In Bed with Her Ex

by Lucy Gordon

  The auction room was filling up now and people were starting to block his view, so Ethan quickly moved forwards and took a seat directly behind Mari where she could not see him—but he could see her.

  He could see how her shoulders stiffened and lifted a little when the auctioneer arrived and took his place at the podium. There was still twenty minutes to go before the start of the auction, but she was already tense and nervous.

  There was the faintest whiff of the same perfume that she had been wearing yesterday in the air, mingled with heat and moisture from cold, damp clothing and a dusty room. Ethan sat back in his chair, but just at that moment the lady next to him dropped her handbag and the contents spilled out around him.

  And Mari turned around to see what the commotion was, and saw him. He didn’t know who was more shocked. But her wide-eyed astonishment said it all.

  She stared at him through narrowed eyes, shook her head from side to side just once, checked her watch and picked up her bag, leaving her coat on the chair to reserve her place, and then tipped her head towards the entrance.

  He got the message. And followed her outside.

  ‘Are you stalking me? Because I have to tell you that one kiss last night does not entitle you to follow me around. And don’t you dare try to interfere in this auction.’

  Then Mari stopped, pressed her forefinger to her chin and took a short intake of breath before Ethan had a chance to answer. ‘Oh. Oh, silly of me. I forgot. Why should you? I’m the one who’s planning to stay in one place long enough to make a home. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you?’

  ‘Are you quite finished?’ Ethan asked in a calm quiet voice as he leant with his back against his car.

  ‘No, actually I’m not. But I only have a few minutes before the auction starts and it’s freezing and you get me all frazzled when I’m trying to be calm and in control. So please. Just tell me. Why are you here?’

  Ethan pushed both hands down into his trouser pockets and steadied himself.

  ‘Good question. Long answer. Let’s start with the stalking.’ He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Someone clearly has a very high opinion of themselves.’ Ethan did not react to Mari’s instant cough of dismissal but carried on. ‘But you have a point. I am here to see you. I’m here to see just how far you are prepared to go to move right back to where you were ten years ago.’

  There was a sharp intake of breath from the woman standing in front of him with her arms crossed before she answered with a look of total disbelief on her face. ‘You know why. I’m buying this house for my sister. She needs a secure home. And …’ Mari stretched out her neck a little. ‘It’s an excellent base where I can create business at some future point. Do you have any further questions or can we go inside now?’

  ‘Only one. How long are you planning to keep that excuse up? Because, the way I see it, you aren’t buying this house for Rosa—you’re buying it for yourself.’ He pushed himself off the car and reached out and fought off her protests to wrap his sheepskin coat around her shoulders.

  He pulled the front of the coat towards him, with her inside. ‘You can fight me all you like, but I just hate to think that you’re going to come back here to lock yourself away from other people. Oh, I know. People can leave, people can hurt your feelings and people can break your heart, but sometimes it is worth taking the risk.’ His voice dropped even lower and he gave a half smile as he smoothed down the front of his coat.

  ‘You don’t need to be so afraid. You can live anywhere you want and go anywhere you want. And you’ll be fine.’

  She looked up at him and her jaw tightened. Her eyebrows came together but she forced them apart and licked her lips before answering. ‘This is all I know. This is what I want.’ And she quietly slipped off his coat and strode, head up, back into the auction room.

  Oh, Mari. I do hope that you know what you are doing.

  The first three properties seemed to take forever to sell and there had been several breaks in the bidding when Mari had felt like screaming. Didn’t they know that she had been dreaming about this moment for years, and been awake half the night worrying and the other half reliving the moment when Ethan had kissed her in the car?

  How dared he turn up this morning and ruin her day with all of his questions? How dared he kiss her and give her a glimpse of all of the things she could not have? He was leaving, she was staying and he still kissed her. Worse. She had liked it. Stupid girl.

  Either way, she was exhausted, her hands were shaking in anxiety. And the bidding was just about to start.

  She didn’t know whether to be sick into her laptop bag, stand on the chair and scream at everyone that this house was hers and they’d better not even think about bidding, or calmly sit there and make her bid at the right time.

  She went for option three.

  Her real worry was the size of the deposit she had to put together before the bank would agree to offer her a loan for the maximum she could afford on her salary. The constraints meant that she had a working budget with enough left over to do the repairs and create a home office. And that was all she had. Anything else would mean going back to the bank for a bigger loan, and they had not exactly been impressed by her proposal in the first place.

  Without the extra cash deposit from her overtime and all of her cash savings, she could be in trouble.

  And the prices so far had been a lot higher than she had expected.

  But of course that would not happen with her. The photographs and house details had made it clear that a lot of work was needed. That was bound to drive down prices.

  Right. Mari lifted her chin. Three. Two. One. Go. She was about to buy back her home.

  Ethan clutched tight hold of the back of the chair in front of him, two rows behind Mari, his fingers wrapped around the hard metal rungs, knuckles white with pressure.

