Playing by the Rules

by Imelda Evans

  ‘Penny for your thoughts.’

  Kate looked up with a start, and realised that she had been sitting in a daze, gazing sightlessly at her orange juice, while Josh worked away at the bench. She hadn’t even noticed that he had finished and had come around to stand in front of her until he spoke.

  ‘Or maybe they aren’t worth a penny, since they seem to be bothering you. You’re frowning again, and I like it so much better when you smile.’

  He reached out and gently smoothed her forehead with his finger, then cupped her cheek in his hand and brushed her lips with his thumb. Without thinking, she turned her head and pressed her lips into his palm.

  Oh heck.

  What was she doing? She had just been telling herself that she couldn’t let him act as though they were having a relationship and then she had to go and do something intimate like that. She must be out of her mind. That was precisely the kind of thing she couldn’t let happen. It wasn’t fair, to either of them. She turned her head away and stood up, separating herself from his touch.

  Josh pulled his hand away and mentally kicked himself. He had to go more carefully. He didn’t want to scare her away. But it was so hard to keep his hands to himself. He had been a little afraid when he woke up in the morning that it would all turn out to be a dream. But now, here with her, bloodshot eyes and all, he knew it wasn’t. He loved her. He hadn’t known it at the time, but he’d loved her from the minute she’d opened the door in that dreadful dressing-gown. And his heart had only got more and more entangled with every minute he’d spent with her.

  He thought – hoped – that she had feelings for him too. But Jo was right. She did have history with Alain, and he knew she was the kind of person who wouldn’t put that aside lightly. Much as he would like to forget that Alain had ever existed, he couldn’t do that and he couldn’t try to make her do it either, or he would lose her.

  On the other hand, he could do everything possible to make her realise what a louse Alain was and how unworthy he was of her. And there was no time like the present. If he didn’t make a start, he would waste the advantage of getting here first.

  ‘So where’s Alan?’ Josh did his best to sound nonchalant, and thought he succeeded reasonably well, although he couldn’t resist deliberately mispronouncing the French git’s name.

  ‘Alain,’ Kate corrected absently. ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘I can see that, Kate. I mean, why isn’t he here?’

  ‘He came . . .’ Kate began, giving Josh a nasty surprise. He had intended to arrive well ahead of him. Hadn’t Kate told him to stay away till midday? Couldn’t the man do as he was told? He chose to ignore the fact that he hadn’t done as he had been told either. ‘. . . but Jo told him to go away. I wasn’t even up at that point.’

  Josh felt ridiculously relieved that he had managed to be first through the door.

  ‘So where is he now?’ Josh couldn’t stop himself looking around even as he told himself it was nonsensical. Did he think Alain was going to jump out from behind the furniture?

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Kate looked as though she didn’t care much, either, and Josh’s heart did a brief spring dance of joy in his chest. ‘I think Jo suggested he should go and walk in the botanical gardens or something. He’s never been to Melbourne before.’

  Josh couldn’t believe it. ‘He’s gone sightseeing?’

  Kate shrugged. ‘Well, he had to go somewhere.’

  ‘And it’s all right with you that he went, is it? That he did as he was told, and went away?’ Josh was aware that he was being inconsistent in criticising the man first for not doing as he was told and then for doing exactly that, but he couldn’t help it. The very thought of Alain made him angry.

  ‘Well, what was he supposed to do?’ Kate was frowning and a sensible man might have seen that she wasn’t enjoying the direction this conversation was taking. But Josh was too involved to be sensible. He grunted.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know – show some backbone, maybe? If I had come all this way to see you, there is no way I would go away and fill in time sightseeing . . .’ the way Josh said the word made it sound like something unmentionable ‘. . . just because your friend told me to.’

  ‘Oh, so you wouldn’t care what I wanted?’ Kate’s frown had deepened and Josh’s ire, never far from the surface since the French git arrived, rose to match it.

  ‘Of course I would! If you weren’t ready to see me, I would wait. But I wouldn’t go and be a tourist while I was waiting, as though it were all the same to me whether you saw me or not! I’d be camped on your doorstep, with the biggest bunch of roses you’d ever seen, waiting for you to open it and let me in.’

