by Lucy King
Anyway, Kit was going away tomorrow and they had a lovely evening planned, and she wasn’t going to rock this boat for anything.
ELEVEN
Something was up, thought Kit, frowning to himself as he stood back to let Lily into the lift that would zoom them up to his suite. She’d been quiet throughout dinner. Pensive, monosyllabic and weirdly distant.
Given she’d just landed a huge deal, and considering she’d been aching to go to that restaurant since it had opened, her demeanour was unusual, disconcerting. He’d pulled strings and had managed to get a highly sought-after table at relatively short notice, and while he didn’t need her gratitude a bit of enthusiasm would have been nice.
And not just about either the restaurant or the deal.
She’d been so excited when he asked her what she thought about moving in together, and so up for it, he’d found her excitement infectious. Earlier this evening, though, when he’d brought it up and made a joke about having to change the habit of a lifetime and start putting the lid back on the toothpaste she’d barely responded. Admittedly the joke hadn’t exactly been side-splittingly hilarious but it hadn’t even raised a roll of the eyes, and he found the change in her faintly disturbing.
So what was wrong? Was it something to do with work? Zoe? Him? And what was he going to do about it?
The doors swooshed open and as Lily went ahead of him into his open-plan living area, dropping her bag onto a chair and then shrugging out of her coat, for a moment he considered giving her time. Waiting until she sorted it out in her head and then either told him what was up or moved on.
And then he dismissed it.
No, he thought, setting his jaw and striding over to the cupboard in the kitchen that stocked the drinks. He’d made that mistake before and he wasn’t making it again. He wouldn’t give her the chance to avoid him. Wouldn’t let her deflect. Whatever was wrong they could deal with it because so far things between them had been going brilliantly, and he wouldn’t let them screw it up.
It was probably nothing more than a blip in any case, he told himself, pouring a whisky for himself and a glass of red for her. Nothing they couldn’t sort out together if only she’d let him in.
He slid the glass of wine across the breakfast bar towards her and then leaned back against the counter and looked at her. ‘OK, Lily, so what’s up?’
She glanced up at him, her eyes weirdly empty, and despite the warmth of his apartment he felt a tiny shiver race down his spine. ‘Nothing’s up.’
Yeah, right. ‘Is it work?’
‘Why would anything be up at work?’ she asked, knocking back almost half her wine.
Kit frowned because downing alcohol as if she needed the fortification wasn’t like her. ‘You tell me.’
‘Work’s fine.’
‘Zoe, then?’
‘She’s fine too.’
That really only left one other option, because he might be many things but he wasn’t stupid enough to ask if it was the time of the month, and that option was him.
He took a breath and braced himself. ‘What have I done?’
‘You? Nothing.’
‘Right.’
She shrugged and drank what was left of her wine. ‘Forget it. It’s late and you have an early start. So let’s go to bed.’
Feeling his patience begin to drain, Kit put his glass down and fought to stay calm. ‘For goodness’ sake, Lily. Don’t do this. Didn’t we say we’d communicate? Talk? Be open with each other? So tell me what’s wrong. Whatever it is, I can take it.’
For a moment there was nothing but silence and as he waited for her to respond he became oddly aware of the beat of his heart, the tingling of his skin. An odd sense of impending doom seeped into him and for the first time since they’d got back together again he felt a flicker of panic.
Then she nodded. Once, briefly, and he didn’t know if he was glad she agreed to open up or petrified at what she was going to say because there was an odd stillness about her. An eerie kind of control. The sort of calm that came before a storm.
‘OK, fine,’ she said, her voice so chilling and her small smile so horribly tight that he began to sweat. ‘You’re right. You’re absolutely right.’
He felt himself tensing and a sudden rush of adrenalin, as if his body was preparing for something, although God knew what. ‘So?’
‘I have a question for you.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Is Paula Burrows the woman you screwed while our marriage was in its death throes?’
As her words echoed through his apartment and shock rocked through him Kit went very still. Of all the possible issues that had been going through his head this hadn’t been one of them so where the hell had this suddenly sprung from?
‘How did you find out about Paula?’ he said with a frown, and then winced because that was the wrong wrong way to put it. He’d made it sound as if Paula were a dirty little secret when nothing could be further from the truth. ‘I mean, how did you hear about her?’
‘My meeting today was with her husband,’ she said, still alarmingly calm although a bit paler than she’d been a minute ago. ‘He said you’d recommended us.’
‘That’s right. I did. I’d forgotten.’
‘You’d forgotten?’ she echoed in disbelief.
‘It was a while ago.’
‘And the answer to my question?’
Kit swallowed hard and killed the temptation to lie because even though it would be the easy way out of this he hadn’t lied to her yet and he didn’t intend to start now. He’d promised her honesty and she’d get it, whatever the fallout. ‘The answer is yes,’ he said, and waited for her reaction, not knowing how the hell he was going to handle it.
Lily went very pale and was gripping the stem of her glass so tightly her knuckles were white. ‘I see,’ she said with a faint nod. ‘So let me get this straight. You work with the woman you cheated on me with. You still see her. And you didn’t think to tell me.’
