Jonathan arrived on the train just after lunch and Maddy met him outside the station. They spent the afternoon catching each other up some more on their lives as she showed him the sights around the city. Actually seeing the White House in real life was quite an unexpected thrill and Jonathan stood for a long time simply taking in the view of it until she dragged him off to what she considered the more interesting areas of town.

He was happy to have someone to talk through the details of his new illusion with, and he took her through the concept and the various ideas and options he'd come up with to make it really stand out. She was so interested and excited to hear about it and Jonathan couldn't help but compare her response with how he knew Polly would have reacted, with her lack of enthusiasm shining through any veil of feigned interest. He took seriously the comments and feedback that Maddy gave him about it, filing her questions away in his brain to ponder on later.

They headed back to her house in time for Sophie to get back from her after-school tennis practice. He'd suggested he get a hotel for the night but she'd told him there was no point in him coming to hers for dinner then going all the way back into town late at night when she had two spare rooms going begging. He couldn't deny being a little apprehensive about meeting Maddy's daughter, but more for the fact that she'd be a reminder of a life lived without him than for fear of not getting along with her.

Not long after they sat down with a coffee, Jonathan heard the front door slam open and shut, then a little pair of feet came running through to the kitchen and skidded to a stop in front of him.

"You must be Jonathan," she said confidently with an American accent. "Hello."

"And you must be Sophie," said Jonathan with a smile from his stool at the benchtop, a little taken aback by the poise of the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl who'd appeared. "Hello."

"Don't I get a hello?" said Maddy to her daughter as she reached out for a hug and a kiss.

Sophie gave her a big squeeze around her middle and a "hi Mom" then turned straight back to Jonathan. "What team do you support?"

"Sorry?"

"Soccer. Or football. Mom said she didn't know."

Maddy smirked, knowing full-well Jonathan was not remotely interested in sports of any kind and couldn't care less about the beautiful game.

"Oh. Well, if I have to pick one then it's Arsenal."

"Arsenal?" piped up Maddy, surprised he even had an answer.

"My grandad was a fan," he added. "He used to take us sometimes."

"I support Crystal Palace," said Sophie, as if that was the only correct answer to her question. Then she followed on with an unrelated question. "Do you really live in a windmill?"

"Yes, I do. Would you like to know a secret about it?" Sophie nodded and Jonathan continued in a whisper. "There are magic pixies in the woods outside of it who can give you special powers."

Sophie's eyes grew wide and she looked sceptical but demanded to know more. Jonathan had to suppress a laugh at just how much she looked like a mini Maddy with that look on her face. Ten minutes later, the pair of them were ensconced on the sofa, Jonathan telling her about letters he'd found under his pillow from the pixies as a child and embellishing with tales of hobgoblins and wizards. She was entranced.

Maddy's heart melted as she watched from the counter while she started to prep dinner. She knew he was good with kids but it was a relief to see just how easily he'd managed to get Sophie on side. Nonetheless her daughter's next question caught her off guard.

"Are you going to be Mom's boyfriend?"

Jonathan's eyebrows shot up and he turned to Maddy, who laughed at his discomfort then stared levelly at him as she said, "Oh, darling, I told you before. Jonathan was the best boyfriend I never had."

"But I don't know what that means!" said Sophie with a whine and a tiny foot stamp.

"You don't need to understand everything. You're only eight!" admonished Maddy with a smile.

For his part, while amused at Sophie's reaction, Jonathan was looking with curious intensity at Maddy.

"What?" she countered, spotting his expression. "It's true, isn't it?"

Jonathan weighed up the reality of what she'd said. They'd been a couple in almost every sense except the obvious, and she'd been the most reliable, consistent and loyal woman in his life for a long time. Not to mention the sexual tension that had been off the charts.

"It's a better description than I've never been able to come up with" he conceded, echoing her wordplay.

An ocean of history swirled between them as they smiled softly at each other, unable to look away.

"What's happening now?" demanded Sophie, looking from face to face.

