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He took off his jacket, slung it over the back of one of the chairs surrounding the big pine dining table and dropped into the squashy sofa tucked into the corner of their country-style kitchen.
He was in a big enough hole as it was. He might just as well carry on digging. Anything to keep her mind off shoving his six-foot frame through the front door. Adele might be petite, but she was surprisingly strong.
‘How about that tea?’
Adele closed her eyes and her shoulders sagged. He’d won the first round, but he felt like kicking himself in the behind for making her look so tired and world-weary.
‘Get it yourself. I’m going upstairs. And if you think you’re putting that bag you dumped in the hallway in my bedroom you can think again. You know where the spare room is.’
Ouch.
Nick grimaced as Adele spun round and stomped up the stairs. He had not handled that well, but arguing back would have made her dig her heels in deeper. He’d learned long ago that getting her to laugh was the solution.
She had a good sense of humour; she just kept it on a tight leash most of the time. And if there was one thing he was good at, it was making his wife smile.
Seeing Adele defrost was a wonderful thing. She started off all spiky and hard—like one of those puffer fish—and he’d just keep being impossible until he could see the glint in her eyes and the way her jaw worked overtime to keep a straight face. If he timed it right, he’d give one last smile, one last look, and she’d let out a big puff of air and deflate, becoming the warm, passionate woman he loved so much.
He let his head fall back onto the sofa cushion and closed his eyes.
He knew what she thought: that her husband had chosen a once-in-a-lifetime job over her, but that wasn’t the way he saw it at all. Adele was too busy being self-righteous to see that she was the one who had refused to budge an inch. It had been her decision to put the marriage on hold.
There might be two sides to every story, but Adele was always, always convinced hers was the right one. The annoying thing was, most of the time she was right. However, now and again she got things spectacularly wrong. And when she did, it was usually something big.
He wiggled into a more comfortable position. The jet lag was catching up on him and this sofa was so comfy. The jacket of one of her business suits was draped across the back. It smelled of her perfume, warm and spicy. If he closed his eyes, it was almost as if she were sitting next to him.
They’d spent many happy evenings cuddled up together on this old sofa with glasses of wine after the evening meal was finished. And there had been other times when they used the sofa for much less relaxing pursuits…
He smiled to himself as he drifted off to sleep. Less relaxing, but so much more fun.
The kitchen door creaked slightly as Adele pushed it open. She paused. It was quiet. Too quiet. Nick was like a naughty toddler in that respect. If he was silent, he was probably up to no good. The door swung wide and she spotted him, sprawled all over the sofa, sleeping like a baby.
Even that made her want to scream. How did he do that? Turn off all the tension between them and lapse into unconsciousness? She was nowhere near relaxed. Drink ten espressos—doubles—and you’d have an idea of where her nerve levels were. Then she looked at Nick again and a sigh left her chest unbidden.
Fast asleep like that, he looked so angelic. His hair was just that little bit too long to be spiky and there always seemed to be a bit that fell across his forehead. Many a time she’d woken early in the morning, smiled at him and brushed the wayward strand away. It was all she could do at that very moment to stop herself crossing the room and repeating the gesture.
She had to get out of here. Now. Before she forgot all the reasons why Nick Hughes should not be let within a five-mile radius of her heart.
She grabbed her handbag off the counter and closed the kitchen door. Moments later she was fully kitted out in coat, scarf and gloves and was making her way down the road. Mid-February in London was invariably damp and cold, and this night was happy to follow the trend.
She found herself at Mona’s house. Her precariously balanced life had just fallen off a precipice and she needed her best friend. Mona answered the door with a baby on her hip.
‘My God, Adele! What’s happened?’
‘It’s Nick.’
Mona gasped and put a hand to her mouth. ‘Is he…? Was there an accident?’
‘No. Worse.’
‘Worse than falling off the side of a mountain?’
‘I’ve no idea whether he’s been climbing or not recently, but I do know where he is right this very minute. My extreme-sports-loving husband is alive and well and fast asleep in our kitchen—my kitchen.’
Mona’s brows gathered together like thunderclouds. She pulled Adele into a gruff hug that was both sudden and unexpected. ‘You’d better come in and tell me all about it.’
When Adele pulled away she had baby drool on the front of her jacket. She stroked her goddaughter’s head and gave her a kiss then let Mona lead her into the sitting room.
‘He just turned up out of the blue.’
‘No warning at all?’
Adele gave her friend a knowing look. ‘What? Nick? The man who is so bad at forward planning that he can’t even decide what he wants to eat for dinner until he’s hungry?’
Mona popped Bethany on the floor and gave her a rattle to play with. ‘What does he want?’
Adele shrugged. ‘Who knows? I tried asking him, but he just got all…Nick…on me. He says he wants to talk.’
‘About what?’
Adele let out a breath and felt her stomach plunge downwards. ‘I suppose he could be back to ask for a…you know…divorce,’ she said quietly. ‘That would explain why he didn’t just want to launch into it. Even Nick wouldn’t just turn up after nine months—’
‘Nine and a half, actually.’
Adele closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. ‘Well, however many months…Even Nick wouldn’t just turn up and say, Hi, honey, I’m home—and, by the way, you’re history.’
