She splashed her face with cold water, blotted it with a paper towel and left, shoulders back, chest out, taking the side staircase to the backstage area.
On the way up Sarah passed her, pelting down at full speed.
“Mind yourself!”
“Fuck you. Goodbye. I’m going.”
“Sarah.”
But she’d gone.
Lydia nearly screamed in shock when she reached the next landing and a hand closed around her upper arm, halting her, pulling her sharply back towards the wall.
“Milan!”
“Hello.”
“What are you doing?”
“Making decisions.”
“What’s wrong with Sarah?”
He grimaced and shook his head, indicating that Sarah was at the very outer margin of his concerns.
“I don’t care. I care about you.”
“When it suits you.”
“Lydia, I just ask you to listen to me now. This is my decision. I am going to get you back. Not by devious means. By being good enough for you.”
“I don’t—”
He put a finger to her lips, bending his forehead to hers.
“Don’t say anything. Just wait and see. We can start again. Go out for a drink… Okay, maybe not a drink… A movie. Be friends, yes? You can have me on a, what is
it, trial basis. Three months, right? Three months’ trial. At the end, you come to me or you leave me.”
“These are your terms, not mine. I’m not doing anything on your terms ever again.”
“Right. Okay.” He inhaled strongly and appeared to ponder this, his brow deeply furrowed. “What are your terms?”
“My terms are…”
Lydia looked at him, his hair hanging over his cheekbones, his eyes blue flames, his pale swan neck perspiring a little where he had loosened his collar. God, nobody else could make her feel this way. Nobody could unleash this primitive, raw need in her.
“I can’t tell you now,” she whispered. “I’m going away for a few weeks, to think things over.”
“I have to wait?”
“You have to wait. But, before I go, I want to give you something.”
“What’s that?”
She put her fingertips on the side of his neck, feeling the warmth, the beads of moisture, the yield of his skin. It travelled into her, through her fingers, filling her with longing weakness. No other man had ever sparked this devastating chemical reaction. No other man ever could.
She lifted herself on tiptoe, sliding her fingers around to the back of his neck, pressing into the hollow there, looking up as he looked down.