The Hookup

by Zante, Lily

  He lowered his head in shame. “I’m going to change. I have issues, you told me that. I accept it now, and I’m going to get counseling.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “I can’t do this anymore.” She splayed out her hand. “Whatever this is.” She looked around, and he could sense that she was uneasy having this conversation here of all places.

  “Let’s go somewhere where we can talk privately,” he urged.

  “There’s no need. I think we’re done.”

  “Please, Kay,” he begged, almost reaching for her hand. But he composed himself and shoved his hand into his pocket. “I can’t get past this, knowing what I said to you. I need to make it up to you. I will make it up to you.”

  “You don’t have to make it up to me. I knew exactly what I was letting myself in for, maybe not when I first met you on the island, but back home, in your bar, when you spelled things out for me. I knew the score. I knew what this was. And the truth is, I’m done with that kind of messed up relationship.”

  “Is this why you agreed to meet with me? To make it official?”

  She looked up, perplexed. “You deserved an explanation in person.” Her cellphone beeped, and she looked at it, typed a few things, then slipped it away quickly. “I have to go,” she said.

  “Now?”

  “I’m meeting a friend.”

  The way she said it, he had a feeling she was seeing someone. “A friend?”

  “'Bye, Luke. I think it's best if we just go our separate ways. I'm a different person now. I can't let myself be treated like that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want the fairytale. “

  “I can give you the fairytale,” he replied, thinking, as he said it, how odd it was for him to say that.

  “You don't believe in fairytales.”

  “But I believe in you, and I believe in us.”

  Her mouth twisted, as if she was going to say something but had decided against it.

  “What?” he asked, desperate to know. “Say it.”

  “You...You’re …” She shrugged. “Maybe you have had time to think about things.”

  “I have and—”

  “I’m glad you’re getting counseling,” she said, cutting him short.

  Before he could say anything, her gaze drifted to behind him, and she waved. His heart took a deep dive, the type of dive a plane would take when its engines misfired and it was about to crash. He turned around only to someone walking towards her. A guy. And he looked familiar. And the fucker was smiling at Kay.

  “I have to go,” she said, looking impatient to leave. He examined her face, needing to read, to understand what the fuck this was. She looked uneasy, or excited. He couldn’t tell which. “You’re seeing someone?” he asked, shock spinning inside him like an angry twister.

  “Dr. Santini,” she said, turning to go.

  It took a few seconds before the name meant something. “You’re seeing my consultant?”

  “I wish you all the best, Luke, I really do,” she said, flashing him a rare smile; something he hadn’t seen from her in a while. And then she was gone.

  Dr. Santini hadn’t even noticed him. He was too busy grinning away at Kay. They shook hands, awkwardly at first, before she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

  Everyone in the lobby faded into the background, and all Luke could see were Kay and Santini. His mind blanked and he forgot to breathe.

  She had moved on.

  He had barely recovered, and she had already moved on.

  Chapter 44

  Dr. Santini looked taken aback when she kissed him on the cheek, hooked her arm in his and walked out.

  Once outside, she pulled away, as if he’d given her an electric shock. She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. “I’m sorry I made you come here. I was running late.”

  He looked pleasantly surprised. “It’s not a problem. I was waiting around the corner,” he replied. “I hopped into a cab.”

  That explained why he got here so fast. But it had worked to her advantage. What better way to make Luke see that she was done with this, than to show that she had moved on? “I can only spare half an hour,” she told the doctor, wanting to quickly undo the damage that her crossed messages might have caused.

  “Shall we go for a drink, then?” he asked.

  She hesitated. She’d been hoping to see him in the lobby, so that she could speak to him there for a while sitting on one of the plush sofas at one end. The lobby was safe, and didn’t give ideas. He was hitting on her, or trying to. She knew.

  “Uh…I don’t know,” she said, slowly. She wasn’t keen on going for a drink, or a coffee, or dinner. He’d pursued her, not relentlessly, not crazily, but with a few phone calls over the past few weeks. Hadn’t helped that she’d been especially generous the last time, talking to him for a long time, after that argument with Luke. Loneliness did that sometimes, and their conversation had moved on from stocks and shares, and the markets, and economy, to personal things.

  She was afraid now, now that she had met with Luke, and her emotions were in turmoil again, that Dr. Santini would want to delve more down the personal route then simply wanting investing tips from her.

  “Surely a drink or two won’t hurt?”

  She knew otherwise. A drink or two was exactly how things had started the last time. “I really can’t.”

  He looked disappointed. “You’re always working so hard, Kay.”

  She examined his face, but she still had Luke’s face imprinted on her mind. At one time she might have even considered Dr. Santini to be handsome. He was handsome, and clever and sexy; the perfect combination. Like Luke had been once. And so far, he had been incredibly attentive, and nice, and interested. Just like Luke had been, and still was.

  Dr. Santini was the type of man to give her the happy-ever-after she’d dreamed of.

  Just like she had hoped Luke would have, once.

