‘Where did this come from?’ I say as I unzip the garment bag millimetre by millimetre. Snowdrop flowers are embossed in the vinyl material and half of me already knows what’s inside and the other half is terrified to find out. My face is still red and blotchy, my breath is shuddery from all the crying, and my nose burns again as I pull the zip down to reveal the dress. My dress, the one I cancelled last week. ‘Who sent this?’
‘I did.’
Goose bumps cover my entire body at the sound of his voice.
‘Why?’ I say, stuttering over a single word as Rohan steps out of Oliver’s office.
‘Because I wanted you to have it. Because you believed in me and I know what reading those papers in my bag did to you, and I wanted you to have your dream back.’
‘My dreams have never been about a wedding, Ro. It’s about what it symbolises. This is just a dress. I could get married in a bin liner and it would mean just as much.’
‘I know. But you love that dress.’ He comes over and hands me a bunch of flowers. ‘And you never know, you might need it one day.’
‘Edelweiss,’ I say, deliberately ignoring the implied intention in those words. Instead I look down at the bunch of furry white flowers in my hand, their chocolatey musk scent filling my nose with memories of our weeks on the island. ‘Where did you get these?’
‘Where do you think? Clara’s husband did a special trip for me yesterday to pick them.’
‘With your seasickness?’
His face breaks into a wide smile. ‘It was worth it.’
‘Ro…’
‘Let me say it,’ he says before I have a chance to say anything else. ‘The guy who doesn’t believe in love is head over heels in love with you. I’m so sorry for what I wrote in those notes, but they honestly were for the bin. I just had visions of Clara going through our rubbish and finding us out.’
‘I think she knew all along.’
‘Yeah.’ He laughs. ‘But that’s okay because I thoroughly enjoyed the pretence.’
‘Me too,’ I say with a smile. After the week I’ve had since I found those notes, I can’t believe he’s here. I can’t believe the article he wrote. I can’t believe what he seems to be suggesting… I can’t believe that I might not have been wrong after all.
‘I meant what I said on the beach the other night. I don’t want to pretend to be engaged to you, Bon. I want to be actually engaged to you.’
‘You don’t ever want to get married.’
He hunches his shoulders in a slow shrug. ‘I didn’t ever want to watch The Sound of Music either. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it.’
‘They’re not quite the same thing,’ I say, my breath catching in my throat. ‘You’re telling me you would consider getting married?’
‘Well, not today, because I’m not going to propose in the middle of your office with a bunch of colleagues you probably don’t like watching on,’ he says with a wink. ‘And I wouldn’t want to outdo the romance of the tying my shoelace proposal, but someday… I wouldn’t rule it out. On one condition…’
I smile, loving that he never loses his sarcastic humour. ‘What?’
He nods towards the garment bag. ‘You’d have to wear that dress.’
‘Well, it is a wedding dress. I’m not going to wear it for my next dentist appointment, am I?’ I reach out and run my fingers over the ivory satin material. ‘I know how much this cost, Ro. You shouldn’t have done that.’
‘It’s a beautiful dress for a beautiful girl, and it’s been yours from the moment you saw it. When I went into that shop and they told me it was no longer on hold for you… I’ve always thought my heart broke when I was jilted at the altar, but it didn’t. It broke when I realised that that was how much I’d hurt you. I know it’s not about the dress, but it’s a symbol – a symbol of how much I want to see you in it one day.’
‘She can go and try it on for you now, if you want,’ Oliver says.
I meet Rohan’s eyes and we both burst out laughing.
‘Not quite what I meant, but thank you,’ Rohan says, nodding politely at my boss who doesn’t seem to understand what’s so funny. The phone rings and Oliver looks like he’s glad of the escape as he goes to answer it.
It makes me remember that we’ve got an audience. Not just every person in my building has come in to look, but I think people from neighbouring buildings have come for a gawp too. Someone’s even brought their goldfish.
Rohan looks between me and the nearest row of people like he can sense my unease. ‘If you say you’ll have dinner with me tonight, I’ll go away and stop embarrassing you at work.’
‘What if dinner was a takeaway pizza and curling up on the sofa with some old musical film that you think you hate but are open to having your mind changed on?’ I say, because I want to just be with him. With no one else around, no acts, no pretences, nothing but us as we really are.
‘I’d say I think I’ve found my perfect woman. But I already knew that.’
I can’t get the smile off my face and neither can he as he steps closer and goes to kiss me. It’s only intended to be a peck but as with all kisses with Rohan, it’s impossible to stop it going further as his hand slides across my jaw and one presses against my lower back, holding me impossibly closer, and it takes every ounce of my willpower to push him away because we can’t have a full-scale snogging session in front of all these people.
He groans and wraps his arms around me, hugging me tight to his chest. ‘So I haven’t completely blown it then?’ he whispers, his voice sounding just a bit too shaky, like he’s genuinely scared that my answer will be yes.
‘You revealed your real name for me. You laid yourself bare in that article, Ro. I can imagine what that took. A month ago, I would never have thought you’d do that. It said everything there is to say.’ I pull back and look up at him. ‘And, you know, maybe I could’ve been a bit more hasty and actually spoken to you about the notes, not just run away and left you stranded.’
He laughs. ‘Oh, Clara relished having me for another night. She lectured me about what an idiot I was until two a.m., then she took a brief nap before starting up again at six, and Amabel came over to join in at seven, and when I tried to escape for breakfast, Kittie refused to serve me in the café. They left me in no doubt about what they’d do to me if I didn’t make it right, and chopping me up and putting me in a stew seems tame in comparison.’
I smile. ‘They’re good people. I’m glad you didn’t write about the church.’
‘I couldn’t. I knew you wouldn’t either. Everyone’s so lovely there. They don’t publicise the church for a reason, a nice reason, and I couldn’t betray that.’
I tighten my arms around him. ‘Wow. You could be The Man Land’s next cover story. R.C. Art in sentimental romantic shocker,’ I whisper against his chest.
‘R.C. Art in having to find something else to write about for his monthly column shocker,’ he says. ‘I don’t think I can keep ridiculing weddings now I can see myself getting married one day.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. I can picture myself waking up next to you every day for the rest of my life, Bon. I’ve never been able to picture myself as anything but alone, but now I can imagine making breakfast with you every day, sending our kids off to school, walking our dog… Actually, it’s not just that I can imagine it, it’s that I can’t imagine my life any other way now.’
My face is actually hurting from how much I’m smiling. ‘Neither can I.’
He pulls back from the hug and kisses me again, and a cheer goes up around the office. I feel warm all over, like I’ve finally found what I’ve been hoping for, what I’ve seen so many other couples feel and thought I’d never find for myself.
‘That was the boss of Hambridge,’ Oliver says, coming back from his office. ‘The Man Land has sold out and gone for another emergency print run, and Two Gold Rings has had more website hits this morning than it has in the whole of last year put together. People are looking for your side of the story, Bonnie. We’ve got online pre-orders of next month’s issue for more copies than are being printed. Safe to say that neither of us is their worst-performing magazine any longer and the battle of the mags is cancelled immediately. In fact, he suggested we work together more often.’
A cheer goes up around the office.
‘We did that,’ I whisper, looking up at Rohan. ‘We saved ourselves.’
‘I think we might’ve saved a bit more than just our magazines,’ he whispers back. ‘With a little help from some islanders.’