Then. Now. Always. Read online

  A text comes through on my phone, making the small metal table shudder in protest. It’s a group message from Theo, telling us that he’s planning to drive out of Mojácar the following morning and that we should feel free to have a lie-in. I wait for the inevitable reply of delight from Tom, which comes through shortly afterwards, and then I try to work out what I can say. Before I have time to tap out my response, however, another message comes through from Theo – and this time it’s just to me.

  Do you want to come with me in the morning?

  Yes, please! I immediately text back.

  Nice one, Hannah. Way to play it cool.

  Excellent. Meet me at the villa at 8.30 x

  He’s added a kiss!

  Okay, I type back, delight making my fingers shake. See you then! x

  Two can play at that kisses game.

  Hugely cheered to have been singled out for a special trip and practically cartwheeling with pleasure at the thought of even more alone-time with Theo, I pay my bill and head across the square into one of the many gift shops. I’ve been meaning to buy Rachel a new Indalo Man since I arrived. After all, she needs all the good luck and protection she can get now that she’s let awful Paul move in with her.

  One day I vow I will have a nice house with a much nicer man living in it with me. And maybe, just maybe, his name will be Theo.

  10

  I can hear Claudette snoring as I slip out of the apartment early the next morning. I had feared that she and Carlos would still be bumping uglies when I arrived home the previous night, but either she kicked him out or he left of his own accord once his new girlfriend started snuffling away like a rhinoceros with a heavy cold, because there’s no sign of the shoes and bag that he’d abandoned by the sofa.

  I agonised over whether or not to leave a note for Claudette in case she woke up and wondered where I was, but then I figured she probably won’t care. In fact, given the green light to sleep in, I imagine she won’t actually get up until her belly wakes her at around lunchtime. I did text Tom, however, in as casual a manner as I could, and all I got back was one of those emoji faces with the shocked mouth and the big staring eyes. It’s not so unusual, is it – the idea of Theo wanting to spend time with me? Maybe it is.

  Deciding what to wear was near impossible, which is frustrating because I usually just throw on whatever’s closest. I tried to picture Theo looking down at my thighs from his position in the driver’s seat. Would shorts show my legs off best, or was it better to opt for a dress? And should I wear a bikini underneath or just underwear? And if it’s the latter, then should I go for it and pull on the lacy satin set that I bought once after a bad date to cheer myself up and haven’t worn since? In the end, I opt for denim shorts and a plain green vest over my padded bikini, but throw the sexy undies in my bag just in case. A girl should be prepared is something my mother is always saying, although I’m guessing she means condoms in the handbag rather than a thong and push-up bra.

  I leave myself an hour to stroll down the hill to Mojácar Playa, telling myself it’s because I want to saunter and not end up sweating all over myself, but of course my eagerness gets the better of me and I’m soon propelling around corners like a lustful Road Runner. There’s a café open just inside the shopping centre by the roundabout, so I buy a bag of churros and two takeaway hot chocolates, then cross the road and knock tentatively on Theo’s bright blue front door.

  ‘It’s open,’ he calls, and I reach for the handle, almost dropping my bag of sugary treats in the process.

  Theo’s scent assails me as I cross the threshold, and the hot chocolates are in danger of decorating the tiles. There are signs of him everywhere, from the sunglasses tossed on to the wooden dining table to the discarded shirt thrown over the back of a nearby chair, but the man himself is nowhere to be seen.

  ‘I brought breakfast,’ I say, cursing the quiver that I hear in my own voice. I really need to pull myself together. I’m a twenty-eight-year-old professional woman, for heaven’s sake. In the office, back in London, I manage to remain cool as a bag of salad leaves around Theo most of the time, so I can totally handle being alone in a villa with him.

  ‘Morning, Hannah.’

  Oh bloody hell, he’s so sexy. I want to stick a churro in my eye.

  ‘Hey.’