  Kate’s expression softened. But Josh was warming to his theme, and instead of quitting while he was ahead, he went on.

  ‘I wouldn’t have left it two weeks, either. If I had been idiot enough to have you and then lose you through my own stupidity, I would have been here before now.’

  ‘I’m sure there were reasons why he couldn’t come before now,’ she replied, rather stiffly.

  ‘Sure there was a reason. He didn’t care enough.’

  ‘Josh, that’s not fair. It’s not always easy to get international flights in a hurry. He literally might not have been able to get here before now. It’s a long trip.’

  ‘Rubbish! He could have made it sooner, if he’d wanted to. He didn’t want to, at least, not badly enough. Kate, if it had been me, I would have taken Air Kazakhstan if I’d had to. I would have taken a boat. I would have swum, with the bloody roses between my teeth, to get to you and apologise. But not him! No, he just swans in, in his own sweet time, doesn’t even have the guts to persist when he gets turned away at the door and you are still going to let him talk to you?’

  Josh knew he should stop. This wasn’t going the way he had planned. He had planned to come, make juice, ply her with cheese and fruit, show her what a great guy he was, and be here when Alain arrived to show him that there was competition. He hadn’t planned to get angry, or to make her angry at him. But the fear of losing her had him in a terrier-like grip and he couldn’t be calm. If he didn’t convince her now that Alain was wrong for her, he might never get another chance. He stepped closer to her and took her hands in his.

  ‘Kate, he treated you like dirt. He dumped you for one of your friends. He let you come here, thinking that he didn’t care, and left you alone for two weeks before he bothered to try to come after you. Why would you even want to see him, much less listen to what he has to say?’

  Kate didn’t know how to reply. The truth was that she didn’t really want to listen to Alain. Not because she was angry, although she agreed that she had reason to be. Josh hadn’t said anything about Alain that she hadn’t thought hundreds of times already. No. The main reason she didn’t want to see him was that she was going to have to break his heart, and, much as he might deserve it, she couldn’t bring herself to relish the task.

  But she couldn’t tell Josh that. If she told him she was going to get rid of Alain, he would want to know why. What could she say? I don’t want to be with him because all I can think about is you? How was that going to make things less complicated?

  Kate pulled away from Josh and walked over to the window, wrapping her arms around her middle to try to stave off the pain and confusion as she tried to reason with herself.

  There was a word for the way she felt about Josh. Lust. Lust, pure and simple. He was six foot three. She had always liked tall men. He was charming. She was a sucker for charm. He had a kiss that could reduce her to jelly. Well, naturally, she was going to like that. And he thought she was beautiful, which was flattering. These were all good reasons to be attracted to him. All good reasons to have a fling with him. They didn’t mean she was in love with him.

  There. She’d said it. She had said the l-word, even if only to herself, and it was done. Now she would be able to face it and get over it.

  Because it was ridiculous.

  She couldn’t have f
allen in love with Josh so quickly. It wasn’t possible. A week ago, Josh hadn’t even been part of her world. He had existed only as a memory and a sometime subject of conversation with Jo. And tomorrow – or in a week, anyway – he’d be a memory again.

  Sure, it would be a different memory. Now, filed under ‘Josh’ in Kate’s brain there wouldn’t be a skinny boy, subject of her first crush, but a stunningly sexy man. A man who had appeared out of nowhere and turned her world on its head and, she had to admit, turned her on.

  It would be a memory to warm her on cold winter evenings. Maybe it would be a memory tinged with regret about bad timing. But a memory was all it would be. All he would be. All he could be. And it would be stupid to be in love with a memory.

  If only he wasn’t also a man who had lied for her without a moment’s hesitation, for no better reason than to help her save face. A man who had looked after her when she was vulnerable and helped her mum just because she’d asked him to. A man her mother liked. A man whose own mother already loved Kate. A man whose kisses were like something out of a fever dream.

