The Parisian Christmas Bake Off (14 page)

As he cut into it, the golden yolk oozing out into the toasted muffin she’d found at the bottom of the freezer and the silky hollandaise dripping from his fork, he paused before putting the first bite into his mouth, as if preparing himself for the bliss.

When he did eat it, gobbling greedilywith his eyes shut, he hit the table twice with his fist. ‘Fucking amazing. A-mazing. God, it’s better than being on stage. Well—maybe not but it’s fucking good.’

Rachel couldn’t help smiling.

‘You—’ He pointed at her, mouth full. ‘You are going to make someone a great wife one day.’

She paused for a moment, sipped the tea she’d made herself, and found herself asking, ‘Not you?’

Ben laughed into his cup of coffee.

‘I’m serious,’ she said.

‘Hun, come on, it’s too early for this.’

‘We’ve kind of seen each other for two years.’

He made a face. ‘I meant in the morning. It’s fucking four a.m.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ She nodded, glancing down at her haphazard appearance as if to show him just how aware she was of the time.

‘Babe.’ He didn’t get up, but took another slurp of coffee. ‘No one gets married any more. What we’ve got… It’s good. Don’t—’ He shook his head as if he was on the cusp of getting annoyed. ‘Don’t spoil it. Just let a man eat. Yeah?’

Rachel opened her mouth to say something but then closed it again.

Oh, my God, she thought. Oh, my God, what have I been doing?

Who was he? What had she seriously expected from him?

As she watched him eat, chewing furiously, she suddenly saw what everyone else saw. A black hole at her table where her life disappeared.

‘OK, babe?’ He glanced up, checking that she was still there, still waiting for him to finish.

She nodded, her mouth frozen into place.

He pushed his plate away and stretched his arms high to the ceiling. ‘Awesome. Totally awesome, as always. Bed?’

‘I erm…’ But it felt as if her mind had slipped all the way through her body into a pool on the floor. And instead of saying anything else she let him lead her up to her bedroom, where she was suddenly ashamed that she’d changed the sheets because she’d had an inkling he was coming and had put the winter roses her gran had brought for her in a vase by the bed and sprayed Dark Amber Zara Home room spray to make it smell all moody and sexy.

When the front door clicked shut forty minutes later, she lay staring up at the ceiling and wondered what had become of Rachel Smithson, because right now she felt completely hollow from the neck down.