  She was starting to mesh the two, starting to think of her conversation with Luke just now. Starting to get sucked back into it. Into him.

  She couldn’t go there. Would not let herself. “I can give you some general investment advice and tips,” she said. “And it will be just for the one drink.”

  “One drink. I appreciate it.”

  As he hailed another cab, she glanced over her shoulder a couple of times, and thought she saw Luke standing there, watching them. When she blinked, he was gone.

  Chapter 45

  She had been at the hospital soon after the twins arrived, and had cried, and hugged and been swept up in the joy of the moment. Having new life injected a burst of happiness in her life, and for the next few weeks, Kay was at Savannah’s house, most weekends.

  Even if Savannah had allowed Tobias to get a nanny, there would have been no point. She practically lived at the Stone’s new residence for the first two weeks. She stayed over some nights because there was room, and because Savannah was tired, and breastfeeding, and because Jacob’s excitement never let up; because Tobias and Savannah were so hands-on with their boys, and there was so much going on.

  Being here was so much better than sitting in her own apartment. Time, at the sprawling Stone mansion, flew by.

  She was there when their families came to see Lewis and Samuel. She was Savannah’s wing woman when her mother-in-law, Millicent came over, and then her own mother and Savannah’s parents. She was there when Xavier and Izzy turned up.

  Apparently they had been away earlier to the Hamptons for a weekend, and it was official, they were an item now.

  It was towards the end of June when the job she had desperately wanted, came through. After four rounds of interviews, the company—previously one of their main competitors—came through. They wanted her, and offered her the job. She was due to join in a few weeks’ time. Breaking her good news to Remington had given her a long overdue sense of satisfaction, and telling him she'd been taken on as an executive director, had left him speechless, somethin
g she had never before witnessed.

  She had parted ways with her current company only last week.

  With a month stretching out in front of her, a much needed month of rest, and recovery, she had decided to stay in New York for a week, before taking a couple of weeks off on vacation.

  Savannah and Tobias were going back to Kawaya, the private island on which they’d gotten married. Jacob’s school had ceased for the summer holidays, and they were going to spend the summer there, and they had invited her along.

  She was thinking about it. Not sure whether she wanted to return to the island where such bittersweet memories lay.

  “When are they going to wake up?” Jacob asked, for the third or fourth time since she’d arrived. He was in the nursery, and the two boys were lying in their own cots. “Shhhh, Jacob,” she said, putting her finger to her lips.

  “I want to play with them before everyone gets here.”

  “Oh, sweetie. We should let them sleep as much as they can. Your mom and dad need the rest.”

  While everyone had come to see the new arrivals in the hospital, the proud parents had asked for a few weeks before they had visitors at their home while Savannah was still recovering from the birth.

  But with the boys now almost a month old, Tobias and Savannah had opened their house to close friends and family so that everyone could come and meet the new Stone brothers.

  Savannah’s parents and Kay’s mother had been here for a few days already, and Tobias’s parent’s had just arrived when Kay went in to let her know.

  Savannah was getting changed. “Don’t leave me alone with Millicent,” she begged. “The last thing I need is for that woman to be standing over me and watching while I feed the babies. She’ll be here any moment now and guaranteed, one of them will wake up and need a feed.”

  Kay’s face twisted in shock. She couldn’t imagine letting anyone see her do that, if she ever miraculously found herself in the position of having a baby.

  “I’ll make sure I herd her out,” Kay promised.

  Tobias was the gracious host, and there was plenty of food and drink. Arnold, who now worked for them, moved around the house as if he was the head butler.

  She stayed in the background, talking to people, being a second-hostess of sorts. Jacob seemed to hang around her more, until Xavier and Izzy turned up. They made polite talk, baby talk, and they commented on how they hadn’t all gotten together like this since Tobias and Savannah’s wedding.

  “We were just talking about you,” said Xavier suddenly, when she turned around to look.

  Luke appeared from out of nowhere, and the unexpected sight of him made her heart stop.

  Because Izzy was there, and because he greeted her with an affectionate kiss on the cheek, he did the same to her. “Hey,” he said softly. She hadn’t seen him for almost two months. He looked the same, but not the same. His face seemed thinner, and his eyes were gaunt, and lined. He seemed to have aged five years in the last month. He didn’t seem as strong, or as vibrant as the man she remembered, and the sight of him wreaked havoc with her emotions. They continued making small talk. Continued as if nothing was amiss. Nobody apart from Savannah knew about her and Luke, though everybody now knew about his cancer.

  A couple of times she caught Xavier looking at her, not in his usual flirty manner, but as if he was watching her. Assessing.

  Later, Izzy and Luke wandered away to get some food, Xavier didn’t.

  “Why do you keep staring at me like that?” she asked, starting to get irritated.

  “Where’s the doctor?”

  “What doctor?”

  “Luke’s consultant.”

  Somewhere in the distant depths of her mind, she tried to work out how he knew about Dr. Santini. And why that had even come up in a conversation between Luke and Xavier.

