The Reunion Lie

by Lucy King

  Now it was New Year’s Eve and he was sitting in his drawing room, nursing a tumbler of whiskey in front of a blazing fire and trying not to wonder why he wasn’t going to his sister’s party because really there wasn’t anything to wonder about. He simply didn’t fancy ringing in the New Year with a whole crowd of people he barely knew and there was nothing wrong with that.

  He certainly wasn’t wondering whether Zoe was there because he didn’t want to see her and he was glad they were over. Ecstatic in fact. He didn’t need someone he couldn’t trust. Someone who let him down. He’d had enough of all that to last him a lifetime and if that meant he was to spend the rest of his life on his own, then so be it because, despite what his mother and sister might think, there was no way in hell he and Zoe were made for each other.

  She’d accused him of being scared, and didn’t that just prove exactly how little she knew him because, scared? Him? Hah, thought Dan, knocking back the rest of his whiskey and pouring himself another measure. He wasn’t scared of anything and he knew he wasn’t because ever since he’d gone off the rails when he and Natalie had split up he’d put into place safeguards and controls to ensure it would never happen again.

  Frankly, given his behaviour at the time he’d had no choice. OK, so some of that forty-eight hours was still unaccounted for, but he definitely remembered rocking up at Natalie’s house, rip-roaringly drunk, ignoring her threats to call the police if he didn’t knock it off, and then taking a swing at the unfortunate police officers who’d been on duty at the time and had tried to restrain him. Somehow she’d managed to dissuade them from arresting him, but it had been a close run thing, and once he’d sobered up the knowledge of just how totally he’d lost control and what could so easily have happened because of it had hit him like a freight train and he’d promised himself that once was more than enough.

  So he’d kept a tight control on himself and everything that had the potential to affect him. And, apart from the blip that had been Jasmine Thomas, it had worked beautifully.

  Until Zoe had come along and shot it all so completely to pieces that he hadn’t known which way was up, let alone been able to formulate a proper strategy to handle her.

  That she had shot it to pieces wasn’t in any doubt, he now acknowledged with a start. She’d dragged him into her life and then comprehensively and systematically stripped him of his control, despite his best efforts to prevent it. From the moment they’d met his behaviour had been uncharacteristic and rash and frighteningly unpredictable. He’d recognised her as trouble and he’d responded, but his responses had been haphazard and reactive and impulsive and with hindsight it was no wonder that every single measure he’d put into place to control the way he reacted to her had failed.

  Firstly there’d been the kiss-only condition to his decision to help her out at the reunion. That had hardly worked out well. Then there’d been the three-date-only rule, which he’d discarded with reckless justification and indecent haste. And the confidentiality agreement, which had also been a complete waste of time because he had no intention of doing anything with it and probably never had.

  When the physical barriers had let him down he’d tried putting up emotional ones, such as the whole pregnancy trust thing, but those had failed too. And then he’d discovered that she had screwed up and, yes, he’d been devastated at the thought she’d betrayed him, but hadn’t there also been a tiny grain of relief in there too?

  Dan’s fingers tightened on his glass as the truth of it smacked him right between the eyes. God. Zoe was right. He had been waiting for her to let him down because he’d known he was in deep and he’d wanted to escape and then be able to pat himself on the back for getting out of something that might cause him the kind of emotional grief he’d suffered at the hands of Natalie.

  Not the grief of splitting up necessarily but the loss of control that he might experience as a result of it. Because what if he and Zoe made a go of it, and things didn’t work out? He hadn’t loved Natalie and look what had happened. He absolutely adored Zoe so if it all went wrong the fallout could be so much worse. He lifted the grass to his mouth, and shuddered. The thought of that truly didn’t bear contemplation.

  Although, come to think of it, thought Dan, suddenly going stock-still mid-gulp and nearly choking, wasn’t that what had already happened? He was nuts about her and they’d broken up, so weren’t things about as bad as they could get? They were. And was he going off the rails? Was he losing control and getting that criminal record he’d been so close to getting last time? No, he wasn’t. He might be feeling all shredded and twisted up inside, but he was here. In agony and, for the first time in his life, utterly lost, but he wasn’t assaulting police officers and he wasn’t drunk out of his skull. Because he wasn’t rash and impulsive and twenty-five, and it wasn’t his pride that had been battered. This time it was his heart, and the pain of losing Zoe went too deep.

  So what the hell had he done? he asked himself, his heart hammering as the realisation of just how much he loved and wanted her slammed into his head. Zoe was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he’d made her leave. He’d stood there in that hotel room all cold and intractable, wilfully choosing not to believe her, deliberately bottling up how he really felt in favour of a sort of righteous fury that had been deeply unfair, totally idiotic and undeserved.

  Had he completely lost his mind?

  She hadn’t tried to deny what she’d done or make out it was anything other than her fault. She’d taken the blame for it fairly and squarely. She was the bravest woman he knew, and not just then.

  She hadn’t had to go to the wedding with him, but she had. She’d swallowed back her concerns and turned up alone, knowing no one but him. The wedding, what with the four hundred guests, his mother, Beth and Natalie must have been her ultimate nightmare. But she’d dealt with it.

