One Night with Her Ex

THIRTEEN


But they weren’t OK. At least Lily wasn’t.

At first she’d clutched onto Kit’s reassurance that they were fine as if it were a lifeline, and had buried the tiny bubble of doubt somewhere deep inside where it wouldn’t bother her.

Which hadn’t been all that hard because when he’d got back from Rome everything had been so lovely. After a weekend spent making up as promised, he’d announced that he was going to cut back on work and delegate as much as he could. With the extra time, if she was amenable to the idea, he was going to woo her.

Lily had been very amenable to the idea, and had adored the dates, the dinners and the two minibreaks he’d taken her on. He’d poured every drop of spare energy into them and she’d fallen more and more in love with him every day that had passed.

Which made the fact that the doubt she tried to get rid of kept bubbling away all the more frustrating.

And she did try. Really hard. She tried to focus on the present, on the relationship she and Kit had now and the many, many positives of that. She told herself not to look too far into the future and simply to take one day at a time, as he’d suggested all those weeks ago when they’d been on that island.

But to her despair she kept slipping back into the past. She kept dwelling on the latter stages of their marriage and reliving all the pain and hurt that she’d suffered.

She didn’t know why she did it. She certainly didn’t want to. Most of the time she wanted to reach right inside her head and yank out all the thoughts and doubts and fears churning around inside. But she couldn’t seem to help it.

Just as she couldn’t seem to help the horrible, insidious, burning desire to check Kit’s phone whenever he left it unattended. Or the almost irresistible temptation to casually open up his inbox and take a look at his emails whenever he was away from his laptop. Especially after the rare occasion he hadn’t been able to delegate and had had to go away.

She hated it. Hated the way suspicion was slowly creeping into everything she did and everything she felt when it came to Kit. She hated the fact that she knew it was happening yet couldn’t seem to stop it however much she told herself that they were fine, that things were going great.

Because the truth was things weren’t going so great and it was all her fault. As she’d dreaded, she was handling the things that were going on in her head and in her heart really badly. Most of the time she wasn’t handling them at all.

Kit was trying his best. In addition to the attention he lavished on her and the way he kept her up to date of everything he was doing and everyone he was seeing he kept sitting her down and asking her what was wrong, telling her that he wasn’t going anywhere so she might as well spit it out. But she had the feeling they could have spent a week in the same room with him endlessly attempting to get her to talk and still she wouldn’t have been able to explain.

She didn’t know what was wrong. She didn’t know how much longer she could stand the emotional distance that was beginning to stretch between the two of them. Didn’t know what to do about it. Didn’t know what would happen if she confronted it. Didn’t want to think about what it might mean for them.

From time to time she caught him looking at her. Worriedly, sadly, frequently frustratedly, and she couldn’t blame him because the expression in his eyes reflected how she felt. Their relationship was slowly imploding and she couldn’t seem to do a thing to stop it, and it was breaking her heart.

By the time Zoe’s hen night came around, Lily was so low, so confused and so adrift that she really wasn’t in the mood for partying. But what could she do? She wasn’t going to back out. What with Zoe’s practically non-existent circle of friends, she and Dan’s sister, Celia, were the only guests, and she wasn’t going to dampen her sister’s happiness with her doubts and unhappiness.

So as the trio walked down the stairs into the basement lounge bar in Notting Hill, Lily plastered on a smile, and when the waitress asked what they’d like to drink she ordered a margarita.

Then another.

And another.

And then she started enjoying herself.

Zoe was sparkling like the diamond solitaire that adorned the third finger of her left hand. Celia was wickedly clever and outrageously entertaining. The place was jumping, the tapas-style food delicious and she had a nice buzz. Almost nice enough to forget what a hash she was making of things with Kit.

‘Right,’ said Celia, once the waitress had returned with a fresh round of drinks. ‘So I know this is Zoe’s hen night and everything, but to be honest, as that Mr & Mrs quiz thing proved, she’s so besotted by my brother that that story’s boring.’

‘Hey,’ protested Zoe.

‘Well, it is.’ With a grin Celia turned to Lily. ‘Your relationship on the other hand sounds absolutely fascinating.’

Lily somehow managed to drum up a smile, but it was hard when despite the uplifting effect of the tequila her spirits plummeted. ‘Fascinating is not the word,’ she said dully.

‘Then what is? Awesome? Steaming? Mind-blowing?’

‘Technically mind-blowing’s two words,’ said Zoe.

‘The word you’re looking for is hopeless,’ said Lily, and to her horror she could feel the backs of her eyes beginning to prickle.


Celia stared at her. ‘What?’

