The coffee shop wasn't what it used to me. There'd been a change of manager, and he'd blitzed through the exclusivity with commercial offers and sales on frothy milkshakes. Now, the place was becoming like any other over-priced, over-populated high street coffee bar. What the new manager had failed to realise was that Gold's offer to pour money into the shop to help it retain it's quiet dignity had not been a joke. He'd have paid a small fortune to have somewhere he felt comfortable and not alone.

Gold could seldom get to his table anymore. None of the barista's – except the manager – were able to recall his order. The books on the shelves hadn't been replaced for some time and they were being abused as coasters and serviettes, among other things. The place was falling apart around him, but he had nowhere else to go, and bitter loneliness chewed at his soul.

Gold pushed his way through the crowd and walked to his booth. There were three kids sat there, slurping various coloured milkshakes. One of them was using the books to build a semi-artistic tower, the others were fixated by their phones.

'Looks cool, don't it?' she asked, balancing a final book on the top like a room. 'C'mere, an' take a selfie with the tower so we can Snapchat it to Jen.'

Gold frowned. He was left wondering for a second if they were even speaking English. Perhaps if they actually read the books instead of using them as building blocks they'd know how to conjugate the verb "to do" correctly. Perhaps they'd know that a "selfie" is an insult to the language and that "Snapchat" is a noun.

He almost told them, but instead, he kept his lips pressed tightly together and waited until the three girls were posed and pouting towards the camera.

He used his cane to knock the book tower over.

'Hey, what you doing man!' the gobbiest cried.

'Move,' he seethed.

'Wha'? Why?'

'You're in my seat.'

'Err, I don't see your name on it,' a second girl spat.

'Oh, it's there dearie,' he hissed. 'It's in the fibres of the cloth, in the coffee stains on the carpet and the smell of the books kept on that shelf.'

'You're weird,' the first girl concluded. It was probably a fair-enough assessment and he smiled crookedly at her, before leaning close and whispering:

'Move.'

'Look, man, we ain't going nowhere, right?'

'That's a double negative dearie, suggests you are going somewhere,' Gold explained, sliding into the booth on the opposite side to the girls. 'But you're welcome to stay as long as you don't disturb my reading.'

'You're totes weird,' the first girl stated, leaping to her feet. The phrase actually made Gold cringe. When did schools stop teaching people how to speak properly? Or should he be blaming their parents? Or perhaps the media?

'Come on, let's go,' said one.

'I'm going to tell the manager,' a second threatened.

'Ooo, please do,' Gold smirked. 'It's been a while since I've spoken to Charlie.'

It was barely even five minutes before Charlie was at his table. He was carrying Gold's usual coffee and wearing a solemn expression.

'You can't keep kicking people out of this booth,' he said, placing the beverage in front of Gold and sitting down in the seat the language-lugs had just vacated. Was Gold never going to get this booth to himself?

'Well, I wouldn't have to if you,' he pointed to the beardy idiot, 'stopped letting riffraff in.'

'Oh, I'm trying but you keep coming back anyway.'

Gold stared back coldly in response.

'It was a joke,' Charlie tried, with half a smile.

Gold kept staring.

'Oh, forget it,' he groaned, pushing himself back to his feet. He was about to leave when he said:

'I'm nervous too.'

'Too?'

'You're shaking.'

'I assure you I'm not,' but it was a lie and it was foolish. He was shaking, so hard that the seat was vibrating and his legs were jiggling with nervous energy. It had just been so long since….

'You don't have to pretend with me, Gold,' Charlie said steadily. 'I lost her too, you know. I was just as cut up about it as you were.'

'You, dearie?' he scorned. 'You change women like you change offensive shirts.'

'Another dig about the shirts, huh?'

'Well, you do insist on wearing them.'

Charlie paused and shook his head, with nothing but disdain etched on his ugly face:

'I'll never understand what she saw in you…'

That was, at least, something they could agree on.

'… but I know you'll never win her back.'

'You think that's why I'm here?' Gold laughed a little too hard at the suggestion. 'To win her back?'

'Isn't it?'

'Oh, dear no. I'm just returning something that belongs to her.'

'Well if that's all, I'd be happy to give it to her,' Charlie suggested, holding out a hand. What Gold looked at was a large hand covered with tiny burn marks; the plague of being a barista. There were a few dark smudges from handling coffee powder and his nails were chewed and dirty. But what Gold saw was a chance to avoid seeing Belle altogether, a chance to sidestep that horrible moment when he realised that any feelings they might almost have had were long gone.

