The Yuletide Child

‘Love it.’ He stopped walking, looked down at her. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said abruptly, still holding her hand. Raising it to his chest, he splayed it over his shirt-front. ‘Can you feel my heart beating?’

Her palm flattened, she stood still, the heavy thudding right under her warm skin, and nodded, unable to speak.

Ross looked at her with a passion that made her quiver. ‘Do you feel it, too? It’s as if I’ve been struck by lightning. I think I’ve fallen in love with you at first sight, and I never even believed in such a thing.’

‘Me, too,’ she whispered, and then he bent his head, his warm mouth moving against hers, sending the world whirling crazily around them.

They spent the next two hours talking in a corner of the trattoria, eating their way through melon and prosciutto, the swordfish cooked in tomatoes, olives and garlic, with a green salad, followed by green figs.

‘Are you dieting?’ he asked her, and she laughed.

‘I don’t need to—I use up so much energy every day. I’m underweight for my height. But I love swordfish, don’t you?’

‘I’ve never eaten it before, but it’s good. Tell me about your usual day. When do you get up? Can we have breakfast together?’

‘You’re going too fast!’

‘I have to—there isn’t time to take it slowly. I live hundreds of miles away and I don’t get much time off.’

He told her about his forest, talking passionately about his trees, how he worked among them, the life he led in the northern area between England and Scotland which was his home.

She told him how hard and fiercely she had to work each day, how much she loved to dance, but how tired she often was.

He asked her again about Michael. ‘Has he ever been your lover? Is he in love with you?’

‘No,’ she said to both questions.

‘Don’t tell me you’re just good friends! He’s far too possessive for that to be true!’

‘We’re partners. It’s hard to explain. We need each other. It isn’t love.’ Nothing so easy to define, nothing so simple. Michael threatened the back of her mind like a bruise, darkening her skin, worrying her. How would he reaact to what was happening to her?

‘Never has been?’ insisted Ross, and she shook her head.

‘No. Michael has girlfriends but I was never one of them.’

‘Were there other men in your life?’

‘Nobody special. There was never enough time. I had to work too hard and I was always tired.’

Ross drove her back to her flat in Islington, just a mile away from the theatre.

‘I won’t ask you in; it’s gone one o’clock, and I have to get some sleep,’ she said, sitting in his car outside the building.

‘Breakfast... when?’ He was very close. She knew he was going to kiss her; she was dying for the touch of his mouth. She couldn’t think about anything else. ‘Eight o’clock?’

‘Nine! I’ve got rehearsals at eleven,’ she thought aloud, knowing that tomorrow she was going to regret losing so much sleep. She needed a solid eight hours every night to restore her energy levels, so that she could keep up with her demanding schedule.

‘Skip them and spend the day with me.’

‘I can’t, Michael would kill me. We have to work at the barre every day to keep supple; muscles stiffen up so quickly if you don’t.’

‘When can you get away, then?’

‘Lunchtime. One o’clock. Then I’m supposed to have a rest, a nap before the evening performance. I don’t get much free time.’

‘Breakfast and then lunch,’ he said, framing her face between his hands and bending.

Their mouths clung; she felt heat deep inside her body. It was the first time in her entire life that she had ever wanted a man like that.