How to Get Over Your Ex (16 page)

Pity?

‘If I could have started my life over, back then, I would have.
Gladly. So I was happy to be able to give you the chance.’

She stepped away, just slightly, and pretended to admire the
view. But she was as taut inside as the ropes holding the two parts of their
aircraft together. ‘So this is your restitution?’

His voice dropped low. ‘Somewhat. Making sure you got something
out of it.’

Right.

Then he stepped up behind her. ‘But not all of it. I can see
where you’re going, Georgia. Working your way to assuming I slept with you out
of guilt.’

‘Didn’t you?’

‘No. I slept with you because it was inevitable. I’ve been
wanting to since we met.’

She slanted a look back up at him. ‘It’s not some twisted Year
of Georgia loyalty-programme bonus class?’

His smile rivalled the sunrise. And his chuckle warmed her from
the inside out. Even as she fought it. ‘No. Though that suggests you learned a
thing or two.’

She blew at the curl that hung over her eyes. ‘You have no
idea.’

He nodded slowly. She felt it against her back. ‘Me, too.’

Well...this was awkward.

‘So, the fifty grand was about guilt, but the sex is
about...sex?’

It was stupid to hope for more. But it wouldn’t be the first
time her heart and her head had operated in opposition. The secret, foolish
desire that she would be the one woman who he wanted more from.

His eyes shadowed over briefly. ‘The fifty grand was about
keeping us both out of court for breach of contract.’

And the nine hours of intensive loving...?

He lowered his voice, given the proximity of the pilot. ‘Last
night was about you and me and this amazing place,’ he went on. ‘And the
attraction that’s been distracting me so much for the better part of half a
year.’

That sounded a lot like... ‘Scratching an itch?’ It sounded as
awful as it felt.

He sighed heavy and hard behind her. ‘Medicating a burn.’

If she needed any clue that they’d be going back to their
London lives—separately—on Monday morning, that was it. You only medicated
something you wanted healed over.

Zander hadn’t promised her more. She’d made her decision last
night despite knowing that. So she had no grounds for complaint.

‘Up ahead,’ the pilot said with the best timing.

They both forced their eyes onto something other than each
other and Georgia gasped as they descended amongst a field of giant, jagged
pillars that stretched skywards, strong and masculine and potent.

Just like the man behind her.

‘This is extraordinary,’ Zander breathed, his eyes fixated on
the ancient geology as their balloon bobbed amongst others over the natural
wonder.

This whole weekend had been extraordinary. Living her dream
just being here in Turkey, then, overnight, immersed in heaven with Zander.

But extraordinary in a bad way, too. Unravelling the origin of
his anti-marriage sentiment and discovering firsthand how that was going to
impact on her. No wonder he wasn’t interested in risking himself again.

Zander Rush liked to take holidays from reality. But they were
only mini-breaks.

First Hadrian’s Wall and now Göreme. Every time they got away
from London he was like a different man; he let himself indulge the attraction
between them and be someone totally different from everyday Zander. Someone who
communicated. Someone who laughed. Someone who loved.

Except it wasn’t love. It was
medication.

As though his connection to her was something he needed to be
cured of. A temporary ailment.

Back in the real world, Zander took care to pack himself
carefully away—in his big empty house, on his epic, solo marathons, in his
expansive plush office. He kept everyone at arm’s length. Absolutely by
design.

Georgia stared out, letting the verbal spiel of the pilot wash
over her: about the people of Cappadocia, about the heritage. She could hear it
later on Zander’s recorder. It was hard to be in this prehistoric place that had
seen war and famine and death and entire civilisations come and go and worry
about one man’s feelings for one woman.

It seemed so trivial.

But she was that woman. This was her life. And so it wasn’t
trivial at all. The Year of Georgia was supposed to have taught her who she was.
It was supposed to have given her a taste of what was possible and highlighted
the deficiencies in her life. And it had worked.

She was Georgia Stone. For better or for worse.

