“Well? Are you?”
My hand grasped my chest. How could he think I’d ever want to hurt him? All I was doing was trying to protect myself. I needed to get out. I didn’t want him to see me cry, and I knew tears were next.
I grabbed my bag and headed toward the door. He followed me. “Are you just going to leave? That’s it? No discussion? Fucking perfect.”
“We’re not having a discussion. You’re shouting at me. I’m just trying—” I continued toward the door, stopping as I reached for the handle.
“To do what, exactly? Keep yourself and me miserable? Give yourself a reason not to be with me?”
The corridor was dark, but I could still see the shadow of Luke’s enormous frame covering me. He stood so close that if I just moved back an inch, my body would be pressed against his.
“Please.” I wasn’t sure what I was asking for. For him to be patient with me, for him to let me leave.
“Tell me what you want.” He spoke softly this time.
“I want to be sure of you and how you feel. If overnight you’ve decided you want me then just as quickly you can change your mind again. I want to be sure I’m not the easy option—”
“Believe me, I don’t think you’re the easy option. Especially not at the moment.” He sighed, and I felt him move away from me. I turned to face him. He was leaning against the wall, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his head bowed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Tell me how long I have to wait, what I have to do. I get that it was too soon after Emma when we first . . . But now—”
“There’s so much at stake.” My family, my security, my world were on the line.
“But so much to gain.”
“It’s still only a few weeks.”
“But not in my head, Ashleigh. I don’t think I was ever in deep with Emma. Not like I am with you. This is different. I can’t go back. You mean too much to me for me to think that this can’t work.”
My pulse was jumping in my neck. He was saying everything I wanted to hear. “We just need time.”
“I don’t.” He sounded so sure. “You might need time but I’m ready for the next stage of my life, and I don’t want to miss a moment.”
“Then will you give me time?” Maybe that was it. Maybe I needed time to adjust, to trust Luke’s feelings for me.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Live your life, Luke. If we’re meant to happen, we’ll know when the time is right for both of us.”
Luke
“Wow, your pace has really come on.” Fiona grabbed my wrist, pressing at buttons on my tracker. “Yeah. Your speed has gone up by twenty percent in just a few weeks. That’s incredible.”
I fell forward, grasping my knees and desperately pulling air into my lungs as I waited for the thudding in my chest to reduce so I could speak, think.
Fiona was breathless, but didn’t seem close to passing out the way I was. How embarrassing. I knew she’d been training for far longer, but I hadn’t started from nothing. I’d always been a runner.
“Jesus, you’re fit,” I said, glancing up at her, finally able to form words.
“Thanks,” she said, coyly lifting one shoulder and giving me a small smile. “You’ve just started to train differently, but you’re doing really well. You need to mix it up though. Maybe start some circuit training. Don’t just concentrate on running, cycling and swimming. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it will help.” She tapped my upper arm. “Come on. Keep walking.”
Fiona and I had been running a route around the city—it was so quiet at the weekends. All the commuters had dispersed, leaving behind empty office buildings and the few of us who lived within the square mile that made up London’s financial district. It had been a peaceful run, a stark contrast to barely being able to squeeze onto the pavements when walking on weekdays. Fiona said the parks of West London, where I’d always run before, got too busy at the weekends, especially if the weather was decent. Hyde Park had always been a favorite, but then it hadn’t mattered if people got in my way and slowed me down.
“Shall we grab a coffee?” I pointed to one of the few signs of life—a small cafe across the street. It gave me a reason to sit, which worked for me.
Fiona narrowed her eyes but nodded. “Sure.”
We ordered coffees—or in my case a juice and water, I was laying off the caffeine—and found a table near the window. There was only one other couple in the place. No wonder nothing was open around here, there weren’t any customers. I watched as they wordlessly swapped bits of the Sunday Times. I could have been watching Emma and me. Comfortable together. Unconsciously moving forward. Life didn’t require you to evaluate your relationship constantly, so most people just floated along if there was no reason to split. In a way, I was lucky that Emma had brought up marriage because I’d been forced to make a conscious choice about my future. I guess that was exactly what Ashleigh was afraid of—that I was happy to drift into coupledom, when for her it was a positive action. I took a deep breath at the realization. Maybe these weeks since I’d last seen Ashleigh were a good thing for us both.
“Are you enjoying it?” Fiona asked.
I swallowed my grapefruit juice. “It’s tangy.”
She laughed, and I was drawn to the movement of her breasts. “I meant the training.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, I see. Yes. It’s brutal, and I’m not sure it’s a healthy thing to like brutal, but yes.”
I was enjoying the focus I was getting from it, the fact I didn’t have too much time on my hands and that I was working toward something. I’d enjoyed the way Ashleigh had looked at my changing body the last time she’d seen me. The heat in her eyes had led me to believe she wanted me.
I’d not seen her since then. I’d made excuses to miss Sunday dinners in the few weeks following, and there had been no phone calls, no contact. I’d hated it, particularly at first, and checked my phone relentlessly, waiting for her to tell me she was ready. Now I was nearly resigned to just letting things settle between us.
Fiona laughed. “It is brutal, but I like the feeling now,” she said, watching me twist the circular lid of my drink. “After running, the come down. The sweat beginning to dry, the awareness of the strengthened muscles under my skin, the adrenaline seeping away.” She stretched her arms, lifting tall in her chair, the hem of her shirt riding up and revealing a band of soft white skin.
She relaxed and I glanced back up at her face. She’d caught me checking her out. She smiled and I looked away.
“Yeah. I guess this bit’s good.” I stared out the window at nothing, not quite knowing what I meant. She was good company. And attractive.
“So what made you want to start to train? Bad breakup?” she asked.
Ashleigh and I hadn’t broken up; we hadn’t had a chance to break up. It struck me that I was post breakup, just with Emma.
“I don’t know about bad . . .” I shifted in my seat, more comfortable now that the focus was away from her body, and back onto safer territory . . . kinda.
“How long were you a couple?”
“Three years. We were living together. I moved out.” A dull sensation radiated from my gut. It wasn’t sorrow—it was irritation, regret maybe, that I’d stayed as long as I had. I should have been braver, moved on sooner. The problem was, each day in itself wasn’t an issue. Emma and I didn’t hate each other, or continually fight. There’d been nothing pushing me away as such. It was just when I added up those days, they didn’t amount to much. All together we’d not mattered much to each other, there’d been nothing drawing us together, making us better as a couple. God, it felt like a lifetime ago. It had all happened before Ashleigh, and anyone before her seemed long ago. She was different. Every day with her mattered.