[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

and try to make her feel better and then it would only be a matter of time until the next
explosion. The bottle of champagne stood open on the kitchen table. He turned and
walked to the stairs. What was the point in putting this off?
He pushed open his bedroom door.
 Salut, Will.
His ex-wife lay curled up on his bed with only a towel wrapped around her.
 Que fais-tu ici? he demanded, slipping into her native tongue, asking what she
was doing there.
Vee pouted. An expression with which he was all too familiar.
 That s not nice, she said.
 I thought you were in Paris staying with your parents. Will glared at her. He d
hoped she d never come back to the UK.
 We had an argument. They don t care about me. They don t want me.
Will had heard all this before.
 You re wet. Tu fais froid? Vee asked.  Let me warm you up. She uncovered
herself, posing on the bed like a centerfold model.
Will tried to keep his eyes on her face. He pulled his fingers through his damp hair.
 You don t belong in my bed, Vee.
 But you re my husband.
 Ex-husband. We re divorced, remember?
 Ah, pas exactement.
Will s heart lurched in his chest like a dog trying to escape a leash.  Not exactly?
What does that mean?
 We re still married.
Panic scuttled through his veins. Will shook his head. What the hell was she talking
about?  No, we submitted the draft settlement. The notaire prepared it. The bloody
French lawyer cost me a fortune. We signed it. The hearing 
 I said we d changed our minds.
For a moment, time stopped.  What?
 I told them I wanted to try again.
Will tried to rein in his fury.  How dare you, Vee? This was all sorted.
 I want to try to again.
Will chewed his lip.  What happened to Jean-Claude?
 The cochon was sleeping with a waitress. Vee started to cry.  Why do people
always do that to me? They always hurt me.
Will was tempted to remind her that she d hurt him, but he didn t. How did she
think it made him feel when she slept with other men? Vee cried harder. Will squirmed.
He felt helpless when women cried. It made him want to do anything to stop them
give them his car, his credit cards, Ed s Star Wars figures, anything. His desperation
stemmed from the way his mother used same tactic of emotional blackmail when he
and Ed were little. Crying to get them to cuddle her, crying if they didn t work hard at
school and crying so they wouldn t leave her like their daddy. It worked then, too.
Vee sobbed and Will looked at her in despair. Confrontations always made her cry.
Her crying made him feel guilty. Feeling guilty weakened his resolve. He hated this.
Her parents had fucked up her life and left her as fragile as a glass rose.
 Don t you love me, Will?
 Yes, but not in the way you want. Not anymore.
Vee got up and walked over to put her arms around him, leaving the towel behind.
 You re lying. Part of you still wants me no matter what you say.
She nestled against his chest and Will kept his arms motionless, trying to imagine
she wore clothes.
 What s wrong with me? she asked.
 Nothing. Nothing he wanted to list now, anyway.
 Then why don t you want me? Don t you think I m beautiful?
 You shouldn t have come here, Vee.
 I wanted to be with you today, she said.  Just today.
Will glanced at the luggage in the corner.
 Don t you remember this day? she asked.
He was at once on alert.  No.
 The day we lost our baby, Will. The day our little baby died. You re the only one
who understands.
Then he believed the tears and let himself hug the memory of what had been inside
her.
A child hadn t been planned, but he d been ecstatic at the news. He thought it
would put things right between them, stop Vee straying. The first time she d had an
affair, he d taken her back and given her another chance because she swore it would
never happen again. Then two days after she d told him she was pregnant, he found her
lying naked in the arms of their equally naked next-door neighbor.
Once the neighbor had grabbed his clothes and left, Will told Vee the marriage was
over. She drove off in a flood of tears, crashed the car and lost the baby growing inside
her. At her bedside in hospital, Will offered her another chance. A mistake. A month
after she d been discharged from hospital, he found her in the arms of one of his
friends. That really was the end.
Only it wasn t, because although he moved out of their flat, Vee constantly called
him to sort out some problem, real or imagined. She always came to him in times of
crisis and she always seemed to be in a crisis. It hadn t escaped Will s notice that most
of her difficulties could be sorted out by taking her to bed, or as Vee had once described
it, giving her a  get-better fuck . What he d thought would be no-strings-attached sex,
had turned out to be anything but.
Will knew Vee was unstable and that made him feel worse. After he d removed his
belongings from their home, she d taken an overdose and had her stomach pumped. Ed
had talked him out of taking her back then. Now Ed had stepped in again. They both
knew what would have happened if Vee found him in bed with Addie. Vee had stalked
and threatened Jolene, a previous girlfriend. It had cost Will a fortune to sort that out.
Jolene could have brought charges. He sighed as Vee snuffled in his arms. Ed thought
he d done the right thing this evening, but Will wished he hadn t. He wished Addie had
her arms around him and Vee was in a taxi going back to the station.
 This has to end, Will said.  You have to stop running to me every time you re
upset.
 But you re the only one I can rely on. You are the one good thing that has ever
happened to me.
Why did that make him so miserable?
 Find some other idiot to lean on. I won t do this anymore. Even to his ears his
voice lacked conviction.
 I thought you d understand because of our baby. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]