‘Mine’s a study in how not to have a relationship,’ she said, the happy buzz now a dim and distant memory as the desolation and loneliness she’d been feeling recently welled up inside her.

‘Oh? How come?’

Lily swallowed. ‘First time round we screwed it up so badly I shut myself off and Kit had a one-night stand.’

In the ensuing silence Celia stared at her. ‘Jeez.’

‘I know,’ said Zoe. ‘Bad, huh?’

Celia frowned. ‘But now you’re back together.’

Lily nodded and sighed. ‘Yes. And making a complete and utter hash of it.’

Zoe gasped. Celia simply shook her head in amazement. ‘I’m not surprised, because, really, how could you ever trust him after something like that?’

And just like that Lily froze as the truth of it struck her. Celia had hit the nail on the head. She didn’t trust him. At all. ‘I can’t,’ she breathed and, as the knowledge sank in, felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her because suddenly all the confusion and questions she’d been tormenting herself with recently made sense. Absolute and devastating sense.

‘What?’ said Zoe, looking at her worryingly.

‘I don’t trust him,’ she said, faintly reeling. ‘I don’t think I have for months.’

‘Oops,’ muttered Celia. ‘I really shouldn’t have asked.’

For a split second Lily was tempted to agree with her because part of her would rather have remained in the dark.

Now she knew, though, she had no choice but to admit what she’d probably known every time she’d had to stop herself reaching for his phone or laptop. Every time he’d gone out or away and the niggle of doubt over what he was really doing and who he was really with had returned. Every time she’d secretly wondered whether he was telling her the truth.

Everything that logic would have told her had she not been so deeply in denial.

She didn’t trust him.

Her mind spun with the thought of it, the thought of what it meant, which was now blindingly, agonisingly clear. There was only one way for their relationship to go, she realised as her heart wrenched, because she might love him with everything she was and everything she had, but that didn’t mean anything without trust.

She had to talk to him. Had to explain. Even if it meant the end. She owed him the truth, however heartbreaking it was going to be, and she owed it to him now.

‘Zoe, Celia, I’m sorry,’ she said, now feeling as sober as if she’d been drinking nothing but water all night as she got shakily to her feet, her eyes stinging and her throat tight, ‘but I’ve got to go.’

* * *

Kit was sitting in the dark in the garden with a half-empty bottle of whisky and a glass when he heard the front door slam.

When Lily had gone out he’d initially been in what was now his study, kidding himself that he was working, much as he’d done every day lately.

But that was a joke, wasn’t it, because how could he concentrate on work when his life with Lily was slowly disintegrating? How could he think about anything other than the fact that it was happening again? That Lily was slipping away from him like water through fingers and, once again, he didn’t know what the hell to do about it.

He could feel that he was losing her and it scared him witless. Made him ache and filled his heart with pain.

Because he’d tried. So hard. Alone in his room that night in Rome he’d figured out his priorities and had basically changed his entire life for her. He’d decided to put her first, work second and to set about winning her back.

So with the focus and dedication that had built him a successful hotel business in five short years he’d wined and dined her. Reminded her of the man she’d fallen in love with and shown her the better man he’d become. He’d shared with her every detail of what he was doing and who he was with when he wasn’t with her. He’d stripped his soul bare for her, told her things he’d never told anyone and trusted her with everything he was.

But it wasn’t enough.

Time and time again he’d asked Lily what was wrong, and time and time again she’d looked at him, said she didn’t know. He didn’t think she was lying. She seemed so genuinely tormented by the question every time he asked that he got the impression that she was as much at a loss to understand what was happening as he was. And, unlike the night they’d argued about Paula, pushing her for an answer wasn’t going to work.

He didn’t know what would work. All he knew was that she wasn’t happy and it was just about killing him.

But what had gone wrong? he wondered, frowning out into the quiet still of the night as for about the billionth time he tried to work it out. He’d thought they’d reached a deeper level of understanding. That this time their relationship was on firmer emotional ground, but maybe he was wrong because over the weeks she’d become increasingly subdued. More watchful and wary somehow. She’d withdrawn into herself, just as she’d done before.

Maybe he’d pushed her too hard, he thought. Maybe moving in together so soon had been a mistake. Maybe she hadn’t changed in the way he’d thought—hoped—she had.

Maybe they simply weren’t meant to be together.

At the thought of that Kit felt his stomach turn inside out and something deep inside him begin to ache. And then he set his jaw and pulled himself together. No. That was rubbish. They were meant to be together. All he had to do was think of a way to fix this because what they were going through wasn’t insurmountable. It couldn’t be.

