Fen sat up straight, her eyes wide. ‘Hey, I’ve just thought of something.’ We all turned in her direction. ‘The only reason Ellie met Zak was because she fell in the duck pond!’
We all looked at her blankly. Then Ellie got the connection. ‘And Madison just fell in the swimming pool.’
Fen nodded enthusiastically. ‘Perhaps it’s a sign.’ Her eyes were shining as she turned to me. ‘Maybe Jack is your future, after all.’
I felt my heart stir at the thought. Then I snorted. ‘Yeah, and pigs might fly! I don’t believe in signs. Except for ones that say, “Free cake this way”.’
I resigned myself to never seeing Jack again.
But then something happened that made me think Fen had been right, and maybe me falling into the pool had been Fate after all…
*****
It was the evening of Ellie and Zak’s wedding, and we were all chatting and dancing in the marquee. I was looking at all the happy couples – including Jaz and Harry, who’d just made the wonderful announcement that they were having a baby – and I was trying not to think about Jack. A few weeks had passed since I’d met him at the spa. I’d been on online searching for companies involved in virtual reality projects, and I was pretty sure I knew where Jack worked. But that’s as far as I’d got.
It would be simple enough to phone the company and track him down. If I wanted to.
But actually, I didn’t want to (at least, that’s what I kept telling myself) – partly because I’d no idea if he would even remember me. And also because the thought of coming face to face again with Jack Dempster made the heat rush into my face, remembering my dramatic fall into the pool. Normally, I don’t give two hoots about what people think of me. But this was different, somehow…
Then, just as I was contemplating saying goodbye to everyone and slinking off home, Archie – Ellie’s lovely step dad - came up to me with a message. There was ‘a young man’ waiting outside, wanting to speak to me, he said.
Archie’s eyes twinkled. ‘You’d better get out there sharpish because the poor lad’s been hanging around in the freezing cold for the best part of an hour, hoping to catch a glimpse of you.’
I stared at him in confusion. ‘Who…?’
‘He said his name was Jack.’
My heart started to race.
Jack? Jack was here?
‘But…how did he know where to find me?’
‘Apparently you told him you worked in Sunnybrook, at the café, so he planned to be here near closing time to surprise you. He didn’t realise the place would be shut because everyone was at a wedding.’
My face must have been a picture of stunned amazement and disbelief.
Archie laughed. ‘Go! Now! Otherwise he’ll give up and go home.’
‘I will. Thanks, Archie.’
I dashed for the door and ran out into the snow, passing Ellie and Zak standing there, arms around each other, staring up at the stars.
‘Maddy?’ Ellie called.
I beamed back at her. ‘Jack’s here. He came looking for me because he knew I worked at the café. And Archie saw him and came to find me.’
‘Oh, wow. Well, good luck!’
‘Thank you.’ And I dashed off, slip-sliding in the snow in my elegant bridesmaid’s shoes in my eagerness to get there.
*****
Those first few weeks together were the happiest of my life. We laughed constantly and Jack really seemed to ‘get’ me. We talked about our past romances and I learned that Jack had been engaged but had called it off a week before the wedding.
When he told me what happened, we were sitting by a roaring fire in a country pub, his arm around me, and I could tell by his face that Lucy, his fiancée, had truly broken his heart.
‘I met her in my final year at Southampton University, and we’d been going out for two years when we got engaged at Christmas,’ he said, staring into the flames. ‘We planned the wedding for the following September and started saving up to buy a house. My mates thought I was too young to get married, but…I loved her and I thought she felt the same.
‘Then six months before the wedding, things started to change. Lucy seemed distracted and a bit tense. She was blowing hot and cold, treating me with indifference almost, whereas before, she’d always been really affectionate. When I asked her about it, she said it was the stress of planning the wedding and like a fool, I believed her. But a week before the Big Day, I arrived at her flat unexpectedly, in the middle of the day, and she took ages to answer the door. I thought she mustn’t be in, but then I saw a curtain twitch at her window. My first thought was that something had happened to her and she couldn’t get to the door, so I buzzed some other flats and managed to get into the building.’
‘What happened? Was she okay?’
He laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, yes. She was more than okay. I was still getting no reply, banging on the door, so I looked through the letterbox and there was a trail of clothes leading to the bedroom. I recognised the guy’s trainers. They were a limited edition pair he’d shown me the day before.’
I stared at him in horror. ‘Who was it?’
‘Tom. My best man.’
‘So he and Lucy were…?’
Jack nodded. ‘They’d been at it for six months behind my back, and suddenly it all made sense. Lucy treating me so casually, as if she didn’t care any longer.’ His mouth twists at the memory. ‘The fact was, she didn’t care. She’d moved on to someone else.’
‘God, I’m so sorry, Jack. That’s just horrible.’
He shrugged and smiled. ‘Yeah, well, it was two years ago now. Water under the bridge. I’m better off single.’
That story just made me feel even more for him. And that’s when I started to feel scared. Of the depth of my emotions.
He came with me to Hartwell House and I introduced him to the family, and they loved him, I could tell. But I remember looking at him chatting with Chloe and Jasmine and feeling really proud of him – but at the same time, wondering what on earth a gorgeous guy like Jack was doing with someone like me. Chloe and Jasmine were gorgeous. I was ‘cute’ at best. How long, I wondered, was it going to be before Jack realised he liked someone better. Just like his Lucy had moved on to his best man, Tom…
Looking back, my lack of self-worth was my downfall.
With doubts creeping in about us lasting, I started withdrawing a little from him. Being cool. I remember once he brought me this gorgeous bunch of flowers as a surprise, but instead of showing how over the moon I was, I laughed and said, ‘Why on earth would you spend all that money on things that are going to be dead in a week’s time?’
I saw the hurt in his eyes and I hated myself. But somehow I couldn’t help myself. I’d convinced myself I wasn’t good enough for him and that he was going to leave me some day soon – so it made sense (from my weird, confidence-challenged perspective) that I should show I didn’t really care anyway…
The day before I departed with the girls to Cornwall on holiday, Jack planned this surprise evening because it was going to be our last for a month. He rang and said, ‘Hey, gorgeous. Put on your best dress because we are going for cocktails and dinner at your favourite restaurant. And I’ve got a surprise for you.’