Fourth Time Forever: The Oxford Blue series, #4

FOURTH TIME FOREVER

PIPPA CROFT

Fourth Time Forever  Copyright © 2017 Pippa Croft

This edition © 2017

All rights reserved.

The right of Pippa Croft to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Except in the case of brief quotations for review purposes, no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events in this publication are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organisations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Jane Dixon Smith

Copy editing and proofreading by Tanya Saari

Praise for Pippa Croft

Croft (mainstream romance author Phillipa Ashley) kicks off her Oxford Blue new adult contemporary trilogy with an angsty yet appealing romance. Lauren Cusack, the daughter of a U.S. senator, leaves Washington, D.C., for a year abroad at Oxford, studying for a master's degree in the history of art and visual culture. Alexander Hunt is a compellingly broken English aristocrat. The author is an Oxford alum herself, and she writes with authority about what happens when an upper-crust Brit meets a fearless American. (Publishers Weekly)

A very well deserved five stars, a fabulous emotion filled, dramatic read! (Jeannie Zelos Book Reviews)

A very steamy NA with a sprinkling of Downton-Abbey-esque old money traditions and snobbery. And I freaking loved it. (Tea Party Princess)

With a great setting, fantastic characters and a passionate love story, The First Time We Met is a great read in the New Adult genre. (Chloe's Chick Lit Reviews)

Pippa Croft captures the overwhelming physical attraction between Lauren and Alexander. It was hot. REALLY hot. (Kate, Books with Bunny Blogspot)

For the Friday Floras and anyone who’s ever wished

that things had ended differently

Acknowledgements

With grateful thanks to Liz Hanbury, Nell Dixon, Broo Doherty, Penguin Books, my family, the Friday Floras, and every single one of the bloggers, author friends and readers who begged me to continue this story. Special thanks to all of them, and especially to my Italian readers. Never give up going for your happy ending.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Pippa Croft

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Also by Pippa Croft

Prologue

You know what my biggest regret is?

I never said I loved him.

Something almost beyond my control was holding me back. The words were there in my head, in my heart. I tried to say them, but they were edited out by a higher power, someone who thought they knew better than me, who thought it was cool to hold back; who thought that was what I wanted.

What the hell do I mean: ‘almost beyond my control’?  Even I know how pathetic that sounds, and only I can take full responsibility for what I did.

I should have fought harder to say those words; to go ahead and hang the consequences.

I’ve regretted not saying them so many times. I’ve shed bitter tears and raged against my decision. Three little words; that was all I had to say; right up until the moment he left, for the final time.

I never said it because I knew if I did that he would never let me go. I was too young—I’m still too young—and I thought the eight months we spent apart would get him out of my system for good. I vowed it would.

And now?

I think back again to the last time I saw him. How I joked, and fudged, and kissed him...and, most of all, how I lied.

CHAPTER ONE

Three weeks earlier

My best buddy, Immy, flicks the ash from her cigarette into a Ricard ashtray and sighs. You know what I love most about Paris? she says.

Blue smoke from the Gitanes wreathes through the spring sunlight, catching in my throat.

I don’t know, I eventually manage to reply. What do you love most about Paris?

It’s the people, she says. The architecture and the art are cool, of course, but watching people is free, and worth a million paintings and cathedrals. Even you must agree with that. She inhales, then bursts into a coughing fit. Fuck. Oh God, damn these bloody French fags.

Immy’s Anglo-Saxon expletives attract glances from a few of the French patrons at the pavement café we chose for our morning coffee. I have no sympathy for her. She only took up smoking a week ago, when we arrived in the city on the final leg of our ‘world tour’. Last summer I finished my Masters in Art History, and Immy completed her BA in Geography at Wyckham College. Since we left the golden stone and dreaming spires of Oxford behind, we’ve both been enjoying a gap year together. 

Immy left a trail of broken hearts in Oxford, and I—I also left someone. His name is Captain Alexander Hunt, aka the Marquess of Falconbury. The tall, dark, arrogant and infuriating man who has turned my life upside-down. The man who carries more baggage than the entire luggage department of Bloomingdales and has smashed my heart to bits and trodden on the pieces. The man I finally kissed goodbye in Washington last summer. He travelled four thousand miles to see me, and I promised him we’d keep in touch. In truth, this world tour was meant to help me flush him out of my system.

I’ll leave you to guess how that went.