  Theo is dressed more casually than I’ve ever seen him, in grey shorts and a yellow T-shirt. It’s a brave colour, yellow, but of course it works on him. There’s a folded road map in one of his tanned hands and a large bottle of water in the other, and he’s smiling at me with what looks like genuine excitement.

  ‘All set?’

  I nod stupidly in reply and thrust the bag of skinny doughnuts in his direction, making a sort of meeping sound as I do so. Maybe I have actually morphed into Road Runner.

  Theo opens the bags and sniffs. ‘Churros!’ he exclaims, beaming at me.

  ‘And hot chocolate to dip them in,’ I add, feeling my face heat up. I’m not used to being the reason Theo is happy.

  ‘A woman after my own heart!’ he declares, taking one of the foam cups out of my clammy hand and peeling off the lid.

  ‘Do you think you can eat a whole one without licking your lips?’ I ask, trying to look anywhere but at his mouth. ‘It’s actually a lot harder than you think.’

  ‘First one to lick must buy lunch,’ Theo says, playing along, and I giggle in agreement in what I hope is a sexy way.

  I’ve never felt jealous of a deep-fried breakfast pastry before, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. There’s definitely something very sensual about the way in which Theo is devouring his churro, and I want to lick the sugar off his lips even more than I want to tackle my own, which is saying a lot. His technique is to shove as much of the thing in at once as he can manage, but for some reason I don’t feel comfortable doing the same thing. If it was Tom standing across from me, I’d have downed it in one.

  ‘It tickles,’ he says now, grimacing and still managing to look handsome.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I say, shrugging for effect. ‘I don’t feel a thing.’

  He smirks at that, his tongue on the verge of emerging from between his lips. It’s becoming impossible not to look at it. Then, very suddenly, it flashes out and across the sugary residue like a beautiful snake.

  ‘Poor effort!’ I joke, pretending to be a lady and fishing in my bag for a napkin to wipe my own mouth.

  ‘I would never let you pay for lunch anyway,’ Theo says, taking a gulp of hot chocolate, and my insides melt like mozzarella in a pizza oven.

  Once in the car, we take the road leading back up towards the Old Town before hooking a right and heading first west, then north along the highway.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask where we’re going?’ Theo says. I love the way he handles the car, one hand on the wheel and the other flicking the gearstick almost absent-mindedly, his elbow balanced on the open window and his dark brown thighs spread open across the seat.

  ‘I figured I’d find out when we got there,’ I remark, at a loss for anything more flirtatious, or indeed intelligent to say.

  ‘Do you know the way to San José?’ he asks now.

  ‘I know that song!’ I exclaim.

  To my mild embarrassment coupled with knicker-elastic-loosening lust, he then starts softly singing ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose’, tapping his hand against the edge of my seat as I join in with the ‘whoa, whoa, whoa’ bits. I didn’t realise that I knew all the lyrics, but I do, and the two of us reach quite a pitch by the time we get to the last chorus.

  ‘Bravo!’ Theo shouts afterwards, sounding very Greek. ‘That is where we are going!’

  ‘To San Jose?’ I squeal in surprise. I obviously wandered away from the queue when they were handing out brains.

  ‘Yes!’ Theo is flushed from the singing and his smile is infectious. ‘It might not be the San Jose, in California, but I imagine it’s a good runner-up – and I thought you might like to see it, too,
seeing as how you love this area of Spain so much.’

  He thought about me?

  Luckily, Theo is forced to turn away then to overtake yet another truck, so he misses the sight of my face turning into a giant cherry.

  By the time we reach San José forty minutes later, I’ve disloyally told Theo all about Claudette’s new Spanish friend, including the part of the story where I was forced to leave the apartment and eat my dinner up at the Plaza Nueva.

  ‘She is French,’ was his response, as if that was all the explanation required.

