by Kitty French
"I'm going to the bathroom. I want you gone when I get back."
"Sophie. You're not listening. I've left Maria. It's you I want."
Dan got out of bed to follow her as she crossed to the door. Unabashed by his own nakedness, he stood in front of her to make his case.
"Living with her was awful. Everything was wrong." He stepped closer, and Sophie found her eyes moving over his body. The football injury scar on his left hip she'd kissed more times than she could count. The pinkness of his nipples. Lucien's were brown.
"She smells wrong. She feels wrong. She's just not you, Soph." He reached out for her hand to pull her close, his voice choked with emotion. "I miss you so much."
He was saying all the right words, and he sounded as if he genuinely meant them.
"I don't care about that bloke. I know you did it to get at me. I don't even blame you."
Did she do it to get back at him? Not consciously, if at all. Truth was, Lucien would have been hard to resist under any circumstances.
"You don't blame me?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm sorry Dan, but I can't say the same. You've been with Maria for years."
"It's over, I promise you. I've told her I still love you."
"I see." Sophie surveyed him. "And I'm supposed to take you back with open arms?"
He looked down at her hand in his and tried to tug her closer, but she stepped back.
"Don't." She pulled her hand free of his. "You can't do this Dan. You can't just waltz back in here, get into my bed, and expect me to forgive you."
"I know that. I know that." He scrubbed a hand over the black stubble on his chin. "I know that, Sophie." He looked utterly dejected, and his nakedness rendered him vulnerable. "Please let me stay. For tonight, at least?"
Sophie' shoulders sagged in resignation. It was late, and it was cold out there. "One night, Dan." She stepped aside. "Not in here though. In the spare room."
Dan lay between the cold sheets of the guest bed and stared at the ceiling.
It wasn't exactly the homecoming he'd hoped for, but it was early days.
Sophie would take him back. She still loved him, he could tell. He still loved her. It would take time, but she'd come around.
He thumped the pillow as he turned over, acutely aware of Sophie so close by in the next room, wishing he could go and take his place in bed beside her where he belonged.
Maybe not tonight, and probably not tomorrow night either. But some day soon, and for the rest of their lives.
On the other side of the wall, Sophie lay equally wakeful and restless.
Dan was back. Here, in her house, in their house. Their home. There was a question mark unspoken. She ran a hand out across the other side of the bed, but the cool sheet no longer held the imprint of his body heat.
She drew her arm back into the warmth of her own side and sighed heavily.
He was home. Was this still his home? His name was still on the mortgage, and his belongings still lingered in the rooms. Did he feel justified in his presence here?
He'd seemed pretty at home just now, given the fact that he'd stripped naked, climbed into bed and then fallen asleep as if nothing had happened.
She closed her eyes, but sleep was a long time coming. Something had happened. It couldn’t just be put aside.
Some miles away, Lucien threw a log on the glowing fire and sat back down, a glass of deep amber malt whisky in his hand.
He was worried. The sensation was unfamiliar and he didn’t like it.
It worried him that Sophie might get the wrong idea, and that he would ultimately end up hurting her.
And he worried that left to her own devices, she might over-complicate things in her head and not come into work on Monday.
But most of all, it worried him that he missed her like crazy.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sophie woke up with a start. There was someone downstairs, she could hear them. Squinting her eyes at the alarm clock in the bright morning light, several things came back to her at once. She wasn't with Lucien now. She'd barely slept, even though it was after nine in the morning.
And Dan was here.
She flopped back on the pillow and blew out a heavy sigh. She could hear him moving around in the kitchen downstairs; the familiar sounds of the kettle and the radio, the boiler firing when he turned on the hot tap.
What the hell was she going to do?
Dan coming home was the last thing she'd expected. She had begun to accept at last that he had moved on, that he was with Maria. She'd put so much energy into resenting him, and she still resented him now that he was back. He couldn't stay here. She needed a shower, and then she needed to go and throw her husband out of the house for the second time.
