As the group walked merrily back to the car after dinner, Jonathan reached out and took hold of Maddy's hand as if it was an everyday occurrence. Surprised by the action and having never taken him as a PDA type of person, Maddy nevertheless curled her fingers around his and looked over at him, smiling brightly as he returned her gaze.
Walking slightly behind them, Adam raised his eyebrows and gave a sly glance to Charlie, nodding at their joined hands. Somehow, he miraculously managed to keep his mouth shut and didn't say anything to jeopardise the moment.
They drove back up The Strip, forcing the driver to let them out at the Bellagio fountains and circle around so that Maddy could see them all lit up for the night-time show, and for Charlie to see them for the first time. In his relaxed state and continuing to try not to second guess himself, Jonathan stood behind Maddy and wrapped his arms around her as they watched, his chin resting lightly against her hair.
Adam watched the pair of them instead of the show, wondering what on earth was happening but delighted to see it.
When they finally made it back to the Encore, Adam made a beeline for the blackjack tables and found an empty one, taking a seat. He preferred to start with a fresh deck than join a table that was already in play. Charlie slid into the stool to his left, also keen to play.
"Madeline?" queried Adam, indicating the seat next to him.
"God, no. I'd have no idea what I was doing. I'm happy to watch."
"She takes enough gambles with the way she drives," joked Jonathan.
"Says the man who doesn't even have a license," retorted Maddy.
Jonathan raised an eyebrow at her and she turned to face him as his insinuation hit home.
"No! You learnt to drive?"
He nodded in confirmation. "Now I'll never have to sit in your passenger seat again."
She looked at him in astonishment, too surprised to even pretend to be offended, then teased, "Of all the things you've told me recently, that is by far the most shocking."
"Come on, Jonathan," interrupted Adam, waiting alongside Charlie for the dealer to start. "Are you playing or not?"
Jonathan looked to Maddy to see if she minded if he played, and she encouraged him to join them. "Just a few hands," he promised her as he got his wallet out and pulled out two fifty-dollar bills.
She got a thrill out of watching them, even if she wasn't completely up to speed with how the game worked when it got to the seemingly complicated areas of doubling or splitting the cards.
Of the three players, Charlie was obviously the most skilled, and it turned out that when she was younger she'd been a dealer at the casino in Glasgow when she was trying to make ends meet as a magician herself. She'd got herself fired when she'd practised one too many card tricks on the customers, messing up the deck along the way. She whispered tips to Adam when it looked like he was going to do the wrong thing, and as a result he had more success than he would have if left to his own devices. On Charlie's part it was a completely selfish decision to help him out because the more he stuck to the rules rather than making rash decisions, the more she would benefit too.
Jonathan was up to six hundred dollars profit at one point and Maddy was surprised to note that his usually cautious nature was in short supply while he was playing. Each time he won a hand he'd increase his bet on the following one, only dropping back down when he lost. It was a tactic that seemed to pay dividends for him, although he suddenly hit a run of bad luck which saw his pot dwindle down to four hundred dollars before he saw sense and threw in the towel, happily taking his winnings.
"When did you learn to play like that?" asked Maddy after they headed off to sit at the bar nearby, taking their drinks with them.
"Adam used to drag me along to the casino in London. It was back when the dealers still shuffled by hand so I took it upon myself to try to learn to card count. You can't do that anymore with those electronic machines, but I learned the mechanics of the game along the way."
She asked him to explain how card counting actually worked, having never understood it herself, and he tried to get across the basics, but at the mention of maths and probability, she realised the alcohol she'd imbibed was not going to be her friend on this particular occasion.
"Nope, it's no good. You've lost me completely," she admitted. "Poker was always my game of choice anyway."
"Poker!" he exclaimed, laughing. "You'd have to have the worst poker face of anyone I've ever met."
"How very dare you!" she said in mock protest. "You've seen me in action. I can pull the wool over anyone's eyes."
"Not a chance. I'd be able to read you in a heartbeat."
"Oh, would you? So what am I thinking right now?"
"I didn't say I was a mind-reader," he countered. Then, seeing the heat in her eyes and the teasing smile on her lips, he continued with a smile of his own. "On second thought, I think I might be beginning to see…"
His sentence was cut short as Maddy leaned over and kissed him, effectively shutting him up, before pulling back slightly. "I've been wanting to do that for hours," she said. Heart thumping in her chest, she used her thumb to wipe a smudge of her lipstick from his lower lip then asked her next question with as much nonchalance as she could muster. "Shall we head upstairs?"
Jonathan's face achieved that 'startled fieldmouse' expression that she found so endearing before it settled into something between determination and desire, nodding at her in confirmation. They each took a final sip of their drink and stood up to go, pausing back at the blackjack table to say their goodnights to Adam and Charlie who were both still going strong in the game.
