She unbuttoned her coat and slipped it off, revealing a pale pink slip dress, silky, slim-cut and short, showing off her long, tanned legs to perfection. He tried hard not to stare too hard; then again, he defied any man to be able to tear their eyes away from Carla when she looked this good.
‘So why was the party dull?’
‘Everyone asking me about David, pulling faces like someone had died.’
She was drunk, he could hear it in her slightly slurred words and see it in her glassy eyes. He felt a pang of sympathy for his ex-wife. He knew how much she would have hated that: being pitied in some Knightsbridge society salon. She’d have knocked back the champagne to forget about it and then made her excuses as soon as it was polite to leave.
‘Do you want me to make you a coffee?’ he asked.
‘That obvious, is it?’ she said with a crooked grin. ‘I’ll do it, there’s an espresso machine just over here.’ She pressed the side of a cabinet and it popped open to reveal a bar. ‘Open sesame,’ she said. ‘Just like magic.’
She perched on the back of one of the velour chairs beside him.
‘Well I’m sure you won’t be single for long,’ said Matt, trying to make her feel better. He quite enjoyed having a pleasant conversation with his wife; being friends, as Jonas had rightly put it. It was a change from the years of bitter snipes and exchanges that invariably came when a marriage had gone sour.
‘I think you’re wrong,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Good men get snapped up so quickly. Women are ruthless. A whiff that a marriage is in trouble and they hover, console, move in before the divorce lawyers have been called in half the time.’
‘I never had that.’
‘Good,’ she said softly.
Their eyes locked and he had to look away.
‘I’m not sure how well I’d have taken it if you’d got married again,’ she added as the coffee machine gurgled in the background.
Matt smiled to defuse the tension that was building in the
confines of the dark room.
‘Well, I’d like to think I’m not on love’s scrapheap quite yet.’
‘So you’re looking?’ She turned to face him.
‘I never said that.’
She gave a little laugh, shaking her head gently. ‘Why am I jealous?’
The pace of his heart quickened. ‘We were married. It’s only natural.’
There was a long silence. Matt knew it was time to leave, but he couldn’t tear himself away from his spot beside her. He could sense she had something to tell him, and curiosity, ego, his pride that had been so bruised when she had betrayed him made him want to hear it.
‘I was wrong to leave you,’ she whispered finally.
When the words came, he could think of nothing in response.
She lifted her hand and brushed the back of her fingers across his cheek. He reached up to stop them, but as his hand gripped hers, the cool softness of her skin made something in his stomach flutter.
‘Don’t,’ he said, feeling the situation galloping out of control.
‘Why not?’
She stood up and stepped towards him. In her high heels they were almost face to face. At this distance he could see the tiny vein beneath her eye trembling like it did when she was nervous. He could smell the light scent of expensive wine and lipstick inhabiting the air space between them. Her mouth was inches away from his, her lips parted, waiting.
He couldn’t think of a single reason why he shouldn’t kiss her. Then again, logic always did fly out of the window when he was faced by the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
His hand cupped the soft, silky curve of her waist, slowly, carefully, pulling her towards him, and he kissed her on the mouth, on the soft fold of her ear lobe, on her long, smooth neck. He had forgotten how sweet she tasted; and yet the smell and taste of her were so familiar, it was as if the three years since any physical contact had contracted into nothingness.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she whispered, responding to his touch.