Page 87 of Under Your Spell

Later, when I am bundled into a golf cart and dropped back at the main building after the full-body massage Lisa insisted I have, I am pleasantly buzzed on sparkling wine and utterly drunk on pampering. I am all warm and malleable, like well-kneaded dough that’s been left on a sunny windowsill.

‘Theo’s paid some stupid amount of money so we get unlimited treatments,’ Lisa said, several glasses deep, after we had bonded over everything from Ryan Gosling (dreamy) to our love of teaching (Lisa is a primary school teacher) to how wildly overrated afternoon tea is (‘I mean, what am I? A child? A doll? Just give me a normal-person-sized sandwich,’ Lisa expounded, waving her arms while I hissed, ‘Yes, yes, exactly.’).

‘We can just have anything we want,’ she gestured around the spa, a frenzied look in her eyes. ‘It’s absolutely mad and I feel like we need to try and get him his money’s worth. I’ve had my eyebrows threaded, my eyelashes tinted, my face peeled. Mum and I did a sound bath this morning with a woman called Acorn.’ She looks shiftily from side to side before whispering, ‘Then later a very muscular Swedish woman waxed my pubes in the shape of a heart. It’s been a surreal sort of day.’

I realize once I reach the main building that I have no idea where I am going and also that I am only wearing a fluffy dressing gown over a pair of pants. This had seemed fine in the spa, but now, as I am confronted by Cassandra in her power suit and her clackety four-inch Manolo Blahniks, I admit to feeling a bit under-dressed. Upon reflection, I’m not actually sure where my clothes have gone.

‘Dr Monroe,’ – Cassandra smiles like my sartorial choices are impeccable – ‘you and Mr Eliott are in the Bluebell Suite. I can have Caleb show you the way if you like?’

‘Yes, thank you.’ I try to sound as though I belong as I take in the beautiful, polished floor that looks like a shiny chess board, the tasteful wood panelling and velvet furnishings, the leafy potted palms, and the enormous carved wooden staircase. This place is gorgeous, and Lisa told me that the whole hotel is all theirs until Sunday. We’re having a family dinner tonight before the guests start arriving tomorrow, then there’s the rehearsal for the family in the church and the big rehearsal dinner, before the wedding itself on Saturday.

Caleb leads me up the thickly carpeted stairs (the feeling of which between my toes brings me to another soberingly pertinent question… where are my shoes?) and down a hallway papered in foiled brocade before depositing me outside an enormous door with a discreet gold plaque engraved with the words ‘Bluebell Suite’.

When I open the door I am confronted by the glorious sight of not only the most luxurious hotel room I have ever seen, but of Theo Eliott sprawled across the four-poster bed taking a nap. I actually feel my heart squeeze with the gladness of seeing him after only a couple of hours apart, which even I will admit is a bit much.

‘Hey,’ he murmurs, sleepily, happily, as I clamber up on the bed beside him. ‘You’ve been gone ages.’

‘I’ve been bonding with your sister,’ I say. ‘And I’ve lost my clothes. Not exactly the introduction to your family that I was expecting.’

He huffs out a laugh. ‘They sent your clothes and your shoes up a while ago.’ He pulls me tight against him, snuggling into me, burying his face in my hair. ‘You smell good,’ he says, his hands already going to the belt of my dressing gown.

‘A woman called Acorn rubbed oil all over me,’ I say, stretching like a cat under his touch.

I feel him smile against my throat. ‘Lucky old Acorn.’ He parts the dressing gown, his fingers brushing a trail down my chest that his lips are all too happy to follow.

And then, after several languorous and very blissful minutes, in a voice full of heat and laughter: ‘Is that… a heart?’

‘We have to get ready for dinner,’ I say later, when I am lying with my head on his chest. His fingertips run lightly up and down the bare skin of my arm, and I love the feel of them – the rough callouses from hours and hours of playing guitar, drifting over me like I’m something precious.

‘Can’t we just get room service?’ he groans.

I prop myself up on my elbow and fix him with a look. ‘No, we can’t. They’re doing some fancy eight-course menu for us all, and your family are excited to spend time with you.’

‘I’m excited to see them too,’ Theo says, wrapping a long piece of my hair around his finger, ‘but no man in his right mind would willingly leave this bed with you in it.’

‘It is a very good bed,’ I agree, and I sit up. ‘But I think it will be really nice for you all to be together.’ I clear my throat, a little awkward. ‘Lisa actually said something I didn’t understand. About you and the wedding.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Theo continues to play with my hair, but I can tell immediately that he’s being shifty.

‘Yes, she said that at one point you maybe weren’t going to be able to make it to the wedding. But you told me you’d organized everything so you could be here.’

‘Oh, that.’ He flops back down against the pillow.

‘Yes, that,’ I say, poking him in the side. ‘Spill it.’

‘It’s not a big deal,’ Theo mumbles. ‘I just… wanted to give her an out.’

‘An out?’

Theo sighs. ‘Look, I’m trying really, really hard not to scare you off right now because I know we’re something new and it’s delicate, but sometimes being part of my life isn’t the easiest.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I say slowly.

‘Yes, you do.’ Theo scrubs his hand over his face. ‘Of course you do. You understand better than anyone. When I’m around, things can get hectic. Lisa’s wedding should be all about her. I guess I wanted to give her the option… I mean, to let her out of inviting me without making things awkward.’

I’m quiet for a while as I think that over. It’s not as if I can pretend I don’t know what Theo’s talking about; it’s one of the big fears about our relationship that I can’t bring myself to face head on. But, still, what he’s saying feels wrong. ‘I just don’t think she would ever have chosen to be without you, Theo,’ I say finally.

‘Maybe, but she doesn’t always get a choice about when my stuff spills over into her life and I wanted her to get to decide this one.’ He says the words on a sigh, and I think about what Lisa said, about how it felt when Theo joined the band. How her life changed.