Jonathan felt like he'd been punched in the gut when Maddy replied to her daughter. "It's called regret, darling," she said, as she dragged her eyes away from his, "and I'll do everything in my power to make sure you avoid it."

"You've always told me you should only regret what you didn't do," continued Sophie, confused further by Maddy's response.

"Exactly," said Jonathan quietly, catching Maddy's eye again in a vain attempt to communicate the full extent of his long-standing remorse.

"Right. Come on you two shirkers. Come and help with dinner." Maddy pulled them back into the present and returned to prepping the chicken, not allowing Jonathan to see her wipe away a tear as she turned away from him.

Dinner was a raucous affair as Sophie peppered Jonathan with constant questions, and Maddy tried in vain to calm her down so they could have some semblance of conversation.

Jonathan watched the pair of them together and thought how happy he was for Maddy to have such a bright light in her life. But he also had a glimpse of what his life could have been and at one point he felt such a deep sadness he had to grip the edge of the table to steady himself.

It was already past 9pm by the time they'd finished eating and Maddy had done the bedtime routine and got Sophie off to sleep. She came back downstairs to join him, topping up their wine glasses along the way, and flopped onto the sofa beside him. "You've certainly made a new friend."

"She's great," replied Jonathan. "I know it can't have been easy, but you should be very proud."

She smiled over at him, surprised once again by a compliment. "Thank you. She makes it easy, most of the time." As she spoke, she noticed he was looking pensive. "What's the matter?"

He thought for a minute before replying. "I knew intellectually about Sophie, but to be here and meet her…I suppose I hadn't really grasped how much your life has changed. Meanwhile I'm back at the windmill and doing a gig for Adam like my life's been stuck in time for the past decade."

"There's nothing wrong with that if it's what you want." She smiled wistfully. "There's plenty of times I've wished I was right back there too."

Jonathan caught her off guard as he replied, "I've wished for that too." The atmosphere in the room tangibly changed as they stared at each other, trying to read what was going on in the other's head. He leaned in towards Maddy, his intent more than clear as she focused on his eyes, feeling as if she could drown in their dark depths which were silently questioning if he should continue. He hesitated for a moment before he softly pressed his lips to hers, deepening the kiss as she showed no resistance, and her hand came up to wrap around the back of his neck, drawing him closer.

Moments later, however, she pulled away from him and rested her forehead against his, taking a deep breath in to steady herself.

"I don't know if my heart can do this again, Jonathan."

He stood up quickly. "Sorry. I'm sorry" he mumbled, looking anywhere but at her face. "I should go to bed" he stated then turned to leave the room.

"Hey" she said softly, grabbing hold of his hand before he had a chance to move any further away. "I'm supposed to be the one that runs away, not you. Remember?" She gave his hand a squeeze as she pulled him back down to sit beside her again.

She took a moment to compose her thoughts before speaking again. "If there's anything we should have learnt from our past, it's that we have to talk things through, even if we want to run a mile in the other direction."

Jonathan gave an awkward nod. "You're right. It's difficult to change old habits though, isn't it?" he said with a wry smile. "But I shouldn't have…" he gestured between them and gave a deep sigh.

Maddy held tight to his hand, now clasped between both of hers. "It's not that I don't want to," she said quietly, looking down at their intertwined hands, "It's scary how fast all the feelings have come back." She sighed and continued ruefully, "Do you know what I would have given for you to kiss me back then, given me a tiny indication of how you felt?"

"I thought you knew. I thought it was obvious," he said with a tiny voice. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I don't want to hurt you again," he said softly, looking up at her. "It's the last thing I want to do. I hate myself for how I behaved."

She sighed again. "Jonathan, we've been through this. We both have a cross to bear."

He gave a small nod of his head in acquiescence. "I know. But I'll always regret it. It all feels so easy with you. Which is ironic, when it seemed so hard back then. I just wish…"

"I know," she agreed, and rubbed her thumb over his hand, trying to communicate years of emotion. "But we can't change the past." She looked up at him and waited until he returned her gaze to speak again. "Maybe it was always easy. We just made it too difficult with all the baggage we both had."

