Page 85 of The Edge of Always

I don’t rest. Emmett comes to lie next to me, and we whisper about how amazing the spa is. I’m possibly talking to his pecs. He looks like a runner to me. He’s not stacked or anything, he’s still on the lean side. He’s pale and there’s a small patch of dark hair on his chest. Whatever he’s got going on, it does it for me.

Part of me wonders if my heart is struggling so much because it’s preoccupied with diverting blood supply elsewhere.

A woman in a spa uniform comes to tell us that we can have our treatments now. Emmett just smiles and says, ‘my treat,’ but then I think he dies a bit because they show us into a couples’ treatment room.

He starts rabbiting in French, and the woman in the uniform looks horrified and leaves.

‘She’s checking whether they have two rooms.’ Emmett looks self-consciously at the two massage beds.

‘It’s fine,’ I tell him.

‘I didn’t mean to book a couple’s massage. I’m not that much of a cliché.’

I laugh a nervous titter but mostly I’m thinking cliché me Emmett, cliché me away!

‘Honestly, it’s fine. It’s a friendly thing to do, right?’ I think I’ll look back and wonder whether I’m being tortured or treated on this day. Possibly a bit of both.

The woman who looks like she should be on a runway somewhere is back, clipboard in hand, and tells us there is no other room.

Emmett, who appears to be suffering some exquisite pain right now, tells me as much and I reassure him that it’s fine. I’ll just be over here, half naked with my puffy ankles, literally dying, a couple of inches away from Emmett and his regular ankles.

Two more spa workers appear, armed with towels. This shit is getting serious then. I quickly fill out a questionnaire about my health. I’m not exactly honest. I just assume that if aromatherapy oils finish me off, I was probably a goner anyway.

And then I’m face-down on a bed. I’m looking at Emmett, because I thought it would be more awkward to look away from him. I see now that this was a total error. I should be staring at the wall. I have to look at him while some woman undoes the strap of my bikini top while they hit ‘play’ on the romance playlist. Clearly, they’re going in hard.

It’s been so long since someone touched me, I have to look at him while a woman I’ve never met runs her hands up my back and across my shoulders. I’m sure she swipes the side of my breast where it’s squished into the table.

I watch the same thing happen to Emmett. The way his skin glistens and gives under her thumbs.

It’s meant to be relaxing. It’s not relaxing.

‘You are very tense, yes,’ Emmett’s masseuse tells him in heavily accented French.

He just sort of grunts at her.

It’s amazing to me, the fact that we’re here. A week ago, I never thought I’d ever see Emmett again, and now here we are. On some ill-fated mission guided by Earl and his paintings, frolicking around Paris, half naked and in the middle of a couple’s massage.

I remind myself, for the tenth time this hour, why going there with Emmett is a bad idea. It’s an extensive list of reasons. It should take me far longer to get through than it does.

It’s just that watching him all oiled up makes me forget all the reasons. I’m struggling to even remember my own name.

No. Behave, brain. Different countries. Hurt me so bad in the past. Dying.

You know you really are desperate when even the thought of your untimely death doesn’t quash the horn.

We’re instructed to roll over so at least I don’t have to look at him anymore. I do have to lie there while the masseuse drapes the towel over my nipples so that half my breast is hanging out. It’s bad form to move the towel, isn’t it? It’s just a tiny towel. I thought this was a posh hotel. Why do they have such a small towel? It’s alright for Emmett, his towel covers everything he needs it to, though he does have his eyes shut. I have more parts in need of covering. I try to shuffle down the bed a fraction, to no avail.

To be on the safe side, I keep my eyes shut for the whole rest of the massage. It’s only when they leave us, mercifully wrapped up in towels (could have done with some of these earlier, Cherie) that I open one, tilting towards Emmett just a touch.

He has both eyes open. And he’s staring at the ceiling.

‘Thank you, that was lovely and relaxing,’ I lie.

‘Yes, very relaxing. You’re welcome.’ He sounds like a robot.

‘How long do you think we should lay here?’ I ask.

‘They said to take as long as we like.’