Chapter 28
Imogen Again
I’m not the only one who’s worried about Anders’s new magical Do Nothing strategy, but we all hitched our wagons to this maverick a long time ago.
Now is not the time to lose faith. We knew he was betting the company’s future on The Obsidian Sigil.
Actually, not being a gamer or knowing anything about the industry, I had always been betting on Anders, and he was betting on the game.
The meeting lasts until we break for lunch. I’m about to retreat to my desk and eat as I work but Nur grabs my arm. “No, you don’t,” she says. “You’re taking a proper break. You’ve been working flat out. Bring your food.”
So it is that Nur, Chloe and I take a seat at the table Ginny has already occupied.
“What’s with the big pow-wow?” she says. So much for trying to avoid speculation.
“Dealing with the fallout from Piotr’s sacking,” Nur interjects before I have time to comment. “You’ll be glad to hear Scarlett is now your boss.”
“Ugh!” Ginny rolls her eyes as she groans dramatically. “I’m going back to Malaysia.”
“Malaysia?” I’m confused. “I thought you were sunning yourself on some beach in Thailand.”
Ginny flushes red. It’s quite an amazing sight. The line between her skin and her hair disappears.
“She went to stay with Steve.” It’s Nur who answers, not Ginny.
“Steve?” I’m even more confused.
“How can I put it?” Nur tilts her head. “They’ve been getting friendly,” she says.
My eyebrows rise. “You and Steve? Really?”
Ginny’s colour is returning to normal. “You didn’t want them,” she says. “You said so.” There’s a hint of challenge in her words.
Given what I’m hiding from all of them, I’m the last person to judge her. People in glass houses and all that.
“I’m surprised, but not angry,” I tell her. “Steve’s lovely. I just didn’t know you were interested.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d approve,” Ginny says. “As he’s your ex.”
“Hardly! We had one date in a coffee shop.” I lean across and take her hand. “You deserve happiness, and Steve will never treat you like that shithead Piotr did. But how’s this going to work?” There’s an eight-hour time difference between their homes. Anders and I struggled with five hours.
“We don’t know,” Ginny says. “We’re taking it a day at a time. We don’t even know if Cerium Malaysia will work out, or if we will. In time, we’ll see.”
“There’s always phone sex,” Chloe says.
Ginny flushes scarlet again.
Oh my God. Does the entire world know how to do phone sex? Just not me?
“How long have the two of you been together?” I ask.
Ginny takes a deep breath. “I asked him out that day you told us you didn’t want to take things further.”
That’s a bit of a shock. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own world, I didn’t notice.
I never thought of myself as self-obsessed but I’m fast re-evaluating that.
“I’m happy for you both,” I say to cover my surprise.
Ginny and Steve have been dating almost as long as Anders and I have, but she seems far more certain of her relationship than I am of mine.
Since his return, neither Anders nor I have brought up that aspect of our lives, but we do need to talk. If we can get some alone time.
The afternoon is just as busy as the morning, and Anders is always with other people. Between Scarlett, Ahmed and Ramesh, his time is completely swallowed.
Finally, I give up trying to find a quiet moment to have a word with him and send him a message as I’m packing up for the day.
We need to talk.
I leave work, pick Effie up, take her home, and do her reading homework with her. We eat dinner together and then I tackle some of the never-ending pile of laundry.
Only then does my phone ping.
Can I come over when Effie is in bed?
It’s not ideal, but it’s obvious to me it will be days before we have another moment alone at work.
Effie and I do bath and bed. I read her a chapter of her reptile book. It must be the tenth time I’ve read it, but Effie’s enthusiasm is showing very little sign of abating. She’s no artist, but she’s drawn a picture of Smauglette and it’s in pride of place on her wall.
When Effie is asleep, I message Anders to let him know and receive an instant reply. Be over in a bit.
But it’s over an hour before he appears.
I’m tired and longing for my bed. I want to snuggle into a cosy dressing gown, but there’s no way I can expect this conversation to go the way I want it if I’m in a nightdress.
The waiting is hard. Trying to distract myself with television doesn’t work, as I can’t concentrate and I turn it off.
I resort to angry ironing bed linen, but as the minutes tick by, my irritation grows.
By the time he finally turns up, I’m simmering. At least he texts to let me know he’s at the door rather than ringing the bell. And when I let him in, I can see some of the weariness has returned. Even though I don’t want it to, my irritation crumbles away.
He steps into the hall, but as soon as I close the door behind him, his hand reaches for me. I pull back.
“No,” I say. “I want to know what’s going on first.”
He looks a little confused and a lot hurt. I’m not immune to that look. It tugs at my heart.
“Have you eaten?” I say, trying to take some of the sting out of my rejection and hating that I care enough to want to.
“Not yet,” he says.
“Then sit.” I head to the kitchen and pull out everything I need to make him a sandwich. He waits, silent, his eyes watching my every move.
“Eat this,” I say as I slide the plate in front of him and add a glass of juice. “Then we’ll talk.”
I’ve stuffed so much salad into the sandwich he struggles to fit it into his mouth. He takes big bites and chews fast. I think he’ll give himself indigestion, but he keeps going.
“Okay,” he says, having bolted his food like a Tasmanian devil. “Now, what’s up?”
“I need to know what happened between you and Imogen.”