Weirdly obsessed with plants, content to walk alone amongst
Roman ruins, uninterested in cooking or wine appreciation or shoes, but a crack
shot with a blank-pistol and the fastest code-cracker the spy school had ever
seen. Terrible at the contrived sexy steps of salsa but a natural at the private
undulations of belly dancing. A decent rower but a terrible swimmer. She was a
lab rat and a loyal and ethical employee.

And she had a heart as protected and hidden as any of the seeds
she X-rayed. But at least now she knew, without a doubt, that it was competent.
That
she
was competent.

She was Georgia Stone. She would find her way.

And though she’d enjoyed the detour of the past few months, it
dawned on her in realisation as blazing as Cappadocia’s sunrise that
her way
just wouldn’t include Zander Rush. He’d come
into her life bearing the gifts she needed to find herself again. Perhaps his
cosmic role was now complete and the last twenty-four hours were just the most
amazing swansong.

This conversation, this day, was her marker. He wasn’t sorry
about what they’d done but he wasn’t interested in more and he certainly wasn’t
interested in for ever.

And she was.

It hit her every bit as dramatically as the Cappadocian
landscape had. She wanted a for ever someone. Dan hadn’t just been about keeping
up with her friends. He’d been about trying to build something lasting for
herself.

She wanted someone to share her life with. To explore with. To
commiserate with. She was tired of being alone.

But just anyone would not do. She’d had a taste of something
spectacular—someone spectacular. That was going to be very hard to go back from.
And holding out for someone worthy didn’t seem as scary after the six months
she’d just had.

Her heart buoyed just like the envelope bobbing above their
heads.

He was out there. She would find him.

But then, with the same sinking feeling that came with shutting
off the gas, she accepted another hard truth.

She just wouldn’t find him in this balloon.

* * *

Stalling
the inevitable was easy to start with.

First, there was the business of getting the balloon back down
to earth, onto the back of the pickup truck, the air out of the envelope, and
the glossy fabric rolled up and stowed in the gondola. Then, there were too many
ears in the bus that drove them back to Göreme to do more than smile politely at
each other. Once back in the hotel, the exhaustion of twenty-four sleepless
hours had claimed them both and it wasn’t too hard to convince Zander that she
wanted the comfort of her own room and shower for a very necessary few hours of
shut-eye.

When all she wanted to do was curl up and sleep in the circle
of his arms.

But now it was late afternoon and Zander stood at her door, an
optimistic bottle of wine in his hand.

‘Right now?’ He gaped.

‘My flight leaves in three hours. A car’s coming for me
soon.’

The wine sagged towards the stone floor. ‘Why?’

‘Emergency at work,’ she lied.

He lifted one brow. ‘A seed emergency?’

Defensiveness made her rash. ‘I don’t remember signing anything
that gave you say over what I do with my private time.’

He didn’t bite, though he did glance around him in the dim
hallway. ‘May I come in?’

‘I’m packing.’ Truth was she was already packed because, even
though she desperately needed it, sleep had evaded her. But her suitcase lay
conveniently open on her luxurious, plump bed. She stood back so he could
enter.

‘What’s going on, Georgia?’

‘Nothing. I just have to get back.’

‘Your seed emergency. Right.’ He placed the wine on the table.
‘What’s really going on?’

He had to know. Surely.

She shrugged. ‘We’ve done Göreme. We’ve done the ballooning.
We’re done.’ In more ways than one.

‘But you were so keen to see Cappadocia.’

‘And I’m already planning on coming back for a longer
stay.’

‘This is about last night.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘Last night was...’ What did more cosmopolitan people say at
this moment. Fun? Wild? Memorable? ‘Last night was a one-off.’

The eyebrow quirked again. ‘Really? And you felt the need to
fly out of the country to avoid a repeat?’

‘I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.’

He snorted. ‘Right. This is much easier on my feelings.’

His sarcasm triggered hers. ‘I’m not really up on the protocols
of dis-entanglement.’