He closed his eyes and felt for the book in his deep coat pocket.

'You know,' he looked straight in Charlie's dark eyes, 'she gave it to me to hold on to. I think I should be the one to give it back.'

'Suit yourself,' Charlie shrugged.

Gold waited until the man was gone, before pulling the book from his pocket. It still smelt of her a little, just beyond the ash and desperation. He hadn't looked at it for over a year. He'd simply locked it in a box and refused to think about it. It had worked until he'd seen the poster outside his once-favourite coffee shop two weeks ago announcing that "top selling author in the UK, Belle French, will be reading a passage from her book".

He'd told himself every day that he wasn't going to go, but he'd felt the burned book calling to him, or more importantly calling to Belle. He doubted the book was still her talisman. He doubted that she'd even recognise it if she saw it, but Mr Gold was a man of his word. So he was here, in this coffee shop he'd grown to hate, drinking a watery version of what used to be his favourite coffee served by a man who's shirt was decorated with sideburns, or ear hair, or whatever untrimmed, unkempt facial-fur abomination was currently hip … in an ironic way.

Gold had almost finished his coffee before Charlie appeared on the shabby stage. It was exactly the one that Jenni Jottings had stood on all that time ago. Belle would probably like that, if the fame of "UK's Best Selling Author" wasn't going to her head and she wasn't too good to remember that she'd once liked that wish-wash drivel that Jenni Jottings had written.

'It's the moment many of us are waiting for,' Charlie said, as though he was ring master about to announce a lion tamer. Belle deserved someone with a little more class to introduce her and her novel.

Gold had read it, of course he had. It was a literary masterpiece. A realistic story of unrequited love, which showed every character in a compassionate light, whilst not shying away from the darker side of human nature. It didn't have a hint of those fairy tales she'd always liked so much. It smacked of gloomy reality, which you'd give up on if it wasn't for those interwoven sparks of hope. Hope was too powerful an emotion for even a professional cynic like himself to ignore.

Hope was why he'd kept hold of that book for all these months. Hope was why he was sat in this coffee shop. Hope was why his stomach fluttered as the threadbare curtains were pushed aside and Belle appeared.

She was exquisite; more beautiful than even Gold remembered. Her smile was reaching right to those beautiful blue eyes and she was waving to a few chosen members of her audience. She was wearing a tartan tunic dress, which made her look a little Scottish, and reminded him of home, of a time when he'd belonged and hadn't been an outcast. Everything began to feel a little too perfect.

He had to remind himself that the dress was probably just some current fashion trend. Glancing around, he could see that plenty of other people in the coffee shop had some tartan patter on them; there was a girl with a tartan bag, and one with a tartan jacket with leather sleeves. Right, good. This was not some weird game fate was playing. He was just being foolish, seeing clues that didn't exist.

'Wow,' Belle said into a microphone that Charlie had handed her. 'I didn't expect there to be so many people.'

She'd picked up the mildest hint of an English accent, blurring in with Australian roots and her American twang.

'I can't believe it. I'm so grateful to all of you for coming.'

She lowered herself gracefully into the chair Charlie had provided. It was an armchair not dissimilar to the one Gold had in his own house, and again he had to shake his head free from a fantasy that Belle would look wonderful sitting in his arm chair, in his library reading.

'So,' she continued, pressing the creases from her dress, 'I thought I'd read a passage from my book and then, we could do a few Q&As. Then, if anyone wants, I'll be here to sign any books or talk to you in private afterwards, how does that sound?'

She didn't trail off on a single sentence, she didn't look at the ground or nervously fiddle with her hair. She'd matured into a confident woman, with a command of herself and of this audience. She didn't even sound the same as when Gold had known her!

All at once he knew that coming here was a disaster.

Hadn't he promised himself on that New Years that he would no longer live in the past? Hadn't he stopped sopping at the door, pushed himself to his feet, poured himself a whiskey and toasted the future with the ghosts of his past? He'd been doing so well … until today. She wouldn't even want the bloody book if he gave it to her. She probably wouldn't even know what it was.

Belle's voice was made for storytelling. She'd inherited the British love of precise intonation, whilst retaining her elongated Australian vowels and American enthusiasm. Her accent was like a passport, showing up all the places she'd been in her life, the story showed all the dreadful emotions she'd felt. She was baring her soul in the reading of her novel, and it was bright white with purity.

Gold allowed the words to become blur into a peaceful background noise as he watched her. She'd been nothing more than a forgotten fantasy for so long that she didn't seem real anymore. His fingers anxiously brushed the cover of the burned book. Somewhere along the line, it had become his talisman too.

