Chapter 7
APRIL
Okay, no more pussy-footing around, I decide as I take my second shower of the day.
I need him to know I’m not going to keep putting up with this inconsistent, harrying behaviour. I know he’s doing it to put me off my game, to pay me back for the pain he thinks I put him through, but it’s time to get this ridiculous charade over with now. It’s time to get down to business.
In honour of this, I tame my hair into a neat chignon and put on the white trouser suit I arrived in to project a renewed statement of my position. I love this suit. It always gives me a lift of self-esteem and helps put a spring in my step, which is exactly what I need right now.
I stride downstairs and search the living area, the terrace and then the library, looking for Jamie, determined to confront him about the game he’s playing and to find a way to resolve this situation once and for all.
A strange tension begins to build behind my eyes when it becomes obvious he’s not in the house. Maybe he’s back at the tennis courts or in his gym?
After checking both of these, and the pool too, I trudge back to the house feeling my previous chutzpah slipping away. He seems to have abandoned me here.
The thought that he’s punishing me by leaving me alone with just my scrambled thoughts for company sends an arrow of fear through me.
Would he really do that?
Probably, I decide – in order to take control further out of my hands. He’s reminding me that I’m on his turf and that he gets to decide how this plays out.
As I walk back towards the house, I notice a movement on the terrace and my heart leaps when I realise it’s Jamie. He appears to be laying out food and drinks for lunch.
So he hasn’t abandoned me here after all.
Relief rushes through me, as does a twisted sense of exhilaration at the sight of him. He’s changed too, into casual baggy khaki shorts and a white V-neck T-shirt. He looks good. Relaxed and at home.
I experience a rush of jealousy for the life he’s made for himself here. God, I’d love to have an island to hide away on when life gets too much. Where I could turn off my raging brain and just be.
With him?
I stop dead in my tracks, aware of my fists bunching at my sides, my nails digging into my palms.
Where the hell had that thought come from? It’s ridiculous to think we could get back what we had all those years ago. Too much has happened to allow for it. And I can’t be with him, not properly, knowing what I do and deliberately keeping it from him. If he ever found out…
I shake the thought from my head. That’s not going to happen. I told myself ten years ago to bury the truth – for everyone’s sake.
‘Are you hungry?’ I hear Jamie shout. He’s spotted me standing there staring at him as he lays the table for lunch.
I swallow hard and raise my hand in acknowledgement, then start walking towards the terrace.
He flashes me a smile and I drag in an involuntary breath as the beauty of it hits me full-force. The memory of his mouth on me, teasing and torturing me into a frenzy of desire, fills my head and I feel my legs wobble as blood rushes to my head and my pussy simultaneously.
Being in a constant state of arousal for the last couple of days has really messed with my mind. And my balance, it seems.
‘It’s gazpacho,’ he says, waving towards the bowls of chilled soup and a big mound of soft rolls on the table as I step onto the terrace.
‘Great,’ I reply, keeping my expression blank and my mind on the challenge of not reacting to his allure in any way.
He’s all relaxed again now, as if the scene in the pool never happened. Well, fine, I can act as if it didn’t either.
I take a seat opposite him and pick up my spoon, annoyed to find my hand is shaking. I put the spoon down again and pick up a bread roll instead, tearing it apart to give my twitchy fingers something to do.
‘I owe you an apology,’ he says, startling me.
I look up to see him assessing me with that shrewd gaze of his.
‘Oh?’ I say blandly. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of a response until I’ve heard what he has to say. This could just be another trick, a way to unnerve me further.
‘I need to explain why I acted the way I did after we broke up.’
I blink at him, completely surprised by this. I was expecting an apology for him walking away from me like that in the pool, not about his behaviour ten years ago.
‘Okay. I’m listening,’ I say warily.
‘Okay.’ He blows out a long, low breath, as if readying himself to do this. He picks up his spoon and swirls it through the soup as if needing something practical to focus on while he speaks. ‘When you finished with me so suddenly, I felt like my whole world had fallen apart,’ he begins.
He pauses and looks at me, as if checking this is a safe subject, so I nod, encouraging him to go on with his story, my heart thumping in my chest.