  Tom has also tried to call me twice, despite knowing full well where I am, and when I feel my phone vibrating against my leg from inside my bag for the third time, I reach down and switch it off. This is the first and only occasion that Theo has ever singled me out for some one-to-one time that wasn’t a strategy meeting, and I’m not going to let anything ruin it. Surely Tom can find a way to amuse himself for a few hours without me?

  San José is, of course, stunningly beautiful, with a tumble of white stone buildings, pristine beaches and a neat handful of cafés, bars and quaint little gift shops. It doesn’t have the same quiet sense of history that pervades Mojácar, but the pace of life feels the same. Nobody is in a hurry here, and locals sit in open doorways on plastic chairs, seemingly content to just sip their coffee and watch the day unfold.

  Theo parks the car on the road that runs parallel to Tobacco Beach, and the two of us slip off our shoes and bury our feet in the deep sand. I’m glad now that I chose shorts over a dress, because the wind wastes no time in seeking us out. My vest top is tucked in, but Theo’s loose yellow T-shirt is promptly blown right up over his face. For a few, brief, exquisite seconds, I’m free to feast my eyes on his conker-brown torso, and then he yanks it back down again with a grunt of embarrassed laughter.

  Aside from a scattering of tourists who have set themselves up on a multi-coloured carpet of towels not far from the shoreline, the beach is predominantly deserted, and Theo points to a large black and white bird that has just snatched a fish from the surf.

  ‘That’s a sooty tern,’ he says, immediately enthralled. ‘You don’t see them this close to land very often.’

  ‘Must be a very tasty fish,’ I reply, wishing I had something more insightful to offer to the conversation. ‘I didn’t know you were an expert?’ I add, watching him instead of the bird.

  Theo shrugs. ‘My father taught me the names of birds when we used to go out and fish on his boat.’

  ‘In Greece?’ I guess.

  He nods.

  ‘Do you ever miss it?’ I ask now, and he smiles sadly.

  ‘Yes, every day – especially in the winter.’

  ‘Would you ever move back?’ I continue, crossing my fingers behind my back in silent prayer.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he says, crinkling his brow as if I’m the first person to ever put the question to him. ‘The business means everything to me, you understand? And it would be hard to do the same thing in Greece, I think.’

  Thank heavens for that, I think, but actually say, ‘The business means everything to me, too.’

  Theo turns to face me, his eyes dark pools, then extends an arm.

  ‘Shall we?’

  We walk across the sand until it feels damp and sticky underfoot, and Theo bends down to pick up a wide, flat pebble, which he tries and fails to make skim over the surface of the water.

  ‘I’m sorry this is the first time I’ve brought you along for a shoot,’ he says. ‘It’s not because I don’t appreciate you – I do very much.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to explain,’ I mutter. ‘Honestly, I’m just happy to work with you. I mean, for you.’

  ‘You have really impressed me since we’ve been here,’ he tells me, lobbing yet another stone. ‘And before that, too, of course. I think this is going to be a very special film when it’s finished.’

  ‘I think so, too,’ I agree, acute joy making my voice squeaky.

  ‘It’s been nice getting to see what you are like away from the office, too, Hannah,’ he says, matter-of-factly. ‘I find it easy to talk to you, and there aren’t many people in my life that I can relax with in this way.’

  Bloody hell – did he really just say that?

  ‘Thanks,’ I mumble, at a loss for what else to say. I’d like to tell him that I feel the same way, but I’m about as relaxed around Theo as I would be around a rattlesnake I’d just poked with a big stick. When he looks at me, just like he is right now, it makes me want to climb inside myself just to hide from him. Thankfully, a particularly rogue wave decides that this is the perfect moment to rush up the shore and soak us, and I’m able to leap up in the air and yelp, which saves me from having to formulate a proper reply.

  ‘Come on,’ Theo laughs, wringing sea water out of the bottom of his shorts. ‘Let’s go and explore the rest of this place.’