Mona nodded. ‘Of course, you’ll want to get in first.’
Her friend looked so serious Adele dared not mention that she hadn’t thought of that. But she should have. Where was her old fighting spirit? Suddenly the furnace of indignation was about as lively as the rain-soaked coals on a typical English barbecue.
Mona sat back and gave her a questioning look.
‘Please don’t tell me you want him back!’
A reflex answer should have popped out of Adele’s mouth at that second. A firm no. Of course not. Never in a million years. Instead she closed her eyes and rubbed the sides of her face with her hands.
‘Adele?’
‘I thought I wanted him gone for good. It was an easy decision when he was thousands of miles away, but now he’s back and…I don’t know…divorce just seems so…final.’
‘Don’t you dare let him wear you down with that boyish charm of his, Adele!’
‘I’m not!’
‘Pah! You’re weakening. I can see the cracks from here. Have you forgotten how he treated you when he left?’
No, she hadn’t forgotten. She remembered every last detail of the day he’d dropped the bombshell.
His work as a special-effects designer for TV and films had really been taking off, after years of only just scraping by. Seemed he’d actually been doing more than just messing around in the shed at the bottom of the garden with bits of scrap metal and rubbery stuff.
After a couple of popular TV commercials, he’d been asked to do the effects for a low-budget independent film. Against all expectation, the film had been a huge hit and Nick’s name had been put firmly on the map. They’d both been so pleased at the time. She’d even been able to put up with the strange hours and the fact he could disappear for days at a time, often arriving back with no warning at four in the morning. If she’d have known what was going to come of all of it, she might not have been so thrilled for him.
One day, he’d burst into her office and announced the big news, wearing a grin so wide she’d thought his face would split. He’d been offered a job on a big Hollywood project, some scifi film, and he had five days to pack and get himself out to California to meet with the producers. If they liked him, he needed to start almost straight away.
That was when things started to go seriously wrong. Nick had been so busy in the following months that Adele had almost felt as if she were single again. Often the only evidence that he’d come home at all when she woke up in the mornings were the plans for the next contraption he was going to build doodled in the margins of one of her reports.
And then he’d wanted her to leave her business behind and move halfway across the world at a moment’s notice. As if. For the first time in her life she’d had roots. A home. A purpose. There was no way she was going to throw all of that away on a whim. It had been time to put her foot down.
They’d had a huge fight. The worst one they’d ever had—and that was saying something. Even so, when she’d yelled, ‘Take the stupid job if you really think it’s that important!’ she hadn’t expected him to take her at her word and jump on a plane.
Mona’s voice brought her back to the present. ‘Come on, girl. You’ve got to be strong.’
‘I am strong,’ Adele said, her face drooping. At least, she wanted to be. Month upon month of pretending she’d been fine without Nick had been exhausting.
Mona’s husband had upped and left when baby number two had arrived only ten months ago. She and Mona had got through the early months of their individual crises by channelling their anger into weekly ranting sessions in Mona’s front room.
The period after Nick had left had been the worst in her life and she was not going to give him the opportunity to send her spiralling back to that dark, lonely place.
She sat up straighter. ‘No, you’re right. Who needs men? Stuff ‘em!’
‘That’s more like it. Now, how are you going to deal with the daredevil who’s currently snoozing in your kitchen?’
Fire him into next week with one of his homemade canons?
Tempting. Very tempting, in fact. She should encourage that feeling, let it grow and swell, and then she wouldn’t do the other thing she was sorely temped to do—run back home just to look at him while he slept. Kiss him awake and show him how much she’d missed him.
But she couldn’t weaken like that. She wouldn’t.
He’d done the one thing he’d promised never to do: he’d left her, and she wasn’t about to give him the chance to hurt her that way again. At least, that was what her head was telling her. Her heart had a crazy agenda all of its own.
Adele shook her head. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to go and talk to him at some point. I just can’t face it tonight. When Nick catches me on the hop, I always end up agreeing to one of his crazy schemes. I need to be prepared. Focused.’
She could not let Nick know he still had the power to make her quiver every time he came near. He’d use it against her. He’d make her believe they’d have a chance then he’d yank the rug right from under her feet again. It was inevitable.
She needed to protect herself. Nick had to believe she was totally immune to him and there was no way she was going to convince him of that tonight. She was still in a state of shock and likely to do something stupid—like tell him she’d been joking about the spare room.
‘Stay here,’ Mona said. ‘We can make battle plans over a bottle of red wine.’
‘Thanks, Mona. You’re a lifesaver.’
Mona picked up Bethany, who was starting to grizzle, and stood up. ‘Come on, young miss. Time for bed.’ She turned just before she headed out of the living-room door.
‘Does he know about…you know?’
Adele threaded her fingers together and squeezed until her knuckles hurt. ‘No. I never told him.’
CHAPTER TWO
THERE WAS A HAND brushing his face. Nick sat up, suddenly wide awake, and realised the fingers were his own. He had hooked his elbow behind his head while he’d been sleeping and now his hand felt fat and numb.