"I made your favourite," Dan said when Sophie walked into the kitchen a little while later, dressed in jeans and wearing a touch of makeup as armour. He slid a pile of waffles and bacon on the table, twirled maple syrup over it with a theatrical flourish, then looked up with an expression of hopeful expectancy on his face.
It wasn't her favourite, actually. It was his favourite and she'd made it often to please him, but she didn't bother to correct him.
So she nodded, and took her seat at the table. And it was her seat. Dan sat nearest the window, she sat nearest the door. They took their customary positions as if the intervening months and indiscretions hadn't happened.
"Coffee?" Dan plunged the cafetiere.
"Thanks." She held out her cup.
In fact the idea of food turned Sophie's stomach, but coffee might help wake her up enough to decide how to play things.
Dan poured for them both, the model husband trying to make good for his misdemeanours. It would take an ocean of coffee to atone for his behaviour, and she could only manage the tightest of smiles as she accepted the milk from him.
She watched him fill his plate, then served herself a little food, feeling duty bound, and picked up her knife and fork.
As she glanced up at Dan forking food into his mouth, a rush of venom flooded her. What was he doing? And what the hell was she doing?
She laid her cutlery down, her breakfast untouched.
He caught her eye as he picked up his cup.
"I know this is difficult, Soph."
"Do you really?" Sophie reached for her coffee and tried to steady her shaky voice. "Only you seem to be acting as if this is any other weekend."
She sipped her scalding coffee, glad to have punctured the pretense of cordiality. "What are we doing, Dan? What are you doing here?"
"Having breakfast with my wife?"
"Whereas last week you had it with your lover." Sophie watched Dan's expression change from hopefully chipper to guarded and defensive. He laid his fork down carefully and regarded her levelly.
"Yes I did. And every moment I was wishing I was with you." He rubbed a hand over his brow. "I fucked up big time, Soph. I admit it."
She looked at him skeptically. "Three years is quite a long time Dan. And now you realise you've fucked up. Three years, Dan. More, for all I know." Sophie stared at him. "So that means you were with her when we were in Menorca. And when we were in Crete the summer before. Did you miss her?" She battled to keep her voice level. "What did you do? Sneak off and call her when I was in the shower?"
"Sophie, no..." Dan looked and sounded defeated. "How many times can I say I'm sorry?"
She laughed bitterly. "You're sorry for the affair, or you're sorry you got caught?"
"I don't know what to say to you to make this better," Dan said quietly.
"You can tell me why." Even as the statement left her lips, Sophie feared his answer. Lucien had once gone to great lengths to enlighten her on his view of how men's brains worked, spelling out that Dan had chosen to have an affair entirely of his own volition, not because of any failing on her part. But now, here in this small kitchen, crows of self-doubt flew close around her head.
Dan shook his head, his gaze fixed on the table. "I wish I knew," he said at la
st.
No way. No way was that enough.
"That's it? No explanation, no big reason?"
Dan shrugged, and huffed out in exasperation. "What do you want me to say, Soph?” Frustration made him brusque. “That she was exciting? That I fancied her? That she was good in bed? Yes, all right, it was all of those things to begin with."
His words hit home hard, both because she didn't want him to have felt those things for someone else, and because she felt those things for someone else.
"It wasn't your fault. You didn't do anything wrong." Dan's voice cracked. "Maria was… up for it." He shrugged one shoulder, desolation all over his face. "I was flattered, I guess."
His honesty damped Sophie's anger, but cut her heart wide open.
"You were the love of my life, Dan."
"You're still the love of mine."
They stared at each other, hot-eyed across the kitchen table. They'd laughed together at that table, and they'd argued together at that table, but this was the first time they'd cried together there.
Quiet, wordless tears that spoke volumes.
Sophie went back to bed. Her head hurt from lack of sleep, and her heart hurt with the pain of her marriage splitting at the seams. And this time she slept. The deep, dreamless sleep of the exhausted and battle-weary.