Knowing that if he wasn’t careful this conversation could go very badly very easily, Kit decided to stick to the unvarnished truth, however brutal. ‘It didn’t occur to me,’ he said, and inwardly winced because it might be the truth but it sounded wholly inadequate.
Lily stared at him as if unable to believe her ears. ‘It didn’t occur to you?’
‘No. She’s worked on a handful of projects for us and I’ve seen her at the most half a dozen times in the last couple of years.’
‘And what do you do when you do? Reminisce about old times?’
‘Of course not,’ he said, choosing to ignore her sarcasm and remain calm and focused because in the face of her evident anger that seemed the only way to get through this. ‘It’s just business.’
‘But none of mine, it would seem.’
He heard the hurt and the bitterness in her voice and it made his heart contract, but what could he say to that? The truth was that he hadn’t thought of Paula as the woman he’d slept with since the morning after that terrible night, when following his confession and the blazing row he’d had with Lily he’d gone into work, resigned on the spot and cleared his desk.
He hadn’t thought to tell Lily about her because Paula genuinely hadn’t crossed his mind once in the last eight weeks.
Now he wished he had. Now he wished he’d had time to prepare for this because if he had he might have anticipated Lily’s anger and her hurt, he might have thought about her insecurities and doubts and how they might make her respond to this kind of news and he might have formulated a strategy to deal with it.
As it was he was navigating unfamiliar and extremely choppy waters and he didn’t have a clue what he was doing and he now had the horribly panicky feeling that the longer he said nothing, the worse things were becoming.
‘Your silence speaks volumes, Kit,’ said Lily with a bitter laugh as she apparently read his mind. ‘And you know what? You want communication? Well, this is the way I’m choosing to communicate, you jerk.’ An
d with that, she hurled her glass at him.
With lightning reflexes Kit dodged to the left and the glass flew over his right shoulder, smashed against a cupboard behind him and shattered, and the sound of it jolted him out of paralysis.
She spun on her heel and marched off in the direction of her coat and bag, but within a second he caught up with her, grabbing her wrist and stopping her. She gasped in outrage and he could feel her pulse jumping beneath his fingers but he ignored both as he whirled her round to face him.
‘Let me go,’ she said fiercely, trying to pull free.
Not a chance, he thought grimly, because whatever happened he wasn’t letting her go ever again and they could get through this. They could. As long as he didn’t mess it up. ‘Why? So you can run away?’
‘So I can leave before I do you some serious damage,’ she said, her eyes flashing at him.
‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’
‘Fool.’
‘Probably. But you don’t get to run away from this this time.’
‘Well, you don’t get to decide what I do.’
That was true, but he did get to decide what he did, and if he wanted to fix this he had to start with the honesty and openness he’d promised her. ‘Ask me about her, Lily,’ he said. ‘Ask me anything.’
Lily stopped struggling and stilled. Blinked a couple of times, and he thought he saw some of her hostility ebb. ‘Anything?’
He relaxed his hold on her a fraction, but she didn’t step back. ‘Anything.’
‘What makes you think I’m interested?’
‘Aren’t you?’
There was a moment’s silence and he could virtually see the internal battle she was fighting. ‘OK, fine,’ she said, lifting her chin in challenge. ‘What does this Paula person look like?’
‘Average.’
She shook her head and glared at him. ‘Not good enough, Kit. Not nearly good enough.’
‘I mean it. Brown hair. Blue eyes. Around five foot six, I guess. Not fat. Not thin. Really average.’
‘And what was she like in bed?’ she asked bluntly. ‘Better than me? Worse than me? Hotter? Kinkier? More adventurous? More creative? The woman is in PR after all.’ She flashed him a look. ‘And if you say “average” again I’ll thump you.’
Kit ignored the thought that he really didn’t want to be having this conversation because he didn’t have a choice. Her questions and the insecurities they revealed were natural and justified and he wouldn’t ignore them any more than he’d judge them. ‘I don’t remember.’
Lily rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, please.’
‘I really don’t. I was hammered out of my skull.’
‘Then why her?’
‘Because she was there.’ Inwardly he cringed as for the first time in years the memory of that night flashed into his head, but he didn’t take his eyes off hers. ‘I was at rock-bottom and she was there.’
‘Such a charmer.’
‘You wanted honesty, you have it. I’m not proud of what I did, Lily.’
‘Does she know you were using her?’
‘Yes.’
‘You told her?’
‘We had a chat the first time she turned up at a project meeting.’
‘Cosy.’
‘Not particularly. It was awkward.’
‘My heart bleeds.’
‘Nothing’s happened, Lily. Not since that night. And it won’t. It was a mistake and we both are more than aware of that. If that doesn’t convince you then how about the fact that I’m with you and she’s married?’
‘So what? That didn’t stop you.’
‘Happily.’
Lily flinched. ‘You know her well enough to know that, do you?’
‘I asked. We chatted. I apologised. She forgave me. We’ve moved on.’
He’d thought Lily had forgiven him too because hadn’t she said she had way back when they’d first talked? But that clearly wasn’t the case, and he’d been a fool not to see it.
