join her, although I have no idea what we’re laughing at, but it’s infectious. She’s infectious, effortlessly worming her way under my skin and into my psyche. Offering tantalising glimpses of what might be, glimpses I’d thought I was long past craving. Dangerous.
‘I’ve never met anyone who finds sex that hot funny,’ I say, kissing the top of her head and breathing in coconuts. ‘So hot my sofa is scorched.’
She collapses on top of me, kissing her mirth into submission. ‘It’s not that. I just... I can’t believe you tripped over your shoe. It was hilarious.’
My ego could take a battering, but with her I don’t seem to have any. I grin. ‘Oh, good—I was aiming for sexy.’
‘Oh, it was that, too. And I told you I’d catch you.’ She snuggles back into my side and a sigh of contentment leaves me, but doubts sneak in to fill the void, doubts that she could want more, because after that, after today with my family, seeing how perfectly she fits—I’m certain I want more than sex. But does she? Could she take this seriously outside of our sex-only arrangement? I’ve been so long entrenched in my single life, safe, secure, steady. Could I have more? Could I have it with this amazing woman? Would she want it with me? My track record speaks against me, and while our age gap works for a casual fling, would she want something more with a man my age? And surely the fact that she’s still hung up on her ex’s cheating, wanting to banish ghosts, as she said, means she’s not fully over him.
Her fingers toy with the hair on my chest. I pull her hand away so I can kiss the tips of her fingers as I grapple with that last revelation. I should get up, make us a drink, suggest a shower, offer to drive her back to her car. I’m sure we both have a long day ahead tomorrow. But a part of me can’t leave it alone, perhaps the part which feels the flicker of jealousy that while I’m imagining dates she’s thinking about ways to exorcise her ex.
I choke out a question, the only honest thing I feel comfortable asking. ‘So did you make some new memories?’
I feel her nod against my cheek and the whoosh of air she eventually releases, and grip her closer on instinct.
‘The day after Josh left me,’ she says, ‘I rushed out and bought a new sofa, knowing I’d never be able to look at the old one, let alone sit on it. But it’s funny—no matter where I place the new one in that room, it never looks quite right.’ She huffs. ‘Or perhaps that’s just my designer brain being a perfectionist.’
I stroke my fingers through her hair, trying to untangle some of the strands without hurting her. ‘It’s okay to be a perfectionist. It’s who you are.’ I allow the weight of my hand to settle between her shoulder blades before I add, ‘Has he ever apologised?’
‘Josh?’
Her body stiffens and I shift my leg so I can tangle it with hers to stop her escaping. ‘Yeah.’ I know he can’t help the way he felt for someone else, but he should have come clean from the start instead of risking her finding out the way she did.
‘I don’t know,’ she says in clipped tones, telling me she doesn’t want to talk about this, that I’ve gone too far. But she’s laid me open, used our attraction to each other and my growing feelings to pry confessions from me. Time to even the balance. And she can’t be fully over him until she’s had some closure.
‘What do you mean? Has he tried?’ Unease slides over my skin.
She shrugs, her eyes shuttering the emotion from the green-brown depths of her irises. ‘I changed the locks after he left. I’ve never answered his calls or read his emails. I don’t care if he’s apologised because I don’t want to hear it.’
My belly twists, banishing the last of the high from the incredible sex. She hasn’t forgiven him, so she’s not free to move on. Does she still harbour feelings after all this time? And where the fuck does that leave me and my newly acknowledged revelations?
I frame my words in a soothing tone. ‘I don’t want to patronise you, but until you allow him to apologise, what he did to you becomes compounded. You can’t move on until you’ve given him the chance to at least say he’s sorry for deceiving you.’
She raises her head and levels her bullshit look on me. ‘Is that what worked for you with Sadie?’
Now it’s my turn to stiffen, her attack close to the very heart of me, as exposed as I feel. ‘That was different.’
‘How? Because it happened to you?’ She juts her chin, her barriers rebuilding.
A sense of claustrophobia presses in on me. Am I being a fool here? ‘No—’ I extricate my limbs from hers and slide to the edge of the sofa, restless with vulnerability and the hangover of literally having my emotions fucked from me. ‘Because she attacked more than me. She went after my business, my family, my father in particular, and threatened the future of the Faulkner Group for Kit’s unborn child and any children Drake and Kenzie might have.’
The room grows tense with our silence. When I look her face is ashen with shock, or perhaps revulsion that I allowed myself, my family and business to be so vulnerable. But if I believe the latter, I’ll have to punch some inanimate object. Instead I stand and search for my jeans.
‘How?’ she whispers.
I’ve been exposed enough over the past hour, but the power balance has shifted, as if she’s freed me somehow from holding everything inside. I’m not the only man on the planet to be taken to the cleaners by a greedy ex, and it’s in the past. I’ve spent the years since Sadie dedicated to the Faulkner Group, repaying my father for rescuing me the only way I could—through hard work and sheer fucking persistence until the company is as safeguarded and future-proofed as possible. And now I have the more pressing concern of his health.
‘She wanted out of the marriage and I let her go. She hired a ruthless lawyer and I didn’t contend her claims. I was generous with maintenance because I felt guilty that I hadn’t put in as much effort to making things work as I should have. Because she was right—I did put the business and therefore the interests of my family before our marriage.’ I sigh past the shame trying to constrict my lungs. ‘But then she went after the Faulkner.’
I grab my T-shirt, needing the protection it provides from her searching eyes, still wary. But she was correct about me—I do keep everything afloat. It’s my job, my life’s work. I’m good at it, determination to ensure this latest sideswipe is managed with the same single-minded focus returning, so I finish my tale.
‘It was a stressful time. Kit had just lost his wife and Drake had just come back to the family business after leaving the army.’ The words still taste foul, a reminder of the added worry and uncertainty I put my family through. ‘If it wasn’t for Graham bailing me out and paying her off, the legal wrangling would have likely dragged on for years.’ I scrub at my face and level a look of challenge at her. She wants to play big league—well, this is it. She claims she can catch me—well, I come with baggage. She wants my trust—well, it’s a two-way street, and now I’m certain she’s hiding something. Better I know now, before this goes any further, before my feelings develop, if she still harbours feelings for her shithead ex.
But I’m out of luck. Her expression closes down, defences up, reminding me of the Blair who walked into my office and waved her contract a couple of weeks ago. ‘Well, we’re not that different, then,’ she says.
‘In what way?’
‘We’ve
