* * *
‘That was incredible, love.’
Marie smiles at me, having just finished the last of her dessert, and wipes her lips with her napkin.
‘I told you—I’ve been taught by the best.’
I feel Cain’s eyes on me and wish I hadn’t finished that second glass of wine, let alone the dessert wine Marie insisted on pouring. I can feel its heady warmth soothing away my tension, blurring the boundaries I’ve worked so hard to draw up.
The problem is that I can stay angry at the Cain who left seven years ago. I can even detest him.
But the man opposite me... He’s the same, and yet...
I sense so much is different.
He’s more measured, less likely to jump in before thinking, less fun-loving too. He used to be quick to laugh—quick to act the fool, even—but I can’t see that in him now.
If he hadn’t broken my heart I might even feel sad that he’s hardened over the years. But that youth centre initiative... If there was ever a way to soften my defences, that would be it. Wine or no wine.
Not that I am softening. He left once—there’s nothing to say he won’t do it again. In fact, he’s even more likely to do it now he has a life to go back to. Regardless of his threats to stick around, to set up home. I’m convinced he only said those things to goad me.
And what of his life elsewhere? Does he actually have people to go back to? A woman? A family, even?
I realise I know so little about him and my stomach writhes over those missing years. There must have been women. Plenty of women. No one can look like Cain and keep an empty bed.
And, oh, God, why am I thinking like this?
The blasted wine.
Marie eyes us both. Our silence is heavy even to her, I’m sure. ‘How about a spot of brandy?’
‘No!’
It blurts out of us both and for a second our eyes meet. A smile—hell, almost a laugh—erupts, but I shake free of the weird connection.
‘No, thank you,’ I say, softer now as I look back to her. ‘I could murder a coffee, though.’
An injection of caffeine. Sobriety—that’s what I need to see the rest of this meal through. And then I can go home, take a bath and read a good book.
Anything to distract myself from this. From him.
Despite Marie’s best efforts, I’m not ready to address the past head-on, and I hate that his return has put me in this position. If only he hadn’t upped and left in the first place there wouldn’t be this colossal secret between us. A secret with the power to cause so much more pain.
And, if I’m honest, I don’t want to dredge up that last argument, the words that were said, the things that can’t be taken back, no matter how wrong or twisted they were.
‘Coffee it is. You head into the living room and I’ll bring it through.’
We rise and she looks at Cain as he moves to follow her. ‘Shoo, shoo—I can manage coffee on my own.’
If ever there was an order, that is one, and without thinking I raise my brows at Cain, who’s pulling the same expression at me. And there it is again—that connection, our eyes dancing into each other’s as Marie’s shameless orchestration of ‘alone time’ unites us.
He clears his throat and gestures to the doorway. ‘Shall we?’
‘We best had.’
I try not to look at him as I pass him by. I even hold my breath so I can’t get a hit of his cologne. But my body warms over the memory of it anyway. It’s musky, welcoming, all male. And it took over my senses four days ago, when he kissed me—when we kissed. The intensity of it, the old familiar versus the new...
No, there’s no way Cain has lived a life of celibacy these last seven years and I shouldn’t care.