He’d thought that their relationship had been going well, but the progress he’d naively assumed they’d made had been nothing more than superficial. Physically things couldn’t be better. Emotionally, however, they were still rocky in a way he hadn’t appreciated. But now he could see that beneath the surface there’d been an undercurrent of mistrust, and why wouldn’t there be because, as he was beginning to realise, he wasn’t the only one who had to constantly live with the knowledge of what he’d done.
And he might have nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to be ashamed of this time, but that didn’t matter. It was because of what he’d done that Lily was feeling so insecure and hurt and if he wanted to hang on to her he was going to have to do a lot more than simply be open and honest. He was going to have to prove to her that she could trust him and how he was going to do that he had no idea.
Hell, if only he didn’t have to go to Rome tomorrow, because he could really do with the time and headspace to think about this properly.
‘I thought I had too,’ said Lily quietly. ‘But it seems I might not be as over all this as I’d thought.’
Kit felt his chest tighten. ‘Is it a deal-breaker?’
She shrugged and sighed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Is there anything I can do to make it right?’
She looked up at him for a couple of long minutes, as if searching his face and eyes for sincerity, bit her lip and then frowned. ‘You really want to make it right?’ she said, her frown clearing as she pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin in a way that had wariness trickling through him.
‘Of course.’
‘Then use another PR agency.’
As her ultimatum sank in Kit went still, his mind reeling and his heart sinking as he realised he’d been right to be wary because of all the things she could have asked of him she’d asked for the one thing he couldn’t give her.
He got that this was some kind of test. He got that she wanted him to prove that he meant what he said. And he’d have done just about anything. But firing his PR agency? That he couldn’t do. There was no way he was going to let something personal ruin a perfectly good business relationship. Certainly not one that had taken years to build up and now worked brilliantly for both parties.
‘I can’t do that, Lily.’
She stared up at him in disbelief. ‘I thought you wanted to make this right?’
‘I do. But not like that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because they’re the best in the business and we have an excellent relationship. And I can’t let something personal get in the way of that.’
‘OK, fine,’ she said, with a small smile he didn’t like one little bit. ‘Then ask Paula to resign or switch to a different team or something.’
His heart sank further. ‘I can’t do that either.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she’s very good at her job and it would be grossly unfair. If not downright illegal.’
‘I see,’ she said coolly, but he didn’t think she did. ‘So you really won’t fire them or get rid of her?’
‘I won’t.’
Lily pushed against his chest and took a step back. ‘Then I really don’t think there’s anything else to be said, do you?’
TWELVE
The following morning Lily stumbled in to work, late for the first time since she and Zoe had begun working together, but that wasn’t hugely surprising since she’d only fallen asleep at dawn. She was feeling on edge and cranky and not just from lack of sleep.
‘Morning,’ said Zoe, looking up from her monitor and shooting her a smile. ‘At last. I was beginning to worry.’
‘Sorry.’ Lily dumped her bag on her desk with rather more force than was necessary and then stalked over to the coffee machine.
‘How are you feeling? Headache better?’
‘What?’ she muttered, stuffing an espresso capsule into the top and slamming the lid shut.
‘Your headache,’ said Zoe again,
only a little slower. ‘Is it better?’
‘No.’ Her head hurt like hell, but then it would given the half a bottle of wine she’d polished off when she’d got home last night.
‘Are you sure you should be here, Lily?’ said Zoe, concern evident in her voice. ‘You look absolutely awful.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ said Lily, grabbing a cup, sticking it beneath the spout and pressing the button while thinking that however awful she looked it wasn’t a patch on how awful she felt.
Last night, that scene with Kit, had been horrible, she reflected with a shudder. So much for hoping that the unnecessary—she’d thought—jealousy would fade. And so much for being able to ignore the doubts she’d had in that garden square. All afternoon while she’d been sitting at home alone with her thoughts and practically climbing the walls, the jealousy and doubts had been growing, feeding rapaciously off her insecurities and her fears.
But she’d made herself calm down and by the time she’d joined Kit for dinner she’d thought she could contain the swell of emotion. Control it. Ignore it. Clearly she’d been mistaken because he’d pushed and prodded and poked until she hadn’t been able to take any more and she’d exploded.
Right up until the point where he’d confirmed what she’d suspected she’d been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. She’d totally been prepared to accept that she’d indulged her penchant for melodrama and overreacted.
In her heart of hearts she hadn’t expected him to admit she was right. Deep down she’d hoped he’d deny it. Tell her she was being an idiot, that the coincidence was just that.
But when he’d confirmed it, well, that had been just awful. That had made a mockery of all the silken promises he’d given her on the island. The promises of the last two months. All that nonsense about honesty and openness and communication when he’d been lying to her from the very moment he’d barged his way back into her life. Or at the very least lying by omission and not telling her something he should have realised she’d want to know.
Once she’d got over the shock of it she’d been so, so angry. So deeply hurt and fiercely disappointed and so rocked by the realisation that despite what she’d told him, despite what she’d thought, she evidently hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d done, she’d lost control. And that was why she’d done what she’d done and said what she’d said.