Chapter 7 Edith
EDITH
Later that afternoon, Edith took a shower at the hotel where they were spending the night, then collapsed on the bed in her dressing gown.
She was exhausted, and the day drinking hadn’t helped.
Edith’s tiredness was a full-body weariness, and her heart was aching from seeing Wyatt.
That low American voice, threaded with his unmistakable New York accent, was still devastatingly sexy, and she longed to hear more of it.
The background to his friendship with Titus had been quite moving, and it had been clear for all to see how highly the men regarded each other.
In a way, she’d found that hard too because Titus had been out to New York to see Wyatt.
More than once, it seemed. They’d met while Titus was working in New York, and he’d mentioned going back to visit him again.
It was tough knowing that Wyatt had cut her off and yet let others in, but wasn’t that how life went?
She hadn’t expected her ex to be a monk, to stay home and never venture out or meet other people.
He’d always been a very sociable person, and she’d seen the photos of him online on nights out, nights that were part of his job, but often seemed more like social gatherings.
He was often linked to other women via tags on photos and comments below them.
These had left a sour taste in her mouth, but she forced herself to look at the photos so she could accept it was over between them.
After all, ten years had passed, and Wyatt had not turned up on her doorstep in a ‘Pretty Woman’ moment carrying a rose and begging her to take him back.
That only happened in movies and books, and she was a pragmatist; she had been forced to become one and had weaned herself off her youthful innocence as a hopeless romantic.
Edith stared up at the ceiling, tracing the ornate plaster with tired eyes.
Apart from the low drone of the air conditioning and the sound of a door closing along the hallway, the room was quiet.
The ache behind her temples pulsed, reminding her of the champagne she’d drunk and the emotional strain of the day.
Closing her eyes, she sighed deeply and let her muscles relax onto the crisp white cover of the duvet.
Until today, she’d been coping, living her life as an independent career woman in charge of her own business, content with her lot and counting her blessings instead of her losses.
But being near Wyatt, hearing the rumble of his laughter, seeing the flash of his perfectly straight white teeth as he smiled then encountering his scent made her chest tighten.
There was still something there as much as she might wish otherwise.
Like a gossamer-thin thread, there was a link between the past and the present, and while it may be fragile, it still held.
Would that thread break when they spent more time together, something that was inevitable now that he was the best man and she was the wedding planner, or would it grow stronger and develop into a sticky web?
A web she could get caught in if not careful.
A web she could lose herself in and become as tangled up and confused as she’d been all those years ago.
As the afternoon light faded outside the window and the hum of the city deepened, she wondered how Wyatt was feeling right now. Did he think of her and how things had been, or had she faded into a distant memory as his life in New York had glittered around him like diamond dust?
Being near the man she’d loved again brought back the kind of ache Edith thought she’d outgrown.
Back at university, he’d been the first person to make her feel truly seen.
He’d asked about her dreams, noted just about everything she said, and looked at her as though she was someone worth knowing.
For a girl raised by a mother who measured love in packed lunches and clean uniforms, that kind of attention had felt intoxicating.
It was no wonder she’d trusted him with everything she had.
At some point she must have dozed off because she jumped up at the sound of her name and gentle knocking.
‘Hello. Sorry to wake you,’ Thora said, grimacing in the doorway. ‘I had a nap too, but then Finn woke me up and said we needed to get ready to hit the town. He said meet in the bar downstairs in thirty minutes. That OK?’
Longing to cry off and crawl back into bed, Edith shook off the drowsiness. ‘Of course. I’ll get ready and meet you down there.’
‘Great! See you soon!’
Edith closed the door and leant against it.
It was time to drink some water, make a coffee and shake her tail because she was here as a friend and as a professional.
No one else knew about her and Wyatt, and that was the way she wanted to keep it.
A secret, if kept well, could harm no one, and she couldn’t face it getting out.
Besides which, she didn’t come to London often, and she wanted to make the most of being here.
She hopped back in the shower to wake herself up, then got ready quickly to join the others.
At least Wyatt wouldn’t be there because he’d told them at lunch that he was attending some event at a club this evening.
She could relax and enjoy the company of her friends and hopefully have a good old dance, because there was nothing like dancing to shake off the stresses and strains of life.
There was nothing like dancing to silence the ache of a heart determined to remember.