One week: Surely the first week has to be the worst?
Two weeks: Still trying to stop thinking about Lucas. No success.
Three weeks:
The calendar on the kitchen wall showed a blank for the third week. That was just how Thea felt. Blank.
This weekend she’d do something. Maybe ring around to see if anyone wanted to go with her to the cinema on Saturday evening or drive up to see her parents on Sunday. Or both. As she didn’t have much enthusiasm for either, perhaps that was pushing things a bit. On the other hand, she really did have to stop thinking about Lucas.
She left her umbrella in the porch, kicking off her shoes in the hallway and throwing her raincoat across the banisters. She padded into the kitchen, wondering whether she had any soup in the cupboard. She was exhausted from sleepless nights, and the summer was over now.
Glancing out of the window, she noted that the rain had stopped. And that there was a tent in the back garden.
‘Lucas!’ Her door keys slipped through her fingers and jangled onto the floor. What the hell did he think he was doing?
Light was glimmering from inside the tent. It actually looked rather inviting. Thea bit back the thought and marched back into the hall. High heels probably weren’t the best choice of footwear for wet grass in the dark, but if she was going to be assertive—and she was—they’d give her a couple of extra inches to be assertive with.
When she got out of the back door she found a gangway, laid from the edge of the grass to the opening of the tent. First problem solved. She approached the tent, drawing herself up to her full height.
‘Lucas!’
The tent flap opened and a blast of warm air from a portable heater hit her full in the face. He was wearing a dinner suit, which only made him look even more handsome than usual, and when he beckoned her inside she followed him, almost despite herself. ‘How did you know it was me?’
‘Who else is going to erect a tent in my back garden? With drapes and a chandelier and…’ This really was too much. ‘A chaise longue.’
He dipped his head in acknowledgement, as if she’d just paid him a compliment. ‘Well, I’d rather you’d happened on the tent after a ride on a camel across the desert. But you weren’t going to come to the desert with me, were you?’
‘Damn right, Lucas.’ She could feel tears in her eyes. Why did he have to make this so hard? ‘And this is my garden. You’re not to go putting up tents in it without my express permission. Which you don’t have.’
In a minute the anger that had got her this far was going to give way to tears. She wanted him gone before that happened. Thea made a wild gesture in the direction of the back gate. ‘You have to go. And you have to take all of this with you, even if it takes you all night.’
‘Wait, Thea. There’s something I want to show you.’
‘No, I’m not going to wait. There’s nothing I want to see. You made it perfectly plain to me where we stood in India. You said we had our lives to live, and that we should both spread our wings.’
‘I am spreading my wings. I love you, Thea.’
She waited. ‘And there’s a but coming…’
‘No. I love you. I’d camp in your back garden for the rest of my life if that’s what it took.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. What about Ava?’
‘I might have to get a bigger tent. She’s got a lot of stuff.’
‘Lucas! Wake up. Smell the coffee or the flowers or whatever else is going to bring you to your senses.’ This wasn’t going the way that Thea had expected. She’d thought he’d hurt her so badly that she would never want to speak to him again. Until she saw him, the theory had worked perfectly, but now she wasn’t only speaking to him, she was allowing herself to hope.
‘I love you, Thea.’
Damn. He’d said it again. This time she couldn’t stop the tears. And when Lucas stepped forward he was the only thing she had to hang onto. She let him steady her for a moment and then took a step back.
‘What do I have to do to make you go away?’
‘Listen to me now. I know this is my fault and that I’ve no right to ask anything of you, but I’m going to do it anyway.’ There was one candle on the table beside the chaise longue that wasn’t lit. He struck a match, holding it to the wick. ‘Just for the time it takes for this candle to burn down to here.’ He held his finger to a band that circled the candle, about a third of the way down.
‘You can’t just say ten minutes, can you? It has to be until a candle burns down, or sand runs out of a glass.’ Thea couldn’t help a wry smile.
He shrugged, shaking his head. ‘No. Suppose I can’t.’
There was something about his eyes. Imploring and yet determined. They both knew she couldn’t hold out against that. ‘Okay, then. Just until the candle burns down. And then you promise you’ll go.’
‘Promise. Sit down, won’t you?’
The only place to sit was the chaise longue. Thea perched on the edge of it. She’d promised to listen, not recline.
‘You have ten minutes, Lucas.’
* * *
Ten minutes. When he’d planned all this it had seemed more than enough to do what he had to do but now it seemed like nothing. He had to be quick. Lucas stripped off his jacket and tie and unbuttoned his shirt.
‘What are you doing?’ There was an expression of shock on Thea’s face.
‘I want to show you…’ He pulled his shirt over one shoulder, and knelt down in front of her. When she touched his arm he winced in pain.
‘You’re having it lasered.’
‘Just the birds. Ava’s birthday stays.’ The swifts at the top of the tattoo had almost disappeared now.
‘It must hurt.’
He shrugged his shirt back over his shoulder, and put his jacket on. ‘Yeah. Blue ink’s not so bad as black but, yeah…it hurts.’
‘Why?’
‘Because when I got the tattoo I told myself that it was to remind me of you. But it was all a sham, a pretence that I still had some part of you. I don’t want to pretend any more. I want you, Thea. I want to be with you and all the tattoo reminds me of is that we’ve spent too long apart. I can’t even bear to look at it.’
She stared at him, hands clasped tightly in her lap.
‘I do love you, Thea. I know I’m going to have to prove it to you, and I’m going to have to become the man I want to be. The one who won’t hurt you, who’ll take care of you.’
‘You are that man.’ She almost whispered the words.
‘I look at you and I feel that I am.’
* * *
She was going to wake up in a moment. Find herself alone in her bed, and look out of the window to see only grass and a few shrubs in the back garden.
