Steph froze to the spot as she took in the scene before her, one of Jon in her kitchen cooking bacon and making tea, for two.
“What are you doing here?”
“Making breakfast,” Jon replied and turned fully to face her. He looked as shitty as she did, tired and sad, scared almost.
“I can see that, but why, how?”
“Lindsay let me in, last night after you went to bed. I can’t believe he’s done this to you again.” Jon sighed with a guilty shake of his head as if this was somehow his fault.
“No, me neither, but it seems I just don’t learn, do I?”
“I should have been there.” Jon sighed, ignoring her inference that her inability to learn from her mistakes referred to him.
“Why should you have been there? Why would you?” Suddenly, the penny dropped for Steph, causing her to shake her head, something she regretted as it caused her face to hurt a little bit more. “Lindsay and Charlie. I contact Linds and she tells Charlie . . .”
“And he told me but talked me out of being there. He kind of made sense that you wanted to talk to Lindsay, not me and maybe needed some time. If I hadn’t listened to him I would have been there to put Simon on his arse.”
Steph now understood the guilty tone but in no way expected Jon to rescue her or put her ex on his arse so ignored that part of their conversation and reverted back to Jon’s presence courtesy of her friend.
“Lindsay had no right,” Steph snapped, annoyed again. “You’re still manipulating me even after everything that’s happened. I’d like my key back.”
“Let’s have breakfast first.”
Jon moved to the table and placed their plates at neighbouring place settings while Steph stared at him, disbelief etched across her face. She was unsure what he hoped to gain from cooking breakfast or whether he simply assumed they could just pick up where they’d left off or did he truly believe she would simply roll over. After the previous night with Simon she had taken stock and decided that she had played the victim to other people’s wishes and desires for a little too long.
With her hand held out, Steph stared across the table hoping to convey strength and control even if she was falling apart inside. She assumed she’d achieved strength, control and maybe even cold when Jon responded, ignoring her accusation and request for her key.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he asked angrily as he took his seat.
Without replying, Steph moved her breakfast to the place opposite Jon somehow reassuring her that the furniture between them might protect her, not from him. She knew he would never pose a physical threat but more protection from her own desire to throw herself into his arms, against his firm body, to feel safe, to kiss him and touch him and beg him to love her again and make everything okay. With a small sigh she realised her resolve might need some work.
“Everybody has been worried sick,” he told her as he roughly pushed a hand through his hair, more nervous than angry now. “Although everyone else did get the courtesy,I’m okay just need some timemessage or whatever the fuck it was you sent them but not me. Where’s your phone?”
Steph made no reply but lifted her phone from her bag that sat on the chair next to her. Jon reached across and took it, startling her with the tingling burn the brief touch of his finger against hers caused as he accepted her phone.
“You didn’t even read my messages, Steph. Not one, nor my voicemails. Fucking hell! Am I that unimportant to you that you can just cut me off after one fuck up? I know it was a major fuck up but you were part of it too! I didn’t set out to deceive you, darling. I tried to be honest from the start but I fell hard for you . . . I fucking love you and I tried to talk . . .” He covered his face with his hands, roughly pulling them down until he stared across at her darkly before almost throwing her phone back to her and screaming, making her physically jump. “Talk to me!Say something, anything! I thought you had left me and as each day passed and nobody knew where you were or hadn’t heard off you since that initial message, and my own were all undelivered, Steph, I was beginning to think you were dead. That somebody, the police were going to turn up and tell me you were gone, forever and that I would never get the chance to make things right,” he cried, tears threatening to fall.
Swallowing hard, she tried to absorb what he’d said and just felt guilt that she hadn’t even considered the impact her hiding away would have on everyone else.
“Your dad is almost as fucking crazy as I am with worry. Lindsay is busting my balls on a daily basis and your brothers, well let’s just say that Jason is more deranged than I originally suspected.” He sighed.
“Sorry,” she managed to utter hoarsely.
“Stephanie, please talk to me,” he pleaded.
“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted tearfully. “I couldn’t be near you after what transpired at the gala and I knew if I was, you would never let me go and I needed space, space you would never have allowed. I thought the text would reassure the others but I didn’t want to reassure you, I wanted to hurt you and leave you helpless.”
“Objective achieved on both counts then.” He brushed away the tears that now escaped his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, wondering why suddenly she was the one in the wrong and apologising.
“Stop saying that,” he implored. “I hurt you and let you down in the worst possible way so it should be me apologising and I am very, very sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me immediately but you have to know that this is not over, us, we’re not over, never will be, but we should talk, properly.”
“How can you say that? You are married and not to me. I was wrong to think I could do this. This is wrong full stop. You havea wife and she might not be Lucy but surely she deserves better than being cheated on and if she doesn’t, I think I might deserve better than being your bit on the side, Jon. I’m sorry. I know it’s what we agreed to, whatIagreed to, but I was wrong when I decided I could do this. I hate her, I hate me and the only one I don’t hate but maybe should is you, but I can’t bring myself to do it because I love you.” Steph continued watching his tortured face before her. For no reason she could fathom beside the fact that she did love him, she smiled a half-smile. “I really do love you. Like I didn’t know was possible and this time away hasn’t changed that.”
“I thought I loved you and then you left me,” he replied, throwing her a curve ball she had never imagined was in his arsenal. He’d said loved in the past tense. He brushed more tears away, his first and then stretching over, he stroked across her cheek, wiping hers away too. “And now I know that I love you more than I could ever have imagined, darling. Without you I am nothing, I’m empty,” he told her with a break in his voice that broke her heart a little more.
“Then what do we do because we can’t go back to how it was, and you have a wife.”