He repeated the word, silently. ‘Wow.’

‘Zander—’

‘For someone inexperienced in the art of casual sex you
certainly are a quick study at the kiss-off part.’

‘This isn’t a—’

‘Yeah, Georgia, it is. But what makes you so sure I was even
offering a round two?’

‘I...’ That took the wind from her sails. ‘You turned up with
wine.’

He held the bottle up. The text was in Turkish but the image on
the label was of a big balloon flying over Cappadocia. ‘It was a keepsake. I got
me one, too.’

Oh.

‘If I hadn’t knocked would you have even told me you were
leaving?’

‘Of course!’ But not until the very last minute. And he seemed
to know it.

‘You don’t have to leave, Georgia. If last night was a mistake
for you, then fine. We can keep our distance until tomorrow. But this is your
trip. You’ve wanted this for ages.’

‘I can’t—’
Be here. With you
.
And not be with you
. ‘It’s time to go.’

‘You don’t trust me.’ Again, not a question.

‘Of course I do.’ She sighed. She didn’t know anyone she
trusted more. Dan included.

‘So what’s the problem?’ Awareness blinked to light in his grey
eyes. ‘Unless you don’t trust yourself.’

She just stared.

‘That’s it, isn’t it? If you stay you don’t trust yourself to
stick to your own resolution.’ Triumph glossed over his anger. He stepped
closer. ‘So if you want me,’ he went on, ‘why are you leaving?’

‘I don’t want you.’
I don’t want to want
you.

‘Liar.’

Yeah, she was. ‘This was an aberration, remember?’

He frowned. Clearly he didn’t remember saying it.

‘Besides today, tomorrow, what does it matter when we finish
it?’ she asked. ‘Or do you just like to control the use-by dates on your
affairs?’

Lord. That word sounded both very grown up and very
old-fashioned at the same time.

His lips thinned. ‘I just want to understand it, Georgia. To
understand you.’

Something made her ask. ‘It would have finished tomorrow,
wouldn’t it, Zander?’

He tensed up.

‘Because this isn’t real. You said it yourself, you and me in
this fantasy place. We would have ended the moment we touched down in London.’
He didn’t contradict her. ‘So what’s a few hours between friends?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Friends?’

‘Unless I’ve misunderstood you,’ she risked. ‘If you wanted
something more long-term, Zander, now’s your chance. Just say.’ Because she’d be
up for it.

His lips pressed tighter together. His eyes roiled.

She held on longer than was good for her dignity, just in case.
But still he stood silent. As expected.

‘So, now that we’re on the same page,’ she said, heartsore,
‘I’m exercising my right to choose. And I choose out.’

She sounded much calmer than she felt.

‘I guess I should thank you,’ he said after a long, silent
age.

‘What for?’ Giving herself so wholeheartedly to him?

‘At least this time I won’t have to explain myself to two
hundred people.’

Her heart sank. She hadn’t even considered the similarities to
his runaway bride. But the two situations were nothing alike. Were they?

‘I’m not running out on you.’ Yeah, she was. Avoiding the whole
situation. ‘I’ll see you in London.’

‘Business as usual.’

‘Is there another way?’

She longed for him to say there was. She longed for him to say,
Stay and we can be a couple.
She longed for him
to tell her she meant enough to him to break his work-only rules for.

But he wouldn’t.

And they both knew it.

He scooped the wine up and placed it carefully in the centre of
her open suitcase protected by her intimates. Then he turned back to her and
spoke.

‘See you in London.’

And then he was gone.

TEN

November

Thwack
.

Her arrow hit the target, not quite as close as she was aiming
but at least it found purchase. She lowered the bow.

Indoor archery—the latest on her list. Actually, it was
supposed to be outdoor archery but it was the dying days of November and autumn
had already dragged as interminably as her mood. The Year of Georgia was
galloping by and would be over before there was any further warm weather, so
indoors it was.

