Page 24 of A Copenhagen Snowmance
“Yeah, no. I’m happier walking away. After what he did, he doesn’t deserve my time, attention or forgiveness, if that’s what he’s looking for.”
“I was more thinking about you, actually. Being able to draw a line under it?—”
“I have! The line is drawn,” she cuts in.
“—having addressed it and being able to make peace with it,” he continues.
“Who says I haven’t made peace with it?”
“Just at a guess– and as I’ve admitted, I’m no therapist– but hiding in a house and stressing about being in the paper is not a sign of being at peace with your path.”
Anna busies herself with staring into her mug.
“Back to the kiss, though,” he suddenly says in an alarming segue. “It’s had me thinking.”
Anna’s face is instantly hot with shame. Given he now knows about Carl, she’s better off confessing all. “Jamie. Here’s another thing; I was avoiding Carl. That’s why I kissed you. He was walking towards me, and I had nowhere to hide. Which was stupid, I know. But here’s the even stupider thing; given the photo, it’s had the reverse effect.” She waves her hand at the laptop screen. “Again, I’m sorry, it was shocking behaviour on my part. My thinking was iffy.”
Something shoots across Jamie’s face, but she can’t read it and it’s gone within a second. “So, it wasn’t that you were unstoppably attracted to me?” he says, deadpan.
Anna doesn’t know quite what to say.
“I… Er… Look, Jamie…” she starts, flustered.
Jamie’s mouth pulls up to one side. “I’m messing with you. We covered that last night, right?Gløggand Tivoli magic, etc., etc.?”
Anna, wide-eyed and out of sorts, just nods slowly, then asks, “Am I forgiven? For using you as a shield?”
He fixes her gaze and she forces herself to keep the contact, deserving everything she gets. “Aye,” he gives her.
Anna lets out a slow breath.
Jamie leans towards her, those toned forearms flat on the table between them, his hands clasped. “And on that foundation, I have a proposal for you.”
ChapterEleven
Anna can’t believe she’s doing this. It’s absolutely not what she’s here for.
The wind is rushing through her hair, which for once is not under her hat, due to her being worried about being seen in it. It’s stuffed in her pocket, though, just in case. Thankfully the snow has stopped again. The on–off nature of… uh, nature, is adding to the frustration of being here, but right at this moment, Anna is rather enjoying herself.
“Are you warm enough?” Jamie asks loudly, from the bike seat. “There’s another blanket in the big bag.”
Anna is currently sitting in the front of Jamie’s Christiania bicycle, a cargo bike with a box on the front, which can carry multiple bags, children or an adult– in this case, Anna. She’s well wrapped up in her big coat, but she won’t say no to a blanket around her legs, so delves into the bag Jamie put together as she searched her wardrobe for therequired attire.
She had noticed the bike in the front yard when she arrived, but not thought much of it.
“You really are getting the full Copenhagen experience with this for transport,” she calls back to him as he pedals hard, the slush spraying after them.
“My company car,” he says. “I don’t need an actual car living here, but I do sometimes have to transport presentation materials and prototypes to clients, so we thought this was the best thing.”
Anna thinks of her old bike in the basement. She’s missed it. London is not nearly the biking city Copenhagen is– to be honest, the idea frightens her, as the drivers don’t consider cyclists in the same way, if at all– so she stays safely on the Tube. That said, there’s something very lovely about being ferried around under someone else’s steam, while she sits like a princess in a wooden box. It makes her think back to Signe’s wedding, where her friend arrived at the Town Hall in a Christiania bicycle festooned with gypsophila, white gerberas and strings of Danish flags. Her husband-to-be was riding the bike, followed by an entourage of family members on their own decorated bicycles. It was a gorgeous sight, happy and romantic. Not that that is anything like her current position, she reminds herself. This is simply Jamie driving them to meet his colleagues for their monthly social. Totally normal. Except that she is faking being his girlfriend.Thatkind of “totally normal”.
“It’s like this,” Jamie had started. “I’d like a certain woman to think I’m involved with someone else, and therefore not romantically interested in her. Which for the record, I’m not. Not in any way. We work in the same field, so if word gets about, which it invariably will, then hopefully it’ll make things less awkward between us.”
Anna had stared at him.
“You want us to fake-date?”
“Um… Yes. I think that’s what it’s called.”
