‘And you were okay with that?’
Again, he shrugs. ‘It felt right at the time. I mean, I loved her. And she really wanted it. So I figured, why not? It was something new to experience.’
I widen my eyes. ‘Oh my God. You were going to get married because you were bored.’
‘Not exactly,’ he says heatedly, apparently horrified by that suggestion. But then he pauses and appears to think about it. ‘Maybe there was an element of that. But I felt ready to settle down too.’
I look at him, taking in his handsome profile, still not quite able to believe we’ve bumped into each other again the way we have. My insides do a strange little twist.
‘Why are you smiling at me like that?’ he says, when he becomes aware of me staring at the side of his head and turns to face me again.
‘I was just thinking it’s good to see how much you’ve grown since university.’
‘Grownupyou mean?’
‘No. Grown as a person. You’re more self-aware than you were back then.’
‘Yeah, well, in retrospect, us splitting up probably had something to do with that. It woke me up to the fact that not everything was under my control in the way I thought it had been.’
‘Really? I had no idea. I thought you were totally cool about it.’
‘Honestly, I had some regrets afterwards. But then barely a couple of weeks later you were with what’s-his-chops, Prince Charmless, so I didn’t get a chance to woo you back.’
I suppress a grin at this. ‘Adrian. And he wasn’t charmless exactly. He was just lesswildthan you.’
Kit gives a dismissive snort. ‘Tame, you mean.’
‘Straightforward and totally into me,’ I counter.
His gaze is intent on mine now. ‘I was totally into you.’
My insides fizz. ‘You didn’t show it,’ I say.
He shrugs. ‘No, well, I let my brother get in my head about not settling down too quickly. He said early twenties was a time to play the field and get as much experience as possible. Serious relationships were for later in life. At the time I hero-worshipped him and thought everything that came out of his mouth was gold. Shows what a naïve dickhead I was back then. I’ve never taken his advice again.’
‘Huh. I had no idea you felt like that.’
‘I’m not the type of guy to wear his heart on his sleeve.’
‘Which is why I thought you were perfectly fine when we split up – happy even. You know, you really didn’t appear to be that broken up the handful of times I saw you from across the room,’ I point out. ‘You always seemed like you were living your best life with all those other women you were constantly surrounded by.’
He shoots me a pained grin. ‘I’m a great pretender.’
I think about this for a second. ‘You know,’ I say, ‘I think I’m probably guilty of letting someone get in my head about our relationship too.’
He sits up on his elbows and looks at me with interest. ‘Really? Who?’
‘You remember Carrie who was on my course? She was chair of the Students’ Union in our third year.’
‘Carrie with the blonde curly hair?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then yes, unfortunately I do.’
I blink. ‘Why unfortunately?’
‘We had a bit of a thing in our first year of uni that got a bit too intense, on her part. When I ended it, she was really pissed off and started borderline stalking me. At least she always seemed to turn up wherever I went. I might have been a bit paranoid about it, but whenever I did see her, which was all the bloody time, she’d just stare daggers at me for the whole night. It got really uncomfortable and I asked her to stop. She pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about and claimed I was the one stalking her by turning up at the same pub or club all the time, which definitely wasn’t the case.’
