"You idiot!" Cara exclaimed as she swiftly ran outside to catch up with Nick. Who did he think he was? Some kid who threw snowballs against other people's windows in the middle of the night.

"I said I was sorry, no need to get overly excited!" Nick exclaimed when she literally jumped up against him.

They both tumbled down into the snow, which was very wet. Instead of attacking him, she grabbed all the snow she could get and threw it into his face and hair.

"C'mon, Cara, stop this childish tantrum!" Nick said in a muffled voice as he tried to free himself.

"Don't you dare criticize me when you were the one who started this!"

"Well, I'm not the person who is throwing snow at her ex-lover in the middle of night while you are wearing... Does that flimsy pink thing you are wearing even deserve to be called a nightgown?" When he noticed the astonished look on Cara's face, he just shook his head. "My, my! Some things will never change! You've always been impulsive, but you seem to have gone totally crazy since we split. You'll freeze to death here if you don't put on something warmer."

Cara knew he was right and stopped attacking him. The entire fight had indeed happened so fast that she had forgotten to put on something decent. She wouldn't have had a lot of choices, given the fact that she had originally thought that Jayden was taking her to the Carribean, but everything would have been better than this satin nightgown that had gotten wet pretty fast as well. And yet, Cara failed to feel really embarrassed because she was with her ex-husband, who had seen her totally naked a lot of times.

"Why are you here then?" she asked him defiantly after she had gone back inside and put on the first piece of clothing she had found, which happened to be the jacket Jayden had worn today. Unfortunately, he hadn't disappeared like some ghost from the past when she returned.

"Well, let me see, my girlfriend wanted to come here..."

"Don't act like a fool! I mean, why are you here right now in the garden that belongs to my hotel suite at 3 a.m.?"

"I didn't know it was your suite. I was just taking a walk to clear my head. As you know, I've always done that. So I got lost and ended up here." Nick knew that he could drive her nuts pretty quickly if he evaded her questions like this.

"Don't tell me that there is trouble in paradise already," she said because she was beginning to wonder if that was the reason why he was there. Well, it was either that or because he wanted to apologize for that play he had written.

"Why would you think that?"

"Well, because you're here for starters... and not in bed with your very pregnant girlfriend!"

"My relationship with Cherry is fine. I came here because I wanted to talk about our relationship," he finally admitted.

"Our relationship? What do you mean by that? There hasn't been something like that in years." Cara couldn't explain why and it definitely surprised her that she would feel like that, but her heart had leapt into her throat when he said that. Thus, she tried to act as if she didn't care about him anymore, although she knew that was a lie and that he wouldn't believe her either.

"I know that... I've always felt bad about the way we ended things back then. We never sat down and talked."

"Well, there wasn't a lot to talk about. After all, I caught you in our bed with another woman, and if what you've been suggesting in your play is true, that wasn't even the first time you cheated on me while I was out, earning money because you were always too busy 'writing' to even consider getting a real job!"

"I know it looked quite bad. But I want you to understand that there were reasons..." he began, but she interrupted him.

"Seriously? You want me to listen to your complaints about the hard life you allegedly led during our marriage? How do you think I felt when that play came out and everybody knew that the play was about me!" She stared at him in disbelief.

"Writing The Couple made sense at the time. It was like going to therapy, which I couldn't afford. But you're right in a sense because I would write some things differently today or not include them in the play at all," he admitted. "But you must understand that even though I certainly did some things I am not proud of and thus brought about the divorce, I was very hurt at the time that the marriage hadn't worked out... It felt like you'd never given me a real chance to be an equal partner in our relationship, which was mostly about what you wanted."

"I can't believe this!" Cara exclaimed and wanted to leave at once because she couldn't stand being with a man who obviously was so full of himself.

