Page 47 of A Copenhagen Snowmance

“I don’t need you making decisions for me. I grew up like that; Ida’s decisions were never a discussion. If she decided she wanted to leave somewhere, we’d be gone. My decisions are my own now.”

Something clicks in Jamie’s head. She sees the realisation on his face and watches as he looks behind him at the suitcase in the hallway. “You’re leaving? Because of this? It was supposed to be a good thing. It was supposed to move you on, not move you out.”

“There was a flight available. It’s time for me to go back to London and get on with my life and it’s time for you to have your house back, some peace and some quiet, and you can spend time with Lajla and Nikoline.”

His brow pulls even closer in. “Is that what you’re thinking?

That I want to get back with Lajla? I don’t.

She and I, we will only ever be co-parents.

That’s it. If I’m lucky. Hopefully she’ll let me be part of Nikoline’s life, but she could reverse that whenever she likes.

So, the best I can hope for going forward is to be good friends and co-parents.

And more to the point, that’s all I want from her.

Nothing else. Lajla and I are not going to be a thing. ”

“Not even for Nikoline? You could be a family.” The image of them all outside, a beautiful trio, hangs in her mind’s eye.

He shakes his head, his eyes clear. “No, Anna, not even for Nikoline. Lajla used me to have a child and would have kept her existence from me if she’d had her way.

I can’t get past that kind of deceit. Can I put it aside in getting to know Nikoline?

Aye. But never in a relationship. It’s about trust, isn’t it?

But you? With you, Anna, I want us to be something. ”

That mental box in her head rattles, but unwilling to unseal it, she shakes her head.

Jamie dips his head. “I overstepped. With Maiken. I see that now. You’re angry. I see that, too. But I do think it would help you, Anna, to really talk it out with her.”

“And, what? Be friends again?”

“Maybe. We can’t change things if we won’t communicate.” She doesn’t think he’s just talking in general terms here.

“Nor will we if we won’t listen,” she snaps back, then takes a breath. She appreciates his optimism but in this case she needs to burst his bubble.

“Here’s the thing, Jamie: not everything can be fixed.

Not everything should be fixed. My relationship with Maiken isn’t one of those Kintsugi vases.

It never will be. Some relationships you have to just let go.

Even if we had made up today, Maiken would never be a person I go to with problems, bad news, or to celebrate with, ever again.

It’s done. Our friendship has no value to me now.

I’ll only ever be indifferent to her, at best. And, you know what?

That’s OK. I’m all right with that now I’ve seen who she is.

I don’t need her in my life.” She gives him a shrug.

“Maybe you did move me on, just not how you thought.”

“This might just be early days, if you two—”

“You’re not listening,” she flares, exasperated at this man, who is blinkered in his goal to fix things.

“Please listen. I know it’s totally against your life mission, but you need to see some things are unfixable.

They’ve reached their natural end, as messy as that might look to you.

To me, this mess has been sorted. And I need you to respect that decision. ”

She can see him mulling her words, and how it goes against every grain. “Please listen, Jamie,” she says quietly. And she sees his shoulders sink.

“I’m sor—” he starts but cuts off, his eyes resting on the paper and pen on the table. “You were going without saying goodbye?” The instant set of his jaw, the deep contraction of his brow, and the crossing of his arms, expresses his resentment perfectly.

“My plane leaves in a couple of hours. I was out of time and you were out with Lajla.” He narrows his eyes at that, batting away any accusation there. “Look, I wanted to say thank you for taking me in.”

“That’s all you think this has been?” He sounds bitter. And rightly so. It has been more.

“No. Of course not,” she admits, “but I want to avoid—”

“Avoid what?” She doesn’t answer, and it seems to push him over an edge.

“You want to talk about avoidance, Anna, aside from your hiding in your room for the last two days?” His arms are still crossed, the jaw still tense, but his eyes are quite blazing now. “The moment we happened, and man did we happen, you started freaking out.”

“I was not freaking out,” she mumbles, but he might have her on the hiding in her room thing.

“You pulled back the very next day,” he corrects, but she suspects it’s just semantics, he knows how he sees it. Jamie closes his eyes, breathes deeply through his nose, and returns to meet her gaze. “I get it,” he says, his tone controlled “You’re scared.”

“I am not scared.”

“You are, though. Because you’ve had your trust broken, in the worst of ways, and so you don’t want to go there again. But here’s my thing; I’m not Carl, and you can trust me.”

His insistence of knowing her mind riles her. “Can I, though? Really, Jamie? A guy who fake-dates to get to the mother of his child?” It’s unfair but she feels on the back foot.

“We covered that. I admitted I got that wrong. But you trust me, Anna. If you didn’t you wouldn’t have stayed here.”

“I had nowhere else to go.”

“Right,” he scoffs. “Katrine doesn’t have a spare sofa?”

“It’s my house,” she points out, grasping at straws.

“Aye, and I’ve never said otherwise. I was fine with you staying.”

“Once you’d googled me.”

“Not apologising for survival instincts,” he returns, unabashed. “You do trust me, Anna, and I’m asking you to hold onto that, to believe in us.”

Anna studies the floor, but it holds no answer for her.

A phone alarm chimes in her pocket. She’s out of time.

Raising her eyes to him, she says finally, “I can’t.”

“You won’t. Different.”

Her eyes widen with exasperation, and frustration at him not understanding this, or not wanting to understand her position.

“How can I believe in something that can’t work?

I am leaving,” she spells out. “You always knew that. I backed off because I didn’t want to hurt you.

I never wanted to be another woman leaving you. ”

“Surely that’s my problem, the hurt? That was my risk to take. And I am here for it.” His hands have moved from his chest to his hips and Jamie looks ready to take on the world.

“Then you have no sense of self-protection,” Anna snaps. “Or you haven’t felt what real hurt feels like.”

He throws his head back with a “Ha! I know hurt, Anna, trust me, but I won’t let it shape me, like it does you.

This is about trust. Trusting your own feelings and someone else who sees you and wants you.

I’ve given you space, but god it’s tiring, because what I see is you drifting away and not because that’s what you really want, but because you’re too fucking scared to face the right direction. ”

They’ve reached an impasse and she is done, given what she sees as his inability to listen. She walks around the table towards her bags. She can’t bring herself to look at him.

He catches her wrist.

“You won’t take a risk,” he says hotly. “And little wonder, given your mother never taught you to stick around or work for a relationship.” His anger reignites her own.

“Don’t you come at my mother,” she rages, the stab at Ida being a step too far, and before she can stop herself, she punches back, “at least mine stuck around for me…”

Whatever he was about to say, it catches in his mouth and they stand for a long moment, the awfulness of what she just said hanging spectre-like between them. He releases her wrist, the skin instantly cold.

Then, eyes dull now and shaken, Jamie finally nods towards her bags and says, “You’re right. It’s time for you to go.”