"Maybe. Or maybe we're looking at it with rose-coloured glasses."

She looked at him expectantly. "Meaning?"

"Meaning that it wasn't all sunshine and roses, was it? We argued all the time," he said with an eye roll.

"That's because you're the most irritating man on the planet," said Maddy, lightening the mood a little and eliciting a sarcastic smile from him in response. Then she continued. "I know it's probably impossible to understand but my arguing with you was my way of trying to keep you at arm's length."

"I know. I realised that early on. You think I'd have stuck around if I hadn't?" He gave her hand a squeeze. "It wasn't just you, though. It's not like either of us was capable of actually communicating, is it?"

"I certainly wasn't," agreed Maddy. "I mean, it took us three years to get into bed together but we were still completely incapable of discussing how we felt. It's no wonder it wasn't exactly fireworks when we had sex, is it? When we were framing it as something we needed to do to get over with instead of something that we actually wanted."

Jonathan couldn't disagree with what she'd said. Thinking of his recent internal revelations about his feelings for her – love, his mind kept repeating over and over – he dared to ask what he really wanted to know. "What…did you feel?"

Maddy wondered how honest to be, her brain churning out various glib remarks and retorts that would close off the discussion quickly and return them to safer ground. But she also knew that she needed to say it, to tell him the truth about her feelings for once in her life, even if it upended everything again. Besides, she told herself, she was talking about the past so it was almost as if she wasn't baring her soul to him. She started speaking before she could change her mind. "I can't speak for you. But I was hopelessly, exhaustingly, frustratingly and terrifyingly in love with you."

He didn't know what he'd expected her to say, but it certainly wasn't that. She saw his eyes widen and then he completely froze as he absorbed her words properly.

"I know," she said quickly in response to his shock. "It was a lot for me to realise too. It took a long time for me to admit it to myself, so god knows I wasn't capable of admitting it to you or anyone else back then."

"I was too," he said quietly, his mouth completely dry, but needing to reflect Maddy's honesty back to her with his own. It was the very least she deserved.

She watched his face to try to determine if he meant what she thought he did. "What do you mean?" She said it as lightly as possible, trying not to infer any emotion into it, but her heart was leaping into her throat as she did so.

"I was hopelessly, exhaustingly, frustratingly and terrifyingly in love with you too," he replied, shoulders sagging.

Maddy was glad she was sitting down because a wave of dizziness hit her as her senses completely overloaded. She had never allowed herself to think that he'd actually felt the same. In fact, she'd convinced herself that he hadn't, because it was the only way she'd been able to let him go.

His next words were just as much of a shock. "And I'm quickly coming to the realisation that I've never got over that."

She retreated back into the far corner of the couch and folded her legs up, wrapping her arms around them, making a protective ball. She looked warily at him and shook her head. "Don't."

Jonathan understood immediately that he was unwittingly pushing her too far, too fast and he sat back, giving them both time to breathe and absorb what had been said.

Maddy broke the silence first, trying to put some of her feelings into words. "I never let myself think you might have felt the same. So that's…" she blew out a sigh to steady her breath, on the verge of tears, "…it's a lot to take in. It took me so long to deal with what had happened…well, what I thought had happened…" She stopped, trying to clarify what she wanted to say. "I'm grateful you told me, but it's upending everything I thought I knew…and everything I thought I'd already dealt with."

She relaxed a little on the couch, bringing her legs underneath her and reaching forward to pick up her wine glass from the table. "I'm going to need a lot more therapy," she added, trying to bring some levity back to their conversation.

At this, Jonathan felt a sucker punch of shame. "You are incredible," he sighed.

She looked taken aback, not sure if he was being serious or readying to start an argument.

"No. I mean it," he continued, looking into her eyes to make sure she knew he was being truthful. "Maddy. You. Are. Incredible. How can you be so nice to me…so kind…after all that? After everything you've been through. After what I did to you. Why don't you hate me?"

"I could never hate you, Jonathan," she said sadly.

"But I'm being so selfish. Your life was perfectly fine without me in it, and now here I am, messing it all up again."

