How To Mend A Broken Heart

by Amy Andrews

  She arched her back and thrust her hips forward a little, and he curled up to claim her mouth because he doubted she had a clue how provocative she looked, straddling him stark naked, her breasts thrust out, while he was practically still fully clothed. She whimpered against his mouth, opening to the insistent thrust of his tongue and the bruising crush of his lips as he ground his pelvis into hers.

  Tess could barely breathe as the onslaught of Fletch’s out-of-control kiss sucked away all her oxygen. She desperately dragged in air through her nostrils as she rode the wild bucking of his hips.

  ‘Tess,’ he groaned against her mouth.

  Tess could feel the hard length of him rubbing against the centre of her splayed thighs and she wanted more. She wanted him naked and inside her. She didn’t want the barrier of two layers of fabric and a metal zipper. She wanted him thick and hard and proud the way she remembered him in dreams she couldn’t always quell. She wanted to feel him in her hand. She wanted to relish every inch of him as he entered her and took her to a place far, far away from this world where they just didn’t do things like this.

  She broke away from his mouth, pushing him back again, more urgently this time. She looked down at his erection clearly outlined beneath the taut pull of fabric. She reached for it, walked her fingers up it, walked them back down.

  ‘Tess.’

  The growl was deep and low, stroking deep and low inside her as he looked at her from beneath half-shuttered eyelids.

  She heeded his warning, quickly unbuckling his belt, popping the button and peeling back his zip. The opening of metal teeth was loud in a room where the only other noise was the rasp of breath.

  One glimpse of the long hard length of him and she was pushing aside the flaps of his fly and grasping him still encased in his underwear. Her insides clenched and she rocked against him, a completely involuntary movement.

  Fletch shut his eyes on a groan as she rubbed herself against his thigh while she stroked his thickness and then impatiently broke through the last barrier to put her hand around him, skin on skin. He cried out as the muscles in his groin and belly and deep inside his buttocks shuddered.

  He vaulted up again, his hands sliding to her breasts, his mouth slamming into hers, their tongues thrusting as their hips rocked to a rhythm pounding simultaneously through both of their bloodstreams and she milked the length of him.

  Fletch couldn’t bear it a moment longer. It had been so long and he’d dreamed of them coming together again too many lonely nights to count. He grasped her thighs and tumbled her to the side, rolling on top of her in one easy movement.

  ‘I need you,’ he muttered against her neck.

  ‘I’m yours,’ she whispered straight into his ear.

  Fletch felt everything stutter to a halt. He shut his eyes as the familiarity of the words slugged him right between the eyes. He felt her mouth at his neck and her hand pushing beneath the loosened waistband of his trousers, sliding beneath his jocks to grasp his buttocks, but everything inside him had turned cold.

  The words played in his head over and over. A different place. A different time.

  A different woman.

  He saying, I need you. She saying, I’m yours.

  It was like a blast of arctic air in his face. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go ahead with it. Because he knew with a certainty that came from deep in his bones that he loved Tess and he wanted more than this, more than one night.

  He wanted every night.

  He wanted his wife back.

  But there were things that had to be said first.

  It took a moment or two for Tess to realise that Fletch wasn’t responding when she pressed her mouth to his. She pulled back. ‘Fletch?’

  Fletch looked down at her, a frown knitting her brows together. ‘I’m sorry…’ He dropped his head on her chest, giving himself a moment to take stock. ‘I can’t do this…’ he said.

  His voice was muffled but Tess could sense his withdrawal in every muscle of his body.

  No, no, no. She mewed her disappointment as Fletch pushed himself away from her. She needed this, damn it!

  Fletch’s hands trembled as he gripped the side of the mattress, keeping his back to her. He tucked himself away with difficulty, pulling up the zip over his bulge, feeling instantly uncomfortable. His fingers shook as he did up a couple of buttons to cover his chest. He bent down and retrieved her shirt, his shirt, from the floor, dropping it behind him without looking.

  The shirt landed on her belly, cold against her heated flesh, and Tess just stared at it for a moment. Her blood was still thrumming thick and sludgy through every cell in her body, rendering her completely useless.

  ‘There’s something you need to know,’ he said, staring out at the darkness beyond his floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Tess blinked at his back as a sense of foreboding pushed the sticky remnants of desire violently aside. She scrambled upright, throwing the shirt over her head, then wriggled off the bed to stand in front of him. ‘Whatever it is, I don’t want to know,’ she said.

  Because it didn’t take a genius to figure out this was something to do with Ryan. She didn’t want to talk about Ryan. Surely he knew that by now? She didn’t want to think about him or reminisce about him. She didn’t even want to say his name.

  Didn’t he realise how much it hurt to even say his name?

  Fletch almost gave up. But that was what he’d always done with her because her grief and her guilt had been so great he’d tried to make everything else easy for her. He’d let her avoid and deny and shut things out because she’d asked him to and he’d been at a loss as to how to help her.

  Well, not any more.

  He wanted something real with her. Warts and all. It meant making some hard decisions but he was finally going to fight for her instead of letting her slip away again. ‘I need to talk about this.’

