LITMIR.BIZ

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would willingly take the punishment. He’d assured himself that it wouldn’t last for ever, and that as he wasn’t a hormone-ridden, sex-obsessed teenager he could live with it.

      But depressingly—and worryingly—it had lasted, and when matters hadn’t improved a year or two later he’d begun to get a bit concerned.

      And while pride and the potential for total humiliation had stopped him from doing anything about it initially, eventually he’d gritted his teeth and summoned up the courage to make an appointment with his doctor.

      Which hadn’t helped in the slightest.

      The doctor had told him that there was nothing physically wrong with him and had suggested that perhaps his problem was psychological. He’d recommended a course of therapy, which had been pointless largely because Kit hadn’t been able to bring himself to be entirely open and honest with the therapist about his relationship with Lily or the circumstances surrounding their divorce.

      After that he’d tried almost every option that was left, astounding himself with the lengths he’d been willing to go to to find a cure. He’d read books, scoured the Internet and acquainted himself with homeopathy. Plumbing the depths of desperation, he’d even given hypnosis a shot.

      But he needn’t have bothered with any of it because nothing he’d tried had worked, and it had been driving him nuts.

      This evening, after he’d said a regret-laden goodbye to Carla, he’d racked his brains for any course of action he might have missed, anything that might help, and it had suddenly struck him that there was something he hadn’t tried.

      It wasn’t guaranteed to succeed, he thought, his jaw tight and a deep frown etched on his forehead as the lift doors opened with a sibilant swoosh and he strode inside, and God knew it wasn’t in the slightest bit appealing, but if the only avenue left open to him was to head straight to what the therapist had suggested might be the source of his problem—namely his ex-wife—and to see if talking might work where everything else had failed, then that was what he’d do, because frankly he couldn’t stand this affliction any longer.

      * * *

      ‘You’re engaged?’

      Lily leaned against the kitchen counter for support and wondered what more the evening held in store for her in the shock-to-the-system stakes, because if there was anything else waiting in the wings she was off to bed the minute she hung up.

      ‘That’s right,’ replied her sister, her voice holding a thread of excitement and happiness that should have been infectious but for Lily, who held the institute of marriage in deep mistrust, wasn’t.

      ‘Who to?’

      ‘What do you mean, who to?’ said Zoe, her laugh of disbelief echoing down the line. ‘Dan, of course.’

      ‘But I thought you’d split up.’ With the hand that wasn’t holding her mobile to her ear, Lily emptied the remains of the champagne bottle into her glass, and took a much-needed gulp.

      ‘We had.’

      ‘Didn’t you say you were over for good?’

      ‘I did. And I genuinely thought we were.’

      Lily lowered her glass and frowned as she tried to make sense of what her sister was saying. ‘So what happened?’

      ‘Tonight happened,’ said Zoe with an uncharacteristic dreamy sort of sigh. ‘He came to find me.’

      ‘Where are you?’ Judging from the thumping music in the background it sounded as if Zoe was out, somewhere busy, which in itself was unusual given she spent practically every evening in cuddling up to her computer.

      ‘I’m at a party.’

      ‘A party?’ Lily echoed, faintly reeling all over again because while going out in the first place was rare her socially inept sister had always considered attending parties a fate worse than death.

      ‘I know,’ said Zoe, her delight clear in her voice. ‘Can you believe it? I can’t. But anyway Dan showed up about an hour ago, rescued me from an overenthusiastic dance partner and then basically told me he realised what a jerk he’d been and apologised in the loveliest way imaginable. It was very masterful. Very romantic.’

      There was a pause while Zoe presumably drifted off into a blissful memory of the moment before dragging herself back to the conversation. ‘Then he proposed,’ she added dreamily, ‘and I said yes.’

      Just like that? A few softly spoken magical words and Zoe had fallen headlong into Dan’s arms? That didn’t sound like her ever logical sister any more than dreamy romance did, yet there was no denying that it appeared that that was exactly what had happened.

      Hmm, thought Lily, an odd ribbon of apprehension rippling through her. Tonight was turning out to be unexpectedly and oddly unsettling. ‘But didn’t you say over Christmas that you wouldn’t take Dan back even if he were the last man on earth and he came crawling on his knees?’ she asked.

      ‘Did I?’

      ‘You did.’

      ‘Oh, well, that was then,’ said Zoe lightly, as if the fortnight of tears and misery Lily had just mopped up had never happened, as if she hadn’t swung between despair and fury like some kind of demented pendulum, as if she hadn’t given her surprisingly large repertoire of four-letter words an extensive airing. ‘But now it’s all fine and we’re engaged. Isn’t it great?’

      Lily took another gulp of champagne and thought that she wasn’t so sure it was all that great. She’d been there, done that, and while she might not be the older of the two she was definitely the wiser when it came to marriage. In her brief but turbulent experience it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, as she’d spent the last half an hour only too vividly and infuriatingly remembering. ‘But you’ve only known him, what? A couple of months?’

      ‘Three.’

      ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit soon?’

      ‘You were married within six,’ Zoe pointed out.

      ‘And look what happened there,’ said Lily darkly. A mere two years after they’d met and embarked on a whirlwind romance she and Kit had divorced. She’d married in haste and had ended up very much repenting at leisure. Not that she thought much about it these days. Normally.

      ‘Dan isn’t Kit,’ said Zoe, beginning to sound a little defensive.

      ‘I should hope not.’

      ‘And I’m not you.’

      ‘That’s true,’ Lily said, suppressing a sigh. ‘You’re a lot more level-headed and mature than I ever was. And older. But are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

      ‘Absolutely,’ said Zoe with a quiet, firm certainty that Lily had never heard from her before. ‘He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me so be happy for me, Lil,’ she added. ‘Please?’

      The plea was so soft, so sincere, so beseeching that Lily felt a sudden and unexpected wave of guilt and remorse sweeping through her. What was she doing? She was ruining what was the happiest night of her sister’s life, and why? Because, unsettled by the last half an hour, she was only thinking about herself and her experience. What kind of sister was she?

      Pinching the bridge of her nose, Lily closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.

      Just because she and Kit had made a mess of things didn’t mean that Zoe and Dan would. Maybe her sister’s would be one of the marriages that lasted. Dan was great, Zoe was great, so maybe they’d be fine. It happened, she’d heard.

      And just because her night had nosedived and she’d been unexpectedly hit by a deluge of memories about what had been right about her own marriage and then a double whammy of regret and self-recrimination over what had gone wrong, that didn’t give her the right to dampen Zoe’s happiness.

      Determinedly

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