Page 69 of The Last Kiss

“Feel what?” I ask, but I know.

Without words he presses my palm against his chest.

“The bitter irony I’ve found you here, the one time in my life I am stuck where I am. Fate plays cruel games. She gives with one hand and then takes with the other.”

I can’t argue with this. It’s fact.

“I think irony is a running theme in my life.” I force away the dark brooding clouds in my head and force a smile.

“Care to elaborate, ma petite?”

Yes. I’m dying, but somehow you are this magical being that’s manifested into my life just when I thought it was over…

“No.”

A large droplet lands on my forehead. “Oh shit. We will get soaked.” My dress, beautiful as it is under my cardigan, is not meant for British chilled downpours.

Henri grasps my face, tilting my chin. “This conversation isn’t over, but right now we need to…” his smile flashes. “Run!”

“Nooo!!” I try to hold him back, but he has my hand and tows me along, my legs pumping to keep pace. The droplets turn into a cold torrent, slipping over my skin in chilled rivets, sneaking under my dress, mashing my scarlet cardigan into a soggy layer.

“Let’s get in here, under a tree.” I point to a small park with railings. “I can’t run like this.” We are too far from the shops and the shelter of doorways.

He swerves in, his dark hair smattered in soaked waves, his olive skin glistening under the streetlamps, blurred with rain drops.

“Henri, I can’t run.” My chest. Oh my god. So tight. The beat uneven, as if it can’t remember how to make a rhythm, a useless drum kit in the hands of a child with chopsticks and not proper drumsticks.

He turns, waves scattering more water. If I wasn’t struggling to breathe, I’d be admiring his soaked chest. Without hesitation, he swings me up in his arms and paces into the park, cursing as he searches for a bench under a tree, which of course there isn’t because—bird shit.

Folding his legs, he settles us under a large oak, it’s newly unfurled spring leaves providing a light canopy against the onslaught.

“Bloody British weather,” he growls.

I chuckle, but it comes out strangled as I try to rid myself of the drums, the beating, the band of panic and failure.

“Julianna, what is it?”

I shake my head, hiding in his shoulders, fingers winding in what the elements have left of his lambswool jumper.

“Julianna.” Firmer this time, he holds the back of my head as a great wave of emotion rolls over me, breaking on a shore of resistance in one sob, then another, then another.

Strange I haven’t cried since that day after Dr Francis’ appointment. Now it wants to surge up and out of me and into his arms.

“Shhh.” Gently he rocks us. His trousers must be ruined in the mud, yet he cradles me closer; lips on my hair, my ear, my cheek, anywhere that he can gain access too.

“Sorry,” I mutter when I can finally breathe.

“Don’t apologise.”

I could sit forever under the gentle sweep of his hand.

There is no forever.

“Shall we go back to Liv’s? Does she have a pump?”

What pump? Oh, he thinks I have asthma. That ice-cream scoop hollows my stomach again.

“No, no. Let’s just go home,” I say, and he pulls back slightly, the left corner of his mouth lifting a tiny wedge.