Marriage Make-Over. Ally Blake
The natural curve was just so kissable and the corners were for ever turned with the hint of a private smile. Added to that those lips were now sleek with fresh rainwater.
From deep down in places she had forgotten even existed, a concoction of sensations and emotions dragged themselves to the surface. Her reaction to him was out of practice but as it always had been. Inevitable. Knee-weakening. And blinding. She had always found him beautiful. Inside and out. So much so her heart raced so that she could hardly breathe. And he hadn’t even yet looked her way.
Get a grip, Kelly. Cool. Think cool.
She swallowed down her clambering ardour, because now she knew how little these feelings meant in the grand scheme of things. In the course of writing Single and Loving It! she had talked to dozens of other women who had been in similar boats, and had changed her view dramatically.
Her feelings for him had been understandable teenage lust and now she was just experiencing an echo of those sensations. Like her belly ring, her chopped hair and her hippy aspirations, it had been the perfect rebellion against her conservative parents. It had never really been love in the first place. Relentless passion, and unceasing adoration, sure. But love? That she now very much doubted.
‘Hello, Simon.’
His head snapped up, his eyes narrowed. A moment later they softened, lit from within, their hazel depths flickering with warm gold, and beneath the altered exterior her Simon gazed back at her. And she all but melted.
‘Hello, Kelly.’
His smooth, low voice washed over her like a warm sun shower. The five years since she had heard him speak slipped away and it felt as if it had been no more than five minutes.
‘I assume you got my letter,’ he said and Kelly remembered why she was there and she was much obliged as the gulf between them widened once more.
This was no happy reunion with her long-lost best friend. This was no time to fall into a hopeless, trembling puddle at her former lover’s feet. This was an intervention.
The day she signed a freelance contract doing the perfect, made-for-her job, writing about how to live without a man, her husband turned up on the scene. He was a thorn in the side of the wonderful new life she had created for herself and he had to be removed, fast, before he became too deeply imbedded.
‘I did get your preposterous letter,’ she said, ‘and I would appreciate it if that was the last of its kind.’
‘Fine. Don’t write rubbish and I will have no reason to refute it.’
Her first response was a slow, steadying blink as he walked past her without another glance and took his bags of groceries into the kitchen. She followed, striving to drag her treacherous gaze from the tempting sight of tanned, tensed forearm muscles as he carried the heavy load.
‘Rubbish?’ she yelled when she finally found her voice. ‘I would have you know the women I write about are all real people. Real women with real experiences and real hopes that have been dashed one too many times by men.’ She all but spat the word in his face.
He continued to unpack his groceries all but ignoring her outburst. ‘That column of yours has to be damaging. Individual women have the capacity to make up their own minds about their individual relationships. The last thing they need is some unqualified post-feminist hack spreading easy wholesale answers to serious situations.’
Kelly coughed and spluttered her way back into the conversation. ‘I would have you know that it is the most popular new column in the magazine’s history.’
He shrugged. ‘Popularity is fleeting and not something to hang your hat on. Think plaid flares. Think fluorescent socks. Need I go on?’
‘Readers love me!’
‘I thought your job was to convince your readers there was no such thing as love.’
She counted to ten in her mind. ‘No such thing as romantic, everlasting love between a man and a woman. Respect and heartfelt thanks are out there in droves and they are coming my way.’
‘Fine. You are a star. But you are also a liar.’
Steam was streaming from her ears, literally, she was certain. She could feel it heating up her scalp! ‘Me? A liar? How dare you—?’
The steam faded. She was a liar, wasn’t she? Of sorts. Nobody knew she was married. But then again she did not know if Maya was married. And to all intents and purposes she was alone. And single. But before she could tell Simon just how wrong he was, he turned on her.
‘Did you actually read my letter?’
Only a hundred times. ‘Yes,’ she said through clenched teeth.
‘And that’s why you’re here?’
‘Of course. Nothing else would possibly have dragged me here. But my editor wants me to respond to your ridiculous statements in the next column.’
Simon smiled, his beautiful mouth turning up at the sides and revealing lovely, naturally neat white teeth. Her heart leapt. She mentally slapped it down.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I look forward to hearing your response.’
‘My response, Simon, is that you can stick your letter up your—’
Simon’s sensibilities were saved by the shrill ringing of his mobile phone. He turned away and answered it. His voice switched into professional mode. After a few moments he put his hand over the mouthpiece and said, ‘It’s my broker. Won’t be a moment. Don’t go away.’ He walked out of the room, talking residuals and percentages as he went.
She had never seen him talk like that to anyone. Her Simon had been a thinker, a dreamer, not someone who lived in a museum, carried the latest in mobile phones, and had a stockbroker! And not someone who could demand her to stay with such authority that she could not help but shoot him a saucy salute behind his departing back.
After a few moments she followed, intrigued despite herself, and peeked around the corner.
He was in his bedroom and it was as sparse and flavourless as the rest of the apartment. He had already whipped off his soaked top and tossed it on a gargantuan white bed and was pulling the belt from his trousers. One glance at the broad naked shoulders and tanned buff chest on show was enough for Kelly to spring back into the dining room, her heart beating a million miles a minute and her head swimming with mixed images of Simon at twenty-one, slim and fit, to be sure, but certainly not the strapping man she had just glimpsed.
Well, several seconds of solid ogling were probably more than a glimpse…
Kelly’s self-consciousness returned in full measure. She worried that compared to her eighteen-year-old self she looked too thin, too grown up. She rushed through the bare apartment searching frantically for a mirror and had to settle for her reflection in the microwave.
She needed all the body armour she could muster. She tugged at her dress, smoothed out her hair, ran a finger under each eye to make sure her eyeliner was even. She sucked in her stomach, puffed out her minimal chest and waited for her one-time paramour to return.
He did, soon enough, wearing dry chocolate-brown trousers and a deep red shirt, untucked with the top two buttons open showing a glimpse of the enviable physique beneath, and went straight to unpacking his groceries without even a glance her way.
Even in her barely-there dress she felt hot. Hot and bothered. Yet he had barely even taken in her sexy short dress. She had not caught him checking out her legs or anything! It was plainly obvious he was not back for all that and she fought to squash the rising disappointment. So why was he back?
‘Why are you writing this column, Kelly?’
‘To pay the rent,’ she spat out. It meant infinitely more to her than that but she had no intention of letting him know the power he held by simply being on the scene.
His hands stopped shuffling for a brief moment before taking up where they left