The lights were still on in the kitchen, but it was dark outside and he had no idea what time it was. He shook his dead hand until he could feel the blood prickle then took a look at his watch. Six a.m. No way!
He shook his head and looked again. No wonder he felt so stiff. He’d spent the last twelve hours on a two-seater sofa, crunched into goodness-knew-what strange positions.
Adele would probably be up in an hour or so. She had always been an early riser, a complete contrast to his night-owlish tendencies. He felt crumpled and stale, not just from his strange sleeping place, but also from the long flight from LA the day before. No point trying to sweet talk Adele if he was looking rough and smelling even worse. He’d better hop in the shower and spruce up before he tried talking to her again.
He dragged his bag upstairs, and almost barged into the master bedroom on autopilot. An idiotic mistake. He’d have to think quicker than that if he wanted to get on Adele’s good side. Even he wasn’t daft enough to think he could jump back into his life after all this time as if nothing had changed.
Only he wished he could just slide back into his old life. He and Adele had been so happy. One moment of rash anger had probably cost him his marriage. He hardly ever lost his temper, but Adele had pushed and pushed and pushed until he’d erupted.
It just proved to him that his usual technique of sweeping everything negative under the carpet and wisecracking until it all went away was a much safer option. If he’d done that last May, maybe things would have been different. He wouldn’t have had to live with the ache deep inside that just wouldn’t go away, no matter how many practical jokes he’d played on his colleagues to distract himself from it.
Half an hour later he was shaved, dressed and making coffee in the kitchen. The idea was to catch Adele on the caffeine high after her obligatory morning coffee. He knew all the little tricks to get her onside, had employed them so many times it was almost habit.
Of course, this time he had to be extra careful. It was a bit more serious than the incident in which he’d finished off her designer make-up in an attempt to get a latex head he was about to split with an axe to look a little more lifelike.
And then, of course, there had been the time he’d used her best casserole to mix up gungy alien blood. She had not appreciated the green food colouring that wouldn’t come off no matter how hard she’d scrubbed. He’d learned the hard way to stay clear of Adele’s kitchen utensils. She was unusually finicky in that area.
No, this time he was going to be sensible and talk properly to her. That was plan A. Then he had to get her to agree to plan B, which hopefully would lead to fulfilling plan C. Plan C was the big one: making Adele see they were meant to be together.
He just couldn’t fail at that one, so he was going to pull out all the stops. It couldn’t hurt to smooth the way a little—with caffeine and smiles and dimples.
He turned the coffee machine on and sat himself at the table, opposite the door. Any moment now, she’d appear.
But Adele didn’t appear. And patience was not one of Nick’s strong suits.
Perhaps his wife would like breakfast in bed? Or was that taking the schmoozing a bit too far? When he’d left, Adele had not been one for Sunday-morning lie-ins. Not unless he’d been there to convince her there was something worth staying in bed for.
He leant back in the wooden chair, deflated. He’d missed Adele. Really missed her. When he’d got back to California after his first trip home, he’d been surprised how long the anger had bubbled inside him. He hadn’t been able to shake it off as normal. But then, that was understandable, wasn’t it?
Anyone would be angry if their wife had dumped them at the first tiny hiccup. They could have worked something out about their jobs and his six-month contract in Hollywood, but she hadn’t even bothered to consider it. She’d been too busy screeching at him about how important her job and her life and her friends were to her. It had come as a rude shock to find that he was bottom of the list—if he was on there at all.
His job was just as important to him, but Adele never took him seriously, even when someone had pulled out of a contract and he’d been offered a last-minute chance to work with highly acclaimed producer Tim Brookman. He was practically Hollywood royalty. It had been an opportunity he just couldn’t refuse, and it hurt more than he cared to admit that she hadn’t enough faith in him to support his decision.
Irritation started to buzz round his head. He swatted it away and checked the clock. It was half-past eight now. Surely Adele wasn’t still sleeping? Perhaps he’d better go and check she was OK.
He raced up the stairs, but slowed his pace as he neared their bedroom door. He smiled as he remembered the way she snored softly sometimes. It was so sweet. And it was strangely gratifying to know that perfect Adele had one tiny flaw.
But there was no snoring now. In fact, there was no sound at all.
He nudged the door open and blinked as he saw the room was unusually bright. The curtains were drawn and cold February sunshine lit up the empty bed. The covers were neatly in place and the elaborate arrangement of scatter cushions at the head of the bed was undisturbed.
His stomach bottomed out, just the way it had when he’d walked into the bedroom almost a year ago and seen the empty wardrobe, doors flung wide, hangers bare like autumn twigs.
Then he’d found the crisp, polite note saying she was staying at Mona’s and didn’t want to see him. He’d turned around and gone back to America, appalled his wife had bailed out on him so easily. At least he’d managed to persuade Mona to get her to move back into the house after he’d left.
He marched over to the wardrobe and wrenched the door open. Breath whooshed out of his lungs as he found the neat row of jackets, blouses and dresses—grouped by function and then by colour. If Adele found a pair of cargo trousers among her summer dresses, she’d get all itchy about it.
Now he was just plain confused. Adele’s clothes were here, but Adele wasn’t.
