‘What does Katya think about the foundation?’ she asks.
I shrug. ‘No idea. I haven’t spoken to her since she turned up at the hotel in Japan and I sent her packing.’
She sits up straighter. ‘Oh! I just kind of assumed the two of you would get back together when she’d made the effort to travel all the way to the other side of the world to patch things up with you.’
I press my mouth into a line. ‘Well, we didn’t. I wasn’t interested in working things out with her. There wasn’t anything to work out, to be honest.’
‘Oh.’ She stares down at the ground. ‘When you got that message from her it looked like you were really pleased to hear from her.’
I frown, remembering the fear that had rushed through me when I’d only read part of the messages, then the relief when they were just about her trying to reconciliate.
‘I thought the message she sent was going to tell me she was pregnant, so I was smiling because I was so relieved she wasn’t contacting me to say that. Just that she wanted to talk to me about getting back together.’
‘Ohhhh,’ she says on a long breath, then turns to flash me a look of embarrassment. ‘I guess my head was so messed up after the wedding fiasco it triggered my fear of being out of the loop and rejected again. Sorry.’
‘Understandable.’ I’m actually relieved to hear this. It makes sense of why she left so abruptly.
‘So it’s completely over between you?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ I say with absolute confidence. ‘I don’t love her any more and I definitely don’t want to get back together with her.’
She blinks rapidly at me. ‘Oh. Right.’ There are tears forming in her eyes and she turns away from me as if she’s trying to get her emotions under control.
I turn away too, to give her a moment, and we both stare ahead of us, towards the russet-coloured maple trees in the distance.
‘How are you feeling about splitting with Adrian now?’ I ask tentatively, after a tense moment of silence.
‘Much better,’ she says, shooting me a smile. ‘I’ve come to realise that we weren’t really that well suited. Not in the way I thought we were. Looking back, after having some space from it, I think we’d just got toocomfortablewith each other. I’ve always thought it would be great to marry your best friend because you’d never argue, never have those roller-coaster of emotions that can be so draining. Life would be peaceful and calm. But the truth is, there wasn’t enough spark in our relationship to keep it alive. It was fizzling. Had been for a while. We didn’t surprise or inspire each other and maybe you actually need that in a long-term relationship. To always be growing and evolving – alongside each other. And maybe arguments are good because they shake up the status quo and make you reassess how you feel about the other person and the direction you’re both heading in.’
‘And they can be hot,’ I joke, flashing her a grin.
I can tell she’s trying not to smile at that, but loses her fight. ‘Trust you to say that,’ she murmurs, rolling her eyes at me in mock antipathy.
I wave my hand at her in apology. ‘Sorry, I interrupted.’
She lets out a breath. ‘Anyway, in conclusion, I think we’d been set on a course neither of us wanted to change because of the emotional work it would have taken. It was just easier to stay together at the time.’ She screws up her nose.
‘But, when it came down to it, he was more willing to face the fact we weren’t really that good together after all,’ she adds. ‘And then do something about it. I should probably be grateful to him for that. He’s saved us both a lot of angst and a potentially stressful and expensive divorce.’
‘Good of him,’ I joke, though I actually mean that. Now he’s out of the way I’ve got a fighting chance of getting her back.
She links her fingers together in her lap. ‘The time I spent with you was great for forcing me to take stock and really think about what it is I want from life. You’ve always challenged me like that. Pushed my buttons and knocked me off course.’
‘Well, like I say, if you fancy a new challenge, I’d love it if you’d consider helping me run my foundation. It could be alongside your current job if you decided you wanted to stay there.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yep.’
‘Wow, I don’t know what to say.’
‘Say yes.’
Turning away again, she stares out at the pond. ‘Look, I really appreciate the offer. It’s an amazing opportunity, seriously. But I have to be honest. I’m not sure I could work with you every day as a colleague and a friend because—’ She swallows, then forces herself to finish the sentence. ‘Because I’ve realised that I’m in love with you and it would be too hard to see you all the time and not be able to show you that.’
I let out a laugh of relief, and she turns to face me with confusion in her eyes.
‘Jesus, Dasher. For fuck’s sake, of course we’ll be together as a couple,’ I say, taking her trembling hands and gripping them hard. ‘I love you too. Isn’t that obvious? I thought it was obvious. What do you want me to do? Get down on one knee? Because I will if that’s what you want. But if you’d rather partner up and see how it goes first, that’s good for me too. As long as I get to be with you. That’s all I care about.’
