of my life when I lost you and I’ve never stopped regretting it. I’ve thought about you for years. Wondered where you are, what you’re doing, if I’d ever see you again. Sometimes I even used to imagine seeing you again, bumping into you in the street . . .’
I’m listening to him talking, but it could be me speaking. It could be my voice saying these same things. Because this is exactly what I’ve been doing all these years. It’s like he’s reading from my diary, talking about my life, and yet it’s been his life too. All this time we’ve been leading parallel lives and we never knew it.
‘It was crazy. I even went to see a therapist about it once.’
I snap back. ‘A therapist?’
‘Well, I was in LA.’ He looks sheepish. ‘I was depressed about work, but I just spent the whole time talking about you.’
Tiny darts of joy are pricking my skin, making me tingle all over. I never dared to imagine he would be thinking about me. I assumed that he never gave me a second thought, that I was long forgotten. Yet while I was in London thinking about him, there he was in LA thinking about me.
‘Look, I know this sounds stupid, but . . .’ His voice trails off. He hesitates, then looks back up at me, his eyes searching out mine. ‘Do you believe in soulmates?’
Unknown
Our eyes lock. My heart hammers in my chest. I feel dizzy....
‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘Yes, I do, Nate.’
And then it happens.
Leaning towards me, he reaches for my hand, and interlacing his fingers through mine, he pulls me towards him, slowly, gently. Closing my eyes, I sink into him. It’s like nothing’s changed. He feels the same, he smells the same, and as his lips brush against mine, it’s as if the years simply melt away and we’re right back on that gondola in Venice . . .
He kisses just the same too.
Chapter Nine
A shaft of sunlight filters through the gap in the blinds, warming my eyelids, stirring me from the deepest of sleeps. Blearily I open my eyes, expecting to see an embroidered Indian bedspread strewn with discarded clothes, clashing scarlet walls and piles of clutter. Instead I’m greeted with a vista of pristine white. An arctic landscape of clean sheets, bare walls and acres of empty carpet.
For a split second I wonder where on earth I am.
Then it comes back to me.
It’s the morning after and I’m in Nate’s bedroom. In Nate’s bed. With Nate.
As it registers, I shoot out my hand to the other side of the vast mattress. Only he’s not there. Momentarily I feel myself stiffen. Insecurities bubble up inside before I become aware of a faint whooshing sound. It’s coming from the en suite. Of course. Nate must be in the shower. Closing my…€er. Closi v eyes, I sink back under the duvet. Cocooned within the soft, warm depths, I stretch and curl back up like a question mark, relishing the fresh linen sheets, the huge, plump mattress, the softest feather pillows, the memory of last night . . . It’s like being in some super-expensive hotel.
OK, enough about the bed, Lucy. What about the sex?
A delicious shiver runs up my spine, sending little shockwaves all over my body. Like someone with a wonderful secret, I want to hug the memories to my chest and never let them go. To keep them tucked inside and think about them over and over, relishing them, reliving them, moment by delicious moment.
It was amazing, and yet completely natural, as if we’d never been apart. Everything just fitted together. Like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, we simply slipped back into place. That’s what I remember the most, because the rest of my memories are hazy. Blurred by lust and alcohol, I vaguely recall coming back to the penthouse, kissing in the hallway, items of clothes being removed until suddenly we were both naked and tumbling into bed. The feeling of skin against skin, his mouth, fingers, thighs . . .
I blush at the memory, my stomach fluttering as sensations flood my body, my skin still tingling. A flashback of our limbs tangled together, followed by another, and another, and another, and—
‘Lucy?’
Nate’s voice snaps me back and I open my eyes to see him standing at the foot of the bed, wearing just a towel. His muscular body is still dripping with droplets of water and I watch a trickle run between his pecs, over