  In the silence of her deepest heart, Kate admitted to herself she could love Josh if she let herself. If things were different. If they had more time. In a different world. But in this one, in addition to all those things, he was also a man addicted to a way of life that had no place in it for a quiet, party-shunning academic, who needed to grow roots to be happy or even properly sane.

  So she could not be in love with him. What she felt for him must simply be lust. It had to be. And probably was, mostly.

  Yet in spite of that – or maybe because of it – she was still going to throw away everything she had had with Alain. After all, if she could fall so deeply in lust with Josh so quickly, could she really have been in love with Alain in the first place? Did she even know what love was?

  No wonder her head hurt. Not to mention her heart. She rubbed her eyes and realised that Josh was still waiting for an answer. She sighed and turned back to him.

  ‘Look Josh, everything you said is true. But maybe he had reasons we don’t know about for what he did. Maybe he’s sorry. I don’t know, and I won’t know until I have heard what he has to say. I have to hear him out. I owe him that much.’

  ‘But —’ Josh began, before Kate cut him off.

  ‘But nothing, Josh. I am going to see Alain, and,’ she said, glancing at the clock, ‘if he is prompt, I am going to be seeing him very soon. I think you should go.’

  ‘If that’s the way you feel about it, of course I will go. I’ve left breakfast on the bench. Eat something. And drink your orange juice. You need the vitamins.’

  The words came out clipped and formal, and Kate’s heart ached for him. She wanted to say something, but the words caught in her throat and came out as an inarticulate gurgle. What could she say that would make any difference? It was hopeless.

  Josh had paused when she started to speak, but when she stopped and looked away, he quietly picked up his keys and headed for the door. When he got there, he turned back to her, the look on his face unreadable.

  ‘Goodbye, Kate. I hope you will be very happy.’

  Kate gurgled again, but this time, he didn’t stop; he opened the door and left.

  It wasn’t until the lift doors had shut behind him, and she had thrown herself on her bed, that she started to weep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The sound of Jo’s keys in the door brought Kate to her feet, if not her senses. She scrambled off the bed and made a frantic dive for the bathroom as Jo called out to her.

  ‘Hi, hon! I’m back! Did Josh come up? Have you eaten?’

  Kate didn’t answer immediately, as she was vigorously splashing her face with water, in an attempt to mask the fact that she had been crying. She didn’t want to have to explain to Jo something she didn’t understand herself. Jo stuck her head around the bathroom door.

  ‘I can see he did come. I see the evidence of the breakfast fairy in the kitchen. But I don’t see him, and I don’t see any signs that you have actually eaten anything. What gives?’

  Kate dried her face and hoped that her eyes were no more bloodshot than they had been before. She gave her friend a lopsided smile.

  ‘No, I haven’t eaten anything yet. I’m experiencing an inexplicable loss of appetite this morning.’ She groaned and Jo smiled broadly.

  ‘Yes, so I see. If you are going to go in for party-girl drinking, we are going to have to work on your stamina.’ She moved on into the kitchen, giving Kate a chance to rearrange her face into what she hoped was an appropriate expression before she followed her.

  ‘But where is Josh? It’s not like him to leave while there’s food to be had.’ Jo had perched herself on the bench and was helping herself to the fruit and cheese platter that Josh had left. Kate picked up an out-of-season strawberry and bit it to give herself time to work out an answer to the question. She swallowed with difficulty and told Jo the truth – more or less.

  ‘I thought perhaps it might be better if he wasn’t here when Alain came. And that’s going to be soon, isn’t it?’

  Jo looked up at the clock and made a face. ‘Yes, now that you mention it. I should probably push off, too, shouldn’t I? I’ll go round to Mum and Dad’s. I’m overdue for a visit, anyway. If Josh comes back, will you tell him where I am?’ Kate nodded, then stiffened, as the doorbell rang.

  Jo jumped down from the bench, gave Kate a quick hug, then pulled back so she could look her in the eye. ‘Good luck, hon. Call me if you need me.’ Kate nodded again, and Jo gave her another hug, before heading quickly down the hall. ‘I’ll let him in,’ she called over her shoulder.

