Chapter 10
CLARK
I should probably be dwelling on a hangover or icing my stiff hand from my scuffle with that idiot in the club, but I couldn’t care less about any of that. Instead, I’m wearing a cheek-splitting grin.
The jug under the coffee machine is filling as I consider that last week, I felt as if my sanity was hanging in the balance. I’d thrown so much away and couldn’t have the one thing I truly wanted. But now…
As if on cue, my phone beeps again as I receive a text.
Connie
Call me.
I don’t want to hurt Connie; I never did. But I want to have this moment, not thinking about the crap I’ll have to deal with when Dayna and I go back home as a couple. Jay will probably kick ten bells out of me. Or try. Connie will be sick over it.
Right now, all I want is for this goddamned coffee to hurry up so I can go back to my room and the angel who is currently taking a shower and pretend for a minute that this feeling like I’ve won the lottery twice is for keeps.
I’ve screwed this up in the past. Not this time.
Impatient, I take out two mugs and fill them with what coffee has already brewed, then head back to my room.
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’
Dayna charges out of the room right at me. I rock back, saving the coffee but confused as hell.
She stands in front of me, her eyes clouded with tears that haven’t fallen, staring at the mugs I’m holding, then at me.
She thought I left.
My words don’t come quick enough. She runs upstairs, wearing my bottoms and a T-shirt, her hair wet. When my brain finally kicks into action, I dump the drinks back in the kitchen and bound up both flights of stairs to the top floor, desperate to set her straight.
I tap a knuckle on the door to her bedroom, as if she’s going to invite me in.
Then I go ahead and open the door. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed in front of the window, her back to me.
She looks small in my T-shirt, and I have an overwhelming need to hold her.
But that’s not Dayna. She’d take it as pity, and she wouldn’t want that.
I suddenly wish I’d put on a shirt with my jeans. I feel crushed enough without physical exposure. Of course she thought I left. That’s all she knows.
‘Dayna.’ I make a move into the room but stop short of going to her. ‘I went to get coffee. That’s all. I didn’t leave.’
If not for the rise of her back as she takes a deep breath, she’d be perfectly still.
‘Last night was—’ I start. ‘I’ve wanted that for?—’
‘Don’t, Clark. Don’t feed me bullshit. Please.
’ She stands and turns to face me. The sight of her tears is like a blunt dagger to my gut.
‘Last night shouldn’t have happened. I’m not blaming you.
I wanted it.’ She swipes the back of her hand across her cheeks quickly and lifts her empty suitcase onto the bed, opening the lid. ‘But it shouldn’t have happened.’
She pulls her clothes out of her wardrobe in one bulk, hangers still attached.
‘What are you doing?’
She throws the clothes in the case. ‘I’m leaving.’
‘But it’s your birthday weekend. Your flight to Dubai is tomorrow. Dayna, this isn’t necessary. Stay. We can talk this out.’
She keeps packing, and I start to panic. I have no fucking idea what to do or say and I’m freaking out. ‘You don’t have to run.’
She stops and looks me in the eye. A look that I think I’ll remember for the rest of my life. ‘I can’t do this, Clark. I can’t be back here.’
There must be something I can say. Some kind of speech about trying, about doing things differently this time around. But nothing comes.
Instead, I tell her, ‘I’ll go.’
She swallows hard enough that I see it in the hollow at the base of her throat. ‘It’s your chalet.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to tell you I shouldn’t have come. I’m glad I did. I’m not sorry about being here or last night. But I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t ever want to hurt you again, Dayna.’
Downstairs, I pull on a T-shirt and start packing my case.
‘I take it you slept with her.’ Spencer is standing in the doorway, yawning, stretching casually, as if the whole world isn’t falling down around me.
‘Not now, Spencer.’
‘Leaving seems a bit extreme.’
I drag a hand over my face. ‘I don’t know what else to do. She was going to leave. Am I supposed to let her go?’
