Safe Harbour

“We have two children. Maybe it's important for them that we establish a bond again.” Amazingly, that hadn't occurred to her for the past six years. Only now. That it suited her current purpose, whatever that was. Whatever it was, Matt knew it would be good for her, and surely not for him. Her intrinsic narcissism always controlled her. It was all about her needs, and no one else's.

“I don't know …” He hesitated. “I don't see the point.”

“Forgiveness. Humanity. Compassion. We were married for fifteen years. Can't we be friends now?”

“Is it too rude to remind you that you left me for one of my best friends, moved thousands of miles away with my children, and haven't allowed me to have contact with them for the past six years? That's a lot to swallow, even between ‘friends,’ as you put it. Just how friendly is that?”

“I know…I know… I've made a lot of mistakes,” she said sweepingly, and then she put on the voice of the confessional, which was exactly what he didn't want with her. “If it's any consolation, Hamish and I were never happy. There were a lot of problems.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” he said, feeling a chill run through him. “I always had the impression that you were very happy. He was very generous with you, and your children.” And he was basically a good guy. Until he ran off with Sally, Matt had always liked him.

“Generous, yes. But he never really ‘got it.’ Not like you did. He was kind of a good-time guy, and he drank like a fish, which finally killed him,” she said unsympathetically. “We had no sex life.”

“Sally, please… for chrissake. I don't want to know that.” Matt sounded horrified and grim.

“Sorry, I forgot what a prude you are.” Socially perhaps, but never in the bedroom. And she knew that about him. She had missed him. Hamish told the filthiest jokes on the planet, and loved looking at lots of tits and ass, but he was just as happy going to bed with a porn video and a bottle as with her.

“Why don't we just stop here? There's no point in this. You can't run the film backward. It's all over. It's done. End of story.”

“It's not done. It never was. And you know it.” She had hit a nerve that was so raw, it still made him jump. It was what he had been hiding from for a decade. No matter what had happened or how bad it had been, he had always loved her. And she knew it. She could sense it still. She was a shark with a radar screen, and unfailing instincts.

“I don't care. It's over,” he said gruffly. And the tone of his voice, almost hoarse, shot the same chemicals through her, it always had. She had never gotten over him either. She had cut it off, sliced their life away like a limb she no longer wanted, but all the nerves around the stump were still raw and throbbing and alive.

“Don't have dinner with me. Have a drink. Just see me, for God's sake. What difference does it make? Why can't you do that?” Because he didn't want to hurt anymore, he reminded himself, but he felt an irresistible pull toward her and hated himself for it.

“I saw you yesterday, in the lobby.”

“No, you didn't. You saw Hamish's widow, his two kids, and your daughter.”

“That's who you are, isn't it?” he said miserably, not wanting a different answer from her.

“No, it isn't. Not to you, Matt.” The silence between them was deafening, and he groaned. She made him feel insane. She always had. Even after she left him. She could always do that to him. She knew where all the chords were, and the raw nerves, and she loved playing with all of them.

“All right, all right. Half an hour. No more. I'll see you. We'll bury the hatchet, declare ourselves friends, and then for God's sake, get the hell out of my life before you drive me crazy.” She had done it. She had gotten to him. She always did. It was the nemesis of his life. The purgatory he'd been living in, and that she'd condemned him to when she left him.

“Thank you, Matt,” she said softly. “Six o'clock tomorrow? Come to the suite. It'll be quiet and we can talk.”

“I'll see you then,” he said coldly, furious that he had given in to her. And all she could do was pray that in the next twenty-four hours, he wouldn't cancel. She knew that if she saw him, even for half an hour, everything might change. And the worst of it was that, as he hung up the phone, Matt knew it too.

24

MATT DROVE INTO TOWN AT FIVE O'CLOCK THE NEXT day, and arrived fifteen minutes early. He walked around the lobby, looking like he was stalking it, and at precisely six o'clock he was standing outside her suite, and rang the bell. He hadn't wanted to be there, but he knew that once and for all, he had to confront this. If he didn't, it would haunt him forever.

She opened the door looking serious and elegant in a black suit, black stockings, high heels, and her long blond hair was as beautiful as her daughter's. She was still a spectacular-looking woman.

“Hi, Matt,” she said easily, and offered him a chair and a martini. She remembered that he had always loved them, although he no longer drank them. But this time he accepted.