‘I knew that your mother’s sudden death had been a horrific shock, and that you’d need time alone with your family to get through that period, which is why I gave you the space you asked for at first.’ He pauses again, his eyes filled with sadness.
‘But I couldn’t understand, when I came to you later to let you know I was there for you whenever you needed me, how you could just turn your back on what we had.
’ He grips his spoon harder, his knuckles turning white.
My stomach gives a swoop of regret as I see the pain he’s remembering flicker in his eyes.
It had hurt me too, more than I’d ever let him know.
‘I didn’t understand what had gone wrong. What I could have possibly done to cause that. It made me crazy. I felt so fucking powerless.’
He sighs and shakes his head. ‘After what we’d shared, I really thought we were solid. That we cared for each other. Loved each other.’ He looks directly into my eyes again and I have to steel myself not to react to this.
My chest feels like it’s been trapped in a vice, and my heart aches with the emotional pain I’m experiencing, but I can’t let him see that. I can’t. I can’t.
‘But I guess I was wrong,’ he carries on when I don’t say anything, resting his spoon on the side of his bowl, apparently not hungry any more.
‘I guess our lives were destined to go in very different directions from that point. But I couldn’t accept it at first. I thought – na?vely, I now realise – that if you heard I’d been seeing other people it would make you jealous.
That you’d decide you’d made a mistake and want me back.
And when that didn’t work, I was so fucking frustrated I did the most stupid thing in the world.
’ He runs a hand over his creased brow. ‘I started drinking heavily.’
There’s a loaded pause while we both reflect on the implications of this.
‘You remember my mother died from liver failure, right?’ he says quietly.
I nod, not able to speak, my heart in my throat.
‘So I’m sure you’ve put two and two together by now and figured out that she was an alcoholic.
She couldn’t control her urge to drink and keep on drinking.
I thought I was okay with alcohol, but it turns out a traumatic event can turn me into someone I had no idea I was capable of being.
Someone weak and needy. And when I started drinking heavily, I couldn’t stop.
I had no off-switch. There are weeks from around that time that I have no memory of.
I know I behaved badly because my friends were honest enough to tell me about it.
And I know that I told one of the women I was fucking at the time – who it turned out had a real grudge against you, for some reason – about you begging me for anal sex. ’
He’s referring to a sex game we used to play and at least has the decency to look thoroughly ashamed at blabbing about this.
‘Which I recognise was a terrible abuse of trust and I know resulted in a lot of unkind gossip flying around about you,’ he adds.
He holds up a hand and shakes his head, not able to meet my eyes now.
‘Shit, I’m so sorry about that. It was unforgivable.
But I was so angry with you for rejecting me, and half-crazy with frustration and alcohol poisoning at the time, I did nothing to quash it.
I guess in my addled, fucked up state I told myself you deserved it for hurting me so badly. ’
He picks up his spoon again and jabs it into the lurid liquid in his bowl. ‘So, yes, you’re absolutely right about me being ego-driven and self-serving. And, of course, that’s why I don’t drink alcohol any more. I stopped before it ruined my tennis career and the rest of my life.’
He leans back in his chair and folds his arms, studying me with a steady, contemplative gaze.
‘The shame I felt about it has dogged me for far too long now. It’s been a really destructive force in my life, and I don’t want to carry it with me any more.
I’m done with pandering to my resentment about what could have been with us. It’s time to move on.’
The smile he gives me now is tinged with remorse.
‘The truth is, I wanted you to stay here so I could prove to you, and to myself, that it’s possible.
That I’ve changed. That I’m over you and what we had.
What happened at that charity fundraiser was a real wake-up call.
I let my grief about losing my father get the better of me and lost my mind.
I was still pretty raw then and probably shouldn’t have gone that night.
I definitely shouldn’t have ripped your dress.
And I shouldn’t have fucked you like that, especially because I didn’t even stop for one second to think about using a condom.
That was irresponsible and really fucking stupid. ’
He shoots me a look of apology, which morphs into concern. ‘You’re not pregnant, are you? I realise I never asked. I guess I thought you’d let me know if that was the case.’