She looked down at her plate, at the untouched tart with its sprinkling of cinnamon on top. It was just difficult to feel positive right now while this big Will-shaped hole was busy expanding inside, a hole that even a custard tart couldn’t fill.
Ridiculous!
It wasn’t as if they were close...as if she knew him beyond bits and pieces. And heaven knew things hadn’t been easy with him, or between them. But she was missing him all the same, aching with missing him. The sight of him. His smile. All his blue depths and warm lights. He was under her skin, she knew that, but seemingly he was much deeper under than she’d thought, so deep that it had been all she could do not to tear up Rua Augusta after him, beg him to stay. If she had, would he be sitting here now or would he have stepped back in surprise, looked at her as if she were mad?
Impossible to say, which was why she had let him go. Because even though it had seemed he was dismayed she wasn’t going back to London, she could well have been reading too much into it, projecting her own disappointment into his eyes, seeing what she wanted to see because for a moment back there it had felt as if he was going to kiss her, and the tingling idea of it was taking a long time to clear from her blood, her brain. It was why she was still sitting here in the Praço do Comércio, not a hundred metres from where he had left her an hour ago, trying to fortify herself with coffee and a pastel de nata, trying to pull herself back level. But it wasn’t working.
And now her phone was pinging. Sadie, no doubt, checking in to see if she had been right about Will, about him engineering this whole trip so he could see her!
She picked it up and her heart slipped sideways. Not Sadie but Will...
Hey, you. How’s the exploring going?
She felt a smile rising, breaking, her heart lifting. They didn’t do chatty texts, but it was perfect timing. Just the sweet, tingling boost she needed.
She bit down on her lip, texting back.
Not very well. Got waylaid exploring the merits of pastéis de nata at a very nice café in the Praço do Comércio and I’m still here.
Which café?
She felt a frown coming. How could that matter? Still...
Martinho da Arcada.
Ah! Opened 1778. The oldest café in Lisbon!
She laughed out loud, attracting a curious glance from a woman at the next table, but she didn’t care. He was filling her well, making her day.
She tapped out a reply, giggling inside.
What??? Since WHEN are you the font of all Lisbon knowledge?
Since I bought a guidebook!
She laughed again, feeling a tease coming.
That’ll come in handy in London!
Not remotely! But it’s proving useful here...
Her heart bounced. Here? But he was at the airport, surely! Unless...
She lifted her head slowly, scanning the square to her left, then the arches up ahead, feeling faintly sick, faintly idiotic. And then her heart stopped dead. There! Under the great arch. Guidebook in hand. Looking this way and that. And then his eyes found hers, flashing sweet recognition, knocking the air clean out of her lungs. And then he was on his way, coming towards her through the crowd with his nice long stride, walking until he was right there in front of her, smiling, twinkling.
‘Hello.’
She felt her eyes staring into his. How to breathe? How to speak when her heart was this full, but then suddenly that brimming heart was jumping her to her feet, and before she knew what she was doing she was flinging her arms around his neck, hugging him for all she was worth.
‘For God’s sake, Will! What are you doing here?’
He laughed. ‘Apart from being strangled, you mean?’ And then his arms were wrapping around her in turn, hugging her back. ‘Let’s just say I couldn’t leave. Not when we were on the point of having a very important discussion about the hotel from hell.’
No bile in his voice, though, only lightness. And his arms holding her. No stiffness, no reserve. Just warmth, affection. She breathed him in. Was he really only here because of business, because this hug was feeling more like heaven than business and, wishful imaginings aside, thinking about it again, it had sort of felt that earlier he did want to kiss her...
Oh, hell!
And she had started this hugging. Spontaneously for sure, because it was so good to see him, but if he had been thinking of kissing her before, what must he be thinking now? What signal was she sending out? Aside from the wrong one! Which was the right one, secretly, but that was her business. Whatever! In one more second this could turn sticky, and with everything else they had going on—Anthony, and the project, and Will’s issues with those things—sticky was the last thing they needed.
She released him quickly, smiling past the annoying blush that was suddenly tingling in her cheeks. ‘It was a good call!’
‘You think so?’ He looked pleased—relieved—but then his eyes were clouding. ‘You really don’t mind me crashing your party? I mean, just say if you do and I’ll go.’
After only just getting here! Was he for real?
She fired him a look to set him straight. ‘There’s no party to crash. And there especially won’t be if you leave.’ She motioned to the table. ‘Shall we sit?’
He split a grin. ‘Okay.’
She took her own seat, watching him settle. Guidebook, but no bag. No jacket. Had he left them at the airport, or had he booked himself into a hotel? She felt a tingle starting, a vague skittering sensation in her veins. Gorgeous as it was to see him, what was the plan here?
She smiled over, tucking a curl back to seem casual. ‘So, now that you’re here, how long are you staying?’
His gaze faltered then stilled, clearing into hers. ‘That’s up to you.’
The tingle skittered into her stomach.
‘I don’t own Lisbon, Will.’