  As the auction started, he felt himself being caught up in the electricity and excitement. Bids were flying everywhere from all corners of the room so quickly that it was hard to keep up. The numbers were higher than he had expected, which could be a problem. But Mari was calm. Her head fixed in place. Waiting. Waiting for the perfect time to place her bid to buy back her old home and start a new life. Back where she’d started.

  And there it was. Mari raised her hand and bid a startling amount of money for her old home. But there was one more bid. From a middle-aged man at his side of the room, sitting next to a woman and three children, each of them almost bouncing with excitement and enthusiasm. A family wanted the house.

  Ethan’s heart sank. If he was in that position, with his wife and children around him, all looking forward to a new home by the sea—he would move heaven and earth to make it happen.

  And without warning an icy chill hit Ethan hard in the stomach with such speed and ferocity that he had to take several long breaths to calm his thumping heart.

  She was going to lose this house and it would destroy her. It would be better in the long-term if she made a future somewhere else, he believed that now, but it would still cause her huge pain if she thought that she had let Rosa down.

  Mari immediately raised her hand again and increased her bid by another ten thousand—and was instantly outbid again.

  She was so startled that it took her a full second to recognise that the family man had increased his bid by not ten thousand but another twenty thousand.

  The astonishment and alarm on Mari’s face said it all. She clearly had not expected to pay anything like this much and Ethan recognised by the telltale way she chewed her lower lip and bent her fingers into the centre of her palms that she knew she was at her limit.

  She hesitated, her hand almost shaking, before increasing her bid yet again.

  And the longer Ethan watched Mari, the more he thought that this was not the action of a woman looking for a home back in Swanhaven with her sister. This was a desperate act driven by a need to come back to the security of the past life she had once known.

  T
he life which he had played a part in destroying.

  And he knew exactly how that felt.

  Because, sitting here amongst these strangers in a dusty, cold auction room, it was as obvious as a slap in the face that he was no different from Mari whatsoever.

  Watching Mari struggling with her decision at that very moment, the answer screamed out at him from Mari’s startled hazel green eyes. He was running away from the pain and the guilt that was Kit and Mari Chance and everything that happened in Swanhaven ten years earlier. It had been easier to leave and not come back and start over again in Florida with his father’s new job, and he did feel guilty about that—his whole family had—but they had made the decision and acted on it. While Mari had stayed trapped right here.

  It was ironic that he should only realise that fact when he was right back in Swanhaven. Looking at Mari. Who had stood up and was winding her way towards him, her face lined and grey and tense with concern. The weight of disappointed dreams hung heavy on her sagging shoulders.

  Part of him was pleased. Her agony was over. Now she could start moving forwards, not backwards. And perhaps give him a few tips on how to do that along the way. He started to get up, ready to take her home.

  Only she grasped his arm in a powerful grip, leant forwards and pressed her mouth close to his ear. ‘I need another forty thousand. Will you lend me the money? Please. I’m desperate. If you don’t lend me this money I will lose the house. This is my dream. This is what I want more than anything else in the world. Please help me.’

  Ethan shifted his body back just far enough to look into her eyes. And saw such terror of the unknown and a deep-seated pain and anguish in that one single look that his heart broke all over again.

  His actions had helped to bring her to this place.

  Now he had to be strong enough to risk the fragile bond that had grown between them. Because giving her his reply was one of the hardest things that he had ever had to do. It was wrong in every way. But he had to do it. To make Mari’s dream come true.

  ‘Yes, Mari. I will lend you the money. As much as you need.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘WELL, it looked to me like you’d been crying ten minutes ago when Ethan dropped you off. That’s all I’m saying. Crying. Okay? So where did you go this morning?’ And then Rosa gasped and pulled her chair closer to the table. ‘Of course. I should have realised. Ethan kidnapped you and whisked you off for a romantic date somewhere. That has to be it. That is so totally brilliant. Now, tell me everything.’

  Mari sank lower into her chair at the cottage and admitted defeat for the second time that day. Once Rosa was determined to discover something, there was no point in fighting her. She would find out eventually. Half of Swanhaven had been at the auction, out of curiosity if not to bid, and the small-town gossip factory was alive and well in the yacht club. It would be around the whole town in an hour that Marigold Chance had just bought the old Chance house for twenty per cent above the expected value.

  She was going to have to tell Rosa. And soon. All she had to do was pick her moment.

  ‘I spent the morning with Ethan at the property auction in Swanchester and—’ Mari took another sip of tea and considered making up an elaborate tale of love and debauchery but she simply did not have the strength to go along with anything but the truth ‘—Ethan and I had a bit of an argument. But in the end, he helped me out. In fact, you might almost say that he came to my rescue.’

  ‘Ethan Chandler came to your rescue. At a property auction. Right. Well, that makes total sense. One minute you’re all over him and this wonderful house he’s built for his parents, and the next minute you’re crying over your baked beans on toast.’

  Mari hugged her tea close to her chest and stared out of the window.

  Rosa bristled and gestured towards the door. ‘Ethan’s probably down at the harbour giving Peter Morris his sailing lesson. I can march down there in two minutes and find out what happened for myself if you don’t tell me right now.’