Maddy laced her fingers through his as they walked towards the bank of lifts and queried only "my room?" with him once they were inside, eliciting another nod and a squeeze of her hand before she swiped her keycard and pressed the button for her floor. They then found themselves crushed in the back corner behind a group of twenty-something Americans, stereotypically loud and brash, who were vocal about heading back up to their room to pre-load some more before going back out to see a star DJ who was in town for the night at one of the clubs. It was a relief to have them leave the elevator a few floors below theirs and they shared a laugh with another couple who'd been pressed into the opposite corner, forced to listen to the testosterone-fuelled peacocking of the group.
Maddy let go of Jonathan's hand to unlock the room door then made for the bathroom, kicking off her heels en route with a sigh, promising she wouldn't be long. Unsure what to do with himself, he walked to the windows and looked down at the incredible view the room afforded of The Strip lit up like a Christmas tree.
He thought back over the last few months and couldn't quite believe how he'd managed to get here after the darkness of his post-divorce weeks spent in voluntary solitude at the windmill. He realised that, if not for Adam, he might still be wallowing in his misery, and he most certainly wouldn't have Maddy back in his life. For all the times he'd complained that Adam had taken advantage of him, he had to admit that he now owed him as much as the magician had ever taken, and they were very much even. It was a good feeling to realise that Adam obviously valued their friendship more than he'd ever thought, and he vowed to himself that he'd make sure to maintain it, regardless of their future working relationship.
His mind returned to the woman in the other room, in disbelief that things had come so far so quickly with Maddy, but grateful beyond belief that they had. He could no longer deny the feelings that had been buried inside him for over a decade. It had been easier to try to forget, to turn away from them every time they surfaced, and slowly over time he'd trained himself not to think about her and to avoid facing up to the bad decisions he'd made. Yet now that she was back in his life again, he recognised exactly what had been missing for all these years. It was no wonder he'd allowed his life to take the course it had; he just hadn't cared enough to change it when she was no longer part of it. It was a chilling realisation to acknowledge that he could have continued on through life without her, without feeling properly alive ever again.
God, she was luminous to him, lighting up any room and making everybody else completely insignificant. It had been that way since the moment he'd first seen her. He remembered with a smile the spark of understanding between them when he'd dropped Adam's gift off at Francesca's house, and the subsequent pull to stare only at her instead of the half-naked blonde model in front of his eyes. He wanted to smack his head against the thick glass windows for the lack of sense he'd had for all this time, and he determined to make up for it as much as he possibly could.
"What are you smiling about?" queried Maddy, appearing beside him and pulling him out of his thoughts.
"You," he admitted, reaching an arm around her waist and pulling her close to him. "I was thinking about when we first met."
"What? When I coerced you into lunch at that restaurant by the market?"
"Then tortured me with raw onion rings?"
She smiled guiltily and wrapped her arm across his back, cuddling into him as he shook his head.
"No. Before that," he continued. "At Francesca's house. Adam up to his old tricks with yet another woman. You clocked it without ever having met him. I knew immediately that I needed to get to know you."
"I thought you couldn't wait to get away from me," she said, surprised.
"Don't get me wrong. I didn't know what to make of you," he teased. "But you were so…" he stopped, not knowing what word to use and not wanting to go over the top, but then he realised if not now, then when? "…intoxicating," he finished, cheeks reddening as he felt her eyes staring up at him, stunned by the revelation.
"I wish you'd said something," she said ruefully.
"I wish you'd said something," he countered.
"I did," she said, causing him to look at her sharply, needing her to explain, and she looked back at him sheepishly, wrinkling her nose at her admission. "Only then I realised I'd pulled the phone cable out of the wall and you hadn't heard what I'd said."
Jonathan's eyes grew wide and Maddy carried on. "Do you remember that phone call? When you confronted me about Trevor?"
He gave a low chuckle and an amused eye roll as he realised what she meant. "I thought you'd hung up on me."
Maddy shook her head. "He was packing up all his stuff to leave at the same time as you were accusing me of leading you on…"
"Which you were," baited Jonathan.
"Because I was interested in you, not just because I wanted you to help me with the case!" she argued. "Anyway, I started to tell you that, but somehow I managed to pull the cable out of the socket and that was that. I spent so much time wondering if things would have been different if we'd finished that conversation."
"Along with all the other conversations we never had," he reminded her.
"True," she agreed. "We're useless." She snaked her right arm across his stomach to link with her left hand and sighed, leaning in again to rest her head on his shoulder.
"What about this time?" he asked softly, turning her fully to face him and encircling his other arm around her.
The early attraction from those very first encounters had never dissipated and Maddy's stomach flipped at his closeness. "This time is different," she said decisively.