‘So you fucked. You’re both adults. You don’t hate each other. Far from it. Why don’t you try the not-bolting approach for once?’ He walks away, scratching his back and creaking his neck. It wasn’t just fucking; it was everything.
Another text from Connie lands on my phone.
Connie
Please. I need to talk.
Christ, what do I fix first?
I climb the staircase a second time. She’s standing by the window, looking out across the snow-white horizon.
‘I’m not going.’ I step into the room and wait, until eventually, she turns to face me. ‘I told you last night that I broke things off with Connie because I loved her but I wasn’t in love with her.’
‘Clark, please.’
‘No. Please listen to what I’ve got to say because I’m here. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, Dayna. Not this time.’
A fresh tear traces a path down her beautiful face, and my ribcage starts to feel like a lead weight crushing me. I’d give anything to take away her pain. And the best I can do is give her honesty.
‘What I didn’t tell you was that the night before the wedding, I found out my father had been having an affair. Do you know how he justified it? He said he was married to the woman he was supposed to marry. What he meant was, not the woman he wanted to be with.’
She folds her arms protectively across her chest. ‘What has that got to do wi?—’
‘I realised then that I’d both feared and idolised my father all my life.
Until that moment, when I lost whatever respect for him I had left.
I didn’t – don’t – want to be like him, and I knew that if I married Connie, there was every chance I’d one day end up following in his footsteps.
’ All I want to do is go to her, but I’m afraid if I do, she’ll retreat.
‘I wasn’t in love with Connie, Dayna. She was the woman I was supposed to marry, but the woman I want to spend my life with is standing right in front of me. ’
Her shoulders shake as she takes a short, shallow breath.
‘I love you, Dayna. I do. I always have. I don’t expect you to trust me, not yet.
But I’m not walking away. Whether you want me as a friend or whether you want to be with me in every way, I’m here, in whatever form you’ll take, because I need you in my life.
It’s you. Only you. It’s always been you, Dayna.
I was just the dickhead who couldn’t get his shit together. And I’m sorry.’
‘I can’t do this again, Clark. Nobody has ever hurt me like you. You broke my heart and I just don’t know if you can fix it.’
I nod because I have no idea what else to do.
‘You were supposed to be married. I’m not your rebound.’
‘But I’ve told you?—’
‘I heard you. But it’s raw. You say you’re not in love with Constance but maybe you’ve just lost the fire.
You do love her. You said as much. All we have is lust. Don’t mistake that for more than what you have with her.
You can’t spend the rest of your life with lust, Clark.
At some point, the spark will fade. Go get it back with Constance. ’
I’ve never believed people really see red mist when they’re angry enough. Until now. ‘Dayna, listen to me, please.’
‘I am.’
My phone starts ringing in my pocket, and I take it out to shut the thing up. Connie’s face is lighting up the screen.
‘Is everything okay?’ Rachel’s voice comes from behind me. She’s at the bedroom door, in silk pyjamas and furry boots. ‘That’s an obvious no,’ she says, coming into the room.
Shit.
‘Answer it,’ Dayna tells me.
She’s staring right at me as I accept the call. I try to tell her I’m sorry in a look. ‘Connie, is everything all right?’
I glance back to a picture I’ll never forget. Dayna drops to her knees and cries into her hands.
‘No, I am not all right,’ Connie yells into my ear.
I grab my coat and boots from my room and head outside to the porch. ‘Connie, I can’t do cryptic right now.’
‘I’ve just been sent a picture of you and Camilla Normen.
From Instagram.’ She starts sobbing down the line and I swear my head is about to explode.
I sink into a wooden rocking chair and force myself to think about last night and whatever happened with Camilla Normen.
Now I realise I do have a hangover. The hangover to make all other hangovers take to the knee and beg for mercy. ‘How could you do that to me?’
‘What, Connie? Do what?’
‘Sleep with her!’
Shit.
‘How could you sleep with Camilla when we’ve only just broken up, Clark? I mean, I didn’t think we were that done.’
I take a breath. ‘Camilla? Connie, I didn’t sleep with Camilla.’