One Night with Her Ex. Lucy King

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СКАЧАТЬ fought the urge to bristle and channelled her inner calm instead. ‘Well, you could have had them, so you should have thought about that when you displayed so little interest in how our things were divided up.’

      He nodded and rubbed a hand along his jaw before shooting her a rueful smile. ‘I probably should have. Although from what I remember I was too devastated by the realisation that we were over to be worrying about who got what.’

      Lily stared at him in astonishment, all pretence of cool detachment gone. ‘You were devastated?’

      ‘Of course I was.’ He said it as if she should have been able to tell, but by that point he’d been so cold, so distant, so damn unreadable that she hadn’t been able to work out what he’d been thinking. ‘Weren’t you?’

      ‘Oh, well, yes, I was in bits.’ Which she’d clearly done a pretty good job of hiding too, if he’d had to ask. ‘Although I do remember, above all, an overwhelming sense of relief.’

      He nodded. ‘Yes, there was that too.’

      Silence fell then, and all she could hear as they continued to look at each other was the ticking of the antique mahogany clock on the mantelpiece. And all she could suddenly—and irrationally—think was, had he really been as devastated as she’d been? Had they been too quick to divorce? Should they have tried harder? Should they have given it another shot?

      The clock struck a quarter to one and she came to with a jolt.

      No. They could have given their marriage a million different shots but it wouldn’t have made any difference because before divorce had ever been mentioned, before Kit’s one-night stand even, they’d totally lost the ability to communicate and their relationship had gone way beyond the point of no return.

      With her throat beginning to ache with regret Lily quickly reined in her thoughts and pulled herself together. She swallowed hard and perched her bottom on the ledge of the built-in cupboard to the left of the fireplace.

      Maybe they’d be better off focusing on the present and why Kit was here. And come to think of it...

      ‘How did you know where I lived?’ she asked, curious and now a bit suspicious because she’d moved a couple of times before buying this place, and the forwarding address of the flat she’d rented after their divorce had been out of date for years.

      He blinked and gave his head a quick shake as if he too had been lost in thought. ‘I have for a while.’

      ‘That doesn’t answer the question.’

      ‘Doesn’t it?’

      ‘Have you been checking up on me?’

      ‘From time to time.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I’m not sure.’

      Lily didn’t know what to make of that. ‘Am I supposed to be flattered?’

      ‘Not remotely.’

      ‘Good.’ Because she wasn’t. Not even a little bit. Truly. ‘Then why didn’t you just call?’ Presumably if he had her address he also had her phone number.

      ‘It’s late.’

      ‘Or email?’

      ‘Couldn’t wait.’

      ‘Sounds like you were desperate.’

      ‘You have no idea,’ he muttered.

      ‘You’re right. I don’t,’ she said loftily, as if she was way above desperation when it came to him.

      At her tone, a small smile played at his mouth. ‘This is a nice place.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘You’ve done well.’

      She’d done more than well. Following their split she’d jacked in her marketing job and set up her own business, asking her sister—practically the only person she’d been able to trust—to run it with her.

      At the time it had saved her. Been something of her own, something that had belonged to her and she to it, and she’d desperately needed it. That the two of them had been so successful had been unexpected, although of course greatly welcome.

      ‘I think so. So have you.’

      Kit’s smile faded and he tilted his head as he fixed her with a look designed to make her feel uncomfortable. Which it did. ‘In spite of your best efforts to sabotage me.’

      Lily inwardly cringed. When Kit had broken down and confessed to having a one-night stand she’d cut up his suits and scratched his car and then fired off an email to every one of the institutions he’d been planning to seek financial investment from, telling them in no uncertain terms exactly the sort of man they’d be backing. It must have made things difficult for a while to say the least.

      ‘Are you here for an apology?’ she asked, because although it seemed unlikely it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, she supposed.

      ‘If I were would I get one?’

      She bit her lip and nodded. ‘You might.’

      His eyebrows rose. ‘Seriously?’

      She gave a nonchalant shrug as if she hadn’t been racked with guilt for months afterwards. ‘Well, like you said it has been five years and maybe with hindsight I’ve realised that what I did was unforgivable.’

      He held her gaze steadily and to her dismay she felt the beginnings of a blush. ‘I guess you did have some justification,’ he said. Then, ‘It was what I did that was the truly unforgivable thing.’

      For several long moments, there was utter silence and the air began to thicken with a tension that Lily really didn’t want to explore.

      It would be so easy to slip into a painful post-mortem of their marriage but what good would that do? While time had healed the wounds no amount of talk would wipe out the scars, and picking over the bones of their relationship was the last thing she wanted to do when she was feeling so out of sorts. Or ever, for that matter, because she’d done plenty of it at the time. She certainly wasn’t about to launch into a full confessional about how she’d come to acknowledge her role in the breakdown of their marriage.

      Besides, presumably Kit was here for a reason, and one that in all likelihood didn’t involve raking up the past.

      ‘So why now, Kit?’ she asked. ‘After all this time? Why the urgency? Why are you here at nearly one in the morning on New Year’s Day?’

      He rubbed a hand over his jaw and began to pace and she got the impression he was nervous, which was odd because nervousness wasn’t a state of mind she’d ever associated with him. Even when they’d waited for the results of the endless pregnancy tests she’d taken, when she’d been a bag of nerves, gnawing on her nails and practically quaking with hope and dread, he’d sat there stonily tense, looking more impatient than anything.

      ‘Could I get a drink?’ he said, suddenly stopping СКАЧАТЬ