  Zoe had courage, way more courage than he had. She’d had the courage to work out what she wanted, where she was going wrong, and change.

  And what did he do? Let things fester. Lose his temper and sulk. Was he really going to let himself carry on getting away with it? It didn’t seem the most attractive proposition.

  Wasn’t it time to put things right? Tell her how he felt about her and beg her for another chance? And if it was, what was he doing still sitting here when he knew where she was going to be?

  Jumping to his feet and scooping up his keys, his wallet and his phone, Dan set his jaw and grabbed his coat because it seemed that Zoe wasn’t the only one who’d screwed up.

  FIFTEEN

  The reason she’d come to Celia’s New Year’s Eve party had nothing to do with the hope that she might see Dan, thought Zoe, handing her coat to the cloakroom attendant and stashing the ticket she was given in exchange into her bag. Truly, it didn’t. It was simply that Lily was doing her own thing and she hadn’t wanted to spend the last night of the year on her own. That was all.

  She didn’t want to see him anyway. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told him that she didn’t need him. She didn’t. Over the last fortnight she’d realised that he might have been a catalyst in her self-discovery but she’d have got there without him on her own—eventually—because she’d decided things needed to change long before she’d met him.

  Nor did she miss him. In fact she’d barely thought about him over the last couple of weeks. She hadn’t had time and she certainly hadn’t had the inclination. She’d had more than enough work to keep her occupied and so the only time he crossed her mind was when she was accosted by a journalist wanting a follow-up to her kiss-and-tell either on the phone or in person, but she’d got good at barking out a ‘no comment’ and reminding herself just what a bastard he’d been.

  No, she reminded herself, pulling her shoulders back and lifting her head as she walked over to the deep red velvet curtain that hung between the lobby and the nightclub, she didn’t mi
ss the stubborn deluded idiot. And she was far better off without him. She was. Or she would be when it stopped hurting. Which it would soon enough because she was over it, and she was over him. And she was here to prove it.

  She drew back the curtain and she slipped into the club, the noise hitting her like a rocket blast and making her resolve strengthen and her spirits soar. Tonight marked the beginning of a new year, she told herself firmly. A new start. A new her. And she was going to celebrate in style.

  * * *

  What the hell was Zoe doing?

  From the bar of the dimly lit, packed and beat-throbbing nightclub Dan was watching her with astonishment. He wasn’t sure what kind of state she’d be in after he’d stupidly banished her from his life, but he hadn’t been expecting this. If he’d thought about it at all he’d have imagined her standing to one side, nursing a gimlet as she watched the proceedings while perhaps wondering if it would be rude to leave before the clock struck midnight.

  But she wasn’t doing any of that. She wasn’t on the sidelines, she wasn’t watching the proceedings and she certainly wasn’t showing any signs of wanting to leave. She was wearing a black halter-neck top and tight-fitting black trousers and dancing with an abandon he’d never have expected from her. An abandon he didn’t actually think he’d ever even seen before. She had her hands in her hair, her body was moving sensuously to the thudding beat of the music, and, bloody hell, was she gyrating?

  She looked incredible. Wanton. Liberated. And his heart pounded with admiration, desire, longing, adoration and a whole host of other good things he didn’t have time to identify, because now she was boogieing up to a man who’d been eyeing her up and shooting him a flirtatious smile, and Dan found he wasn’t liking any of it at all.

  She clearly hadn’t been pining for him the way he had for her, he thought, his stomach twisting painfully as he fought the urge to grind his teeth. She didn’t look haggard and drawn. She looked stunning and ecstatic, as if she was having the time of her life, as if she hadn’t given him a moment’s thought, as if as far as she was concerned he, they, had never happened.

  The realisation made his heart shudder to a halt and his throat tighten. God, maybe he was too late. Or maybe she’d didn’t love him. Based on how she’d held him and the things she’d whispered in his ear that last night they’d spent together, he’d sort of assumed she did but maybe his assumption—or rather presumption—had been wrong.

  The possibility that that might be the case nearly brought him to his knees, but he had to remain upright because he hadn’t come here to collapse. He’d come to get her back.

  He watched as she pulled the man she’d been flirting with onto the dance floor and went into his arms and a sheet of white-hot jealousy lanced through him.

  Right. That was it. He’d had enough. Assuming it wasn’t too late and he hadn’t been wrong—and he really had to cling onto that assumption so that he didn’t fall completely apart—it was time to try and put things right.

  * * *

  Dammit, this wasn’t working, thought Zoe, sweat pouring off her. She’d danced her heart out but it was no use. Because she’d tried so hard to convince herself that she was over Dan, but she wasn’t.

  For all her fine words earlier she was, and had been for the last fortnight, utterly miserable. Her heart was breaking and she was aching, and all the boozy happiness around her was only intensifying her misery. She hadn’t come here just because she hadn’t wanted to spend the last night of the year on her own. She’d come because she’d wanted to see him, and to show him she was fine, that she didn’t care that he hadn’t wanted her.

  But she wasn’t fine, and she did care. So very much.

