Page 32 of The One That Got Away

‘Nothing you’d be interested in,’ I replied, keeping my eyes firmly fixed to the screen.

‘Is it a romance novel?’

‘Yes,’ I sighed. Why couldn’t people understand that when someone was reading they didn’t want interruptions?

‘That’s a shame.’

‘What?’ My head whipped up. ‘There’s nothing wrong with romance novels!’

‘No, I know that. I wasn’t dissing the genre. People should read whatever they want. And I love watching a good romcom, remember?’

I swallowed hard. He was right. Max always used to watch them with me. A lot of my friends’ boyfriends only ever wantedto watch action films and they were jealous that Max was happy to binge romcoms with me.

‘Yeah,’ I replied, my gaze still fixed to my phone.

‘When I said it’s a shame, I meant it’s a shame that you’re reading. It’s your first time in Spain, right? So I thought maybe you’d want to spend the journey looking at the scenery, that’s all.’

Good point. I’d been so focused on trying to protect my emotions by ignoring him that I’d forgotten about enjoying the views.

I looked up and turned to the window. Colourful flowers lined the central reservation. I’d noticed them on the way here.

As we continued along the motorway I took in the clear blue skies and observed how the landscape changed. In some places the land was yellow where the grass had been dried out from the sun and in others there were fields upon fields of olive trees.

‘It’s so different to London,’ I said before realising that I shouldn’t be making conversation.

‘Yeah. I love Spain. I always enjoy coming here.’

‘Have you been here a lot?’

‘I come a few times a year. I was here a couple of weeks ago.’

‘On holiday?’ I turned to face him. He must lead an extravagant lifestyle to be able to come twice in one month.

Although his career as a professional footballer hadn’t worked out, I bet he was still doing something that raked in the cash. Maybe he was a personal trainer for celebrities who flew him over to their holiday homes in Ibiza and Marbella just to tell them how to do some sit ups.

‘No,’ he laughed. ‘I don’t really do holidays. This is my first one in ages. And I didn’t even choose to go. I was blackmailed into coming by Colton.’

‘Colton Brown?’

‘The very one.’

‘I didn’t realise you two were still friends.’

‘Yep. Although I questioned whether we should be when he signed me up for this and used his six-year-old daughter to coerce me.’

‘Shameless!’ I smiled. ‘My mum signed me up for this, even though I told her I wasn’t interested.’

‘Looks like we were both lured here against our will.’ Max looked at me and our eyes locked.

‘Yeah,’ I replied, trying to ignore the flutter in my stomach. ‘So.’ I looked out the window to avoid staring at him. He was annoyingly attractive. ‘You came here for work then?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And what do you do? If you don’t mind me asking. You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to,’ I stuttered. Seeing as we were stuck here, I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to make conversation. Hopefully the journey wouldn’t be too long.

Okay and yeah, I’ll admit. I was a little curious to know where he was working. That was normal. People always wanted to know where their old friends ended up.

‘I run a beauty products company.’

---