Dare you!’

‘You dare to dare Connor,’ he said, wading into the water, ‘who never turns down a challenge?’

He swept her up in his arms. She shrieked and protested as he carried her out of the surf and set her down in the shallows. Still breathless, he held her face in his hands and kissed her, while the wind tugged at her hair and the surf roared.

‘Keep your eyes closed,’ he whispered. ‘No, don’t even think about peeping!’

‘OK …’ She squeezed her lids shut, pulse racing with anticipation while wavelets lapped her ankles with the gentlest of caresses. She felt invincible, as if nothing bad could touch her or ever would.

Grasping her hand, he guided her out of the shallows onto the wet sand and finally she felt soft