Behind him a light went on inside and as he heard Lily step out onto the terrace, the trace of her scent drifting towards him and every one of his senses zooming in on her, just as they always did, his heart began to thud with renewed resolve because the solution would come to him. Eventually. It had to.

‘What are you doing out here?’ she said softly.

‘Thinking.’

‘About what?’

How he could make things between them right. ‘Nothing much.’

She moved round into his line of sight and his heart lurched crazily the way it did every time he saw her.

But tonight something was different. It wasn’t the lack of a smile on her lovely face or the absence of the sparkle in her beautiful eyes because he’d got used to both. It was something about the way she held herself, something in the deadness of her expression, something that made him go icy-cold.

As a ribbon of apprehension and dread wound itself round his insides he felt something inside him wither and all he could think was that somehow it was too late. Somehow they’d got to a point where things couldn’t be fixed and he hadn’t noticed soon enough.

‘You’re back early,’ he said, swallowing back the sudden lump in his throat.

‘Yes.’

‘Not much fun?’

‘Not a lot.’

She sat down next to him, turned to face him, and Kit wished he could turn back time and not be here when she got back because he didn’t want this now. He didn’t want this at all. Yet on some dim and distant level he knew it had been a long time coming. Knew it was inevitable. Wished he’d had time to prepare his arguments, wished he had arguments to prepare.

‘Want a drink?’ he said.

‘No, thanks.’

‘Mind if I have one?’

‘Go ahead.’

He poured himself another glass of whisky and noticed his hand was shaking. ‘You’re going to say we need to talk, aren’t you?’

A flicker of surprise flashed in her eyes and then she nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘Because this isn’t working, is it?’ he said, the struggle he was having keeping a grip on his emotions making his voice hoarse.

‘No.’

‘Want to tell me why?’

Her eyes filled with tears and her chin trembled and it was all he could do not to take her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right because he didn’t think it was. ‘I can’t bear to.’

‘Tell me, Lily. I won’t break.’ Although the possibility was there.

‘But I might.’

‘Come on,’ he said, trying to give her a smile but failing. ‘Be brave.’

She nodded and blinked, but it didn’t get rid of the shimmer of tears and it didn’t stop the tremble of her chin. ‘I thought I could do this,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘But I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there’s this thing.’ She rubbed her chest and frowned as if she didn’t totally get it. ‘It’s so tiny. But it’s there. And I just can’t seem to get rid of it. That night you went away the first time, after we had that argument about Paula, I couldn’t get hold of you and I couldn’t help wondering what you were doing and who you were with.’

‘I told you what I was doing and who I was with.’

‘I know. And I believed you. I still do. But I think it started something and it won’t go back.’

‘What is it?’

‘A lack of trust.’

‘You can trust me.’

‘Can I?’

‘Of course you can.’

‘But how do I know that? Tell me, because I desperately want to.’


She looked at him despairingly, as if it was something she’d asked herself a dozen times over, and what could he say? Because she could? What kind of an answer was that? Apart from the only one he had. He’d never do anything to betray her trust, but how could he expect her to believe him when he’d already broken it once?

‘Because I love you.’

She put a hand on his cheek and he could feel his skin burning beneath her touch. ‘And I love you. More than I ever did before. At the risk of sounding soppy you are my sun and stars. You’re the only man I’ve ever wanted. The only man I’ve ever loved and probably ever will love. The thought of never kissing you again, never holding you again or never speaking to you again makes me feel physically sick. I have this pain deep inside me, like a hand’s reaching right inside and twisting everything inside me into knots.’

‘Then don’t think about it.’

‘I have to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because without trust loving you isn’t enough.’ She shook her head and pulled her hand away and the loss of her warmth felt like an icicle through his heart. ‘It’s not going to work, Kit. It’s just not going to work.’

At the sad finality in her voice panic welled up inside him. ‘What can I do, Lily? Tell me. Whatever it is I’ll do it.’

‘There’s nothing either of us can do.’

‘There must be.’

‘There isn’t.’

And it was all his fault, he knew. He’d done this to them the minute he’d destroyed her ability to trust him by cheating on her and Kit felt the knowledge hit him as if someone had thumped him in the solar plexus. He didn’t deserve her love. He didn’t deserve her trust. He wasn’t worthy of her. And he had to let her go. ‘Lily...’

‘I know. I’m sorry,’ she whispered, the tears now flowing down her cheeks as she leaned forwards and gently kissed him. ‘So sorry.’

He kissed her back, knowing that it was a kiss goodbye, and it just about broke him apart. ‘So am I, my darling,’ he said. ‘So am I.’