Then had been the Q&A. There were some daft questions: "Where actually are you from?" and "How much money do you make writing a book?". And there were some more typical questions: "Are the characters based on people you know?" and "How did you come up with the idea?". And then it was over, and people who wanted to have a book signed or ask a question to Belle had to line-up.

Gold had no intention of joining the line. He'd made the decision to wait until the melee had died down and he could slip the book to her without drawing any attention to himself, but then Charlie announced that:

'Miss French is a little short for time this evening, so be sure to join the queue if you want to speak to her and she'll see as many of you as she can.'

Brilliant!

That was how, divorcee, millionaire, supposed-loveless recluse, Mr Gold, found himself stood in a hipster's coffee shop, surrounded by imbecile teenagers with his cane in one hand and a burned book in the other. Of course, the three brats were behind him, and of course they couldn't keep their giggled-spite to themselves.

'Oh my god! He's totes old, right? Like he's got a cane.'

'And look at that book! How is Belle-Belle supposed to sign that? It's like burned.'

Gold tried to ignore them but he just couldn't. It was like the demons that were always in his head had escaped and were shouting at him … only with terrible grammar. He looked down at the book and knew that the best thing to do would be to take beardy up on his offer.

He beckoned the coffee shop's manager over, with a crook of his long finger. Charlie came straight to him and Gold handed over the book, with nothing more than a hissed:

'You'll make sure she gets it.'

'Of course.'

He left to a chorus of:

'Laters, Grandad!'

Belle's hand was starting to ache as she signed another book. She loved meeting her fans, and hearing them quote their favourite part from her novel constantly frazzled her mind, but being in this coffee shop with all its history was only making her think of one person.

She handed back her novel to the woman ahead of her and smiled for her twenty-fourth selfie of the day, when Charlie stood up on the stage and announced that they would be taking a five minute coffee break.

'Miss French will be back to sign some more books shortly.'

'What are you doing?' Belle demanded. She was grateful for Charlie setting up this opportunity in his coffee shop now, but ever since she'd got here and seen that he wasn't here, she'd grown tired of the old place and its old memories. 'I have to leave soon for that appearance in Barnes & Nobel.'

Charlie said nothing, he just held up the book. It was exactly as she'd left it, burned and worthless; junk to anyone who didn't know it. Junk to anyone except herself and the man who'd held onto it for all this time.

'Where is he?' she whispered, taking the book from Charlie and clutching it to her chest. She breathed it in, it smelt of him.

'He's just left. If you go now, you'll catch him.'

Belle didn't need to hear anything else. She darted through the curtains and out of the shop's side door. She burst out of it like a crazy person and she couldn't help remember that the last time she'd burst through that door like that, she'd collided with Gold. Not this time. She glanced up and down the street, but she couldn't spot him, but it was raining and everyone had black coats and umbrellas … unless. There. Just disappearing around the corner a man walking with a cane.

'Gold,' she whispered, blinking as the rain caught on her lashes. She looked down at her shoes. The last time she'd rushed to meet him in the rain, her heels had broken; she kicked them off and hung them limply from her fingers before chasing him down the streets. People stared at her as she quick-marched barefoot down the sidewalk, in nothing more than a dress.

She rounded the corner and shouted:

'Gold!'

He turned, and despite the twenty yard gap she felt it, that spark she'd felt all that time ago. He just stared, though to be fair, she must have looked insane. Her hair was plastered to her face and the rain was dripping from her nose, chin and fingertips. Her dress was clinging to her like it was made of Lycra and her feet were bare.

'What are you doing?' he scolded, limping purposely towards her. Unlike her, he had an umbrella, so he, unlike her, was as handsome as she remembered. His face etched with soft crinkles of concern and the grey flecks in his hair just visible. 'You'll freeze to death.'

'I c-couldn't just let you leave,' she stammered. Now that she'd stopped running, the cold was catching her breath away.

'Here,' he slid his large overcoat from his shoulders and wrapped it around her. It was warm and smelt like him, it was a smell she'd missed. He tried to ruin the moment with a grumpy: 'I've never given a woman so many coats before.' But Belle read people like she did books and saw "I've never cared about anyone as much before."

He was rubbing her bicep through the sleeves of the coat in a feeble attempt to warm her up, and muttering about getting her back to the coffee shop to keep warm, but Belle had more pressing concerns, concerns that when spoken sounded like a sob:

'Why did you run away?'

