Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
L eo was propped up in bed scrolling through his phone when Anna opened the bedroom door. For a moment she stood in the doorway, her mouth turning a little dry as she studied him all his bare-chested, golden glory, the lamplight shining on his blond hair. She sighed a little as something bloomed, warm and strong, in her chest.
‘Hey,’ he said looking up, his face softening.
He’d returned half an hour before, after she and Rebecca had returned from dinner in the Old Town, after an afternoon spent wandering along the Charles Bridge and up through the Castle.
‘Hey,’ she said, her heart full to bursting with simple emotion. He was gorgeous inside and out and it seemed mystifying to her that she still felt like this every time she saw him. Did he feel the earth tilt at the sight of her? ‘How was your afternoon? Your … two o’clock thing.’
‘Good,’ he said, putting his phone down.
She stripped off her clothes and slipped in beside his warm body and he immediately put an arm around her. She laid her head on his shoulder, her nose in the crook of the soft skin at his neck and breathed in the scent of him: his favourite Polo aftershave, faded now, and minty toothpaste, but also a touch of the cloying scent that Zdeňka used.
‘Everything okay with your cousin?’ he asked softly.
‘Yes. Thank you.’ She leaned forward to kiss him, getting another whiff of that sweet floral fragrance.
‘And you’ve no regrets?’ he asked. ‘About Steve?’
She leaned and kissed him again, surprised by the tiny touch of tension around his eyes.
‘None.’ Did he have regrets? Was he worried that she’d become too dependent on him? She thought of her foolish imaginings that morning when she’d thought he might be springing an impromptu wedding on her. What had she been thinking of? He’d clearly replaced her this afternoon with Zdeňka. ‘You don’t need to worry. I’m not looking for a replacement for him. I know that’s not you.’
He pulled away and looked down at her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Confused, Anna looked back at him. He sounded annoyed when he should be relieved.
‘Just that I’m not expecting you … well, I’m not expecting this to be permanent.’
Leo stayed silent for a moment, his face very still except his eyes, which flashed with what looked like fury, which was ridiculous. She should have known better. Men like him, like her uncle, they constantly needed new interest, new attention. Leo might be kinder in his disposition but his attention would be captured by someone else before long.
‘Why not?’ he asked, his voice so quiet she could only just hear it.
‘Because … you know.’
‘No, I don’t.’ He stiffened and pulled away from her. ‘Explain.’
‘Leo, be honest, if we weren’t living together, on top of each other, do you honestly think we’d have got together?’
‘Probably not but we did.’
‘It was a happy accident and we’ve made the most of it but … it’s not going anywhere, is it?’ Not once had they talked about the future.
He stared at her and she started to feel uncomfortable. ‘Leo? Seriously.’
‘And if it was? Would you give it a chance?’ he asked.
Anna’s smile, sad and regretful, haunted her eyes.
‘Leo, you’re not that guy. One of us will leave and… Be honest. It will be out of sight, out of mind. You’ll move on.’
‘You’re sure of that?’ he asked, holding her gaze.
‘Yes,’ she said, laying a hand on his arm. She wasn’t going to hold him to anything. Rebecca’s arrival was a timely reminder. She didn’t want to end up like her aunt, constantly having to turn a blind eye to flirtations and liaisons that supposedly never meant anything. ‘I love you. The way you are. I don’t want you to be anything but who you are.’
Leo’s mouth twisted and he glared at her before throwing back the bed covers and launching himself to his feet in one quick surge. With his back to her, he snagged his boxers from the nearby chair and pulled them on before turning to face her.
What did he have to be angry about? She was the one trying to be the grown-up, accepting the situation rather than attempting to change him into something he wasn’t. She respected him the way he was.
‘Is that what you think this is? A good shag?’
She swallowed, hating him diminishing everything between them to one word. There’d been more, certainly on her part.
‘What are you so pissed off about? I haven’t noticed you complaining about it.’
‘Bloody hell, Anna.’ He shook his head but she had no idea what she’d done wrong. She was just being honest. ‘You don’t get it, you really don’t get it, do you?’ He hauled on his jeans and then a shirt, shoving his bare feet into his boots.
‘Get what?’ she asked, kneeling up on the bed now.
He glared at her.
‘What, Leo?’
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘I love you and you can’t bloody see it. I’m still the bloke who’s having fun. Still the bloke who can charm his way into everyone’s knickers. Still the bloke who’s incapable of being faithful, even though –’ he glared at her as he spat the words ‘– have I given you a single reason to think that I would cheat?’
She sank back on her heels staring at him.
‘And you haven’t been with Zdeňka today?’
‘Yes, I’ve been with Zdeňka today. It was purely business, which you’d have known if you’d come with me.’
Anna’s lips tightened. She hadn’t meant to mention Zdeňka but it had slipped out.