"You're not messing it all up," she shook her head, tears shining in her eyes. "You're making me wonder why I ever let you go."

It was quiet for a minute before she continued. "It was much easier when we didn't talk about our emotions," she quipped, wiping her eyes.

"Was it?" he asked deadpan, left eyebrow in the air.

She thought for a moment. "No. You're right, as usual," she smiled wryly, remembering the anguish of nights spent wishing she'd been braver or trying to read his feelings as if through a crystal ball. "So…" she continued, hesitatingly returning them back to their conversation, "what on earth are we doing?"

"If there's anything I learned from last time, it's that I should seize the moment with you," admitted Jonathan. "And I suppose that's what I was trying to do before. Very badly, obviously."

Maddy shook her head, disagreeing. "Not badly," she said softly, making sure he knew she was being sincere. "Look, I think we can both admit that a lot of those buried feelings have resurfaced." He nodded, looking into his wine glass as she continued. "But it's not that simple, is it? I have Sophie. We live on opposite sides of the Atlantic. You're in the middle of a divorce."

He looked up at her. "When did you become the sensible one?"

She laughed, letting out some of the tension. "I don't think anyone's ever called me sensible before."

"I know it's not simple. But I think it's worth it." He paused, wondering whether to voice what he was thinking, and decided to bite the bullet. "Your partner should be your best friend. You were. And even after all this time you still are," he confessed quietly. "Spending time with you again has made me realise how alone I was in my marriage."

Maddy took a deep breath in, taking on board what he was saying and being careful of her response to what was obviously a very difficult and embarrassing thing to divulge, and to her of all people. Especially after what he'd revealed to her about his childhood bullying and lack of friendships, she recognised how fragile this admission must make him feel. She weighed up what to say, but Jonathan beat her to it.

"I don't want to give you the impression that Polly's a terrible person. She's not. We're both to blame. But we're not on the same wavelength. We never were. I just wouldn't let myself see it."

Maddy heard the defeat in his voice and searched underneath it to discover the truth. "Jonathan, you're still hurting so much." She decided to tackle the subject of the woman who'd taken up far too much space in her brain for the last couple of months, and cautiously spoke again. "Look. I don't know Polly and I can't begin to know what went on in your relationship, but I think you're doing yourself a disservice to tell yourself your whole marriage was a sham. You must have been happy…at some point?" She couldn't deny a morbid curiosity about their pairing and a need to know more about the other woman, but she was also conscious it would be a mistake to push too far too fast.

Jonathan deliberated how candid he should be with her. As with many of their recent conversations, he realised he had little to lose and, in fact, what he was about to say could be a balm to her soul and convince her of his feelings towards her, so he ploughed forward.

"When I met Polly, there hadn't been anyone since you. A few dates here and there, Carla obviously, but no-one serious. No-one who came close to you." Maddy listened in surprise and with more than a hint of fear, careful not to say anything to derail him as he continued. "I'd come to the conclusion that I wouldn't ever meet someone else, and I suppose I thought that was karma for what I'd done to you. And then Polly came along and there was a spark - more than I'd felt for anyone else since you - so I dived in and before I knew it, I was playing at being a proper adult." He grimaced over at her. "I was happy, at first. But if I'd met her before you, I'd have known very quickly that we weren't right for each other. As it was…" He shrugged. "I think I thought that was my lot. Subconsciously I suppose I realised I'd never have as strong a connection with anyone else as I'd had with you. And she did a very good job of taking me away from everything that was a reminder of you. I don't think that was particularly conscious on her part, but….no more windmill. No more Adam. No more magic…"

"No more you," whispered Maddy so quietly he barely heard her, then she tried to cover it up by continuing at a more level pitch, "What…did she know about me?"

"The basics. I never told her what happened in the end. I've never told anyone what happened. But there were the books, and people recognised me sometimes and they'd always ask about you. I suppose she felt a little threatened."

"How ironic."

"How so?"

"That I should feel so threatened by her too."