'Oh, Belle, sweetheart.' He stopped fussing, and gazed at her with so much self-doubt that it made her want to cry for him. He touched his fingers gently to her cheek. She didn't know if he was checking she was real or dislodging a stray bit of mascara, either way, his touch warmed her more than a coffee and a heater ever could. 'I didn't want to leave,' he whispered. 'But you don't need me reminding you of the past. You're so much better now, you're stronger, you've had a career; you've travelled.'

'Which is why you right to push me away the first time,' she insisted. She wanted to take his hand, but one was occupied with a cane and the other with an umbrella. She was already soaked through, it was time for him to join her. She pulled the umbrella from his hand and dropped it to the floor before taking his hand in both of hers. 'You don't get to push me away again. You don't get to decide that you're not good enough. I make that decision.'

'But … I'm not a good man, Belle. You deserve so much more than….'

He trailed off, his eyes diverting to the floor, the front of his damp hair falling to cover his eyes.

'Hey,' Belle warned playfully, pushing his hair away so she could really see him. 'What have I told you about not finishing your sentences?'

He smiled, but there was something sad still lingering. 'Belle,' he whispered. It was like her name was a mantra, or that he couldn't believe he was getting chance to use it again. 'I'm not worthy of you.'

'What makes you think I'm worthy of you,' Belle challenged. It was more honest than she'd dared to be before, but hadn't she spent her whole life being worth very little to everyone. Hadn't she been cleaning and tidying after men all her life, wouldn't they have let her freeze in the rain for being foolish enough to forget a coat. She'd never done anything in her life to deserve a man as kind and true as Gold, and as though to confirm his goodness, he replied:

'You're worthy of everything.'

She smiled, like she'd never smiled before. The emotion so powerful she almost cried. In fact she might have been crying, it was difficult to tell with all this infernal rain.

'Now, let's get you inside,' the ever-practical side of the man taking over. 'You're going to freeze and you still have fans to meet and books to sign. I'll get you a coffee, do you still drink caramel latte or...?'

'Kiss me.'

'What?'

Belle's command had caught her off-guard as much as him, but she knew now that she'd said it that she'd never really wanted anything more.

'Just stop, for a moment,' she smiled, 'and kiss me.

'But it's raining,' Gold pointed out dumbly, pointing up at the cloud-covered sky as though she could somehow have missed that they were standing in an ever-growing puddle with an umbrella tossed aside and neither really wearing an appropriate rain protection. 'You'll catch pneumonia.'

'So?'

And with that, he slid his hand to the small of her back and pulled her towards him and pressed his lips to hers.

::

This was his worst nightmare. The "that-never-really-happens" moment of a Hollywood movie or a badly-written romance novel. It was the dreaded kiss in the rain. Water was in his hair, running down his back and soaking through the shoulders of his shirt. His trousers were stuck to his legs and the cold breeze was biting through his feet.

He barely noticed any of it.

Belle was not only real, and not only did she remember him, she was kissing him. Her soft lips, against his, her tongue brushing his in the most tantalising manner. He wanted more, he had a feeling he always would, but even in this heady daze, reality called to him and as sickeningly storybook as this moment was, he didn't actually want to be bed-ridden (not with the flu, anyway).

When they broke apart, her eyes stayed shut for just a moment; eyelashes clumping together with a mix of make-up and water. When she opened them, she was gazing at him with such adoration that he almost felt sick. He'd never really been worthy of that look from anyone, let alone Belle; beautiful Belle.

'Come on,' he mumbled, stooping to pick up the umbrella. It seemed a little redundant now, but he didn't really think that sheer elation should result in littering. 'We really must get you back to your adoring fans.'

'Okay,' she agreed, sliding her arm through the crook in his elbow. Their thighs brushed together as they walked and Belle rested her head on his shoulder. It looked awkward for her, but she seemed comfortable, content even. It was like she was always meant to be there, like she always would be at his side.

And that's where we'll leave it, because that was where the encounters ended and the dates began. Dates which extended to romantic weekends, which extended to meeting the family, and then to finding a flat, to finding a wedding venue, and finally shopping for cribs and baby clothes.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is: They both lived happily ever after.

[Firstly I need to apologise for the kid's accents. I can only write about four accents, all of which are in the UK, so despite being set in the US the kids do have London phrases ... sorry!]

Thanks for much for reading this fic. I really hope you've enjoyed it and would love to hear from you in the little comments box. Thanks for all the subscribes, favourites and reviews too!

Anyway, have a wonderful Christmas period (I've off to watch Disney's Beauty and the Beast for the third time in a week - it's my Christmas tradition) and an Have a Happy New Year!

Sisi...xx