* * *
‘And there it is. You still don’t trust me.’ Despair churned in Leo’s stomach. ‘I can’t do this again, Anna.’
‘Do what?’
Leo stared at her. Did she really not know? He went silent, a wave of fury pounding over him, so fierce and consuming he had to clamp his hands into fists to stop them reaching out to shake her.
‘You almost ended me when you left last time.’
‘Me?’ The surprised outrage in her voice pushed his control over the edge.
‘Yes, you.’ The long-held bitterness spilled out and he didn’t care. He didn’t care that it made him sound like some sad sack, like a loser who felt hard done by – the words took flight on their own.
‘Remember you asked me when I had my conversion to tidiness.’ His voice clogged, turning a little croaky.
‘Yes.’
‘I went to live in a camper van for a couple of months – being untidy in that got old pretty quickly.’
‘A camper van?’
‘Yeah, a friend had it. When you left the flat … I moved into for a while.’
Yeah, there was a ton of subtext here and she had to ask. ‘A while?’
Raw pain and bitterness rocketed through him. ‘Thirteen months, Anna. Thirteen months, driving aimlessly around the UK before I got my shit together again. Not my proudest time but, hey, it made me tidy. So there’s a bonus.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Everywhere.’ He shrugged. ‘I travelled all round Europe and the UK.’
‘You didn’t stay in one place?’ It was almost comical the way Anna was gradually processing the information except all he could remember was the blind pain of trying to lose himself.
‘That generally is the idea of a camper van. You know, like being a snail, you take everything with you wherever you go,’ he said as nonchalantly as possible, as if it were no big deal when actually it had been BFD. At the time he’d craved solitude, and for the first month he drove from one place to the next each day, without even thinking about it.
Anna stared at him. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Of course you didn’t. No one did. I didn’t want anyone to find me. I was a mess.’
He swallowed the ugly lump of shame at his weakness and fought back with anger.
‘What did I ever do to make you think that what we had didn’t mean anything to me? Why are you so convinced that I’m some sort of playboy who doesn’t take anything or anyone seriously? Was I ever unfaithful? What was it I did to make you doubt me? Because I promise you, Anna, I have no fucking idea what I did wrong.’
She drew in a sharp breath as if he’d physically struck her.
But now he couldn’t stop. He pushed on, though he was disgusted with himself for dredging it all up. ‘Can you even tell me? Do you even know?’ He’d told himself being friends would be enough, that he didn’t need to know, but he’d been lying to himself. Now he felt a little sick. What had he done? What was the point of bringing up the past?
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.’
Then he felt Anna’s hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said so softly that he almost believed her. He relaxed his jaw a little but couldn’t bring himself to say anything.
‘I was a coward. I left you before you could leave me.’
He turned taken aback by her admission. ‘I was never going to leave you.’
She let out a breath. ‘I was too young and stupid to realise that at the time. I convinced myself you would. Especially when that girl came on the scene.’
‘But why? What did I do that made you think I’d go?’
Anna laughed without mirth. ‘Have you looked in the mirror? Handsome, charming. Every girl looked twice at you. It was only a matter of time before you moved on. And you always defended her, said she was just a friend.’
‘She was just a friend.’ The dully spoken words stabbed with all the pain of a dull spoon. ‘Did you think so little of me?’
‘Not of you, of me. I didn’t think I was enough to hold on to you.’
‘But…’ Leo’s confusion made him fumble for words. ‘But … we were married. I thought that … I made vows to you. Promises. I loved you. I love you.’
‘But we were too young. We didn’t know each other.’
‘I knew that I loved you. That you were enough.’ He swallowed. ‘Maybe I wasn’t enough for you.’
‘Of course you were. You were too much for me. Everyone loved you. You made friends easily. Everything came easily and I thought when it didn’t, you would go.’
‘But you weren’t prepared to wait and find out. You bailed … on me. On you.’
‘Yeah,’ she said in a sad voice. ‘I did. But it would have happened in the end.’
‘So you’re fully qualified with a crystal ball, are you?’
‘Leo, I saved us some time. It would have happened eventually.’
‘And it never occurred to you to share your concerns.’
‘I did…’ Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘With my family.’
He shook his head, unable to say the words. He might love her but she was never going to love him, not all in.
‘But Leo…’
He shook his head, unable to look her in the face because she might see too much.
‘Leave it, Anna.’
Slowly he left the room, conscious of the weight of each of the steps he took and when he closed the door, the thud vibrated through his body, echoing the dull pain running through every vein. He had no idea where he was going. He needed to get away. He scrolled through recent texts. There was one place he’d be welcome. Fuck it. Anna didn’t trust him anyway. What did he have to lose? He might as well go to Zdeňka’s and prove Anna right. He was only useful for a good time and not much else.