The Runaway Ex

by Shani Struthers

  “Are you over Alex?”

  “God, yes.”

  No doubt in her voice there, Penny was glad to note. Alex had been a rotten, two-timing—no, make that three-, even four-timing bastard, far too flashy for his own good and far too old for Layla. Forty-three he had claimed to be to Layla’s then twenty-eight. Yeah, right. Believe that, and you’ll believe anything. What she had seen in him was a mystery, the arrogant arse. Working as a marketing executive in his company, Easy Travel in Brighton, where Penny had also worked for a while, Layla had spent years mooning over him before he had deigned to ask her out, and only then after he had worked his way through most of his other staff members—the ones who happened to be at least ten years younger than him, that is.

  He and Layla had lasted a year before he reverted to type and ran off with the latest girl on the block, leaving Layla not only heartbroken but bewildered too. The only thing he’d left in his wake was a Post-it note telling her to carry on with business in his absence. It was the marketing manager, a witch of a woman called Hazel, who had filled Layla in on the rest—in front of the entire workforce, humiliating her further. That Post-it note, it had killed Layla, made her feel like dirt, probably not even as grand.

  When an opportunity had come up to move hundreds of miles away, she had taken it, desperate to escape Alex and memories of him. She’d said that in Brighton, they were everywhere. Although Penny had been against the move to Trecastle at first—she had wanted her best friend to stay close—it had been good for Layla. It was where she had met Joseph. And Joseph loved Layla; it was obvious.

  With that in mind, she decided to give Joseph the benefit of the doubt—so easy to do on someone else’s behalf. “Then maybe it’s the same for him. Maybe there is a valid reason why he has to keep quiet. Maybe you should do as he asks. Trust him.”

  “Yeah.” She could practically see Layla’s head bobbing up and down like that dog on the telly, the annoying plastic one that advertised insurance. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Look, I have to go. The baby…”

  “Of course.”

  “Call me when you’re on British soil.”

  “I will,” Layla promised.

  Ending the call, Penny didn’t go to Scarlett straightaway. Instead, she managed to zone her out for a few moments as she pondered the conversation she’d just had.

  She didn’t envy what Layla was going through. That age-old issue of trust, she had to concede, was a tough one. Would she trust Joseph if she were in Layla’s Converse boots? She didn’t know. Mind you, that was probably because of her personal track record. In the past, she hadn’t always played fair with Richard. She had never overstepped the mark, mind, never slept with anyone else while married to him, but flirting, she had certainly done that, until one of her flirtations had turned sour. Dylan had turned from a seemingly harmless admirer into a stalking maniac, texting her constantly, begging her to meet him before turning up on her doorstep, accusing her of leading him up, well, quite aptly, considering where he was standing, the garden path.

  Hot on Layla’s heels, she had fled to Trecastle too, to escape not only him but Richard’s wrath. He knew about Dylan; she had told him. What Richard didn’t know was that she had continued to see Dylan long after saying she had cut all ties. In her defense, it was only as friends, something she thought she had made crystal clear to Dylan. Obviously not. But initially his cheeky, bad-boy ways had made her laugh at a time when she had needed laughter—when things were rotten with Richard, thanks to the hours he worked, and when her best friend had upped and left. She had felt alone and unwanted, as though she had suddenly stopped mattering to everyone who mattered to her. Her liaison with Dylan was innocent. Okay, she begrudgingly admitted, semi-innocent. But, for a while, she had liked the way he had made her feel, the way he had looked at her, as though she were desirable, at least.

  She was sure Richard would leave her after Dylan-gate. But, to her surprise, he hadn’t. He had followed her down to that funny little village in Cornwall instead—that village Layla loved so much, that she always insisted was drenched in magic—not to divorce her but to tell her Dylan wouldn’t be bothering her again. He’d made sure of it. And to tell her he loved her too, she mustn’t forget that bit, that he worshipped the ground she walked on. Perhaps Layla was right, after all, about the magic. She had fallen into his arms then, told him she was pregnant—she’d only just found out herself—and all had been right with the world again. During her pregnancy, they’d been as close as they were before her flirting and his workaholic ways had come between them. But now something had come between them again—spectacularly so—in the shape of little Miss Scarlett. Whoever said having a child brought a couple closer had obviously never road-tested that theory.

  Penny looked down at her tracksuit bottoms. Correction: her baby-food-splattered tracksuit bottoms. Just as well she was no longer interested in flirting. Who’d want to flirt with her now anyway? She was a mess. A harassed, neurotic, and depressed mess—oh, and frumpy too, she mustn’t forget that. How Richard could bear to look at her, she didn’t know, let alone make a move on her. Although to be fair, he hadn’t for months now. Not that she minded. She was never in the mood anyway.

  Harassed, neurotic, and depressed…Those three little words would not stop haunting her. They were all the things Richard had implied she was when he had come home to find her in the same state of meltdown as Scarlett—both of them consumed with anger and, in her case, despair too. A mum-and-baby combo.

  “What the hell?” he had said, going to Scarlett first, she noticed, picking her up and cradling her to him. And wouldn’t you know it? The baby had quieted at his touch, making Penny cry even harder. All day she had tried to soothe Scarlett, and all day she had failed. Actually, she hadn’t cried. That was putting it too politely. She had howled, like a wolf might howl at a full moon. What a sight she must have looked.

  Even Richard couldn’t ignore her howling. It was deafening. After a few startled moments, he had actually come over to her, baby still in arms, and acknowledged her.

  “What is it, Penny? What’s the matter?”

  I need a hug too! A hug and a truckload of Valium.

  Those were the words she should have said, but she was too busy howling. Some part of her was wondering—the part of her that was just holding on to the edge of sanity—if there was a full moon outside, and if so, what did it know that she didn’t?

  As predicted, Richard did not put the baby down, not until Scarlett fell into an exhausted sleep—a sleep Penny knew wouldn’t last. She’d be up through the night, two o’clock, four o’clock, and then from six she’d be awake for good, all while Richard slumbered peacefully in the spare room, his ear plugs and eye mask firmly in place.

  When at last he had carefully laid the baby in her crib, spending ages upstairs doing so, either enraptured by Scarlett’s—temporary—peaceful repose or trying to summon up the courage to come downstairs and face his increasingly deranged wife, she had opened a bottle of wine, determined to down it in one. Trouble was it had made her retch. In a fit of pique, she had downed some water instead. All that howling made a girl thirsty.

  Eventually Richard had returned to the kitchen, sauntered casually over to the fridge, grabbed himself a beer, turned to her, and said, “Penny, you really need to sort yourself out, you know. The way you’re acting, it’s not good for Scarlett.”

  And that was it; she was off again—howling. Everything was about the baby; nothing was about her. It was as though she’d ceased to be a woman in Richard’s eyes. She had become something else entirely; something she didn’t know how to be: a mother—despite reading manual after manual on the subject.

  An argument had ensued, a vicious, snarling argument—and yes, he had snarled at her as much as she had snarled at him—and that’s when the words “harassed, neurotic, and depressed” had been alluded to. No, not alluded to, thrown slap bang in her face. “Neurotic” in particular a favorite among the trio.
r />   Look, I’m trying here. I’m trying to be Mother of the Year. I’m doing everything I can, but she hates me. Yes, that’s right, hates me. She screams when she sees me at night, in the morning, through the day. Nothing I do is right. I can’t seem to make her happy, to make her gurgle, to make her coo. None of the things that those bloody textbooks I devour tell you babies should do. But I try, Richard, I really, really try.

  If only she had said those words in that order, but she hadn’t. They had come out stuttering, disjointed, and mixed up instead. Even she had thought she was an idiot.

  “Penny,” he had said, rolling his eyes at her, deep-brown eyes she used to drown in once upon a time. “You’re making something out of nothing here.”

  “But Richard,” she had protested, “I’m not…”

  And then he had come out with the clincher.

  “Yeah, you are. Looking after a baby, it’s not rocket science, you know. It’s easy.”

  That was not what she had wanted to hear. Escape beckoned—the front room. She had stormed toward it, slamming the door behind her, the subsequent shaking of the doorframe impressive. Next, she had pushed the sofa up against it, thrown herself on the rug in front of the telly, and damn well howled some more.

  She had refused to come out, either—not for him, for Scarlett, or for Armageddon. He and the baby, they were welcome to each other. She only interrupted the love fest between them anyway. Instead, she had relished being alone—something of a novelty lately—finally grabbing a cushion off the sofa, propping it under her head, and falling promptly asleep, the darkness that ensued a comfort.

  Richard had left bleary-eyed and bad-tempered the next morning, clearly unable to cope with even one broken night when she had endured countless. He had handed the baby to her once she had un-barricaded herself, mumbled, “God knows what today’s going to be like. I’m exhausted, and I’ve got an important meeting, too,” and then slammed his way out of the house, the doorframes quaking some more.

  She had looked down at the bundle in her arms and, for a moment, not even a moment really, had thought Scarlett was going to smile at her. Certainly something was going on. Sadly, it had been wind—wind followed by a massive follow-through that squirted right out of her nappy and soaked them both in a brown and fetid mess. And then, as though the baby was affronted by what had just happened, as though it were Penny’s doing, not hers, she had started screaming again. Quashing down bitter disappointment, her own tears threatened again as she headed upstairs to the bathroom, but this time she had managed to keep them at bay.

  Layla had been the first adult she had talked to properly since her meltdown. It was such a shame it was only on the telephone. If Layla were here, in the flesh, Penny might feel more able to cope.

  The baby’s cries became too loud to ignore.

  “Don’t worry. Mummy’s coming.”

  As usual, her reassuring words had no reassuring effect at all. Forcing herself up from the sofa, Penny walked over to the gently swaying swing, more determined than ever to take the ruddy thing back. It seemed to be ticking Scarlett off even more. Richard had assembled it. Hopefully she wouldn’t have too much trouble taking it apart. She’d need a screwdriver, though, if she could find one. Richard never put stuff back in the right place. But first she had better feed the baby, and then she’d need to wait awhile for the food to go down. Scarlett tended to suffer from wind otherwise, by which time she’d probably need changing again and then…Crikey, would she ever get out?

  In the kitchen, Penny opened a jar of something organic—something orange in color and smelling like Play-Doh. Both she and Scarlett wrinkled their noses at it, united in their distaste at least. Perhaps she’d mash up some banana instead and then look forward to having it thrown back at her in big slimy lumps. Placing Scarlett in her bouncy chair so she could free her arms, she wondered whether to run upstairs and get Richard’s earplugs. If there was one thing the baby hated more than the swing, it was her bouncy chair, despite jolly pictures of circus animals emblazed in bright colors upon it. As Scarlett carried on doing what she did best—bursting her mother’s eardrums—Penny thought again about trust. Yep, it was a precarious subject, littered with pot holes so deep, if you fell into them, you ran the risk of never seeing daylight again. Layla didn’t know whether to trust Joseph. Richard probably didn’t know whether he could trust his neurotic wife with his precious baby. And worst of all, Penny didn’t know if she could trust herself.

  Chapter Seven

  WELL, THAT WAS A JOURNEY Layla never wanted to repeat. The turbulence outside was nothing compared to what was happening inside the aircraft. The atmosphere was so fragile it could shatter at any moment, send them all plummeting to the ground.

  Breathe, just breathe, she told herself for the umpteenth time as they waited on the tarmac outside Bristol Airport for Jim to come and pick them up in Joe’s old Land Rover Defender, the car he had given to Jim on permanent loan when they had left for Florence. As he had sat between them on the plane, he was standing between them now, refereeing Layla’s behavior—or at least that was the way it felt to her. Behavior he had challenged her about after the two girls had met for the first time.

  “You know what, Layla?” he had said upon re-entering their apartment the evening Tara had come for dinner—was it really only four days ago? It seemed one heck of a lot longer than that. “Sarcasm really doesn’t suit you.”

  “Oh dear,” she had replied—sarcastically. “And there’s me thinking I looked so damn good in it.” Rounding on him, she had continued, “And how come it took you so long to say good-bye to her? It’s just one little word. It takes, hang on, let me practice it in my head. Yep, around two seconds, I’d say, at a stretch three. What were you up to?”

  “We were planning what battle armor to wear on Monday, if you must know. She’s going for chainmail, whereas I’m opting for a full-on Teflon suit. And even then, I’m not sure it’s going to be effective in repelling what comes out of your mouth.”

  Sarcasm was obviously catching.

  Furious, she had been about to throw the tea towel at him when she had seen a smile play around the edges of his mouth. Beyond furious, she had thrown it anyway.

  “There’s chemistry between you,” she had declared.

  “There’s not.”

  “There is. There’s a sizzle.”

  “A sizzle?” he had pondered. “Is that even a word?”

  “Oh, shut up, Joseph. You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t, actually. I don’t read or write romance novels like you do. I tend to live in the real world, a world where the only sizzle, as you put it, is between you and me.”

  God, she hated it when he got smart—something he must have noticed.

  “Layla, Layla,” he had tried to appease, coming up behind her and catching her round the waist, refusing to let her go even when she had slapped hard at his hands. “Look, I’m not serious. Come on, chill out. I thought we had an understanding.”

  “You have an understanding, you mean. You and Tara.” She had accidentally-on-purpose stood on his foot then, his hands springing open in surprised reaction.

  The playful smile had gone from his face.

  “Layla, we had this sorted. I thought you were cool about it.”

  Men! They were such simple creatures sometimes.

  “I don’t know what I think, okay? Be careful how far you push me.”

  “Layla,” he had said again, and there had been something in his voice. Was it a note of pleading or just sheer exasperation?

  “Just don’t,” was all she’d been able to come up with in reply before going into the shower room, the only place in this tiny studio she could seek sanctuary.

  Grabbing her cleanser and some cotton wool from the wicker basket she kept beside the sink, she had scrubbed furiously at her makeup. She had troweled it on in layers before Tara’s arrival: concealer, foundation, powder, blusher, highlighter, mascara, eye powder, lipstick, lip liner—the whole
damn lot, wanting to look the best she could. After all, who knew what was going to walk through the door to greet her? She must be impressive if she could ensnare her ex again so easily with some conveniently drummed-up sob story. Impressive? In a way she was, diminutive but with a sass about her. She was pretty, definitely, her blue eyes a match for Joseph’s, her features petite like she was. She’d stand out in a crowd, Layla would give her that. But there was something canny about her, something…well, secretive was the best description. Why, oh, why was she in their lives again—his life?

  Relations had been strained between Layla and Joseph following the dinner date. Both of them had been glad to have respective jobs to escape to on Friday, coming home in the evening and tiptoeing around each other. Being polite, agonizingly so at times. Even at the weekend, they had offered to work. Paolo as well as Stefania, who ran La Pasticceria Barontini, had been surprised but delighted. At night, Layla kept strictly to her side of the bed instead of lying in his arms like she usually did. Last night, he had whispered her name when he had come to bed, only a few minutes after she had. But she had ignored him, pretended to be asleep—even made a show of snoring gently to prove it. She couldn’t help herself. The more time she had to think about it, the more addled her mind became.

  And now they were back in the UK—all three of them. Layla had scoured every inch of the in-flight magazine on the way over, pretending to find articles on global warming and the art of Spanish cuisine utterly scintillating. Fooling no one.

  “Good to be back, huh?” Joseph attempted to put his arm around her.

  Layla stepped briskly forward, just out of reach.

  “Oh, there’s Jim. Over there,” she said by way of excuse.

  Jim jumped from the car to greet them. Tall and rugged, his hair shaggy above his shoulders, he looked every inch the musician he was.

  “Joe!” he said, walking toward them. No, that wasn’t right. He swaggered toward them, not in a “hey, look at me” kind of way, more in a “hey, don’t sweat it” manner. It wasn’t possible to get more laid-back than Jim. In loose jeans and his brown leather jacket, just as battered as the Defender, he oozed every kind of appeal, although, knowing Jim, it was by accident. Not by design. Going to Joseph first, he grabbed him and enfolded him in a bear hug. Within seconds, he had done the same to Layla, whispering a “Hello, gorgeous” in her ear as he did so. And then he stood and looked at Tara.