Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

The terms were simple: Iris would pretend to be Callum’s girlfriend for his family’s annual Christmas gathering — four days in a farmhouse in the Cotswolds — and in exchange, he would write her recommendation letter for the fellowship she wanted so badly she’d been losing sleep over it. It was a transaction. A clean, professional transaction between two adults who happened to have a history of making each other laugh too hard at professional events.

The terms had not accounted for his family.

They were warm, his family. Aggressively warm, the kind of warm that didn’t ask if you wanted a hug, it just happened. His mother had met her at the door, taken both her hands, and said *we’ve heard so much about you* with such sincerity that Iris had looked sidelong at Callum, who had the decency to look slightly panicked.

“Heard what, exactly?” she’d whispered as they carried their bags upstairs.

“I may have mentioned you. Over time. In conversation. It wasn’t deliberate.”

“Callum.”

“The recommendation letter is a very good one. It mentions your exceptional intellectual curiosity three times.”

The room had one bed.

She stood in the doorway. He stood beside her.

“I’ll take the floor,” he said.

“It’s December.”

“I run warm.”

“Callum. I have seen you wear a coat in August.”

They looked at the bed. It was a large bed, a very adult bed, a bed that could accommodate two people who were merely pretending without anything being implied.

She put her bag down.

“I sleep on the left,” she said.

“I know,” he said, and then appeared to realise what he’d revealed.

She turned to look at him fully. He had the expression of a man who had miscalculated.

“How do you know that?” she asked.

“You mentioned it. Once. At the conference in Edinburgh when we were discussing the hotel room situation.”

“I mentioned it once and you remembered.”

“I remember most things you say.”

The room was very quiet. Outside, his family was doing something cheerful involving mulled wine.

“Callum,” she said carefully.

“Iris.”

“What is this, actually?”

He sat on the edge of the bed. He looked at his hands. He had the air of a very controlled person running out of control.

“I asked you because I didn’t trust myself to ask you properly,” he said. “I thought if you were here, with my family, in the context of something pretend, I could — figure out if it could be real. And that is a completely insane plan that I recognise now I’m saying it out loud.”

She sat beside him.

“That is,” she said, “the most elaborate thing anyone has ever done instead of just asking me out.”

“I panicked.”

“You wrote me a recommendation letter.”

“It’s a genuinely excellent letter.”

She was so close to laughing that it was almost indistinguishable from something else. She looked at the side of his face. At his hands. At the snow beginning to fall past the window.

“Ask me,” she said.

“What?”

“Properly. Right now. Ask me.”

He looked at her. “Iris Bennet. Would you come to my family’s Christmas as my actual girlfriend?”

“You’re going to have to rewrite the letter,” she said.

“That’s a yes?”

“That’s a yes.”

He kissed her, and his family absolutely knew, and nobody said a word about it, and it was the best Christmas she’d had in years.

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So you made it to the end… which probably means you’re the kind of person who enjoys a little romance with their coffee. If you’re in the mood for more stories about messy feelings, stubborn attraction, and women who absolutely refuse to settle for boring love, you can find all my books here.

Fair warning though. One story tends to lead to another. I’ve seen it happen. Repeatedly.