‘Kate,’ I tell her. ‘Whittaker.’ In case he’s forgotten.
She dials a number and it rings out. ‘I’m sorry. No answer.’
This has all been such a massive anti-climax. I thank her for her efforts and walk despondently back to the lift well, pressing the up button, just once this time.
The bell chimes almost immediately. The doors open and Hugh is lounging against the back of the elevator looking at his phone, shirt sleeves rolled up, loose tie, patience stretched by a ‘client’ not turning up, no doubt. Me again.
He glances up to check he’s on the ground floor and does a double take when he sees me standing in front of him, in all my jet-lagged glory: bare feet, tangled red hair falling in wet ringlets on the unflattering robe emblazoned with the hotel’s logo. Neither of us speaks. We stare at each other like we’ve forgotten our lines, until the doors begin to shut and we both lurch forward and push them open with our hands.
He contemplates my attire and his eyes eventually come to rest on my face. ‘Still cavorting around in pyjamas, I see.’
‘Technically, no,’ I say. ‘Just the robe.’
He seems thrown off base by that.
‘But this evening isn’t turning out at all the way I’d planned,’ I add.
He laughs. ‘You’re meant to be standing under a Norwegian light show,’ he says. ‘Number one on the bucket list, remember? Best display in decades, apparently. What happened?’
The lift doors try to close on us again and this time Hugh blocks both of them and I just stand there, reaching for my bucket list and Cam’s post-its in my pocket. Exhibits A and B.
A warning bell starts to chime in the lift, and Hugh takes my arm and drags me inside it. The doors finally close and it’s just us. I push the number eight. Hugh’s floor, according to Sophie, who I’d texted earlier. I can’t remember the exact room number but I was prepared to knock on every door, Love Actually–style if I had to. There’s not a rom-com I won’t emulate.
‘Where are we going?’ he says.
‘That’s why I’m here,’ I explain. ‘I edited my bucket list, you see.’
He looks confused, and I tighten the belt on my robe, feeling more exposed than I’ve ever been in my life.
‘But there’s something else I need to show you first,’ I say, handing him the first two of Cam’s messages. His face shifts in recognition when he reads the words. When I pass him the third and he reads Cam’s attempt to spell ‘devastated’， his entire body crumples.
‘I’m sorry you had to read those,’ he says, swallowing hard. I’m sorry he’s having to.
‘There was one more.’ When I pass the last note over, my hand is shaking, and he notices.
He reads the words to himself a few times. Then aloud. ‘“Loves Kate.” Cam was pretty far advanced with his dementia by that stage.’
My heart quickens. Tell me he hasn’t changed his mind . . .
‘But even then,’ Hugh continues, looking up almost shyly from across the lift, ‘he got it.’
‘And seemed to be okay with it,’ I add cautiously. ‘Or is that wishful thinking?’
‘It’s not. Remember we’d go for those beers, earlier on? He told me one time that I needed to make sure you understood he deeply wanted to see you happy one day. He wasn’t just saying it to make you feel better. He made me promise I’d try to get this through to you, if the time ever came. And then he said—’
Hugh chokes up, and I give him the moment he needs to finish what he’s trying to tell me.
‘He said, “Hugh, I think when that time comes, you’ll already be there.”’
Cam.
The lift pings on the eighth floor, breaking us out of that moment, into this one.
‘Shall we discuss this further in your room?’ I suggest. ‘I left mine quickly without the door key, you see. I’d have to go back downstairs and get a spare one, and . . .’
He smiles, takes my hand and leads me out of the lift, down the corridor and to the door of his suite.
‘What were you saying about your bucket list?’ he asks, looking for the key card in his wallet.
I gulp and pass the piece of paper to him. He reads the new words I’ve written at the top of the list, looks at me, hands the list back and places his key card into the slot. It flashes red.
‘I told you I don’t have one-night stands any more, Whittaker, even if having one with me is top of someone’s bucket list.’
I flush red. Now he’s gone off script, I don’t know what to do.
‘Even if you fly across the world and throw yourself at me, half-naked in a hotel elevator, I’m afraid I still can’t help you with that.’ He shoves the key card in the slot again, leans into the door to push it open, grabs the towelling belt around my waist and uses it to pull me into the room.
‘So we’re at another stalemate, then?’ I say. ‘What am I supposed to do now?’
‘Well,’ he says, ‘I hired you for the superior problem-solving skills you claimed you possess in your written application. Don’t tell me you exaggerated that?’
Is this a dare? Because I will absolutely rise to it.
I walk past him towards the bed, turn around, reach for his loosened tie and pull him close. We’re inches apart. I’m trying to think of something unarguably clever and sexy, but the jet lag is messing with my mind and I used up all my words in my book on the plane, which just leaves me with the option of doing something mega-stupid.
‘Marry me?’ I say, because apparently I only have one signature move, and I’ve lost all shame. All. Shame.
‘Wow, Kate. You’re really blue skying this!’ he says.
I rush everything. Proposing to Hugh was never in the plan. What must he think of me, arriving here out of nowhere, firing requests at him for a one-night stand and, failing that, matrimony . . .
He removes my fingers from their grip on his silk tie, undoes it and slips it off. Then he takes two glasses down from the shelf at the kitchenette, opens the mini bar and de-corks a bottle of champagne. He passes me a glass, but leaves his on the bench and opens another button on his shirt.
It seems clear at this point he’s chosen Option A: one-night stand. I’m kind of disappointed now, which is odd, given I’ve only had wedding bells on my mind for the last two minutes.
But he doesn’t take his shirt off yet. Instead he reaches into it and pulls out a necklace. Again, this is strange. He’s not the jewellery-wearing type.
Dangling from the necklace, though, is something else.
A square-cut diamond ring.
He undoes the clasp of the necklace, takes my hand, turns it palm up and lets the ring slip from the chain and fall into my grasp.
‘You had the aurora hanging around your neck all this time, representing your dream. I had this.’
‘To keep you focused?’ I ask, unable to believe any of this is real.
‘To keep me hopeful. I didn’t want to interrupt your plans. I knew you had to take this trip, and why, but as soon as you left, I was just . . . bereft. Told myself it should be impossible to grieve this much for a woman who is still alive.’
‘I cried all the way to America. Desperately missing Cam. Desperately missing you. Wishing this whole thing wasn’t so complicated.’