  And he wasn’t here. And because he wasn’t, and because her heart was shattering all over again and she was falling apart inside, she was now dancing with a man who seemed to have the eight tentacles of an octopus and was intent on wrapping every one of them around her.

  She’d just about managed to keep him at bay while the music had been energetic and thumping, but now, oh, God, it was segueing into something slow and crooning and her dance partner was moving closer and those arms were getting tighter.

  But she couldn’t summon up the energy to fight him because she now recognised the song as being the one that she’d mentioned they’d danced to in that imaginary nightclub in Italy and it instantly transported her back to the night this had all started, and she was filling with such deep, aching melancholia she didn’t think she could stand it.

  Once the song finished that would be it, she told herself wretchedly. She’d tried, and Celia put on a fine party, but she really couldn’t stay any longer. The yearning hope that Dan would be here and the crushing disappointment that he wasn’t was just about ripping what was left of her self-control to shreds.

  So five minutes more and then she’d traipse home and drown her sorrows with the bottle of champagne she had in the fridge waiting for who knew what.

  Well, she knew, she thought, her heart sinking even lower and her throat aching with the lump that had been there for pretty much the entire fortnight, but really it wasn’t all that relevant now, not when—

  ‘Mind if I cut in?’

  At the sound of the deep voice behind her, Zoe froze, her head went blank and her heart practically stopped. And then as it hit her that Dan was here after all, heat and longing and pure relief started rushing around her.

  For a second her dance partner’s arms tightened around her in what she could only presume was a display of macho territorial possession or something, but Dan must have been shooting daggers at him because his face went a bit white and then his arms loosened.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Wilson or Winston or perhaps Walter. Whatever his name was he clearly had the intelligence to sense this was a battle he wasn’t going to win, and melted away.

  Which left her standing on the dance floor like a lemon with Dan behind her while all around her couples smooched and swayed and she wondered why he was here.

  Slowly she turned, and as she saw him she caught her breath. God, he looked awful. There were dark circles beneath his eyes and hollows beneath his cheekbones. His hair looked as if it hadn’t been combed for a week and his jaw hadn’t seen a razor for days. His eyes were dark and serious and his expression intense and his focus was entirely on her.

  Her heart, pathetically weak organ that it was, turned over at the sight of him, but the image of him standing there in that hotel room telling her that he didn’t want to see her again was still fresh in her memory and she just couldn’t seem to let it go.

  ‘Have a drink,’ he said, handing her a shot glass of something cold and clear. ‘You look like you could do with one.’

  ‘So do you.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m in the process of trying to get over an unexpected and almost Neanderthal-like need to protect what’s mine. It’s thirsty work.’ He lifted his own glass, knocked it back in one and then winced and shook his head. ‘God, that’s foul.’

  ‘Yours?’ Zoe echoed, going a bit giddy despite her resolve to stay strong.

  He nodded. ‘Yes. Namely, you.’

  ‘I didn’t know I was yours.’

  ‘Neither did I, but I do now.’

  Blinking away the giddiness before she got too carried away and threw herself at him, she sniffed her drink gingerly. ‘What is this?’

  ‘Grappa.’

  The shock of seeing him again and the revelation that he thought she was his made the grappa seem like an excellent idea so she downed hers and gasped as the alcohol hit the back of her throat. ‘Are you responsible for the music too?’

  ‘Well, you are wearing black and it is tight, even though it isn’t a ski suit.’

  Her heart turned over at the thought that he’d remembered the way they’d met—fictionally, at least. ‘I hope you’re not expecting
the rest of the night to pan out in the same way?’

  ‘You mean with us burning up the sheets? Well, that’s rather up to you.’ He glanced down at her glass. ‘Are you finished? Yes? Good.’ Dan took her glass and then shot off to put them on a table before striding back. ‘This is our song,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘We should dance.’

  Before she could even think about protesting she was in his arms, the hand planted on her lower back holding her tight against him and then she found she was so where she wanted to be that she couldn’t protest even if she’d wanted to.

  ‘How was your Christmas?’ he asked, looking down, his eyes burning into hers.

  Miserable. ‘Lovely. I spent it with my parents and Lily in Shropshire. How was yours?’

  ‘Hideous.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Want to know why?’

  ‘If you must,’ she said with a nonchalance that totally belied the curiosity and the longing whipping through her.

  ‘My family drove me mad.’

  ‘If you’re after sympathy you’re talking to the wrong person.’

  Dan shot her the ghost of a smile and it made her stomach flip. ‘I don’t want sympathy. Even though I probably don’t deserve it I’d like your forgiveness.’

  She arched an eyebrow, her voice still amazingly cool given the mess she was inside. ‘My forgiveness?’

  ‘Yes. Christmas was bad enough but the last week has been almost unbearable.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Realising you were right about the being scared thing has been really quite harrowing.’

  She stared up at him, her feet suddenly missing the beat at the thought of what that might mean. ‘I was right?’

  ‘Absolutely spot on,’ he said, stopping for a second while she untangled her feet from his and then resuming the swaying sort of shuffle they were doing. ‘I think I’ve been terrified ever since you came up to me in that pub and kissed me. You blew my mind and shot my world to pieces. That’s never happened to me before.’