‘I tried to tell you, Sylve,’ Dad says quietly.
The shock of seeing Cole is overwhelming and my first instinct is to run, but Mum has already crossed the room and has my hand in hers. She’s giving me a reassuring look but I know she’s seething inside.
‘Cole dropped by a moment ago, looking for you,’ she says stiffly.
He’s standing now and all six foot of him is slowly making its way over the floor towards me.
Don’t kiss me, don’t kiss me, don’t kiss me. I’d hate to collapse in a stupid heap on the floor. Too late, he’s bending down towards me. I hold my breath. But he suddenly stops, straightens up and takes a step back. He smells so nice, and so familiar; of spicy aftershave and somehow warm and indoorsy. There’s a wary look on his face. Maybe he thinks I’m going to knee him in the balls. His instincts are sharp. I resist the temptation, strong though it is.
‘I’m sorry to take you by surprise. I didn’t know your new address so I called in to ask Lynn and Malcolm.’
‘Oh,’ I say.
That’s it? Six months of plotting and planning my revenge, six months of imagining how this moment might play out, and all I can manage is ‘Oh’. In my fantasy scenarios I’m usually on the arm of a dashing stranger, dressed in a revealing evening gown and towering heels, my hair piled up in a gleaming tumble of curls. We’re at some fancy occasion, a Prime Ministerial ball or Royal wedding, you know the sort of thing. I smile viciously with blood-red lips as he crumbles at the sudden devastating realisation that he’s passedall thisup. He falls to the ground and I step over his limp, twitching body, my stilettos piercing his flying jacket. That’s how it usually goes.
I hadn’t bargained for our first meeting since he dumped me taking place in Mum’s kitchen on a night damp and windy enough to have expanded my usually limp hair into a frizzy knotted nest-like affair, and I most definitely didn’t plan on greeting him with an unwashed face while wearing a pair of baggy at the knees joggers and a chuffing elf jumper. I look down my body and cringe in shame, letting my carrier bags of Christmas shopping fall to the floor.
Cole looks even better than I remember. Nothing about this is fair.
‘What do you want?’ I manage, barely able to look at his face. Dad’s by my side now too, looping his arm in mine.
‘I, uh… I brought these for you; some leftover things I thought you might want from the Love Sh… from the house, now that it’s sold.’
He holds out a lidless shoebox. I see dusty bottles of perfume, my cashmere bed socks, my unworn wedding garter belt – a confection of lace and white ribbon, still in its clear box – and a photograph in a frame, the sight of which sends me reeling all over again. It’s a picture of Barney. Our dog. My puppy. Dad sees me on the brink of tears and comes to my rescue.
‘Let me take your shopping, Sylve. Have a seat in the lounge and I’ll bring you a drink. We’re trying out some New York nosh tonight and I’ve got you some root beer to go with your chilli dogs.’ He’s circling a reassuring palm over my shoulders. ‘Will you be staying for dinner, Cole?’ he adds, with a curtness I rarely hear in Dad’s voice.
‘No he won’t, thanks Dad,’ I say, scowling at Cole who truly looked as though he were about to accept the invitation. Unbelievable! I can see I’m not the only one missing my parents’ cosy Christmases. God knows, the alternate years we spent at Patricia’s were so relentlessly grim and joyless, he really must regret losing out on the relaxed, cosy welcome of Mum and Dad’s festivities.
Mum grabs the shoebox from Cole as we make our way to the living room where only a solitary candelabra on the windowsill lifts the gloom and signals that it’s supposed to be the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
Cole closes the door behind him and comes to perch beside me on the sofa. He’s struggling to form his words and I have no intention of helping him out. I watch him as he nervously reaches a fingertip inside his smart collar and tries to loosen it. A big gulp moves his Adam’s apple and I emphaticallydo notthink about how sexy his throat is.
‘So… how have you been?’ he manages.
I’m not answering that. What can he possibly expect me to say? I glare at him in silence and pull one of Mum’s cushions up over my belly, curling my legs beneath me, wanting to shrink from his gaze and make myself as small as possible.
‘Listen, Sylvie. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what happened, and I know I probably owe you an explanation—’
‘Duh!You think?’ I butt in, enjoying being sarcastic when he’s trying to share his feelings.
‘Sylvie,’ he chastises me. ‘It’s been really hard for me to accept what I did. You don’t know what it’s been like, living with this guilt.’
‘Excuse me if my heart doesn’t bleed for you, Cole. What do you think it’s been like for me? Ditched a week before our wedding! And you just disappeared like that. Nobody would tell me where you were, not even your mother. What was I supposed to do? Mum and Dad had to deal with all the wedding stuff. They lost so much money, Cole. Where were you then? Then all I get are your solicitor’s letters telling me not to expect a penny from the sale ofyourhouse. And now you rock up here as casual as you like and wanting to stay for dinner!’ I don’t mention Barney; if I do, I’ll cry and I point blank refuse to let him see that.
‘I know it’s unforgivable, I know! I just freaked out. The wedding came around so suddenly and I panicked and I… I ran.’
‘You don’t think ten years was a long enough build-up to our wedding? You needed a bit longer?’
‘I know that nothing I say will stop you hating me. I just… really needed to see you.’
He suddenly shifts over towards me and takes my left hand in his, running his thumb over the spot once encircled by his engagement ring. He frowns, stoops his head and, after a tiny hesitation, kisses the spot, still soft and bearing the smooth indentation from a decade of pressure from the golden band. His lips are warm and I feel a mood of defeat begin to creep over me as, at last, I look into his troubled eyes.
I’m going to try to brazen this out; he can’t see me weakening. ‘Cole. You can’t just walk back into my life after six months.’ Then it hits me. We’d be going on our honeymoon in five days’ time. Is he here hoping for a reconciliation? Has he had some time to think and calm down and now he wants us to go on our honeymoon together, even though he skipped out on the actual wedding bit of the whole arrangement?
‘I need to ask you one question and then I’ll get out of your life forever, if that’s what you want.’
I feel my eyes widening and my pulse picking up. He’s struggling to find the words to say what’s coming next and a tense silence spreads in the space between us. He squeezes my hand and I can’t tell if he’s trying to reassure me or himself.
