The Wedding Party Collection. Кейт Хьюит
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was that you assumed it and Trig simply failed to correct you. Maybe the doctor had ordered rest for you. No strenuous activity or thinking too hard. Maybe Trig thought you’d sleep on it and wake up the next morning with your memories intact.’
‘You’re his defence lawyer, aren’t you?’
‘If I was I wouldn’t be calling you. Your partial memory loss placed Trig in an extremely awkward situation. He did his best. He always does his best for you.’
‘He lied to me. He let me make a fool out of myself. Ruby...’ Lena bit back a sob ‘...I was so happy. I was planning all sorts of rubbish.’
‘Like what?’
‘A big old house for us to live in. Christmas decorations. Kids. I can’t have kids. Didn’t stop me saying yes to them. Adopted kids. Surrogate kids. I’m pretty sure we made plans to borrow your kids every now and again. We had it all worked out. I thought it was real. I bedded him. I thought it was real.’
‘Trig slept with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Poor Trig.’
‘Poor Trig? What about poor me?’
‘He knew you’d find out that you weren’t married to him sooner or later. He figured that as long as the marriage sham didn’t go too far and that you got to see Jared, everything would work out for the best in the long run. Your needs before his, and all that. How did you get him to bed you, by the way? Because the last time I spoke to him that was definitely not part of the plan. On pain of death not part of the plan.’
‘Oh, you know me.’ Lena closed her eyes and rubbed at her temple. ‘I badger and bully and prey on people’s weaknesses and generally don’t take no for an answer.’
‘I’m relatively sure that’s not true,’ said Ruby carefully.
‘You weren’t there.’
‘So you’re not blaming Trig for that part of the mess.’
‘Oh, no. I still am. He’s a great target for anger. I think it’s those broad shoulders. It’s just...maybe I’m okay with blaming me too. Doesn’t make anything right.’
‘No, but it’s a start,’ Ruby offered gently. ‘Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to make a coffee or a tea, and then you’re going to sit down and draw up two columns. The first column is what happened in Turkey. Stick to the facts. The second column is what you want to happen now.’
‘What about what Trig wants to happen?’
‘Add another column. Get him to fill it out. You do know that he’s stupidly in love with you? You’re not second-guessing that?’
‘I am second-guessing that. I look in the mirror and there’s so much of me there that’s not pretty. Inside and out. I don’t know what he sees in me.’
‘Soul mate, kindred spirit, partner in crime...’
‘I can’t do those things that we used to do.’
‘May I draw your attention back to column two?’ Ruby said patiently. ‘In it you put all the things that you can do, want to do and dream of doing with the man you call Trig.’
‘That’s another three columns.’
‘Have it your way. Call me tomorrow if you get stuck. Call Trig tomorrow too. Don’t blame yourself, or him, for a situation that neither of you had much control over. Do take control of the situation you’re in now.’
‘Are you sure you’re a lawyer and not a psychotherapist?’
‘Sometimes you have to be both.’
Lena paused. Ruby was part of this family now. A strong and savvy woman with a lot of good times and bad behind her. The kind of woman a person could rely on. ‘May I really call you if I need more help with this?’
‘Any time.’
‘Thanks. Tell Damon hello.’
‘Will do.’ Ruby hung up. Lena put her phone back on the table. Weariness washed over her as she made her way to the couch. Being off her feet and horizontal beckoned. Memories of Trig beckoned too. Of him in a Turkish bath house, valiantly trying to preserve her modesty. Of him talking starry nights and turtles. Of Lena dancing in his arms while a pianola played softly in the background. Of Trig stripped naked and loving her.
Say it.
Trig loves me.
Again.
You do know that he’s stupidly in love with you.
Trig loves me.
Again.
Two minutes later, she was asleep.
* * *
Adrian Sinclair had never been one for inactivity. Waiting drove him crazy. Waiting for word from a woman who’d already driven him crazy merely doubled the crazy. He couldn’t sit still. He couldn’t sleep. Work didn’t hold his interest. Physical activity leading to exhaustion couldn’t stem his agitation. For the last three nights he’d gone to bed exhausted and woken up dreaming of Lena. Replaying in his head what he should have done or could have done.
And hadn’t.
He knew Lena was home now. She’d arrived home with Poppy the day before yesterday. Poppy had called. Lena hadn’t. Ruby had called. Lena hadn’t. Trig’s father had called, and Trig had asked him what kind of price old farmhouses on the banks of a lazy river were going for.
His father had asked him what he’d been drinking, but he’d been drinking nothing, nothing at all.
And Lena still hadn’t called.
Adrian Sinclair had always gone after what he wanted, sometimes with excruciating single-mindedness. Unless one was talking about the indomitable Lena West. Trig had barely gone after Lena at all. He’d been waiting for the right time, the right place, the right blasted moon in the sky.
He was done waiting. He needed a plan of attack, a plan to make Lena respond to him again the way she’d responded to him in Turkey. She’d been happy with him once. All he had to do was make that happen again. He could fight dirty. He could fight hard. Why wait?
He hated waiting.
By the time Trig arrived home from work that afternoon he had a plan. By the time he’d opened his emails and seen the picture of the old homestead that his father had sent him, he had a better plan. He dialled Lena’s number but she didn’t pick up. Half an hour later he dialled it again. This time she must have had it with her, because she answered on the third ring.
‘Do you remember what I made you repeat back to me when we were making love in the crazy room?’ he began without preamble.
‘What?’
‘Say it. Say Trig loves me and always will.’
‘I’m not a parrot.’
She sounded frustrated. He could handle a frustrated Lena. He’d been doing so for the past two years. It wasn’t as if he’d been expecting a declaration of undying devotion from her or even a simple ‘I’ve missed you’. But she had told him she’d loved him not so long ago, and he held to that the way a free soloing climber so often held to a rock face.
By his fingertips.
‘Okay, so I lied to you about us being married. I should have come clean and I didn’t and I ended up with one foot in heaven and the other one in hell. You gave me a glimpse of what we could have if we dropped the barriers and simply let ourselves be what we wanted to be. Like married, for example. We could make that happen. Everything we talked about we could make happen if we wanted it to.’
She had no comeback for him beyond a strangled sound that he hoped to hell wasn’t a sob.
‘I