  11

  The sun moves seamlessly up to its highest point, pressing its hot fingers against our bare limbs as we leave the beach and take the main road along to the village. It’s been years since I had a proper tan, but I’m beginning to notice my skin gradually changing colour. It feels softer somehow, but looks coarser, and there’s a splatter of freckles across my chest. I’m still ridiculously white compared to Theo, of course, whose natural shade seemed to merge from toffee to milk chocolate practically overnight.

  I’d love to know what the local Spanish people think of us as we stroll past them. Do they assume we’re a couple? It thrills me to think that they might. One thing is for certain: I have never felt as close to Theo as I do right now. We talk to one another all the time at work, of course, but never about personal things. I love my job so much that it distracts me from becoming too flustered, and I’m able to hide my true feelings for Theo behind my scribbled pages of research notes. Liking him as much as I do has probably helped me become better at my job, if I’m honest. It’s not just my passion for discovery that drives me to chase a story down until I catch it, it’s my need to be noticed by the man I can’t seem to stop loving.

  Once we reach the sheltered, winding streets of San José village, the temperature drops to a more pleasant level, and I can stop worrying about sweat patches appearing on my clothes. Many of the small boutiques here are packed with trinkets, artwork and gifts, similarly to the shops back in Mojácar, and I wonder if Elaine’s prints have made it this far along the coast. She still hasn’t told me her surname, so I’m not sure which signature to look out for in the bottom corner of each reproduction, but I do find myself drawn to one image. It’s a simple enough painting of Mojácar that’s been printed on to a large postcard, but in this one the artist has added a double rainbow over the clutter of white houses.

  ‘You like this?’ Theo asks. He’s just been inside the shop to buy us both a bottle of water, and he unscrews the lid of mine before handing it to me.

  ‘I do,’ I say. ‘I’ve never seen two rainbows like this before. I didn’t know you could get more than one at once.’

  ‘Of course you can.’ Theo is surprised. ‘I have seen this many times in Greece.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ I reply with a smile, only just managing not to tell him how much the rainbows remind me of my childhood Care Bears obsession.

  ‘They must be quite rare in Mojácar,’ I add. ‘My friend Elaine told me that it hardly ever rains there – even in the winter months.’

  ‘I will buy this for you,’ he says, taking the picture out of my hand and heading to the till for the second time.

  ‘No!’ I argue, running after him. ‘You already bought me water.’

  ‘And you bought me churros,’ he replies, grinning with satisfaction as I accept the little paper bag. It’s only a postcard, but I feel so happy that it may as well have been an engagement ring.

  We carry on exploring until our rumbling stomachs draw us through the open doorway of a small traditional restaurant, which is tucked away in a shady corner on the edge of the village. Wicker chairs creak as we
pull them out from beneath a square wooden table, and Theo almost knocks over a small vase of cheerful red flowers as he sits down.

  ‘You like paella?’ he checks, before launching into an effortlessly sexy flow of Spanish. The waitress, who is petite, dark-haired and pretty in the delicate way that I could never be, hangs around the table for far too long after she’s taken our order, fussing over the arrangement of a paper cloth and sets of cutlery wrapped in napkins.

  ‘Get in line, love,’ I feel like saying. It’s a bit unfair to dislike the poor girl on first sight, but she reminds me unnervingly of Nancy.

  The bread arrives and with it the little birds that I’ve grown so accustomed to over the past few days. Hopping across the caramel-and-cream floor tiles, their inquisitive little heads tilted and their beaks open to reveal bright pink mouths, they line up around the table legs like a tiny army, waiting for the crumbs to drop.

  ‘You asked me about Greece earlier,’ Theo says, his head also on one side. ‘But where is your home?’

  ‘Do you mean where I grew up?’ I ask, and he nods. ‘To be honest, I don’t really think of that place as home any more – I don’t think I have for a long time.’

  ‘Is London home, then?’ he guesses, but I shake my head.

  ‘Not really. Sorry, I’m not making much sense, am I?’