LITMIR.BIZ

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with someone when she wasn’t? And why the abrupt change in her demeanour in the minutes before he left? One minute she’d been all warm and soft and then next she’d gone all cold and frigid on him, and he wanted to know why.

      Mainly, though, he’d realised that whatever he felt for her, and whatever she felt for him, they weren’t over. Not by a long shot.

      Setting his jaw, Kit reached for the phone again and was about to hit the redial button when he paused as a thought occurred to him. Despite it being a public holiday, maybe Lily was at work. Maybe that was why there was no answer from home. Maybe she was on the tube and her mobile out of range of a signal. Maybe she was in a meeting. It could be that she wasn’t avoiding him. Merely busy.

      Filling with renewed resolve, he looked up her company’s details then punched the number into his phone and sat back to wait while it rang. His stomach churned and his mouth went dry, but that was probably down to the fact that it had been a while since his last coffee and he’d been too preoccupied to bother with breakfast.

      ‘MMS, good morning.’

      ‘Zoe?’ he said, recognising the voice of his former sister-in-law.

      ‘Yes. How can I help?’

      ‘It’s Kit.’

      There was a long silence. Then a faint, ‘Oh.’

      ‘How are you?’

      ‘Fine. Yes. Good... Kind of surprised to hear from you, to be honest.’

      ‘It’s been a while.’

      ‘You can say that again. How are you?’

      ‘Fine. Happy New Year.’

      ‘You too.’ She paused. ‘So...were you after Lily?’

      ‘Is she there?’

      ‘No. But then I’m at home. The office is closed today so your call was diverted to my mobile.’

      ‘Right.’ He frowned. That blew his theory that Lily was at work out of the water. Of course she wasn’t. Who was? It was New Year’s Day. So was she avoiding him after all?

      ‘Is there a problem or something?’ asked Zoe and he snapped back to the conversation.

      ‘She’s not answering either of her phones or replying to emails.’

      ‘No, well, she wouldn’t be.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because she’s on a plane.’

      Kit frowned, a bit taken aback. A plane? She hadn’t mentioned anything about going away. Not that she’d been under any obligation to, but still... ‘When will she be back?’

      ‘Not for a couple of weeks.’

      A couple of weeks? He wasn’t sure he could wait that long. Patience had never been his strong point—probably one more contributory factor to the breakdown of their marriage—and right now it was wearing increasingly thin.

      ‘Right. I see,’ he said, switching to his agenda with a couple of clicks and seeing that there wasn’t anything that couldn’t be moved or dealt with by someone else for a couple of weeks. ‘Where is she?’

      ‘I can’t tell you that.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Well, for one thing, she’s on a job and the work she’s doing requires a certain degree of anonymity and a low profile.’

      ‘And for another?’

      ‘And for another I don’t think she’d thank me if I told you where she was. Do you really think she wants to see you after everything?’

      Kit set his jaw and took a deep breath. ‘She was happy enough to see me last night.’ Which was a slight stretch of the truth, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

      There was a pause. ‘Last night?’

      ‘We spent it together.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Part of it.’

      He heard Zoe blowing out a breath. ‘Jeez.’

      ‘I need to talk to her, Zoe.’

      ‘She’ll be back in a couple of weeks. You can talk to her then.’

      ‘I can’t wait that long.’

      ‘After five years, you can’t wait two weeks?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘I’m not sure.’

      ‘Do you still love her?’

      Kit felt the totally unexpected question hit him like a punch to the chest.

      Did he?

      He’d spent the last five years thinking he didn’t, but who knew? Seeing her again last night had thrown everything he’d always assumed about their relationship and his life for the last five years into question, so how he felt about Lily or anything for that matter was now up in the air.

      The only thing he was sure about was that they weren’t done. Quite apart from all the questions he had for her, he hadn’t apologised for what he’d done all those years ago and for basically blaming her for it. He hadn’t told her of the guilt he carried or asked her for her forgiveness, and the need to put all of this right burned inside him like a hot coal.

      Last night had opened doors he’d never imagined would ever open again, and now—even if they were only slightly ajar—he wasn’t about to let them close. Not only did he seek redemption, he also had the feeling that he was hovering on the brink of a second chance with Lily here, and even though it had never crossed his mind before, had never been something he’d thought he wanted, he now realised he wanted it more than anything, and if that didn’t tell him that he still had feelings for her he didn’t know what would.

      ‘I don’t know,’ he said, erring on the side of caution because how he felt about Lily still needed further analysis. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, there are things we need to figure out. Please, Zoe.’

      There was another long silence while Zoe presumably weighed up the pros and cons of telling him and he held his breath.

      ‘Oh, OK,’ she said eventually and Kit felt the tension drain from his shoulders. ‘But look, she really is working so you can’t go barging in there right now.’

      ‘When, then?’

      ‘She finishes next Sunday. Afterwards she’s staying on for a few days’ holiday until the following Saturday.’

      He rubbed a hand along his jaw while his brain raced. He could wait a week, couldn’t he? It would give him time to think. Plan. Delegate. Figure out exactly what he wanted to say and how he was going to say it, and how he was going to persuade her to give them the second chance he thought they had. And actually, neutral territory, without any association to the past, might be just the thing.

      ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘I’ll wait. You have my word.’

      ‘Hmm,’ said Zoe, sounding as though she didn’t think his word counted for much.

      ‘Where is she, Zoe?’ he said, ignoring the sting of his ex-sister-in-law’s scepticism because right now he had more important things to focus on.

      ‘On her way to the Indian Ocean. Santa Teresa Island. She’s staying at the Coral Bay Lodge.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘Look, Kit, Lily hasn’t had a holiday in years. She’s really looking forward to it. It took her ages to get over you. Tell me I’m not going to regret having told you where she’s going.’

      ‘You won’t regret it.’

      He’d make sure

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