A Winter's Wish. Alice Ross

beside Doug proved an epiphany. Now she understood perfectly what all the girls at school had been clucking about. Because, for the first time in her life, something was happening to her that she couldn’t control. Something exciting that made her stomach flutter.

      Having dreamt up dozens of ridiculously romantic scenarios around the pub meet ’n’ greet, when she really should have been listening to the dangers of leaving your laptop unattended, the reality of the occasion unfortunately came nowhere near her naïve and unrealistic expectations. Firstly, because she’d never been out drinking before: crowded pubs and copious amounts of alcohol were an entirely new – and extremely overwhelming – experience for her. And secondly, because the moment Doug fought his way over to her, another figure appeared at her side.

      ‘Hi. I’m Imogen Forster-Brown,’ said the tall willowy girl, shaking back a sheath of platinum-blonde hair. She ran a cursory glance over Amelia before turning cool blue eyes to Doug. ‘My friends call me Immy.’

      Ten seconds in the girl’s presence was long enough for Amelia to know that she would never be calling her “Immy”. But for all Imogen continued her hair-flicking, gazing at Doug all the while with huge blue eyes, his hazel ones, much to Amelia’s astonished delight, seemed far more interested in her. He’d asked her out in the second week and Amelia had been so happy she’d thought her heart might burst. Over the ensuing months, they spent every spare moment together, and every day Amelia toppled further and further in love. Thanks to Doug, her first year at Cambridge became the best of her young life. Until she received her end-of-year exam results.

      ‘I’m afraid you’re really going to have to pull your socks up if you want to stay here,’ her tutor had warned.

      Amelia had fled that excruciating meeting and headed straight to her room, where she’d spent the next thirty minutes throwing up. Of course she’d known she hadn’t been working as hard as she could – realised she was spending time she should’ve been studying with Doug. But, erroneously it seemed, she’d thought she might, for once, be able to balance the two – have some semblance of a normal life rather than dedicating every minute of the day to her work. Obviously she’d been wrong.

      Doug, needless to say, had sailed through his exams, even achieving the highest grades in his year for his Economics studies. He was one of those enviable souls to whom academic prowess came easily. Unlike Amelia who had to slog for every one of her achievements. And slog she had – all the way through school to achieve this place at Cambridge. Just imagining the ignominy of being kicked off her course – of feeling a complete and utter failure – was enough to make her tremble from head to toe.

      And so, two days before they packed up for the summer break, she made a momentous decision. For the sake of her entire future, she had to finish with Doug. She hadn’t come this far, she’d reasoned, to have it all snatched away from her. And there wasn’t only her to think about. Her parents would be devastated, along with the committee who’d painstakingly selected her for the prestigious scholarship. Indeed, even if it wasn’t a condition of the award, Amelia would feel obliged to pay back the generous contribution.

      When she’d informed him of her decision, Doug had been gutted, pleading with her to change her mind but, despite falling apart inside, Amelia had stuck to her guns. And to avoid any temptation of jumping on a train and going to see him over the summer, she’d headed straight out to Goa where she’d spent the entire break with her parents. It had been the worst four months of her life, the ache in her chest and the hollow, sick sensation in her stomach increasing daily.

      Dragging herself back to Cambridge that autumn had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. The moment she’d spotted Doug as he walked around the quad, she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. Her entire body flooded with longing for him. She couldn’t believe how much she’d missed him, how much she ached to be in his arms again, how much she yearned to tell him she loved him. Because she did. Passionately. Absolutely. One hundred and ten per cent. Okay, so they’d have to restrict the time they spent together, and she wouldn’t come out with the first-class honours she’d always dreamed of, but so what? She’d settle for second or third class if it meant keeping Doug in her life.

      She began to run after him, desperate to tell him all of this, when another figure appeared alongside him – one with a sheath of platinum-blonde hair. Imogen. Amelia came to a sudden halt as she watched them wind their arms around each other and exchange a passionate kiss. The hideous sensation that had suffused her, she could only describe as having a javelin pierce her heart.

      And, once she’d firmly established that Doug and Imogen were indeed a couple, that feeling stayed with her for the next two years. Employing every strategy she could not to bump into them, she moved out of college and into a flat, a bus ride away from the university, avoided anything of a social nature, and launched herself into her studies. At the end of that torturous time, her resultant double first, which she once would willingly have offered her right arm for, seemed pointless, but it had at least made her parents proud and the scholarship committee congratulate themselves on selecting such a model student.

      From Cambridge, she’d gone straight to Providential where, yet again, she’d thrown herself into her work. She’d had to. There’d been so much to take in that at times she’d thought her head might detonate. But, terrified of receiving another “you’ll have to pull your socks up” lecture, petrified of being found wanting and exposed as a fraud, she’d had to give it her all. Plus, completely absorbing herself in Statistical Methods meant less time to think about Doug, and absolutely no time to so much as contemplate another relationship, despite receiving numerous offers. Her heart had been well and truly shattered. And although the situation had been entirely of her own making, there was no way she would ever risk putting herself through that torture again.

      So Amelia dedicated her entire life to her career – a concept most men, thankfully, appeared to find a turn-off, and most women found intimidating. Over time, she grew to accept that state of affairs – became resigned to being alone. And that was the way she’d imagined things would continue, until ten months ago.

      ‘I’m delighted to say that we have, at last, appointed a new marketing director,’ the MD announced at a staff meeting. ‘His name is Doug Carver. You might know him actually, Amelia, he was at Cambridge the same time as you.’

      Amelia’s jaw dropped. Her head began to swim. She had the strange sensation of looking down on herself, like she was present in body but not in mind. It was several seconds later before she realised the entire room was staring at her.

      ‘Oh, er, yes. Yes,’ she’d stammered. ‘I, er, do know him.’

      She refrained from adding just how well. Over the years she’d resisted the constant urge to google him, to follow his career. But, on a particularly wet, miserable day in February a couple of years ago, she’d given in. Huddled up with her laptop, her heart pounding so hard she’d thought it might bring on a coronary, she’d typed his name into the search engine. And up he popped, working for a multinational retailer in their New York office. A photograph accompanied his profile. The moment she saw it, her stomach had flipped. He looked older, of course, and his hair, no longer floppy, was short and trendy. But he was still Doug. Her Doug. Or at least that had been her thought for a few seconds. Until she googled Imogen who, she discovered, was a freelance journalist, also working in New York. A series of pictures of the pair of them attending high-profile celebrity events had also been magnanimously provided. After that, Amelia hadn’t looked again. But now here he was – Providential’s new marketing director. How the hell was she going to handle that?

      Not very easily, it transpired.

      ‘And of course you already know Amelia,’ the MD said, when Amelia entered the meeting room ten minutes after everyone else on Doug’s first day at Providential. She hadn’t intended being late but the nerves, which had steadily ballooned as the dreaded day approached, had got the better of her that morning. And despite – or perhaps because of – swallowing half a bottle of herbal calming pills, she’d thrown up in the work loos.

      ‘How are you, Amelia?’ Doug asked, rising to his feet and striding over to shake her hand.