All evening she’d barely spoken to him. Dan, blessedly, hadn’t noticed; he’d just been delighted Xander was back, and Xander had focussed on Dan as well. They’d played football till the light went, then headed up to Dan’s room, then been called down to tea. Laurel had only cooked for Dan—fish fingers and a microwaved baked potato with tomatoes and broccoli. Xander had made no comment about the obvious lack of food for Laurel and himself. After tea had come TV, an adventure serial Xander had shared with Dan, Laurel disappearing into the kitchen, doing God knows what. Avoiding him mainly, he supposed. He’d taken Dan up for his bath, and Laurel had still said nothing, so he’d let her be.
But now Dan was asleep.
At the foot of the stairs Laurel was hovering. Waiting to launch at him. “Why did you come back like this? There’s no point, Xander.”
“There’s every point,” he said.
He’d never said anything truer in his life, nor more crucial.
Laurel stared at him. She wanted him to go away right now. Back to his hotel. Back to Greece if possible. Him being here was impossible, unbearable.
He was taking her elbow. She wanted to pull away, but she felt nerveless, helpless. “Let’s go into the kitchen. Our voices will travel less.”
He guided her in, and the moment they were inside she stepped free of him.
“Xander, I don’t know why you’ve come back so soon, but if you intend a replay of what you said to me on Easter Sunday I don’t want to hear it—”
“No, I don’t want to replay it.” With effort Xander kept his tone even.
“So what do you—”
“We can talk over dinner,” he said, cutting her off.
“Dinner? Can’t you eat at your hotel?” she protested.
He ignored her objection. “Something simple like pasta will be fine. I’ll give you a hand. I bought a decent bottle of wine at the airport. I’ll fetch it from the car. You get the pasta going.” He made his tone of voice sound reasonable, hard for her to object to. He couldn’t have her seeing that he was flying blind.
He’d done that once before, and it had brought him to this moment now.
So, am I crazy to think I can do it again?
But he had no choice. Too much depended on it.
The rest of my life.
And Laurel’s too. And their son’s.
All of us.
For a moment he saw her fulminate, then, whisk away and yank open the fridge to extract a packet of fresh spaghetti. Xander went to fetch the wine from his car, glancing up at the sky. The night was clear, and stars blazed, not as brightly as in Greece, the visible constellations different too, and the air was nowhere near as warm. No chorus of cicadas serenaded the night, but the lonely hoot of an owl from the woods sounded hauntingly. He felt his heart beat more heavily than indoors. Emotions passed through him that were strange but potent. He looked back towards the cottage, dim light showing through from behind the drawn curtains of the sitting room, the hall light outlined by the open doorway. Inside was the son he and Laurel had created seven long years ago. Precious beyond measure.
To us both.
He fetched the wine, went back inside. Still flying blind. But certain of his destination. Of Laurel’s too.
If he could just get them both there.
Laurel set down the two dishes of spaghetti, into which she’d stirred pasta sauce out of a jar, together with a block of parmesan and a grater, putting it all down on the kitchen table. Xander was already sitting there and had poured them each a glass of red wine. He waited till she took her place, then lifted his glass. Looked across at her. He was way too close, the kitchen table way too small. And Xander dominated it and the entire kitchen, the house, her consciousness. Awareness of him vibrated through her, but like an electric current on alternating frequency. Generating completely opposing emotions. One wished Xander a thousand miles away, the other—
She felt her heart rate quicken, felt the urge, almost overwhelming, to let herself sink into returning his gaze for the sheer pleasure of it, just as she’d done that evening of insanity that had brought them to this impossible impasse that could never be resolved, divided as they were now every bit as much as they had been seven angry years ago. She drank in his familiar features, all the enticing details, the way his dark hair feathered his forehead, the length of his lashes, the strong line of his jaw, the sensual contours of his mouth.
With a start she jerked her gaze away, fumbled for her glass. Xander was speaking, his voice low, intent, but with something in it she couldn’t recognise. He tilted his glass towards her.
“To getting this right, Laurel,” he said.
Her eyes flew back to his. “To getting what right?” she said. She could hear a trace of breathlessness in her voice and hated herself for it. This had been a bad idea, to let Xander demand dinner of her, to sit himself down at her table, create this exchange with her. There was nothing else to be said between them. How could there be?
Her own voice echoed back to her:Do you really think that I would ever stoop to marrying a man who treated me as you did? Who thinks me a thief?
