Page 29 of The Wedding Game

I rest against Josh, my eyes opening and closing in shock against his shoulder.

‘Your eyelashes are tickling me,’ he whispers into my hair.

I lift my head, stare at him. ‘Are you a magician?’

‘What?’ he splutters.

‘I’ve never done that before,’ I tell him.

His eyes widen. ‘Sex?’ he questions. ‘I suspect that’s a lie, because you’re very good at it.’

‘Thank you, but … I came twice. I’ve never— That’s never happened …’ I trail off, still in total bafflement, which ushers a low chuckle from him. I look at Josh and ask where the hell he’s been my whole life?

‘On a farm in Somerset,’ he says in amusement.

‘I thought two orgasms in a row was the preserve of people in certain types of films … who fake it,’ I say, more to myself than to Josh. I move off him, sit up next to him in bed and pull the duvet over us both. He turns to look at me and obviously doesn’t know what to say, either, but he seems fairly chuffed with himself. He should be. He’s achieved with me what no other man has managed to do. This is momentous – for me at least.

I can’t help it; the endorphins rushing through me are out of this world, so I reach up, touch his face and usher him towards me, so I can kiss him again. I have no idea how long we stay like that for, in his super-king-size hotel bed, but at some point we fall asleep.

When I wake up in the morning, it’s to the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of the hotel door closing, a waiter instructing him to enjoy his breakfast. Josh, in his hotel bathrobe, wheels a breakfast trolley into the room.

‘Room service,’ he says. ‘Two full English breakfasts, pastry basket, toast and a fancy-looking fruit plate full of,’ he peers at the plate, ‘I’m not sure what.’

‘You’re amazing,’ I say.

He smiles shyly. ‘Thanks.’ He pours me a coffee and hands it to me. I inhale the aroma and sip it.

This man is incredible. He’s made me come twice and has ordered everything on the room-service menu. If Scarlet was here (which would be weird), she would tell me not to give way to emotional highs after sex, or during sex, or before sex. We’ll unpack all of this together later.

Josh sits on the edge of the bed and starts taking all the silver domes off the rest of the food. He looks good in a robe. He looks even better out of it. I sit alongside him, sipping my coffee and feeling pretty strange being naked next to a man whose own modesty is covered. I slip off to the bathroom, find the spare robe and return. We eat ravenously, talking about everything and anything. He tells me he’s a single child, and we have that in common. He talks about his mumand dad and what they do now they don’t run the farm. He tells me how in love they still are and how he wants that for himself some day.

‘They met when they were young and it just worked out … you know?’

I nod. ‘When you know, you know,’ I reply flippantly as I start on the fruit plate. But there’s nothing flippant in that at all – not really. ‘True love is hard to find. Sometimes it’s right under your nose and sometimes it can take a long time to find it,’ I say, a bit more articulately. And then I think about what I’ve said, if it might ever apply to me.

Josh nods, ponders for a minute and starts tucking into his eggs. ‘What about your parents?’ he asks.

I make a face. ‘Divorced, sadly. They’re happier now than when they were together, though. Now they’re with other people and are better off as friends. But it took them twenty-five years to work that out.’

‘Then perhaps they just weren’t right,’ he says helpfully, and I can only agree.

‘Exactly. I’m a grown-up, so I’m grateful they divorced when I was old enough to understand the ups and downs of relationships.’

Josh touches my lip, removes a tiny piece of croissant. His touch does so many things to me.

We finish our breakfast, wrapping the remaining croissants and Danish pastries in linen napkins, so we can take them to the park as a snack for later. We shower and dress, and Josh checks out and pays his bill before we venture into Kensington Palace Gardens. The sun’s shining, but Inotice – now we’re heading towards slightly shorter days –that its strength is starting to weaken.

‘I feel bad about stealing these napkins,’ Josh confesses as we follow a path towards the boating lake.

‘Do you really?’ I ask.

He chuckles. ‘No, not really.’

We walk idly and his hand slips into mine. Instead of taking a boat out on the water we continue to walk happily, working off our breakfast. We stand in front of Kensington Palace and look up at it together, before Josh gallantly purchases both our tickets and we go in.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever been here before,’ Josh says as we take in the ornate ceilings and furniture, looking at Queen Victoria’s childhood items.

I feel like a grown-up, doing something like this. I’ve never been on a date to a palace before. I glance at Josh as he spends a moment looking at a portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert together, and I realise this weekend is full of unexpected firsts.

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