"Are you sure?" Jonathan asked the question with more than a hint of fear in his voice, knowing for certain that he couldn't see a path forward without her in his life.
She nodded, absolutely clear that the future she wanted was standing in front of her. The confidence of knowing where she stood with him for the first time ever in their lives was a revelation. Whether it was just that or, more likely, that mixed with the passing of time and experience, plus the confidence of alcohol, she found that it was a hundred times easier now to say what she was thinking.
She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his body closer to hers and looking deeply into his eyes. "This is what we are, Jonathan. If we're spending time together, this…" she gestured between them at their closeness, "…is always going to happen. It's inevitable."
"Oh, really?" He smiled, moving his face imperceptibly closer to her, a lock of his hair tickling her cheek as his arms tightened around her waist. "I suppose we'd better keep spending time together then, hadn't we?"
He dipped his head and gave her a soft kiss, full of emotion and promise.
Maddy kissed him back with just as much feeling then looked back into his eyes, honest and determined. "I'm not going to let you go just when I've found you again."
Jonathan faltered, questioning again how he'd managed to get everything so wrong a decade earlier. He spoke firmly then. "Neither am I."
She touched her lips to his again and felt a bolt of pure electricity run through her body. He deepened the kiss and she unconsciously moved one hand up to tangle in his hair, drawing him tighter against her as she opened her mouth to his.
Jonathan's hands roamed across her body and as his touch shifted from light caress to firmer pressure, she let out a soft moan. The breathy way she then sighed his name into his mouth nearly made him come undone right there.
With huge difficulty, Jonathan broke away to say something else, hands resting at Maddy's waist, waiting while she stopped following his lips with hers. He fixed her with a serious expression and brought one hand up to gently cup her cheek, ensuring she was looking into his eyes as he spoke.
"It was always you."
His words caused her to stop breathing for a moment as she took in their meaning. Not trusting herself to speak, Maddy understood that he was laying bare his soul to her, and she believed him without question as he held her gaze. The smile she then gave him lit up the room and she leaned back in to kiss him deeply before taking his hand to lead him to the bedroom.
Maddy knew that Jonathan had always been an early riser and supposed he still would be, so when she awoke the next morning, she was surprised to see that he was still sound asleep beside her.
She had to remind herself this wasn't a dream and that last night and the past few weeks had actually been real life. It was overwhelming to have spent so many years wishing for this to happen, to finally have felt that she'd come to terms with the fact that it hadn't, only to wake up and find herself lying beside Jonathan all these years later, confident in both of their feelings and a future together.
She watched him sleeping for a while, his face relaxed and open, before her bladder insisted she pay attention to it instead.
She half-expected him to have woken up by the time she slid back into bed, having also brushed her teeth and cleaned off the remnants of her make-up, but he remained deep in slumber. He stirred slightly and extended an arm to draw her close, and she cuddled back in against his body, reaching the fingers of her right hand up to trace lightly across his face, memorising the contours before pressing a light kiss to his nose.
She couldn't deny being scared out of her wits by how fast things had moved from when they'd first got back in touch only a few short weeks before. If this had happened so quickly over a decade ago, she knew that her own fears of facing her emotions and opening herself up to rejection and abandonment would have seen her flee from him instantly. Of course, now she had three years of complicated history and more than a decade of regret to inform her. So instead of giving into those feelings of fear, she ran through a gratitude list of her therapists in her head, acknowledging how far she'd come since then. She knew there was still a long way to go and that she'd need Jonathan's support and patience to work through the insecurities which were sure to rear their ugly heads, but the fact that she recognised that, and knew she could be vulnerable enough now to ask for those things, was what gave her hope and certainty.
Life had dealt her so many blows and convinced her that she was somehow broken and unworthy of a partner, and she couldn't quite believe that she was getting a second chance. Pressing a kiss to Jonathan's forehead, she silently promised herself that she was going to do everything in her power to hold on to it. To him.
The kiss roused him from his sleep and his eyes opened blearily. She watched him take in his surroundings, warmth pooling in his eyes as he saw Maddy beside him. She looked at him with a neutral expression and spoke first. "Well, we finally did it…again."
"Yep," he replied, recognising her echo of the morning after the first time they'd slept together, a tiny spark of fear igniting around his heart in case she'd decided last night had been a mistake.
She broke into a smile, blue eyes sparkling. "Lots more fireworks this time around."
He relaxed, smiling back, and raised his eyebrows at her, pulling her tighter against him as she let out a squeal. Bodies pressed together, mouth close to hers, he spoke, his voice still rough with sleep. "We'll definitely be doing it again."
She grinned and leaned in to meet him in a searing kiss, planning to make that a reality with immediate effect.