She could feel him against her body. Her hands wanted to touch him, her mouth to kiss him; she wanted everything in that moment.
But she ducked down and out from under the bridge he had made with his arms.
‘Eve,’ he pleaded.
She shook her head. ‘Not until the book is finished,’ she said huskily. ‘I won’t be that woman. I don’t want people gossiping about me the way they do about Serena.’
She looked at him. ‘I’ve applied for a promotion at work, and if I get it, I want it to be because of my work. I don’t want people to think I got it because I slept with our biggest author.’
Edward nodded. ‘Okay, I understand that, I do. But it still doesn’t mean I don’t want to kiss you.’
She felt like her knees were going to give way but she knew she had to live by her values or she would never forgive herself.
‘Then finish the book,’ she said.
‘And when I do, then you will disappear back to London,’ he said.
‘I don’t know what I’ll do, Edward,’ she said and then she stepped forward and kissed his cheek, slowly, lingeringly.
‘Don’t try and read the last page before the story is finished. Let’s just wait and find out what happens in the end. The fun part is how we get there, and you have to finish your book first.’
Edward’s mouth kissed her chin, and her cheeks, and her ear and then her neck and she leaned into him a longer moment than she should have, but she couldn’t pull herself away.
‘You promise we will get a happy ever after?’ he whispered to her.
And for a moment, her mouth found his, and they kissed, in a laneway in Leeds ten days before Christmas.
‘Anything is possible,’ she whispered back.
27
The memory of Eve’s mouth on his was distracting Edward from writing. The feel of her body against him was interrupting his thoughts. The need to touch her again was causing him to get up from his desk chair and look out the window to see if she was in the snow with Myles or Flora.
The shopping was successful but mostly because they decided to agree on everything and, sometimes, they touched hands over a suggested gift and he felt electric shocks through his body.
He could have sworn on a Bible that Eve’s mother knew something had happened when they went back to her parents’ house. She had a small smile playing at her mouth whenever he looked at Eve or asked Eve a question or told her parents what a wonderful editor Eve was and how she had helped him enormously.
The trip home after they picked up the children from her parents’ was thick with tension. All he wanted to do was put his hand on her thigh as he drove but Myles and Flora talked constantly all the way and sometimes she twisted in her chair to talk to them and he couldn’t concentrate with her nearer than before.
He didn’t know if he had ever been as distracted as he was by Eve.
‘Concentrate,’ he said aloud, willing himself to sit down and write.
A knock at the door relieved him from his angst. ‘Come in,’ he said, hopeful it was Eve but it was Hilditch.
She came inside and closed the door.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
Hilditch sighed. ‘I’m fine but I don’t think you will be when I tell you what I just found out.’
Edward gestured for her to sit down but Hilditch shook her head.
‘Amber’s coming back.’
Edward sat down instead. ‘What? How do you know?’
Hilditch raised an eyebrow. ‘She messaged me to tell me it was a surprise and that she would be back for Christmas lunch.’
