Page 51 of A Copenhagen Snowmance

“You kept me here under false pretences.”

“List them.”

“That there were no flights!”

“I don’t think even I have the connections to get all the airlines to follow a ruse like that.”

“But you could have got me a ticket!”

“We don’t know that. I only called just now after you left. It might have been the first return ticket available. Maybe I’m just very lucky. My marzipan piggy suggests this to be the case.”

“Can I suggest somewhere you can shove your lucky piggy?”

He turns to her now, his grin dropping to a far more serious face.

“Anna. I know I’m lucky, because I rent the door you knocked on.

And since I opened the door to you, bedraggled, wet, crying and snotty, I haven’t wanted you to leave.

But can you honestly say I have at any point stopped or hindered you? ”

“No,” she mumbles crossly.

“Did you feel at any point that I was keeping you there against your will?”

“No.”

“Have we had fun in the meantime?”

“A bit,” she concedes sourly.

“A bit. Right. Well, I’ve had a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, you got to spend time with Katrine.

You did good things regarding me and Nikoline.

You laid P?lse to rest properly, let’s not forget that.

And whether or not you believe it’s for the good, like I do, you finally got to face Carl and Maiken.

You got to be a poster girl for the city you were born in, and I think you are a little less angry at the city.

So much good came out of the extra time you had here. ”

So yes, from such a point of view it might look like that.

“Don’t think I’m going to thank you, Jamie.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’m here to thank you, really.”

“You are?” Honestly, life seems topsy-turvy to her sometimes. She thought he was here to administer a bollocking.

“Sure. Things just blew up before I got a chance to say it.”

She isn’t so sure about where this is heading.

“I got to have a lovely Christmas, not alone.”

“Pffft, you had two invites! Maybe three,” she mimics him, still miffed he had invites where she had none.

“I got to hang out with you, and kiss you, and become a poster boy for this city which I love, and to sleep with you, and to fall in love with you.”

Anna’s jaw drops.

“Don’t look so gobsmacked, Anna. It felt pretty fucking obvious.

But obvious or not, I need to tell you. Because the thought of you flying away from me – or by the looks of it, me flying away from you – without you properly knowing how I feel, makes me very sad, which we know won’t do in the happiest of countries.

“And before you say I haven’t been listening to what you said about this being for the best and that I should respect your decision, I have to say I have listened and I do respect it, but you weren’t in receipt of all the facts.

I hadn’t told you yet I’m in love with you, so you were, you know, making decisions on scanty facts. ”

“Scanty facts?” She’s not sure that’s even proper English.

“Scanty facts, aye.” He nods solemnly. “But here’s my question; Do you really, really want to go back to live in London, or are you in fact running?”

Denial is obviously her immediate thought.

But it would be a lie. And she’s just been shouting at Carl about not being a mind reader and how people should communicate better, so she gives it to Jamie straight.

“Part of me feels I have a plan and I’m safer if I stick to it.

It’s been like that since I discovered Carl and Maiken.

It’s the only thing that’s held me together for the last year and a half.

Another part of me tells me how easy it would be to come back, to move back into the house, live here again.

” With a shy look she adds, “With you. And there’s part of that which scares the crap out of me, and I don’t know why. ”

“Could it be because it sounds stable,” Jamie ventures, “and you grew up without that? That you grew up seeing constantly moving on as the thing grown-ups do? Life with Ida sounds extraordinary, and I mean her no disrespect, but it doesn’t sound like you ever saw that relationships can have longevity, because she never stayed.

Staying here with me is the opposite of that.

Throw in a bad experience with Carl, where you went against your upbringing, bought into stability, only for him to let you down. Those things, maybe?”

There is so much of that which resonates with her.

Ida had always been ready to go at a moment’s notice, her big handbag packed with most things they’d need for a speedy exit.

A similar bag now sits at Anna’s feet, bought as soon as she had enough wages to buy one.

And of course, the first thing she’d done when she’d uncovered Carl and Maiken’s betrayal was to pack up and leave her own home.

Then, today, she’d immediately searched for a ticket. Oh, bloody hell, she’s mini-Ida!

“Don’t run, Anna,” Jamie says, sliding his fingers into hers. “Fly. Fly when you need to – the job, seeing Ida, whatever, but fly back home to me.”

That doesn’t sound so bad. Birds return, don’t they? Homing pigeons, migratory birds, those storks who come back to the exact same nest year after year. She could be a stork.

But a small sniff escapes her. “I don’t know if I can trust my own judgement anymore, Jamie. That’s what they did to me.”

He leans closer and says at her ear, “Then trust mine, Anna, just while your head catches up with your heart. I’ve got you.”