  Tess crossed her arms. ‘Damn it, Fletch, why do you think we’re on your bed, making out like teenagers? Especially after today? So we don’t have to talk.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you, Tess. You want more than that.’

  ‘No,’ she denied.

  Fletch felt a wellspring of frustration and anger bubble up inside him at her stonewalling. ‘Well, if all you wanted was for me to screw you then why did you ask me to make love to you?’

  Tess blinked at his profanity. ‘I guess because asking you to screw me was just a little too crass,’ she hissed.

  ‘Well, at least I would have known where I stood,’ he snapped.

  ‘Oh, come on, Fletch. You can’t tell me you weren’t trying to forget about today just a little bit too.’

  Fletch snorted. He stood and stalked passed her, stopping in front of the windows, his reflection staring grimly back at him. God, he looked like hell.

  He turned his back on it. ‘I was doing what you asked me to do, Tess. I was making love to you.’

  They stared at each other for long moments, their chests rising and falling rapidly, this time in anger.

  Fletch ran a hand through his hair. ‘It’s not about Ryan,’ he said. ‘Not directly anyway.’

  Because they both knew that everything in their lives since Ryan had always stemmed from Ryan.

  ‘Don’t, Fletch. Please, don’t.’

  He heard the plea in her voice and knew it would be so easy not to tell her. To take the coward’s way out. He’d decided nine years ago to keep it to himself—why not just stick to it?

  Because their relationship nine years ago had been a train wreck and he couldn’t go there again.

  He wanted to be with her, he wanted to make love to her.

  But he couldn’t make love to her with this on his conscience.

  It’s why he’d walked away all those years ago without a fight.

  They had a lot of work to do with their relationship. A lot of honesty and dealing with their unresolved grief and unspoken feelings around Ryan. There was going to be a lot of soul-searching and it demand
ed total honesty.

  And that had to start now.

  Fletch knew it was the only way they could build a relationship that could survive and thrive the second time around. And if he had to drag her kicking and screaming along with him, he would.

  Because he knew deep down that she still loved him too.

  And this time he was fighting for that love.

  ‘I’ll give you fair warning. I’m not just going to let you disappear out of my life again, Tess.’

  Tess blinked at his audacity. ‘You don’t get a say, Fletch. I’m leaving here and going back to England as soon as Trish is home from hospital.’

  Fletch ignored her. He’d move heaven and earth to keep her with him and with several weeks left before Trish was due, he had time on his side.

  There would be no more playing it her way.

  ‘Before we can go forward, there’s something you need to know first.’

  Tess glared at him. ‘There is no forward, Fletch.’

  He ignored her. ‘There was a woman…’

  The four words free-fell into the space between them and seem to stay suspended, hovering there for an age.

  When they finally landed Tess felt each one slam like a bullet straight through her heart.

  Fletch had…cheated on her? ‘Do you mean you—?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, cutting her off because he couldn’t bear to hear her utter his transgression aloud.

  Tess stared at him. She’d known on some level just how messed up she was and that she’d been closed off and shut down and it was not fair to Fletch, but she’d never have thought in a million years he would find someone else.

  Her faith in his fidelity had always been rock solid.

  Fletch’s stomach clenched at the look of shock on her face. She was looking at him like she had that day after the ambulance had whisked Ryan away. He wanted to reach out to her but knew her well enough to know that it wasn’t the right time.

  ‘It was at the intensive care conference I went to the weekend before we split up,’ he continued, his hands shaking, his voice husky. ‘She was in the bar late on the Saturday night. I couldn’t sleep. She smiled at me, we talked for a while…’ He shook his head. ‘It was just the once… Hell, I don’t even know her name. I left her room straight away afterwards, but…’ he shook his head ‘…I couldn’t believe I’d done it. Knew I’d never forgive myself. Knew that we were over…that I’d signed our marital death warrant. So when I came home on Sunday night and you asked me for a divorce, I agreed.’

  Tess remembered that weekend. Remembered the overwhelming sense of relief as he’d left, knowing she didn’t have to look at him for forty-eight hours. The sudden realisation that their marriage was over. That they’d drifted too far apart.

  She remembered him coming home from the conference that Sunday evening. How could she not? Asking for a divorce had been her first act of courage in a year.

  She also remembered his lack of fight. Remembered being surprised by it even as she’d rejoiced in his capitulation.

  But she hadn’t demanded to know why, had just accepted it at face value, knowing she could move on in her own way, in her own time. No more listening to him talk about Ryan and what had happened, ad nauseam. No more analysis of every single detail. No more requests for her to go to counselling.

  It had been a green light to deal with things her way and she’d embraced the end of her marriage as a way to begin again—far away from everything that hurt so much.

  And things had been just fine—until now.

  Now she had to face the fact that her husband had picked up some woman in a hotel bar while she’d been at home grieving for their son.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ she asked him, shaking her head as the knowledge hurt much, much more than she expected. ‘Why didn’t you just keep it to yourself?’

  ‘I can’t, Tess. I love you and I want you back. And this is something that’s been eating at me, would continue to eat at me. It would erode any chance we had for the future.’