Squinting through the haze of smoke and sunlight, I pretend to watch the Parisian world go by, while the memories of our eight-month world tour run through my mind like a National Geographic trailer. We’ve been lucky enough to do some amazing things from bungee jumping in Queenstown, New Zealand (never again), to climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge in searing heat. From sea kayaking with whales off Vancouver Island (wow, just wow), to sipping rum punch as we sailed past the Pitons in St Lucia... Those memories, shared with my best friend, will stay with me always. Europe is our final stop, and in a couple of weeks, Immy and I will have to return home. I miss my parents and I should be looking forward to returning to Washington. The problem is that I’m no longer sure where home is.

While Immy chokes elegantly, I shade my eyes with my hand to look at the other patrons enjoying the day here on the Left Bank. I left my Ray-Bans in the apartment, because it was pouring down when we set out this morning. My suede ankle boots were soaked by the time we dashed through the puddles into the shelter of the Medieval Museum. Immy tried to chat up the young Provençal curator, while I gazed in awe at the star exhibit, and the Lady and the Unicorn tapestry.

My gaze settles on an elderly lady feeding scraps of croissant to two apricot poodles, and a bald businessman engrossed in le Monde. Immy’s attention, however, is taken by someone else.

Look at that him, she whispers, nodding in the direction of a young guy reading a battered copy of Proust. I wonder if he’s single.

Why don’t you ask him?

"Why don’t you, Lauren?"

I gasp in mock horror. Immy’s mission over the duration of our trip has been to pair me off with someone, anyone. "No way, I’ve seen Taken. American girls who accept invitations from French guys always end up kidnapped and sold into sex slavery," I say.

And their father has to rescue them?

Daddy has special skills, but I don’t think he could pull off a Liam Neeson.

He might be able to call on the CIA to help, Immy teases me.

I laugh. My father may be a senator, but I don’t think even he has Langley on speed dial. Besides, that guy’s a hipster; not my type.

It’s Immy’s turn to laugh now, and the French guy has noticed us. Over the top of his thick-rimmed, sixties glasses, which I suspect he doesn’t need, he peers at us—or rather, at Immy. She’s a stunning English rose, smart and funny, so I know the Hipster won’t be able to resist. Immy nods at him and his eyes shoot back to the pages of his book.

He’s hot, she whispers from behind her espresso cup.

I agree. He’s cute, but I’m not interested.

She groans. Oh, Lauren, you have to move on from Alexander Hunt sometime.

Move on? I already moved halfway round the world to get away from Alexander. While he was in Afghanistan, I was in Capetown; while he was in Iraq, I was in Oz. Now I’m in Paris, and he’s... Well, he’s somewhere that’s on a Need-to-Know basis and I definitely don’t need to know. Actually, I don’t even want to. It almost killed me when he left Washington the last time. I pretended I was fine and I acted cool. I’d convinced myself I was cool with my decision, and I thought that us both going our separate ways was the best thing for both of us. I hoped we’d forget each other.

I thought nine months travelling around the world would put things in perspective. My love life should seem trivial compared to the problems we’ve seen in Asia and Africa, I say, voicing my thoughts out loud to Immy.

She sighs. Things don’t work like that, Lauren.

I guess not, but I can’t sit around moping for Alexander, you know that.

How could I forget? I remember you crying yourself to sleep for a week after he left you in Washington.

Hey! It wasn’t that bad!

It bloody well was that bad. You ruined our first week in Sydney. And the next one in New Zealand. And most of the fortnight in Fiji.

Sorry, I say sarcastically.

Don’t apologise, I’m sure it hurt you a lot more than it hurt me.

Do you regret playing it cool with him back then?

There’s a pause. A very pregnant pause, during which Immy sips her espresso meaningfully, and I rest my eyes on the towers of Notre Dame in the distance.

In many ways I do regret it, but I was confused and scared. I didn’t know what I wanted.

She rests the cigarette on the ashtray. Most of it has burned away. "In that case, don’t you think you should call him and let him know how you feel now? How you really feel?"

I am prepared for this line of inquiry. I still don’t know how I really feel. Not one hundred percent. But I am getting there, I think. I’m so close to knowing what I want for us, if only I can find the courage to admit it and take the chance.

Immy’s cup chinks down in the saucer. Oh, Lauren! The Hipster glances up at us, and the woman with the poodles throws us a glare of contempt. Americans, she’s thinking, and British girls. No sense of decorum or style. No elegant restraint.

Okay. Okay. I know Alexander and I need to have a serious talk, but there’s no point calling him yet, because he told me he wouldn’t be able to speak to me or email me for a few weeks while he was on his latest mission.

"A few weeks? Hasn’t it been five since you last spoke to him?"

Under the table, my fingers tighten into a fist and I focus on buildings in the distance again. Actually, it’s been nearer six weeks since I heard from him, I