Her eyes are filling as she searches his face for signs of why she shouldn’t take him at his word and dare. Risk the hurt, Katrine had said. Looking at him, she’s filled with an overwhelming feeling that Jamie is worth the risk.

“You’re the jigsaw piece that fits with me, Anna.

You complete me. You tell me when I’m overstepping and when I’m meddling or trying to fix the unfixable.

I need that. I want that. I want you. And I want to be the man who completes you, whose job it is to show you your trust is warranted, who has your back in the face of the things you fear.

” She scrunches her nose. “Without over-pushing you to face them,” he quickly adds. “I get it, now. And I am sorry.”

“No, you were right,” she concedes. “I don’t like to face things, but I’ve seen Carl and Maiken, and even the evil Morten, and it didn’t kill me.

I might have hated it, but it didn’t destroy me.

If anything, it’s given me the perspective to let the shame go.

Because the shame is theirs, not mine. And while I’ve been sitting here with my hot dog and Cocio, I’ve been realising something really important. ”

“What’s that then?”

Anna looks up into his eyes. “That without you in my life, I’ll never be content. Simple as that. And so, by my own logic, I won’t ever be truly happy. Not without you.” She gives him a small smile. “I think I have a Kintsugi heart, and you are the gold.”

She watches the smile spread across his face. “It’s a beautiful heart,” he says. She squeezes his hand.

“And you are here,” she goes on, “so here is where I must be, sharing your duvet, even if here is…” The word isn’t there for her, but a wince suffices.

Jamie takes her Cocio and points to her phone on her lap.

“Pull up the secret Pinterest board.”

She thinks to bluff “What secret board?” but he’s trying to show her something, so she complies.

He slides through the photos. Tivoli, the park, Kongens Nytorv, stargazing.

Even the bloody Copenhot bikini shot. Kisses and smiles all the way.

“You’ve saved these for a reason, and I don’t think it’s just because it’s you and me.

It’s you and me and Copenhagen. You might feel awkward because of what happened with Carl here, but when I look at them, I see you belonging here.

I think you will, too, when you let yourself. Saving these photos is part of that.”

It makes sense to her. Those photos have been swiped through daily. “I’ll work on it,” she says.

“And if you really can’t, then we’ll move,” he says lightly.

Anna looks at him agape. “What? No! What about Nikoline?” Would he really move away from her? From the job he loves? He’d have some explaining to do to his dad…

“Anna, my life with Nikoline will for years be at the whim of Lajla, who I’ll never fully trust, given past experience.

But if the offer is to be with you, live with you, love you, on a daily basis, then yes, that’s what I’d pick.

I’ll find other ways to be in Nikoline’s life.

You’ve given me the in now and the rest is up to what Lajla and I can work out. ”

Anna is stunned. That he’s offering to give up so much for her, so many things which are so important to him, in a city he loves.

And frankly, it chastens her; the weight she’s put on her home city keeping her away.

Having decided to cast off the worries about other people’s gossip and ill-will, it feels pig-headed now to hang onto this.

She lifts their clasped hands and kisses the back of his.

“No need, Jamie. I’m coming home.”

He pulls their hands across and kisses the back of hers, like they’ve just sealed a deal.

“For the record, I think you had me at the doorstep, too,” she admits, feeling shy.

Jamie places another kiss at her temple. “It was the small towel, wasn’t it?”

“So small,” she guffaws. “I didn’t stand a chance.”

There’s movement around them as some waiting passengers begin to stand up and walk.

“They’ve called my flight,” Jamie says, looking over her shoulder.

She feels her teeth grind slightly. Her flight information hasn’t changed. “You don’t need to go to London, Jamie. I’m coming back. I promise.”

“I can help you start packing,” he says.

She tilts her head.

“No meddling. Got it,” he says. “Although it’s going to be harder to get out of the airport from here, than taking the plane to England and returning. Just saying.”

“Surely you have a friend who’ll help you?” she says with a smile and some snark.

“I’ll stay until your flight is called?”

“Could be hours yet. Go home. I’ll FaceTime you when I get there.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Reluctantly he stands, then pulls her up and reels her in to him. She cradles his face and looks deeply into his eyes. “I love you, Jamie MacDonald. I’ll be back soon.”

And then he kisses her, a culmination of all the first kisses and then the fake kisses and the recent true kisses, a kiss so fine and tender and bespoke for her, that there’s seriously no doubt at all she’ll be back.

She’ll swim if she has to. Notice on her apartment will be served first thing in the morning.

“It’s them!” says a fellow passenger from behind them.

Anna opens one eye to see various people snapping pictures of them, as they stand not fifty metres from a poster of themselves kissing outside Tivoli.

Jamie tightens his arms around her and Anna closes her eye again, content and ridiculously happy.