One Night with Her Ex - Lucy King

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      His eyebrows rose. ‘Seriously?’

      She gave a nonchalant shrug as if she hadn’t been racked with guilt for months afterwards. ‘Well, like you said it has been five years and maybe with hindsight I’ve realised that what I did was unforgivable.’

      He held her gaze steadily and to her dismay she felt the beginnings of a blush. ‘I guess you did have some justification,’ he said. Then, ‘It was what I did that was the truly unforgivable thing.’

      For several long moments, there was utter silence and the air began to thicken with a tension that Lily really didn’t want to explore.

      It would be so easy to slip into a painful post-mortem of their marriage but what good would that do? While time had healed the wounds no amount of talk would wipe out the scars, and picking over the bones of their relationship was the last thing she wanted to do when she was feeling so out of sorts. Or ever, for that matter, because she’d done plenty of it at the time. She certainly wasn’t about to launch into a full confessional about how she’d come to acknowledge her role in the breakdown of their marriage.

      Besides, presumably Kit was here for a reason, and one that in all likelihood didn’t involve raking up the past.

      ‘So why now, Kit?’ she asked. ‘After all this time? Why the urgency? Why are you here at nearly one in the morning on New Year’s Day?’

      He rubbed a hand over his jaw and began to pace and she got the impression he was nervous, which was odd because nervousness wasn’t a state of mind she’d ever associated with him. Even when they’d waited for the results of the endless pregnancy tests she’d taken, when she’d been a bag of nerves, gnawing on her nails and practically quaking with hope and dread, he’d sat there stonily tense, looking more impatient than anything.

      ‘Could I get a drink?’ he said, suddenly stopping mid-pace and whipping round.

      Lily snapped out of it and stood. ‘Sure. Sorry. What would you like?’

      ‘Whatever you’ve got. Something strong.’

      She went to the drinks cabinet, took out a bottle of brandy and filled a glass. Then she handed it to him, watched as he knocked it back in one swallow and felt a flicker of alarm.

      ‘That bad, huh?’ she said with a small frown, her resolve to stay strong and aloof wobbling a bit at the realisation Kit wasn’t quite as in control of himself as she’d thought.

      ‘Pretty bad.’

      ‘Are you ill?’ she asked, and braced herself.

      ‘Not exactly,’ he muttered.

      ‘What does that mean?’

      She held up the bottle in case he wanted another but he shook his head and set the glass down on the table. Then he straightened, shoved his hands through his hair and frowned down at a spot on the floor. ‘It’s complicated,’ he muttered.

      Lily stashed the bottle back in the cupboard and stifled a sigh. It always was complicated with Kit, but then she wasn’t exactly Miss Simplicity herself. Together, not talking, not listening, not really knowing each other all that well, they hadn’t stood a chance.

      ‘OK, Kit,’ she said, moving to the sofa and hoping that this wasn’t going to be too traumatic and that she wasn’t going to regret not standing her ground and sending him away when she had the chance. ‘If you want to talk, then talk.’

      THREE

      If Kit had had any doubt that his troubles were bound up with his ex-wife, it vanished the second Lily sat down on the sofa.

      On the drive over he’d told himself that he was wasting his time because why would going to see her work when everything else had failed? What exactly was he after? Forgiveness? Understanding? What made him think she’d grant him either now when she’d been so unforgiving and so un-understanding at the time?

      She probably wouldn’t even be in, he’d thought. The Lily he’d known had been a party animal and tonight, after all, was one of the greatest party nights of the year.

      But the soft golden light shining through a gap in the curtains drawn across the window at the front of the house had suggested she was at home. And that was when Kit had sent his driver home because, even though he was most definitely not looking forward to it, having come this far he wasn’t about to back out.

      It was that thought, along with the strong sense that he was nearing the end of his tether, that had kept him standing there on her doorstep when every defensive bristling inch of her was telling him to go.

      It was that thought that had made him ignore her initial reluctance to engage with him, her subsequent spikiness, the occasional flash of temper he caught in her eyes and his strong yet totally irrational and unfathomable dislike of the fact that she was in a relationship.

      Everything that had been said or hinted at as well as the simmering undercurrent of tension that had been running beneath the conversation of the last half an hour had taken a back seat to the need to get her to listen and the hope that his ‘problem’ might be about to be solved.

      Now, though, his brain was clearing of that too because Lily was sitting down and settling back and crossing her legs, a move that made her dress ride up and exposed a length of thigh.

      And suddenly, the memory of how soft her skin felt beneath his hands and his mouth, how tightly she used to wrap her legs around his waist whenever they made love, flashed into his head and, without warning, a wave of lust crashed over him so hard and fast it made his entire body shudder.

      Before he had time to recover from the shock of that he was then hit by a whole load of other things that up until that point he’d been too distracted to notice. Such as the way her dress was so tight that it looked as if not a square millimetre of it could bear not touching her. Such as the glorious sheen of her hair, the mesmerising green shimmer of her eyes, the heavenly curves of her body.

      He ran his gaze over her and he jolted as if he’d just been plugged into the national grid. Nerve endings that had been dead for so long tingled and quivered and his head pounded with such need he could barely remember his name let alone what she’d just said.

      Clearly expecting him to fill the stretching silence, Lily arched an eyebrow and folded her arms beneath her breasts, pushing them together and up and making them swell over the bodice of her dress.

      Kit was mesmerised by the movement. His mouth watered, his pulse raced and the sudden urgent desire to haul her into his arms and tussle her to the floor nearly wiped out his knees.

      Just as had happened the first time they’d met.

      Lily had been on a skiing holiday with friends and so had he. She’d been whooshing down the mountain like a pro, and he’d found himself watching her from the bottom of the slope in admiration. Until towards the bottom she’d lost control, crashed straight into him and together they’d pitched headlong into a snowdrift.

      Winded and stunned, for a second they’d just lain there, struggling for breath, their hearts thumping against each other. After a moment, still sprawled on top of him, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed, Lily had started to apologise, but then her gaze had met his and the apology had died on her lips.

      It had been the epitome of madness, but despite the cold snow surrounding them chemistry had taken over, heat and lust had flared between them and within seconds they’d been kissing. Devouring each other. Rolling over so that he was pinning her to the ground, while she wrapped herself around him and nearly made him forget that they were in public.

      Now he was remembering how wild she’d been in bed, how responsive, how hot and explosive they’d been together before everything had started to go wrong. And as the memories began to come hard and fast all his blood shot south, and within seconds he was sporting an erection harder than granite.

      Great, thought Kit, beginning to sweat as the throbbing in his

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