Her Ex, Her Future?: One Night with Her Ex / Seven Nights with Her Ex / Backstage with Her Ex. Lucy King
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‘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of times before buying this place, and the forwarding address of the flat she’d rented after their divorce had been out of date for years.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 mid-pace and whipping round.
Lily snapped out of it and stood. ‘Sure. Sorry. What would you like?’
‘Whatever you’ve got. Something strong.’
She went to the drinks cabinet, took out a bottle of brandy and filled a glass. Then she handed it to him, watched as he knocked it back in one swallow and felt a flicker of alarm.
‘That bad, huh?’ she said with a small frown, her resolve to stay strong and aloof wobbling a bit at the realisation Kit wasn’t quite as in control of himself as she’d thought.
‘Pretty bad.’
‘Are you ill?’ she asked, and braced herself.
‘Not exactly,’ he muttered.
‘What does that mean?’
She held up the bottle in case he wanted another but he shook his head and set the glass down on the table. Then he straightened, shoved his hands through his hair and frowned down at a spot on the floor. ‘It’s complicated,’ he muttered.
Lily stashed the bottle back in the cupboard and stifled a sigh. It always was complicated with Kit, but then she wasn’t exactly Miss Simplicity herself. Together, not talking, not listening, not really knowing each other all that well, they hadn’t stood a chance.
‘OK, Kit,’ she said, moving to the sofa and hoping that this wasn’t going to be too traumatic and that she wasn’t going to regret not standing her ground and sending him away when she had the chance. ‘If you want to talk, then talk.’
If Kit had had any doubt that his troubles were bound up with his ex-wife, it vanished the second Lily sat down on the sofa.
On the drive over he’d told himself that he was wasting his time because why would going to see her work when everything else had failed? What exactly was he after? Forgiveness? Understanding? What made him think she’d grant him either now when she’d been so unforgiving and so un-understanding at the time?
She probably wouldn’t even be in, he’d thought. The Lily he’d known had been a party animal and tonight, after all, was one of the greatest party nights of the year.
But the soft golden light shining through a gap in the curtains drawn across the window at the front of the house had suggested she was at home. And that was when Kit had sent his driver home because, even though he was most definitely not looking forward to it, having come this far he wasn’t about to back out.
It was that thought, along with the strong sense that he was nearing the end of his tether, that had kept him standing there on her doorstep when every defensive bristling inch of her was telling him to go.
It was that thought that had made him ignore her initial reluctance to engage with him, her subsequent spikiness, the occasional