Downstairs, Dan cleared away the uneaten breakfast and then lay on the sofa, his eyes on the TV screen but his head full of his earlier conversation with Sophie.
He was sick to the back teeth of feeling guilty. Three guilty, clandestine years of hiding his affair, and now the fall-out, as life with the women he cared for crumbled around him. Just looking at Sophie made him feel like the world's biggest shit, and Maria had been a tearful mess yesterday when he'd finally called time on their relationship. Had she seriously expected him to greet the news of her pregnancy with anything but horror? All it had served to do for him was highlight quite how badly he'd screwed up.
Somewhere in all of this, he'd realised with crystal clarity that he loved his wife, and
that come hell or high water, he was going to fight for his marriage.
If that meant fighting Lucien Knight, he'd do that too.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was dark by the time Sophie woke. Low level noise downstairs told her that Dan was still here: the TV channel changing mid-way through the opening bars of a familiar theme tune, the clatter of a cup on the coffee table. She wasn't surprised.
In the kitchen, she warmed two bowls of tomato soup, more out of simple survival than hunger. They needed to eat, and they needed to talk.
Dan sat up on the sofa as she passed him the bowl, and they ate in listless silence. He cleared the bowls into the kitchen, and returned a couple of minutes later with a freshly opened bottle of red wine and two glasses.
Sophie watched him from the safety of the armchair, noting the familiar way his body moved, the way his hair stood up at odd angles from lying on it, the pale skin beneath the dark stubble and the smudges around his eyes. He looked like she felt - weary, and badly in need of the wine he'd just poured into the glasses.
"I know you probably won't believe me Soph, but I'm so sorry." He stared into his wine glass. "I'm sorry for all of it. For being a shit husband. For Maria. For hurting you."
Sophie drank deeply, letting his words wash over her. He meant it, she didn't doubt him. She sensed that one way or another, this was going to be one of those conversations that shaped her life.
"I thought I knew you inside out, Dan. I thought we wanted the same thing. This place. Kids, someday." She spoke calmly, softly, while he looked at her, his big brown eyes sorrowful. "You know what I really don't understand? Three years ago, I thought we were blissfully happy. Yet you still… you know… with Maria." Say it. "Slept with her. Went with her." She frowned. "What did I miss? How did I get it so badly wrong?"
Dan shook his head miserably, scrubbing his hand over his stubble.
"Soph, you didn't get anything wrong. I wasn't unhappy, or looking for anyone else. Maria just... we'd had a drink, she… she kissed me, and one thing led to another," he finished in a rush.
Sophie nodded. "And you what, just went along with it for fun? Is that what it was? A bit of fun?" A bitter edge was creeping into her voice.
Dan knocked back most of his glass of wine. "For a while. I don't have any explanations. I was an idiot. I made a mistake."
"And you kept on making that mistake for three years." Careful. Keep it together.
Dan's mouth twisted. "I'm not proud of it."
"But you didn't stop it."
"I've stopped it now," he countered, refilling their glasses. "Soph, I'll sit here and take everything you want to throw at me. I deserve it."
She looked at him, full of fierce frustration. "All of my big dreams about life revolved around you. Being your wife. Having your babies."
"We can still do that." Dan moved from his perch on the sofa to kneel in front of her, his hands over hers in her lap, naked pain in his eyes. "We can still do that, can't we?"
Sophie had looked into those eyes for so many years. When he'd proposed, on his knees in a windswept park on her birthday. At the altar on their wedding day. And now, here, as he knelt before her and begged her forgiveness.
"I love you, Soph." He dropped his head and kissed her knuckles, inhaling deeply, his fingers tight around hers. "I've always loved you."
Sophie's determination not to cry dissolved. Dan. Her husband. The man she'd wanted to love forever. She cried for him, and for their lost love, and for the family they might have been. He moved up on to his knees and held her close, murmuring apologies over and over against her hair, words of love and remorse.