  But it was enough for her to know that it had.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re not together anymore?”

  She scowled, annoyed by the line of questioning. “I was never with him.”

  Xavier invaded her personal space, and it made her take a step back. Lowering his voice, he said, “Luke’s never opened up to me about his girlfriends before, but he told me about you. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

  She blinked.

  And then Izzy returned with a plate of food, and the two of them got talking again. She noted that Luke hadn’t returned to the group. Feeling uneasy, and as if she was eavesdropping, she suddenly remembered to check in on Savannah, and excused herself.

  Grateful to escape, she rushed upstairs, and headed off towards the direction of Savannah’s room, when she saw Luke standing at the top, his hands resting on the bannister, looking at the sparkling crystal chandelier that was in the hallway. It was so big, that it was visible from the landing where they stood. She stared at him, hesitating, her feet forgetting how to move.

  She had to get past him to get to Savannah’s room, and it was too late to do anything but walk straight ahead. Even though she knew he had seen her bounding up the stairs, he didn’t look her way.

  “What are you doing up here?” she asked, finally speaking.

  “It was getting noisy down there.”

  Kay agreed. “They invited a lot of people.”

  “Brave of them,” he replied, still leaning over with his hands resting on the bannister, his gaze on the floor below. It was the perfect place from which to people watch.

  “They probably wanted to get all the visiting out of the way in one go. They’re going back to their island for a long vacation.”

  “Smart move.” He looked up at her then. Straightened his body, and leveled his gaze at her. “You look well.”

  “Thanks.” She couldn’t quite say the same back. He looked better, but he didn’t look 100%. It shocked her, because as the months had passed on, she had expected him to have returned to his usual self. He must have noticed, because he said something about the medication being difficult to get right, and that it was a question of trial and error.

  Just seeing him like this made her feel down. Brought out her caring side, made her forget the hurtful things that had happened between them. She looked away, determined not to feel anything, trying to turn a blind eye to the way he looked, and the melancholy tone of his voice. But she couldn’t look away for long. “Are you…is the cancer gone?” she asked, not sure how to say it. The idea that his cancer cells might have come back, suddenly frightened her.

  “It’s gone. I have checkups all the time, but it’s definitely gone, for now.”

  For now?

  He must have seen her concern, because he said, “It can come back at any time. Even with healthy people. I just try and make the most of each day.”

  Her heart softened like jello. He looked so vulnerable and so weak. Not the Luke she knew. The Luke she missed. He looked as if all his vitality had been sucked right out of his body, and all that was left was an empty man. She was tempted to buoy him back up again, to make him see that he was fine, to bolster him, because she couldn’t bear to see him like this.

  But she wasn’t going to.

  And though it was hard, she forced herself to hold back.

  And yet she couldn’t walk away either. She looked over his shoulder at Savannah’s door, wondering, hoping that Millicent wasn’t in there, irritating the hell out of Savannah.

  She didn’t have it in her to walk away just yet. It had been easier to stay away, but now that he was here, in front of her, that familiar pull of old kept her rooted to the floor. He had changed, he seemed softer now, almost resembling the man she had first met on the island.

  But she had changed, too.

  She was harder, not so forgiving, and much more protective of her heart. She wasn’t going to rush back, not like Good-Time-Kay would have. She was no longer the woman to sidle up to him and bat her eyelashes, but neither was she a coldhearted monster. And with the passing of time, things softened.

  Memories blu
rred.

  Harsh words and actions were forgotten.

  And some things still remained. She had never forgotten the trials of his teenage years. Had never been able to erase what must have been the shaping moments of his youth. Many times since that last time, she had been tempted to pick up the phone and talk to him; had been curious to know how his counseling sessions were going, and how he was doing, and each time she had managed to stop herself.

  These days she prided herself on her self-restraint.

  “How is Dr. Santini?” he asked, looking away again.

  “Good.” I expect.

  “Savannah said you’ve got a great job with another bank.”

  “I have.”

  “Good luck. I hope you told your boss and Geoffrey to fuck off.”

  “Not in those words.”

  They both smiled. “You’re way too classy for that,” he said, a flash of something that looked like regret crossing his face.

  “I don’t know about classy,” she said. “I prefer feisty.”

  “No,” he said, softly, shaking his head, his eyes scanning every inch of her face as if he’d forgotten what she looked like. A rush of stirring jangled in her heart, upsetting her breathing patterns again.

  “You’ve always been classy. Feisty too,” he added, before his lips clamped shut, as if he was forcing himself to watch what he said.

  “How’s the counseling coming along?”

  “It’s enlightening.”

  Good, bad? What exactly did he mean by that? “Has it helped?”

  “It’s helped. At least, Amanda seems to think so.”

  This pleased her. If he could heal over his past, he could move on. She wanted that for him, she wanted the man underneath to be more like the man she had first come to know—sexy and nice, and hard to ignore.

  “We went out for dinner with Kyle.”

  “Oh,” she cried, pleased to hear that. “The couples dinner, you mean?”