Page 81 of Enemies to Lovers

‘And you still haven’t asked Jamie about it?’ she presses. ‘Even though you’ve been sleeping together? How did it not come up?’

‘The note?’ I ask.

Kate flags down the waiter again. ‘Hi,’ she says, with a big smile. ‘Could we get another croissant, please? In fact two more? Thanks.’ She turns her attention back to me. ‘Okay, so you didn’t know he would be here because Alex’s stupid email address means you didn’t see the family thread …’ I shrug, assuming this sounds reasonable. ‘So Jamie gets here, with his tan and his abs and his heart of gold, and you’re mad at him for doing a runner.’

‘Exactly,’ I respond. ‘Butheseemed mad at me, which makes me evenmoremad. Like so what: you flirt with me all Christmas, you say you want me to stay up and to come and see me one night, and then … you pie me off with a note under the door? Andyou’remad atme? No. No, no, no.’

‘I knew it was weird between you,’ Kate says, eyesalight with confirmation. ‘You wouldn’t even look at Jamie. But, babe, I don’t think he was mad at you – he kept staring at you, watching you, I even overheard him trying to make conversation with you …’

‘I think it was for appearance’s sake,’ I counter. ‘Invited here by Mum and Dad, their surrogate son, and all that – he was an arse to me, but fair play: he’s got manners.’

‘Hmmm,’ Kate says, mulling over my point.

‘So, okay, long story short.’

‘This is definitely long story long,’ Kate laughs, ‘but I amherefor it.’

‘Long story long,’ I correct myself. ‘I’m mad, he’s mad, there’s all this unsaid stuff between us, all this tension, and then things change … I don’t know. Like, we weren’t very good at hating each other.’

‘That morning you said all those horrible things about him,’ Kate says. ‘And he heard …’

‘Yeah,’ I nod. ‘I meant them, but I didn’t mean them. He wasreallyunder my skin. So I had this idea.’

Kate cocks an eyebrow, an invitation to go on.

‘I read this poem about how if you get to know a man, you cease to be bothered by him.’

‘Okay …’

‘So I thought:Okay, I’ll be friendly, I can move past this. He might be gorgeous to look at, but he’s an arse.’

‘Okay …’

‘And that became this notion of, like,exposure therapy. That if wedid it– got to know each other properly – itcould cure us of this janky energy; we could get it out of our systems, and then we could all live happily ever after.’ I screw up my face when I’ve said this, because out loud it doesn’t sound as sophisticated as it had in my head. ‘And as I’m saying all this, it probably sounds immature, but it made sense. At the time. We really did trynotto do it … but it just happened.’

Kate shakes her head, knits her eyebrows together. ‘I can’t get over this note he left you,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t seem like Jamie at all. And if he did that, why come on this trip when you’d be here?’

I shrug. ‘Like I say, I didn’t ask.’

‘I’ve always thought he’s in love with you,’ she presses on. ‘I can’t comprehend thisleading-you-onnonsense. I’m so good at reading people! But this …’

‘Well,’ I say, with finality, ‘it’s over now. Laurie needs to forgive him, and we all need to forget it,’ I say. ‘It was incredible sex, but that’s all it was. Until it wasn’t.’

Kate lowers her sunglasses and fixes me with a stare. ‘That’s all it was for you?’ she clarifies. ‘Sex?’

I nod, slowly. ‘Yes …’ I reply, because I feel like the question is a trick. She doesn’t say anything, just pushes her glasses back up her nose and sighs, deeply.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘One last thing,’ she says. ‘Last night, it didn’t all end because we found out – you said it had endedbeforewe found out?’

‘We had an argument,’ I say. ‘I … called Jamie a “holiday fling” and it really hurt him. So he stormed out.’

That’s enough to make Kate take her sunglasses off properly and lean forward in her chair.

‘Flo,’ she says, and it’s not mean, but it is firm, ‘if you ask me, one way or another you’ve known Jamie is in love with you, and whether you can admit you love him too, you willingly slept with him, knowing it wouldn’t ever be enough. You’re kidding yourself if you thought it would be.’

‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘It was just sex. And he hit on me first, for the record …’

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