  ‘So you get to feel better and unburdened and I get to feel like shit?’ She lunged forward and pushed him hard in the chest. ‘Gee, Fletch, thanks a lot!’ She glared at him wild-eyed. ‘I don’t even get an orgasm to take the sting out of it!’

  Fletch took a step back as his body absorbed her shove. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Tess. But would you rather we’d had sex and then I told you?’

  Tess looked at him, flabbergasted. ‘I’d rather you hadn’t done it in the first place, you lousy, cheating bastard!’ she hissed, conscious of Jean sleeping down the hall. ‘Then, yes, I’d have preferred you’d kept it to yourself.’

  Fletch snorted. ‘Do you know most wives would have demanded to know why I did it, not why I told?’

  ‘Well, I guess you already knew I’m not like most wives!’

  He shook his head. ‘You’re not even curious?’

  ‘I’m assuming that one year without sex was your personal limit and seeing as you weren’t getting it from me, you got it where you could.’

  Fletch’s hands curled into fists as he almost roared out loud at the unfairness of her assessment. She didn’t have a clue. Not a single clue. He turned away from her, planting his fists up high on the windows, hanging his head, fighting for control.

  ‘Hell, Tess,’ he said after a long moment or two. ‘It wasn’t about the sex.’

  Tess turned so she was looking at his back. ‘So it was love?’ she scoffed, her voice ripe with sarcasm.

  He waited until his temper was truly in check before he turned around again. He placed his hands behind his back and lounged against the glass, trapping them there.

  ‘It wasn’t about sex or love, Tess, it was about affection. She looked at me like I was a man,’ he said in a low voice. ‘An interesting man. An attractive, interesting man with interesting things to say. Not as a grieving father. Or an inadequate husband. She didn’t look at me like I’d let her down. Like I’d failed her. Like I’d killed her child.’

  Tess gasped, wrapping her arms around her body to fend off his shocking words. ‘I didn’t do that, Fletch.’

  ‘She didn’t flinch when I touched her, Tess,’ he continued ignoring her protestation. ‘She looked at me, at me, Tess. Not at what I hadn’t done but what I could do.’

  He shifted, bringing his arms up to cross his chest. ‘It’s not an excuse for my behaviour. I was weak and it was wrong and I’ve regretted it every day since. And I’m sorry that you’d rather not know about it, but I want to start anew with you, Tess. We’ve spent all this time avoiding the hard stuff—second time round it has to be warts and all.’

  Tess couldn’t even begin to assess the revelations that had just occurred. Knowing that Fletch had indulged in a one-night stand was mind-blowing. Hearing his reasons had been shocking.

  Confessing that he wanted her back was just way too much altogether.

  It was too much. It was all too much.

  She was trembling but she wasn’t sure if it was from anger or shock.

  She dropped her arms. ‘I’m sorry too, Fletch,’ she murmured, then turned away from him and headed for the walk-in wardrobe.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked as he watched her disappear inside.

  Tess grabbed the overnight bag that she’d arrived with just over a month ago. ‘I’m packing,’ she said.

  Fletch frowned. He pushed off the glass and strode briskly to the large open cupboard space. She was emptying the drawers he’d cleaned out for her. Grabbing her few paltry belongings off hangers.

  He folded his arms. ‘I thought you were staying until Trish had the baby.’

  Tess steeled herself against the guilt of her broken promise. Fletch’s family was not her family.

  Not now. Not for a long time.

  ‘Nope. Not any more.’

  Fletch heard the finality in her voice and realised she was serious. ‘Tess, don’t,’ he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. ‘This is crazy. What about Mum?
You promised you’d stay.’

  Tess hardened her heart. ‘That was before your little revelation tonight.’

  She zipped up the bag with a vicious flick of her wrist, dragging it past him and throwing it on the bed. She went into the bathroom, clothes in hand, and threw them on. As usual she didn’t bother with any make-up and she refused to look in the mirror as she gathered her paltry toiletry supplies.

  She felt like she was about to shatter into a thousand pieces and she didn’t want to see what that looked like. She’d made a habit of avoiding mirrors this last ten years—tonight would not be a good time to start. Her heart was pounding and her ears were ringing when she strode out two minutes later.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’

  ‘To the airport,’ she said, more calmly than she felt.

  She knew she had to go now. If she waited until the morning, when both Jean and Tabby were looking at her with their big eyes, she’d knew she’d cave in.

  Much easier to look into the eyes of an adulterer and walk away.

  Fletch wondered if he hadn’t maybe tipped her over the edge. She looked so calm and yet was acting so crazy. ‘You haven’t even got a flight booked,’ he reasoned.

  ‘I have a credit card.’ She shrugged, picking up her watch from the bedside table and slipping it on. ‘I’ll get on the first airline with a flight out to London.’ She shoved her feet into her shoes by the bed and grabbed her bag.

  ‘Tess.’ He put a stilling hand on her arm. ‘Please, don’t go. Don’t run like you always do. Stay and help me work it out.’

  Tess looked down at his hand. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she warned. ‘Don’t you ever touch me again.’

  And then she turned on her heel and marched away and she didn’t look back and she didn’t stop until she got to the safety of her car, where she locked all the doors and burst into tears.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN