by Lucy King
Three rounds had been quite enough and she never again wanted to experience the hope and the despair that the procedures had aroused in her. Never again wanted to be reminded of the pain and devastation of her ectopic pregnancy and her resultant infertility.
‘There are other options,’ he said, watching her closely.
‘Adoption?’
He’d suggested that once before, just after she’d found out that the third round of treatment hadn’t worked, and at the time she’d been feeling so like she’d failed in her evolutionary role on the planet, and so unable to believe that he could have brought it up at that time, that she’d yelled at him that he was unthinking and unfeeling and wholly insensitive if he thought that adopting could make up for holding their own child in her arms.
But now, though, she could see that it was an option. The only one they had really.
‘We could think about it,’ he said. ‘At some point. Or not. Whatever you want. I’d rather have you and no children than a family with anyone else. I always did.’
Ignoring the warmth that swept through her at that, Lily said quietly, ‘You say that now, but what if you change your mind?’
‘I won’t.’
‘You might.’
‘Trust me.’
‘And that’s another thing,’ she said, frowning as yet another thing to worry about should she agree to try things again flew into her head. ‘How do I know I can trust you? How do I know that when things get tough, when I go all weird and withdrawn, as I’m bound to from time to time, you won’t go and find comfort with someone else?’
He reached out and took her into his arms. Pulled her round and back into him, nestling her head beneath his chin. ‘Because we’ll talk,’ he said against her hair as he held her tight. ‘Communicate.’
‘Do you think we can?’
‘I’ll make sure we do. I won’t let us not.’
Lily watched a shooting star dart across the sky and felt her heart skip a tiny beat. ‘Is it really that simple?’
‘It could be if we take things one day at a time.’
At the sincerity in his voice and with the warmth and heat of his body wrapped round her Lily found herself hovering.
Could they make a go of it? Get it right this time? Kit did make it sound simple. And out here, in the velvety isolation of the night, tucked away in their own little bubble, it seemed as if anything was possible.
But what would it be like when they got back to London? Back to life? Real life. Would they be able to navigate the obstacles of their relationship as well as two busy careers? Not to mention manage the expectations of family and friends. Did they have the strength? The commitment? Did they really have the ability to be open and honest when experience suggested otherwise?
‘Look, Lily, I’m not saying it won’t be hard,’ he said quietly, as if able to read her mind. ‘I don’t think we’re always going to have an easy ride. All I know is that I love you and if I do by some miracle get you back I’ll do my damnedest to make it work.’
At the quiet conviction of his words and with the beat of his heart strong and steady beneath her shoulder she could feel herself falling. ‘I’d need honesty.’
‘You’d have it.’
‘Always?’
‘Always. And I won’t give you any reason not to be able to trust me. Ever.’
‘Really?’
‘I promise.’
And just like that down she went, head over heels into a future with him. ‘All right,’ she whispered with her heart in her throat. ‘Let’s do it.’
TEN
‘You look happy.’
Lily dropped her bag on her desk, sat down in her chair and gave her sister a smile that was wide and bright and at the moment pretty much permanent. ‘I am.’
And she was. Because despite her misgivings, the last couple of months had been wonderful. Better than she could ever have imagined. And so much fun that every time she thought about the five years she and Kit had been apart she found herself shaking her head in amazement that she’d actually thought she’d been fine.
She hadn’t been fine, she could see now. She’d been coasting. Simply existing as the days rolled endlessly by, and living her life in black-and-white. And despite a great social life and her fabulous family, she’d been so very, very lonely.
In contrast, since they’d returned from the Indian Ocean she felt as if she were on fire. She woke up every morning raring to go, brimming with a fizzing sort of energy she could barely contain. The days now whizzed by in glorious Technicolor, the nights were hot and heavy with passion and she’d never felt less lonely or more convinced that choosing to give them a second shot had been the best decision she’d ever made.
Not that everyone thought so. Her parents, for example, had been extremely wary, not wanting to burst her bubble of happiness yet unable to refrain from suggesting proceeding with caution. But that was only natural given that they’d seen the wreck she’d been when she and Kit had parted.
And while most of her friends had been carefully congratulatory, others, who’d also witnessed her falling apart, told her she was mad and wanted to know how she was able to trust him, to which she would shrug and say she just did.
The only person who seemed genuinely delighted was Zoe, who was so loved-up at the moment and so wrapped up in wedding plans that she was delighted by pretty much everything these days.
‘Happier than usual, now I come to think of it,’ said Zoe, dragging Lily out of her musings and back to the office where she was supposed to be picking up information for her imminent meeting.
‘That’s entirely possible,’ said Lily, reaching for the folder she needed that was lying on her desk and putting it in her bag-cum-briefcase.
‘What’s happened?’
She zipped her bag. ‘Kit asked me to move in with him.’
‘And?’
‘I agreed.’
Zoe blew out a breath. ‘Wow.’
‘I know. Great, isn’t it? Although I suggested he move in with me. I mean, he lives in a hotel. I rattle round a four-bedroomed house.’
‘And he was all right with that?’
Lily nodded and swivelled to her computer to quickly check where she was going. ‘Seems to be,’ she said, pulling up the maps page and entering the postcode. ‘I mean, he has most of his stuff there already and it’s not like we haven’t done it before. I already know his bad habits and of course I don’t have any.’
Zoe grinned. ‘Of course you don’t. So when does he move in?’
‘Next weekend.’ And she couldn’t wait.
‘Things are going well, then?’
‘Yup.’
‘I’m glad. You know, I always liked him.’
‘Did you?’ asked Lily, glancing up at her sister and shooting her a quick smile. ‘Because I seem to remember you once saying that hanging, drawing and quartering was too good for him.’
Zoe waved a dismissive hand. ‘That was years ago in response to a very specific circumstance. Things are different now.’
‘They are,’ she agreed, thinking that they were different indeed.
For one thing they’d already been through more stuff than most people had to deal with in a lifetime of marriage, and had come through. For another they were different. This time round they were their own people. They weren’t wrapped up in each other to the exclusion of everyone else, as she’d realised they had been before. They were more mature, more settled, more grounded. Their relationship was now more adult. In more ways than one, she thought, drifting off for a very happy moment to remember some of the new tricks she and Kit had tried in the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen…
‘Dan likes him too,’ said Zoe, snapping Lily out of her delightful little reverie.
‘The feeling’s entirely mutual.’
Her ex-husband and her future brother-in-law had got on like a house on fire when they’d first met. Now they played squash together on a pretty regular basis, which was faintly weir
d, although great.
‘So what have you got lined up for today?’
Lily sat back, her smile deepening. ‘We’re going on a date. Kit’s off to Rome tomorrow to check out a site for a new hotel so he’s taking me to this brand-new restaurant that’s opened just around the corner from home. It’s very cool and very difficult to get a table.’ But he’d done it. For her.
Zoe grinned and rolled her eyes. ‘I meant today today. As in workwise.’
Lily blushed. ‘Of course you did. I knew that.’ Determinedly stamping out the heat whipping through her, she pulled herself together and switched into business mode because, honestly, it was high time she stopped feeling like a giggly teenager in the grip of her first crush. ‘I have a meeting across town. New client. Very big. Very important. Could be huge for us.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘In fact, I’d better get going.’
Filling with the familiar buzz she got whenever she pitched for new business, Lily stood up, grabbed her bag and hitched her handbag over her shoulder.
‘Good luck,’ said Zoe.
‘Thanks.’
‘Let me know how it goes.’
‘I will.’
*
Sitting in a plush office in London’s West End, Lily watched John Burrows, the director of marketing for what was going to be their most high-profile client to date, sign on the dotted line, and mentally punched the air in triumph.
It hadn’t been an easy sale. He’d asked tough questions, demanded a lot of information and had driven an extremely hard bargain. At one point she’d thought her pitch had been about to unravel from the sheer pressure of it, but she’d held her nerve, conceded the points she was willing to concede and stood her ground on the ones she wasn’t, and eventually they’d reached an agreement.
And now, she thought, smiling as he slid the document back for her to sign, she felt as if she were floating along in some kind of a fabulous narcotic-induced haze. Only she was high on adrenalin, success, life and love, not drugs. Her relationship was blooming, business was booming and frankly, she thought, adding her own signature beside his, it was pretty hard to see how things could get any better.
‘We look forward to doing business with you,’ she said, standing and holding out her hand with a smile.
John Burrows gave it a quick, firm shake and then let it go. ‘Likewise.’
‘Just out of interest,’ she asked, putting the precious document away, ‘how did you hear about us?’
‘You were recommended.’
A wave of satisfaction and pride swept through her, tangling with everything else that was rolling around inside her and making it a pretty crowded place. Word of mouth was often the way they got clients, and it was good to know that they were still rated highly. ‘Who by? If you don’t mind saying.’
‘I don’t mind saying at all. It was Kit Buchanan.’
‘Oh?’ said Lily, her eyebrows lifting a little in surprise because Kit hadn’t mentioned it. ‘How do you know him?’
‘I don’t,’ said John. ‘But my wife does.’
‘Really?’ she asked with a smile. ‘How?’
‘Paula works with him. She does some of his PR from time to time. She asked him if he might know of anyone who might be able to help with what I was looking for and he suggested you.’
At the mention of PR in connection with Kit, Lily’s blood chilled, all the good stuff draining away and leaving nothing but a hard, cold lump in her stomach. A tremor ran through her and her memory took her right back to the night he’d stumbled in in the early hours after that work night out and had confessed to having just slept with someone who’d worked in the PR department of the hotel where he was working.
A cold sweat broke out all over her skin and her throat tightened and for a moment she went dizzy at the sickening thought that Kit still saw the woman he had a one-night stand with.
And then she gave herself a shake and got a grip. She was overreacting. Being absurd. Irrational. Seeing a coincidence where it was highly unlikely that there was one because thousands of people worked in PR, and probably more than half of them were women.
Besides, if Kit had recommended her and they’d only been back together for a couple of months, then the chances were that Paula Burrows had only started working with Kit recently.
And finally, Kit would have told her if he actually now worked with the woman he’d cheated on her with, wouldn’t he? Of course he would, because he’d promised her honesty and openness and had said he’d never give her any reason not to be able to trust him.
She believed him so she had nothing to worry about. Nothing to fear. She should give him the benefit of the doubt, attribute her bizarre reaction to John’s news to her pathetic insecurities and leave it.
*
Lily left it for the ten minutes it took to wrap things up with her new client and walk to the lift and then the three she spent zooming down twenty-five storeys to the ground floor. She left it for the two minutes she needed to cross the lobby and walk out of the door, and the next two it took to cross the road and enter the garden square.
She left it, in fact, until she was sitting on a bench in the early spring sunshine, digging around in her handbag for her phone and inwardly cursing herself for being so pitifully weak and insecure that she had to check out Paula Burrows for sure.
But what else could she do? she thought, finally locating her phone and hauling it out. For the last five of the seventeen minutes since the suspicion had taken root in her brain she’d been itching to do something about it because she’d realised somewhere between the fifteenth and fourteenth floors that in this case ignorance wasn’t bliss. In this case ignorance was a bitch and she’d far rather be in possession of the facts, whatever they turned out to be.
After a couple of taps on the tiny screen of her smartphone Lily typed in ‘Paula Burrows’ along with ‘PR’ and the name of Kit’s company.
And up she popped.
With her heart in her throat, Lily braced herself and scrolled through the woman’s CV, bypassing the professional qualifications and industry awards until she got to the employment section.
The woman who might or might not have slept with her husband had had an impressive career so far. She’d been working for Kit’s PR company for two years. Prior to that she’d worked at another top ten agency. And prior to that she’d worked in the PR department at the Brinkley Hotel Group. As had Kit. At the same time.
Which didn’t automatically mean that they’d slept together, Lily told herself, frantically trying to cling onto logic as she fought not to hyperventilate, because presumably this Paula Burrows, or Barnes as she’d been then, hadn’t been the only woman in the company’s PR department.
But nor did it mean they hadn’t, she thought, beginning to lose the battle with her breathing and logic. And if by horrible coincidence Kit did now work with the woman he’d had a one-night stand with and hadn’t told her, what did it mean? What was going on?
She didn’t know. A mere half an hour ago she’d been so certain about everything to do with her and Kit and their fabulous burgeoning relationship, but now with her head pounding with questions and doubts and her grip on her self-control rapidly disintegrating she suddenly didn’t know anything any more.
All she did know was that she couldn’t go back to the office and face Zoe’s inevitable questions and relentless cheerfulness. Not while her thoughts were such a mess and the emotions she was struggling to keep in check were threatening to spill over.
So with a couple of taps and a quick swipe she found Zoe’s number and hit the dial button.
‘Hey,’ came Zoe’s cheerful voice down the line.
‘Hi,’ said Lily, her own voice sounding thick and croaky as if she hadn’t used it in years.
‘How did it go?’
‘Good. We got it.’
‘Great. Well done you. I’ll put the champagne on ice.’
Lily lifted a hand to her pounding temple and closed her eyes because the last thing s
he felt like doing right now was celebrating. ‘I think I might head home.’
There was a pause. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine. Just a bit of a headache, that’s all.’
‘Sure? You sound rough.’
‘I feel it. But I’m sure I’ll be fine in a bit.’ Which was a lie because she couldn’t imagine feeling fine any time soon.
‘OK, well, try to rest.’
‘I will.’ Not.
‘And I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘See you tomorrow,’ she echoed dully, and hung up.
In something of a daze she stumbled out of the park and hailed a taxi, and when it screeched to a halt gave the driver her address and climbed in.
She didn’t notice much about the journey home. Her head was swirling too fast and her stomach was churning too violently.
What should she do about what she might or might not have just discovered? Should she confront Kit? Summon up her courage and ask him outright to clarify things? And whatever his response, should she bite the bullet and ask all those questions about the woman he’d betrayed her with that she’d been in too much of a state to ask at the time but had secretly wanted to ask for weeks—or years, if she was being honest?
Or should she just leave it?
Because she could well be getting the wrong end of the stick here. It could be a coincidence. He could have had the one-night stand with someone else in the PR department. And did she really want to bring the past up? Did she really want to know all the sordid details of what had happened five years ago? For what could possibly be no reason at all other than to satisfy her morbid curiosity?
No, she didn’t, she thought firmly as the taxi pulled up outside her house and she got out, handed over a couple of notes and told the driver to keep the change. So she’d leave well alone. Put it to the back of her mind. Forget about it.
Things between her and Kit were good. Better than good. The searing—and probably wholly unnecessary—jealousy would fade. As would the hurt stabbing at her heart. With a bit of effort she could bury the doubt. And in a jiffy she would be back to normal.