  She sighed dramatically and waved a piece of toast in the air. ‘Of course it would make a terrible scene and half the town would be on the dock in a flash, but nobody upsets my sister and gets away with it. You just give the word and …’

  ‘Stop right there. Yes, Ethan didn’t upset me. He just …’ Mari shook her head and bared her teeth ‘… has this amazing talent for doing something totally unexpected and getting me all worked up in the process.’

  ‘Nothing new about that. And did I mention that I wanted details?’

  Mari looked up at Rosa. This was it. This was the wonderful moment she had been looking forward to when she finally, finally, told her baby sister that their dream had come true.

  ‘If you must know—’ she grinned ‘—I asked him to loan me some money so that I could buy a house this morning. In Swanhaven.’

  Rosa collapsed into a chair, mouth open.

  Mari nodded, and took Rosa’s hand between both of hers. ‘Yup. It’s all true. I set my heart on a particular house, I didn’t have enough, so Ethan loaned me the extra I needed to make the winning bid.’

  And that shut her sister up for all of ten seconds before Rosa asked quietly, wide-eyed and incredulous, ‘Are you really telling me that you have bought a house in Swanhaven?’

  Mari nodded and tried not to look elated, but a bubble of happiness was welling up inside her and threatened to burst out in the form of spontaneous laughter. They might even be dancing.

  ‘Not just any house. Our house. The beach house where we grew up and were so happy together as a family. I’ve been planning it for months, Rosa, but I didn’t want to tell you in case I got your hopes up for nothing.’

  Mari was almost bouncing with excitement, her shoulders practically jiggling as all the nervous anticipation and excitement of that morning came flooding out. ‘I came so very close to losing it and if it hadn’t been for Ethan I would have. I made a bit of a fool of myself by doing the one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t do. I bid everything I had. Only it still wasn’t enough. But I did it, Rosa. I finally did it. We have our house back. Isn’t it wonderful?’

  Rosa slipped her hand out from between Mari’s and took in a sharp breath between her teeth. ‘Oh, Mari … what a mess. I was going to tell you tomorrow, but now I’m sorry I waited.’

  Rosa started pacing back and forth across the kitchen, pulling one cookery book out and then putting it back on the shelf before picking up another and all the time carefully avoiding looking at her sister.

  As Mari watched Rosa, a growing sense of concern slowly, slowly, pricked at her bubble of happiness and the longer she watched, the more her sense of happy excitement faded with it. ‘What is it? I thought you would be totally thrilled. This is what we both want. Isn’t it?’

  Rosa stopped pacing, turned back to face Mari and took a firm hold of the back of the dining room chair before speaking but, far from being thrilled, the tone of her voice was sad and filled with regret.

  ‘Do you remember taking all of those photos of my scarf collection last autumn?’ she asked. ‘I talked to each customer who came into the newsagent’s to model a different scarf for me? Well, it was a bit more successful than I had expected.’

  Mari smiled into her sister’s face before replying. ‘Let me guess. You have to knit like crazy for a bulk order for some fancy shop. That’s wonderful. We’re going to have all of the studio space you need at the house.’

  Rosa held up her unstrapped hand. ‘Please let me finish. This is hard to say so I need to get it all out in one go. It’s more than an order, Mari. One of the customers runs a handcraft design centre in an expensive part of London. She got in touch through the website a few weeks ago. There are workshops, design studios, everything. And she asked me to manage the craft shop for her, Mari. Fulltime.’

  Mari looked up into the face of her sister, unable to speak.

  ‘I said yes, Mari. I want this job—it’s so perfect I could have designed it myself. I’m going up to L
ondon next week to make sure that it is everything she claims. But if it is? I plan to move to London straight away. And I don’t know when I’ll be coming back.’

  Mari’s mouth fell open in shock.

  ‘What? Rosa! You can’t be serious. I thought you loved Swanhaven.’

  ‘I do—and I probably always will,’ Rosa replied, clutching at Mari. ‘But this is my dream job, Mari. Crafts are my passion and the thought of working with them full-time makes me so excited that I can hardly believe it. I did the research ages ago but there was no way I could afford to take three years out of my life to study textiles in a city like London. It’s way too expensive. This way, I can work, study and have somewhere to live.’

  Rosa’s eyes implored Mari to understand. ‘You were the person who told me that I should grab on to any chance for happiness I could find—and this is it. This is my chance to show people what I am capable of. If I don’t take this job now I’ll regret it for the rest of my life, Mari.’

  ‘But you don’t need to move to London now. You could work at the house, build your business and sell on the internet. It would be fantastic.’

  ‘Yes, I could.’ Rosa nodded, her mouth thin and sad. ‘But I don’t want to. For once in my life I want to do something different. I want to go to London and find out about the craft business. I want to go to college and learn from the best. And I’m not going to do all of that in Swanhaven. I’m so sorry, Mari, but you really should have involved me in your plans.’

  ‘Wow,’ Mari breathed and sat back. ‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you? But what about our dream of moving back to our old house? I thought you wanted that more than anything. Are you going to give up on that so easily?’