Sophie breathed him in, the scent of his familiar body. His warm arms around her, an embrace she'd found so much comfort in over the years. His cheek was against hers, and then he turned his head and brushed her lips slowly with his own.
Heightened emotion charged his kiss with a million volts, and for a few seconds, Sophie melted into him. Dan groaned and pulled her closer, sliding his hands down her back as he tried to deepen the kiss. His tongue slid against her teeth, and Sophie jolted at the intimacy, pulling her head back.
He'd lost her loyalty and he'd lost her love. Kissing him felt like a betrayal. His mouth stilled, and his eyes opened slowly.
"Too soon," he murmured. "I know, I'm sorry."
Sophie pushed gently against his chest to distance him, sliding further back into her chair. "It's not that." She pressed her fingers against her lips, acknowledging the emerging truth within herself. "It's not that."
Dan dropped back on his haunches, his arms working their way to folded over his chest as he watched her.
"Is it him?" he asked eventually, in a small, carefully neutral voice.
However much Dan had hurt her, Sophie drew no pleasure from hurting him back. She nodded, a tiny movement, and then lifted one shoulder, trying to find the right words to explain. "Yes. But it's other things too." She paused. "I've changed, Dan. My whole life has changed so much, and..." she stopped, aware that her next words were the final death knell for her marriage. "And I don't want it to change back."
Dan's anguished eyes scanned her face. "I really fucked this up, didn't I?"
Sophie dropped her head into her hands as he stood up, and she stayed there for quite some time. She heard him hesitate for long moments at the living room door before turning away, his slow steps carrying him out of the house, the door closing behind him with a desolate snap.
In the small hours of the morning, Sophie turned over in bed into the circle of two welcoming arms, the warmth of his naked body against hers rousing her slowly from sleep. Or was she dreaming? Were the gentle lips caressing her nipple real, or the hands moving slowly over her body imagined? As he eased his thigh between hers and covered her body carefully with the weight of his own, Sophie sighed deeply, saturated in him. She opened her thighs and beckoned him in. Come to me. Come with me. Come in me. He dippe
d his head and kissed her, a slow tangle of tongues as he rocked his length all the way into her body, the ultimate, delicious intimacy as his hips connected with hers.
He filled her body and her mind, and as he started to move slowly inside her, unexpected, jumbled emotions squeezed her heart hard through the fog of sleep. Raw and achingly sexy, he made love to her head as well as her body. He made her see stars, and he made her beautiful. Sophie wrapped herself around him, a clamshell on a boulder as his slow grind engulfed her, his hands in her hair, his tongue in her mouth, his body on hers, in hers. He overwhelmed her. It was the kind of sex that husbands should have with their wives, and here in her marital bed, Sophie came apart beneath the man she loved.
Lucien dressed silently, his eyes on the sleeping girl who'd just told him that she loved him. He'd come to her because he couldn't face another night without her, and she'd accepted him into her bed and her arms without question. He didn't understand the emotions that pulled him inextricably towards Sophie, or why being near her eased him, or least of all why hearing her breathe those three little words in his ear had been enough to make him lose it so unexpectedly and come hard and deep inside her.
Sophie stretched her arms over her head, still only half awake and blissful without even remembering why.
Disjointed memories jostled to fit themselves back together. Dan had been here, but he wasn't the reason for the sweet ache in her body. She'd gone to bed alone, her mind spinning with anxiety and the best part of a bottle of wine. She had been sure she wouldn't sleep, but she must have, because she'd dreamed of Lucien.
He'd been here... he'd touched her there. Sophie's fingers moved over her breasts, and lower to the warm spot between her thighs, still tender from holding him inside her.
Lucien. He'd come to her. She was as sure of it as she was sure she was alone now. No dream could be so vivid, no sensation so intense unless it were real. Could it?
