Starting now, she thought, standing back and watching warily as he moved past her. She pulled back so that no part of him brushed against her, closed the door and tried not to think about the way the hallway she’d always considered rather spacious now felt like the size of a wardrobe and about as claustrophobic.
‘Go on through,’ she said, her voice annoyingly breathy. ‘The sitting room’s on your right.’
Following her instructions, Kit strode down the hall and into the sitting room. Lily put Nick’s scarf back on the hall table and then followed him, assuring herself with each step that really there was nothing to worry about. She’d got over her marriage and Kit years ago and it was just the shock of seeing him after all this time that was making her react so oddly, that was all.
After taking up a position by the fireplace about as far away from him as possible, she watched him unbutton his coat, shrug it off and drape it over the arm of the sofa. He straightened, thrust his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked around.
While the fire crackled merrily in the grate, she saw him take in the deep indentations in the cushions of the sofa, the pair of cups on the low coffee table in front of the fire and then, beyond the open doors that divided the space, towards the back of the house, the dining table upon which sat the evidence of what had clearly been a romantic dinner for two.
Surveying the scene through Kit’s eyes, Lily knew what it looked like and was suddenly rather glad she hadn’t got round to tidying up.
She was especially glad she hadn’t done anything about putting out the dozens of flickering candles, turning up the low seductive lighting she’d chosen for this evening or switching off the slow, sexy music that drifted from the speakers embedded in the ceiling in the four corners of the room.
Why she was glad, though, was something she wasn’t particularly keen to dwell on.
‘You’ve been entertaining,’ Kit said in a tone that suggested he didn’t like it, which was tough because he’d given up the right to have an opinion about anything she did the minute he’d chosen to have a one-night stand with someone from the PR department of the hotel where he’d worked while their marriage lay in tatters.
Resisting the temptation to think about that, Lily allowed herself a slow, deliberately wistful smile. ‘Yes,’ she murmured softly, blissfully, as if dinner had turned into something much, much more.
Kit’s jaw tightened gratifyingly. ‘The man with the scarf?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Boyfriend?’
Nope. Sadly. ‘That,’ she said, ‘is none of your business.’
Kit tutted. ‘Goodness, aren’t we defensive?’
‘I prefer “private”,’ she said, deepening her smile as she vaguely wondered what was stopping her from just telling him the truth about Nick.
‘So I recall,’ he said, and in that instant an image flashed into her head of the two of them in his car, hidden from view, she’d thought, by trees.
They’d been driving back from a party in Kit’s convertible, and it had been end-of-the-summer hot. He’d said something that she hadn’t caught, and as she’d turned to ask him what he’d said she’d been hit by a bolt of desire so strong that it had wiped her head clean of thought. He’d looked so mouth-wateringly gorgeous, tanned and laughing, with the wind ruffling his hair, so confident and in control, that, totally riddled with lust, she’d ordered him to pull over.
Once he had, in a conveniently secluded spot, she’d practically leapt on him. Kit hadn’t complained, and with their mouths meeting and their hands grappling at relevant bits of clothing they’d been too desperate to notice the group of walkers heading along the path in their direction, and then too absorbed in each other to see them hurry straight past.
It was only when Lily lifted her head from the nook where his neck met his shoulder, eased herself off him and turned to face forwards, that she saw the backs of a few stragglers and realised what had just happened. After that mortifying experience, Lily had insisted on sex indoors.
Why Kit had had to bring it up now she had no idea, but she really wished he hadn’t because she could so do without the memory of it. Or the accompanying rush of heat that was sweeping through her.
She could definitely do without the faint knowing amusement with which he was looking at her that suggested he knew exactly what was going through her head.
Hmm. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing for him to believe she had a boyfriend. If her immunity to him wasn’t quite as strong as she’d always thought and if he was even thinking of continuing with this line of conversation, then a boyfriend seemed like an excellent deterrent/defence.
Lily shrugged away the images. ‘Well, it’s early days,’ she said with a coolness that came from who knew where. ‘With Nick and me, I mean. But yes, things are looking good.’
‘Great,’ he said, sounding as if he thought it anything but.
Snapping his gaze from hers, he glanced down at the glasses that were on the coffee table and frowned. ‘Are those ours?’
The crystal champagne flutes had once upon a time indeed been theirs, although now, technically, they were hers. They’d been a wedding present, and until tonight had spent the last five years encased in bubble wrap and stashed in her attic.
Lily wasn’t entirely sure why she’d brought them down and unwrapped them this evening, but she had, and that had been a mistake because every time she’d lifted hers to her mouth she’d been hit by a string of bittersweet memories of drinking champagne with Kit.
‘I have no idea,’ she said with a dismissive shrug because there was no way she was going to confess to any of that.
‘Looks like they are.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘It does if you’re drinking out of them with another man. I think I might be offended.’
She fought the urge to bristle and channelled her inner calm instead. ‘Well, you could have had them, so you should have thought about that when you displayed so little interest in how our things were divided up.’
He nodded and rubbed a hand along his jaw before shooting her a rueful smile. ‘I probably should have. Although from what I remember I was too devastated by the realisation that we were over to be worrying about who got what.’
Lily stared at him in astonishment, all pretence of cool detachment gone. ‘You were devastated?’
‘Of course I was.’ He said it as if she should have been able to tell, but by that point he’d been so cold, so distant, so damn unreadable that she hadn’t been able to work out what he’d been thinking. ‘Weren’t you?’
‘Oh, well, yes, I was in bits.’ Which she’d clearly done a pretty good job of hiding too, if he’d had to ask. ‘Although I do remember, above all, an overwhelming sense of relief.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, there was that too.’
Silence fell then, and all she could hear as they continued to look at each other was the ticking of the antique mahogany clock on the mantelpiece. And all she could suddenly—and irrationally—think was, had he really been as devastated as she’d been? Had they been too quick to divorce? Should they have tried harder? Should they have given it another shot?
The clock struck a quarter to one and she came to with a jolt.
No. They could have given their marriage a million different shots but it wouldn’t have made any difference because before divorce had ever been mentioned, before Kit’s one-night stand even, they’d totally lost the ability to communicate and their relationship had gone way beyond the point of no return.
With her throat beginning to ache with regret Lily quickly reined in her thoughts