His brow furrows. “Nothing,” he says.
I’m well aware that men and women have different definitions of nothing, just like they also have very different definitions of fine. But surely Anders must understand why I want to know every microscopic part of his interactions with his ex?
“It can’t be nothing,” I explain. “The woman flew thousands of miles to see you.”
“Well, that’s not exactly right,” Anders counters. “She didn’t come to see me. She came because my mother called. And secondly, she didn’t come that far. She was in Chicago.”
I’m surprised enough to ask, “What was she doing in Chicago?”
Anders shrugs. “Some work thing.” His lack of curiosity is more reassuring than his words.
I pull my focus back. All of that is just sophistry. I rub my eyes then slide my fingers up to my temples.
“Let’s take this step by step. Your mother called Imogen because she didn’t know you’d split. But why hadn’t you told your family? Were you expecting to get back with her?”
“No. I just didn’t want to upset them. They’d already accepted her as family. And the longer I left it, the harder it became. I was going to tell them about us when all this happened.”
Can I really criticise him for his emotional cowardice? He didn’t want to upset people he cared about. Which is precisely why I didn’t tell him about Piotr. We are guilty of the same offence.
I move on. “The point is your ex-girlfriend came to help your family. Nobody does that if they don’t have an ulterior motive.”
“Ye-ah.” Anders scratches the spot beside his nose. “But everyone has an ulterior motive,” he says.
He’s infuriating.
“She wants to get back with you,” I spell it out for him.
For the first time, Anders looks uncomfortable.
“Yes,” he admits.
I knew it.
“Is that why you’ve been weird?” he says.
“Weird?”
“Since I got back.”
I have not been weird; I’ve been worried. “I’m not a mind reader, Anders. I don’t know what’s going on in your head. I don’t know what she said. I don’t know what you thought unless you tell me. And you haven’t told me.”
I pause. “And if that’s what you think is weird, then so be it.”
“What did you think was going on?” he says, his voice quiet.
“I don’t know.” I say the words on a sigh, letting him hear my mix of despair and hope and confusion.
“Okay.” His head drops back and he closes his eyes. “Okay. What do you want to know?”
“What did she want?” Isn’t that obvious?
“You’ve already said it. She wanted to get back with me.” I knew it.
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m with this wonderful, passionate, gorgeous woman now, and she wouldn’t like that.’”
“I wouldn’t like it,” I say. “But it doesn’t really matter what I want. It matters what you wanted.”
“Cora, I wanted you. I want you now. Is that enough?”
I shake my head. “Nope. You were with her for years. Do you expect me to believe you just switched those feelings off?”
“Of course I didn’t switch those feelings off. I still care about Imogen a lot. But she was offering me a future where she had to sacrifice her career, and I had to sacrifice you.”
He pauses. Long enough for his words to penetrate. Long enough for despair to ebb.
“It seemed clear to me that deep down inside neither of us wanted to make those sacrifices. Imogen’s original impulse was correct. She doesn’t want children.”
He looks at me steadily.
“Can you imagine the fate of some poor child whose mother never wanted her? Even the most loving father in the world couldn’t overcome that damage.”
He rubs his temples, and I recall how tired he must be. I feel bad about doing this, but I needed to hear him say all of it.
“She stayed long enough to make sure my mother was okay and then she went back to Chicago.”
He reaches out and takes my hand, holding it lightly, his thumb caressing my knuckles. A warmth spreads through me, loosening the tension squeezing my heart.
“When my sister told me she’d cover for the next week, my first thought was that I could head down to Chicago – not to see Imogen, but to get on a plane and come back to you.”
Not even I can find fault with that explanation.
I lean forward. His lips meet mine and my world explodes in fire. “Take it off,” I breathe as I pull at his tee, suddenly overwhelmed by the need to feel his skin, all of it.
But he’s thinking clearer than I am. “What if Effie comes in?”
He’s right. Briefly I run through which rooms lock. Only the bathroom and I’m not having sex in the bathtub. I’m also not not having sex.
“Shh,” I whisper. “You have to be quiet.” I drag him down to my bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. Pulling my laundry basket across the floor, I stash it in front of the door. That should slow Effie down enough for me to push Anders to the floor so he can roll under the bed.
I turn back around to tell him to strip but he’s always been quick on the uptake. He’s already shirtless, halfway to pant-less. I’m buzzing with need for him. I want to hear him whisper how much he missed me as he enters my body. I want his mouth to mark me somewhere only we know.
Not even stopping to undo my buttons, I pull my shirt over my head and slide my skirt and knickers off in one smooth move.
Anders removes my bra for me, my breasts dropping into his cupped hands.
As his thumbs pass over my sensitive nipples, I gasp and push him onto the bed.
Lifting my hair up from its roots, I shake it as it falls free.
I’m Cora, the wild child, as I clamber on top of him and impale myself on his glorious dick.
After all the denial, all the doubt, this is where I want to be. I want to scream ‘Yee hah!’ but I can’t because my daughter is sleeping down the hall. Instead, I rise up and drive down again, my breasts bouncing. Anders groans quietly, “God, I love you.”
And those words are even better. His hands clamp around my hips, forcing his cock deeper. Oh, yes!
We move together, urgently, our bodies driving us closer. There’s no longer any holding back. Anders can have every part of me.
He’s won.