But when she began walking towards the suite, he followed her. She heard him call after her, "Cara, wait a second!" Then he grabbed her. Since she had heard enough, she tried to free herself. There was a short struggle on the snow-covered staircase that led back to her suite and was a bit slippery because the outdoor whirlpool was nearby. Jayden had used it earlier and forgotten to put the hard cover back on that was supposed to keep the pool working during the winter months (It was crazy and certainly not environmentally friendly to have an outdoor pool in operation during the winter, but this hotel was supposed to be one of the most luxurious resorts in the Alps, and some of its suites came with an outdoor whirlpool).

As Cara and Nick struggled, Cara slipped in a very unfortunate manner and fell forward into the pool. Nick saw what was happening and tried to help her by reaching out and grabbing her arm, which meant that he fell forward as well and ended on top of her.

There was a loud splash as both of them first crashed into each other and then ended up in the whirlpool.

Cara couldn't believe it at first, but she realised that this was not a dream due to the cold temperature of the water. When she came up to the surface of the water, she quickly checked whether she was okay. But apparently, nothing but her pride had been hurt in the fall. Plus she was now officially totally wet. 

Seconds later, Nick came up and rolled over to the other side of the pool. The first thing he did was laugh.

Cara couldn't believe it. That was the idiot's reaction? They could have seriously hurt themselves, and she was shivering and certain she would catch pneumonia if she stayed in the cold water for a long time. And he was laughing about it all!

"What's so funny?" 

"You. Me. Here in this pool. The whole world is funny!" He said and really couldn't help it: He continued to laugh because he couldn't remember having ever been in a situation that was as ridiculous and straight out of a silent movie comedy as this one.

"Why don't you stop before someone hears us and thinks we're totally nuts... I mean, it's true in your case!"

It had been years since he had gotten so close to her, and he had never been able to resist her when she was like this. As messed up as the situation was, even the fact that he was literally shivering couldn't stop him from feeling attracted to her. It was like a primal urge. "Do you know how cute you are right now?"

And she felt it, too. Her sarcastic answer, "How about the part where you say you're sorry that this happened and ask me if I'm okay?", betrayed her uneasiness. 

"Oh, I've just assumed that you're still alive and kicking," he fired back and was indeed rewarded with a sharp kick.

He had anticipated that she would do this and caught her knee.

"Let go of me! We need to get out of his pool because it's cold and I'm shivering already!" she protested.
 
But she knew she could not win against him because he didn't want to let her go. As a matter of fact, she herself didn't want him to let go. That realisation hit her in the very moment when he pulled his body up closer to hers to look into her eyes in a manner he hadn't looked at her in years. For a second, she hoped that this was nightmare because she was a strong woman and this was not some stupid soap opera: She just couldn't be falling for him again! Well, they had already fallen into the whirlpool, so kissing him wasn't a second "fall," at least not in the literal sense of the word. When she looked at him, his lips were so close to hers, and she felt magically drawn to them. There was nothing she could do about it: She had to kiss him.

He beat her to it, of course, and kissed her first.

Cara had always considered herself a smart woman. Later on, she asked herself why she hadn't been able to smack him right then and there. Why hadn't she been able to stop that kiss from happening? Why had she willingly participated in something that was plain crazy and risked wrecking her love life along with the family he was about to have?

The truth was simple: She couldn't help herself.

Jayden couldn't believe what he saw when he came outside in his pyjamas. A few minutes earlier, a weird noise had woken him up, and he had noticed that Cara was gone. So naturally, he had thought that there might be an intruder in their suite and that he was doing all kinds of crazy things to his girlfriend to get her jewellery (which she hadn't brought along on this trip). After all, you never knew what could happen to you even in the best hotels in the world. Thus, he had picked up a large, very expensive vase from a table, which he was still holding in her hand when he discovered her kissing her ex-husband in the whirlpool. When he had used it a few hours earlier, she had refused to get into the very same pool and argued that she was afraid she might catch a cold. But apparently, she didn't mind getting into the pool if Nick Gregory was in it, too.  

Jayden had never felt more stupid in his entire life.