Page 109 of The Christmas Invitation
‘With Rollo, perhaps, but not with someone else.’
‘No,’ I said with finality. ‘I’ll have fun being an auntie to my friends’ children. That’ll be enough.’
There was a long silence, broken eventually by Lex.
‘I don’t know how to start apologizing for all the things I thought about youandsaid to you, since you came here. I still feel guilty about the past and Lisa, but at least none of it was anything to do with you.’
I decided to clear my conscience once and for all. It took quite an effort. ‘Idohave a touch of guilt about that night in the flat,’ I confessed. ‘Because when you kissed me, I went with it at first. But then I realized what I was doing and pulled away and you passed out again. I was surprised you remembered it.’
His lips twisted. ‘Oh, I remembered it all right, and that I knew it was you I was kissing.AndI wanted to. That was part of the guilt.’
‘You did say my name before you passed out again,’ I admitted. ‘I never told Fliss that.’
‘If we’re being totally honest with each other, I kept something back that night in the wine bar that’s been gnawing at me ever since: I wasn’t in love with Lisa any more and I was trying to find a way of telling her, before she fell ill.’
I stared at him, stunned. ‘But you always seemed the perfect couple!’
‘We fell in love at sixth-form college and we’d been together ever since. But first love doesn’t always last, does it?’
‘No, that’s true,’ I said, remembering the few weeks I’d had my mad crush on him.
‘I might not have been stillinlove with Lisa, but I did love her: she was sweet and kind and beautiful.’
‘She was the most genuinely good person I’ve ever met.Everyoneloved her,’ I agreed.
‘I finally felt I’d have to try to end the relationship just before she was diagnosed. I think seeing you with Rollo one day was the decider – I felt jealous.’
‘What, ofme?’ I exclaimed incredulously. Even in the throes of my brief crush on him, I’d thought he was way out of my league.
I was still feeling stunned when he said, ‘Yes, of you.’ He gave that twisted smile again. ‘There was some connection between us from the moment I first saw you in that dark corridor.’
I’dthought that feeling was all on my side! But he had seemed to like my company … until that fateful night.
‘Of course, once Lisa was diagnosed I had to stay with her. I still adored her and I did my best.’
‘You certainly did,’ I assured him.
‘Near the end, she said she hoped I’d be able to move on and have a good life with someone else. She wanted me to remember only the happy times, if I thought of her.’
Tears filled my eyes: that was so typical of her.
‘But you haven’t done that, Lex, have you?’
‘No, because I’ve been too busy wallowing in self-pity and guilt ever since. And makingyoupart of that, too.’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, Lex,’ I said, reaching out and placing my hand over his. ‘You can put it all in the past now, can’t you? River was right: getting everything out into the open has cleared the air. We might be shaped by the past, but we don’t have to constantly relive it.’
‘That sounds very like River! And it has freed me: I feel a weight has dropped off, though I think we both need a bit of time to get readjusted to the new status quo.’
His hand turned under mine and closed around it, strong and warm.
‘Can we be friends?’ he asked.
‘Yes, as well as relatives,’ I agreed. ‘Though as you keep pointing out, only by marriage and that doesn’t count.Andthe wrong side of the blanket.’
‘What an old-fashioned expression!’ he said, his seriousness suddenly softening into amusement. He pulled me towardshim and kissed me on the lips so lightly and quickly that he’d started the engine before I’d taken in what he’d done.
‘I’d forgotten how off the wall and funny you are,’ he said, and while I was still pondering that one – and the kiss – he pulled out and headed up the dark track. The star had moved and was now hanging over the turn on to the road, as if waiting for us.