  Kate nodded again, pointlessly, since Jo was well out of sight, and sat down, suddenly feeling sicker than she had all morning. She was not looking forward to this. She heard the door open and Jo say something, and a man’s voice reply, then the door closed and footsteps came down the hall. She shut her eyes.

  When she opened them, Alain was standing in front of her and the time for dithering was over. She stood up and, motioning him to follow her, moved into the lounge room. She felt more awkward than she would have thought possible in the presence of someone she knew so well. She also felt a bit otherworldly, as though she were separate from this whole thing, watching someone else go through it. Maybe this was what they meant by an out-of-body experience.

  ‘Please, sit down.’ Her voice was croaky and didn’t sound as though it belonged to her, but at least she had broken the silence. Alain sat down, looking about as comfortable as she felt, and, after a moment, she sat too. Some part of her knew how absurd this was, the two of them sitting perched on the edges of chairs on opposite sides of the room as though they had never met before. But she had never felt less like laughing.

  ‘Kate . . .’ Alain’s voice sounded strained, too, and he paused to clear his throat, before he went on.

  ‘Kate, I want to say that I am sorry.’ Kate was silent. She didn’t want to hurt him unnecessarily, but she wasn’t going to make this easy for him, either. She deserved some payback for her two weeks of misery. So she sat and watched him and waited for more.

  The silent scrutiny was obviously too much for Alain. He got up and went over to the same window that Kate had looked through earlier as he went on. ‘I am sorry that I hurt you. I handled things very badly.’

  He turned back to her, and, against her will, Kate was touched by the anguish on his face. ‘I never wanted to hurt you, Kate. I was trying to do the right thing. I didn’t want things to go on any longer once I knew my heart wasn’t in it.

  ‘But I still cared for you and I didn’t know how to tell you. So, like a coward, I left it until I could find “the right time”. Then I tried to do what I thought was breaking it to you gently.’ He grimaced. ‘I guess I made a pretty thorough mess of that.’

  Kate frowned. There was something wrong with this, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Then he spoke again.

  ‘Sophie made me realise ju
st how much a mess of it I had made.’

  There: that was it. He had said that he ‘cared’ for her. Past tense. And now he was talking about Sophie. Kate felt the ground shift under her. Was it possible – could it be possible – that he wasn’t here to ask her to take him back after all? She pressed her hand to her forehead, where the throbbing had suddenly intensified.

  ‘Alain, hang on . . . I need to get something straight. Why, exactly, are you here?’

  Alain looked at her as though the question surprised him.

  ‘I’ve come to apologise for the way I treated you. To – well – make peace, I suppose. I don’t want you to hate me, Kate. You mean too much to me for me to live with that. And Sophie said —’

  ‘Sophie said?’ Kate’s incredulity was rapidly becoming anger. ‘Alain, are you trying to tell me that you came all the way out here to tell me that you are still with Sophie? Why would you do that?’

  Alain looked, if possible, even more uncomfortable than he had before.

  ‘It made more sense when I was in Paris! Sophie said —’

  ‘Sophie said!’ Fury pushed Kate to her feet. ‘There it is again! For God’s sake, Alain! Did she actually send you here?’ Kate was more or less apoplectic by this stage, but she couldn’t help feeling a grudging respect for her former friend. Kate had had enough trouble getting Alain to go out for croissants.

  ‘Well . . . yes, I suppose she did,’ Alain admitted. He sat down again, looking tired. ‘She nearly killed me when I told her what I had done. She said I must be crazy to think that taking you out to that restaurant to tell you was breaking it to you gently. She said . . .’ Alain looked up at Kate and gulped. He looked so guilty that Kate almost felt sorry for him.

  ‘She said that you probably thought that I was about to propose to you. She said that I was lucky that I only ended up with your wine thrown in my face. She said that she would have followed it with the glass, if it had been her. She said . . . She said that she had to work with you, and so did I, and if I didn’t get over here and sort this out with you, she would never speak to me again.’