He started to reply twice, stopping as soon as he began and looking frustrated as he tried to articulate his thoughts. Finally, he spoke again. "There's no need. You're right that I'm hurting," he agreed with her first point. "But I'm in no doubt that it was the right decision to leave Polly. I'm one hundred percent certain. And a big part of the reason I'm hurting is because I'm being faced with what I gave up far too easily. Maybe if we can figure that out…?" He looked at her pointedly and they fell into silence again.

Maddy spoke quietly then, the vulnerability she was feeling obvious in her voice. "How can we be sure that this time would be different?"

He sighed. "We can't. I've already messed up a marriage. And whatever we were first time around."

"You've done better than I ever did," she replied ruefully. "I don't know if I'm capable of a proper relationship."

"What about Sophie's Dad?" Jonathan couldn't deny being intrigued, and also being unreasonably jealous of this man he knew nothing about.

It was Maddy's turn to sigh. "Ben," she said, confirming his name. "I did what I've always done. Went for the most emotionally distant, unsuitable man I could find. He and Trevor were like peas in a pod," she said, her words laced with hurt. She hesitated before continuing but realised she needed to reflect his honesty with her own. "I…I really wanted kids. Biological clock and all those clichés. I thought…after you…that was it, my time was up. So when he came along I jumped in without really thinking. Partly to try to get over you, and partly because I knew I didn't have much time."

She took a moment to allow that to sink in for him, watching him close his eyes against some unspoken pain, then she carried on. "I was pregnant four months after I met him. Then I was alone four months after Sophie was born. Not exactly an advertisement for a happy, successful relationship."

"I'm sorry."

She nodded, knowing he was apologising for so much more than the obvious.

Jonathan reached forward tentatively for Maddy's hand again, waiting until she'd placed her hand in his before he spoke. "Maybe we can figure it out together this time."

She felt a warm tendril of hope spiralling around her heart, but she knew she needed to proceed with caution. "If we decide to do this, we have to be clear about a path forwards. Sophie has to be my priority."

"I know. I understand that." He squeezed her hand. "I know I have to properly earn your trust again. You have to tell me what you need."

Maddy looked into his eyes and nodded. "We've been more open and honest in the last three weeks than we were in three whole years. It's a good start."

They smiled at each other, a sense of calm and togetherness falling over them despite the fear of the unknown. Maddy scooted back across the couch towards him and reached over to pull him into a tight embrace, trying to communicate a multitude of feelings. He returned the hug with just as much meaning, soaking in the sensation of holding her close.

They talked late into the night, haltingly coming up with some semblance of a plan to be able to continue seeing each other despite the rather large obstacle of living in different countries. They both knew that anything long-distance could only last for so long, but also agreed it was foolish to try to imagine anything past that point. Jonathan was infinitely grateful to have taken up Adam and Charlie's request to create the Vegas illusion because that would mean he'd be back in the US again in the coming months, allowing them to spend more time together.

Before finally heading up to bed, Maddy leaned closer to Jonathan and took a long look at him, overwhelmed to see the truth of his feelings in the depths of his eyes, recognisable to her for the first time ever. With a blaze of understanding, she suddenly realised that had always been there, she'd just always been too fearful to acknowledge it before.

Entranced by her gaze, he reached up to cup her cheek in his palm, then leant forward to softly brush his lips over hers in invitation. Hearts pounding, they shared a long, tender kiss full of history, intention and promise. It felt like they'd been catapulted back in time and flashes of their long, drawn-out almost-romance were at the forefront of both their minds as they slowly rediscovered each other, revelling in the feeling that, even after all this time, this was meant to be.

As it started to become more heated, Maddy regretfully told him that she couldn't risk Sophie coming into her bedroom and finding them in bed together, not without any prior explanations. With a huge amount of effort she eventually managed to drag herself away and climb the stairs, leaving him to his thoughts for a while longer before he made his own way upstairs to his room.

They both knew that questions and doubts would start to creep in in the cold light of morning, but they also knew that for the first time ever they were on the same page and determined to give everything they had to make a go of things.