‘Would you mind sitting down, please?’ She patted the space next to her on the chaise longue.
The stress lines on his forehead began to melt and he sat down next to her.
‘Thea, I know you’re finding it hard to trust me right now, let alone love me.’
‘I do love you, Lucas. I can’t help it.’
‘Isn’t that a start? I wouldn’t have done this unless I was sure, Thea. For a long time I used my responsibilities towards Ava as an excuse for not living my life. But when I saw you again…you helped me find my passion again. And then you helped me find the courage to change, to believe that I could love you and never let you down.’
The candle next to her guttered and flamed. Something clattered onto the table. It didn’t matter. She’d given him ten minutes and he’d used it well. She would hear him out now.
‘Time’s up.’ He seemed to be very interested in the candle.
‘That doesn’t matter now, Lucas. Forget it, I’m not going anywhere until we’ve sorted this out.’ It might take all night. But she’d spent nights with Lucas in stranger places than a tent.
‘It matters because…’ He picked something up from the table, suddenly realising it was hot and bouncing it from one hand to the other.
It sparkled in the candlelight. ‘I didn’t reckon on this getting caught in the flame. Obviously not my best moment when it comes to forward planning.’
‘What is that?’ He blew on the object in his palm and she saw. Lucas grinned, and slipped from his seat onto one knee in front of her.
‘I’ve said what I want to say. And I want to offer this to you now. Not in the hope that you’ll take it but to show you that I’m serious about this.’
‘I…’ She almost reached for the ring, but contented herself with just staring at it for a moment.
‘I know. You have to think about it. I’ll wait.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘What, you’re not going to think about it with me?’ This time she did reach out, tracing her fingers down the side of his cheek.
Slowly he leant forward. Brushed his lips against hers in an almost-kiss.
‘Is that the best you can do?’ Thea took his hand.
‘I can do better.’ This time he kissed her properly. All she wanted. All she needed. Right there.
‘Are you expected home tonight?’
She’d thought his kiss was everything, but his smile was more. ‘I was really hoping you’d ask that.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
FOR THE NEXT two weeks the ring was a constant part of Thea’s life, turning up everywhere and anywhere. It sat on the mantelpiece at Lucas’s house for a couple of days. It appeared in a glass of champagne when they celebrated the good news of Ava’s Mantoux test results. She found it under her pillow when she woke in the morning and in her napkin when they went out to dinner together.
‘You’re going to lose this.’ She held it up in the light of the chandelier, which had now been restored to its rightful place in the oak tree. It was beautiful. A single diamond, flashing with blue light, on a plain band.
‘I keep my eye on it, wherever it is.’ He turned his attention back to the map that was spread out between them. The canopy of the tree still sheltered them, even though the leaves were turning to gold and they had to wrap up warmly to enjoy the tree house now.
‘So we go to Bangladesh first. To see Dr Patel and Ayesha.’
‘Yes.’ Thea hugged herself with excitement. ‘And I’d like to spend some time at the hospital too. How do you feel about taking Ava with us?’
‘She’s asked me already about going. I said we’d wait and see but I don’t see why she shouldn’t come along. What do you think?’
‘I think, if she wants to go, we should take her. We’ll both be there to keep an eye on her and make sure she’s not confronted with anything too distressing.’ One of the unexpected gifts that both Lucas and Ava had given her was to take it for granted that she should be a parent to Ava.
He nodded. ‘Makes sense to me.’ He dropped the pencil onto the map and it rolled towards the centre fold, where Thea’s ring sat. ‘There’s something I want to ask you.’
‘Fire away.’
‘I was thinking…children.’
Thea had been thinking about that too. She wanted to have children, and Lucas’s children would undoubtedly be a handful but they’d make her life complete. But if he didn’t want that…
‘What do you want?’ She decided to play things cool.
‘What do you want?’ Apparently he’d made the same decision. Thea burst out laughing and he chuckled along with her.
‘I just thought that…maybe Ava is enough for you.’
He shrugged. ‘I guess after you’ve done it once you get into the swing of it. How many?’
‘Four?’
‘Four? I was thinking three…’ He scratched his head. ‘But four’s a good number. I could work with that.’
‘I was including Ava in my four.’ She looked at him hesitantly.
‘I love it that you did, sweetheart. So four, including Ava?’ He picked up the pencil and added another cross to the map. ‘I think we’re definitely going to have to go back to the Taj Mahal. Maybe start work on number two of our four.’
‘We’ll go to the Taj Mahal. But we can wait for the children. It’s a big thing for Ava to take on already, us getting married. If she sees me having a child straight away…’ Thea wanted Ava to see her as an addition to her family, not someone who was taking Lucas away from her.
‘I wouldn’t worry. I found my mother teaching her to knit the other day. They were like a pair of old ladies, both giving each other knowing looks.’
‘What did you do?’ Thea laughed.
‘I told them that if and when we decide on anything we’ll let them know. Preferably when junior’s about six years old, so they don’t have the opportunity to go out together and buy cute outfits.’
‘I don’t know. I quite like cute outfits.’
‘So do I. That’s why you and I are buying them.’
‘There’s always room for one more.’ She leaned forward to kiss him. ‘Always room for another one of those too.’
Suddenly his eyes were solemn. ‘Okay, so you’ve admitted that we’re going to get married. We’re planning a baby and a holiday. There’s something I need to do first.’ He caught up her hand, watching her face intently.
‘Do it. Do it now, Lucas.’
He slipped the ring onto her finger. ‘No more dreams, sweetheart. Just realities.’
Reality was more than good enough. She leaned forwards and he kissed her. ‘No more dreams.’
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460381731
Daring to Date Her Ex
Copyright © 2015 by Annie Claydon
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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