And then she’s gone, and I have to cut up fruit and cubes of cheese and put out bread and ham and juice to keep Jack and Katie from complaining they are hungry when I’m trying to get through to Holly how much I love her.
How much I love her?
Fuck, yes. I think I’ve loved her for years. Not just wanting to see her so that I know how she’s getting on. I’ve been kidding myself about that. What I feel for her is plain, honest to god love.
And I don’t know if she will ever love me back. If she will even believe me.
CHAPTER 25
Holly
It’s time to wean myself off my stupid crush from long ago and act like an adult. It hurts too much to mess with any of this when Mercia is still on the scene. And it’s worse because I thought he cared. I thought he was my first and only, and now I know I was just a warm body to him, nothing special at all. I look down at me in the shower, thinking about Mercia’s parting shot. I’m just an ordinary girl, no movie star. Why would a man like Reid, with all his wealth, look at me as anything more than an amusing diversion?
Despite my gloomy thoughts, the hot water makes me feel better than I did when he found me. I’m not only warmer, but also stronger and more able to face him.
I’ll just have to grow a pair and deal with the whole crappy mess.
I get dressed in the least sexy clothes I brought—jeans and a T-shirt for messing about with the kids—and throw on a cardigan. I try to repair the signs of ugly crying with a bit of makeup without much success, but it will have to do. I take a deep breath and go out to face whatever I have to face.
Reid is watching a DVD with the kids. It’s Frozen again.
“I need to talk to Holly in the kitchen,” he says. “Be good for a little while, and then you can have as much ice cream as you want like I promised you.”
I follow him into the kitchen.
“Thanks for coming back. I was really worried about you. Mercia’s dad is only in the hospital for a minor operation. The bitch must have wanted me and the kids out of the way so she could get at you.”
“She’s not the problem, you are. It wasn’t that she came to see me. It was what she said.”
“What did she say, exactly?”
“That you got together with her in L.A., that you were only using me as a, what did she call it? Oh yes, as a ‘random fuck’ because I was there, and how handy it was that I was around to babysit so you could meet up with her for two nights. That she could click her fingers and have you come running to her just like you did today.”
“None of that is true. She was in L.A., yes, but I didn’t know she’d be there. And I thought her father was in danger today, so of course I went to the hospital.”
“So it’s true you saw her in L.A.” Part of me was hoping that it was all lies.
“There was nothing in it. She just turned up at a business dinner I was hosting.”
“Why didn’t you mention it, then?”
“It was just work, and I wanted to forget the whole thing. I didn’t know Mercia was involved with the head of the company we were dealing with. He brought her to dinner. She seemed to use the whole thing to seek attention. I felt sorry for the guy as it became more and more obvious she was trying to make me jealous. It always rankled, I guess, how easily I let her go, that I didn’t fight for her. That I didn’t go running after her when she left.”
Is he saying it’s different with me because he came looking for me? Who knows what’s true here? “I thought you were cut up about your divorce.”
“Of course I was. No one wants to be divorced, even if the person they married was a huge mistake. I was upset for the kids too. They ended up with a broken home.”
But there’s something else she said that he can’t wriggle out of. “If you didn’t spend the night together, how come Mercia knew where you were staying, down to the room you were in? Did she have to tuck you into bed or something? I might be younger than you, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Oh, I wish I’d told you. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to give you more to hate Mercia for. We have to keep in contact for the kids’ sake and… anyway, I guess I have to tell you now.”
He pauses. Is he working out what to say?
“Just tell me the truth, Reid.”
“This is the truth. I won’t lie to you, Holly. We hosted the dinner in the restaurant at the hotel we were using. I don’t know how Mercia knew which room I was in. Maybe she saw me sign the check. Maybe she overheard the desk clerk when she returned an hour or so after the dinner; he called up to tell me she was waiting to see me.”