If she thought his sneer couldn’t be any more venomous, she was wrong.
‘What the fuck…?’
His clenched fists told her that he was fighting to control his temper, as he turned on his heel and stormed back into the room behind him. Lila followed him and when she got there she saw that it was the kitchen and Ken, her Ken, the love of her life, was now pacing up and down.
He rounded on her. ‘What the fuck were you thinking?’
Lila was on a different wavelength altogether. There was no way his boot of a wife was telling the truth. No way. Was there?
‘You begged her to stay? She was leaving you and you begged her to stay?’
‘Of course I did. Didn’t you hear everything I just said?’
‘You couldn’t have meant that.’
Full-scale, epic level self-preservation and denial kicked in. She’d heard. Of course she had. But those weren’t the words of her Ken. Her Ken loved her. He wanted to be with her. Surelyhe’d just been saying all that to placate his daughter and son, to try to salvage his relationship with them by convincing them that he really wanted to stay with their mother. Well, it didn’t work. She was gone. Finally, his wife had got the message. And now he was going to fold Lila into his arms, tell her that he hadn’t meant any of it, that he loved her, that of course he wanted to be with her, and that now their time had finally come. This was it. A tiny white flag of triumph raised itself above the parapet…
‘Of course I bloody meant it.’
It wasn’t triumph. It was surrender. Game over. Battle lost.
All her life, her mother had waited for a man and she’d got him. Lila was so sure that the same would happen to her. He’d be worth the wait. The end would justify the means. What was meant to be would be.
Until it wasn’t.
However, she had to check one more time that she wasn’t getting the fairy tale ending she’d been dreaming of since the first time he kissed her. ‘You don’t love me? Because I can forget everything you said out there. I know you were just trying to save face. This could be our time Ken. We could be together, share our lives, make love every day, build a new future together. This is the chance to have everything we’ve ever talked about…’
‘You’vetalked about!’
‘No! Don’t you dare say this was all me. You were every bit as desperate to be with me as I was with you!’ Even as she said it she knew, somewhere deep inside, that it wasn’t true. How many times over the years had he called it off. How many times had it been her who’d engineered a ‘chance’ meeting to rekindle their relationship. The reality of everything that had happened today was sinking in, seeping into her pores, and thenausea was back. She forced it down. There was no way she was giving into it a second time. ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said, like a puppy, waiting to be kicked again. ‘You don’t love me?’
He stopped pacing, ran his fingers through his hair, his exasperation bubbling like lava in a volcano that was just about to blow. ‘Of course I don’t fucking love you,’ he said through gritted teeth.
Lila knew then, actually believed it. He didn’t. It was over. She’d wasted seven years of her life on a man for whom she’d always been just a shag.
How could she have been so stupid? She retreated out of the kitchen, taking several steps before she felt able to turn her back on him. In every sense.
Stepping over the pool of vomit on the hall carpet, she paused, before a fit of petulance compelled her to drop his cardigan on top of it, and followed the path taken by Bernadette only minutes before.
By the time she got to the car, the shaking had started.
What had she done? She’d lost Ken. She’d lost Cammy. She was on the verge of losing her job. She’d lost everything. Everything!
Why hadn’t this worked out for her? It was so tragically unfair. Hadn’t she done everything he wanted, moulded herself into his perfect woman and still he didn’t want her? How could that be? How could he live with that… that…frumpfor all these years and then not choose to be with Lila?
None of this made sense. She wanted to scream. And then she wanted to go back in there and persuade him to change his mind, but she wouldn’t. If he didn’t appreciate her worth, that was his problem. She wasn’t going to beg. He’d regret ittomorrow. He’d wake up and grasp what he’d done and he’d want her back, she knew it.
But in the meantime…
She realised, to her complete devastation, that she didn’t know where to go. She couldn’t go back to the flat because she couldn’t face Cammy. How could Cammy have done this to her? How could he have been so deluded that he actually thought she might say yes? Hadn’t he noticed that she’d been off with him for weeks, that whatever they had was fizzling out? What a fool. No, the flat was definitely out.
She couldn’t go to her mum and dad’s house either, because no doubt she’d be interrupting them and lately she’d been feeling decidedly unwelcome when she landed on them without warning. Besides, they were probably furious with her for running out of the restaurant and then rejecting at least a dozen calls from her mum. And she was still absolutely seething with them for failing to warn her about Cammy’s plan to propose. Traitors.
She had nowhere to go. She pressed the ignition button and started driving, heading back into the city. The first building she saw was the Hilton, where she’d changed earlier, a place of familiarity. It was all she needed.
She veered off the motorway, onto the street that took her up the ramp to reception, then stopped, grabbed her handbag, laptop, phone, and her ever-ready toiletries, before she jumped out and handed the keys to the concierge to park the car.
The doorman gave her a smile of recognition. She was a regular here. Everyone knew her, at least by sight, so she was always treated with the respect she deserved. Even the receptionist went out of his way for her.
