Page 8 of Husband Material
And there was Miles. Without his fiancé but still looking like a man who knew full well he was engaged to a tiny ball of sparkling wonder and was borderline smug about it. “Hi.”
I was too shocked to be angry, too angry to be depressed, and too depressed to be shocked. “Hello?” I tried to make it half greeting, half interrogation.
“I… After we met the other night… I got talking to JoJo and I explained who you were and why things had been awkward—”
“Were things awkward?” I asked in my most casual I-definitely-didn’t-have-to-run-away-and-hide voice.
“You know they were. And I know things between us ended badly.”
I almost couldn’t bring myself to call him out on that. But only almost. “Ended badly? You fucking sold me out to the fuckingtabloids. That’s notus ending badly, that’syou completely shafting me.”
“I was young and stupid and reckless.”
“You were young and an arsehole.”
“Be fair, Luc.” He gave me that knockout smile of his. “You were kind of an arsehole yourself.”
“Okay, so we were both arseholes. But only one of our arseholes walked away fifty grand richer.”
Somehow, he had the gall to act disappointed. “Don’t make this about the money. It wasn’t about the money.”
“Oh, good. So it was about deliberately hurting me, was it? That makes it so much better.”
Without being asked, Miles sat down in my office’s one free chair. “That’s not what I meant. I…I guess I was feeling trapped and it seemed like a way out.”
“And the cash was just a bonus?”
Finally he had the common decency to look ashamed.
“And so,” I powered on, “you rock up here and tell me this after all these years and, what, that’s supposed to make it okay?”
He hung his head. “Not okay, no. I wanted… JoJo wan—Wewanted to invite you to the wedding.”
“I’m sorry.” I glared at him. “For one completely absurd and obviously incorrect minute, I thought you said you wanted to invite me to your wedding.”
“Yes.”
There was no way I was having this. “Let me think. How about…no? How aboutno way in fucking hell what are you even talking about you piece of absolute shit.”
“You’ve got a—”
Fuck.It was happening again. I was Bruce Willis inDie Hard 2with the same shit happening to me twice. “And don’t say I’ve got a right to be angry. IknowI’ve got a right to be angry. Thething is, until you barged into my office like…like…like Bargey McBargeface…I didn’t have to be angry because I didn’t have to think about you at all. I could think about ordinary things like my job and my boyfriend and the fact that one of my coworkers doesn’t realise he’s an amateur porn star.”
“An amateur—”
“Don’t ask.”
Miles stood up, straightening his jacket in a way that saidI am being the only reasonable person in an unreasonable situation. “Look,” he said. “I knew it was a risk coming here.”
“What did you think you were risking, exactly? Because it seems to me like you had nothing to lose from this little visit whatsoever.”
Apparently he was going to blank that. “It’d mean a lot to JoJo if you came.”
“I don’t evenknowJoJo. Why does he give a shit? Why shouldIgive a shit?”
“You were a big part of my life, so it seems right that you should—”
This was making sense. Bullshit sense. Selfish sense. Very, veryMilessense. “Oh, right, so it’s an absolution thing. You want me to be there so that you can put the shitty thing you did to me behind you and start a new shiny life with your new shiny husband and say to yourself,It’s okay, no need to feel bad, Luc’s fine with it, he came to my wedding and everything.”