She and Zander were back to the early days of her Year of
Georgia classes—politely civil. He came to exactly as few classes as he needed
to get the monthly segments done and he seemed to have lost his enthusiasm for
recording everything—much more sound than he needed. But the segments were
proving unexpectedly popular with EROS’ listeners and so he had to keep
producing them, even when she thought he would probably have preferred to just
let the whole thing go. Maybe buy out her contract personally to be rid of the
hassle.

They’d had their promotional value well and truly. Twice over.
Every time a segment aired people remembered Dan, too, and there was a flurry of
general media attention about where he was. What he was doing.

Who he was doing.

He’d been seen around town with someone. A woman. The same
woman. So at least one of them had managed to find their way out of the mire to
a regular sort of relationship. Although as fast as the gossip had come that
they were on, it seemed as if maybe they were off again.

For her part, she surprised herself by discovering that even
being given everything money could buy got old. She was tired of the Year of
Georgia. She was tired of smiling politely at Zander and speaking into his
digital recorder and pretending everything was fine.

Everything was not fine.

He filled her consciousness when he was around and plagued her
thoughts when he wasn’t. She sat in life-drawing class looking at a phenomenally
proportioned naked male model and all she could think about was Zander’s
proportions. The curve of his strong shoulder. The gentle undulation of his
throat. If her drawings never looked like the man she was sketching it was
because they generally looked more like Zander.

Having asked Casey to strip her schedule of anything resembling
Egyptian stone therapy and deep muscle massage, she begged Zander’s assistant to
put them back in. If only to relieve the new tension she lived with these
days.

They helped, but only for an hour or so each week. Then the
lingering dissatisfaction and un-rightness returned and troubled her until the
following week.

Float tanks, hypnosis, Bowen therapy—she tried something new
every week for months. And nothing helped quite like the moment Zander walked
into her class. The precious seconds before her brain reminded her not to get so
excited. For those few breaths all the tension drained from her body.

She lived for those moments.

His garden was progressing, he’d told her one week, before
passing her his phone to have a look at the design that flourished under the
care of his landscaper. Irrational, blazing envy tormented her that she didn’t
get to prune it or mow it or love it herself.

But she just smiled and said, ‘That’s great,’ and handed the
phone back.

Another week he played her the completed Cappadocia segment and
her heart squeezed both for the memories of Turkey and for the sublimely neutral
expression on his face. Totally untroubled.

She equally envied and grew infuriated by his lack of
concern.

Turning it off like that was a gift. Just not a very nice
one.

‘Nice shot,’ Zander murmured, off to one side as a helper ran
in and pried her arrow from the target.

Nice condescension
, she thought.
But aloud she only thanked him. She lined up another arrow. The Amazons must
have had some serious upper-body muscles because doing this just once a week had
given her a perpetual muscle ache in her chest.

Unless that was just her heart.

‘To the left,’ he murmured from her right side. She ignored
him. ‘Your left, not my left.’

She lowered her bow and turned. ‘Seriously, Zander? You’re
going to back-seat drive?’

‘Here...’

He stepped in behind her and told her to assume the firing
position. Then he slid one hand along her extended bow arm and curled the other
around her pulled back firing arm. And he reoriented her the tiniest bit to the
left.

‘Just a smidge.’

‘Is that a professional archery measure?’ she muttered through
tight teeth.

His laugh was a puff of warm air against her ear and her whole
neck broke out in gooseflesh.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘You know this because of your many years of competition in the
sport.’ At the very last second she realised he
could
have archery experience. It was a solo enough sport to be
right up his alley.

‘I miss you,’ he said, as though that was exactly what they’d
just been talking about. And maybe they had.

‘You miss the sex.’

‘No. I could get that anywhere.’
Charming
. ‘I miss you. I miss your conversation and your snark. I
just wanted to feel you. Just for a moment.’

She stood stiff and unyielding in his arms. It was the hardest
thing she’d ever had to do. Even her eyes didn’t waver from the target across
the room. ‘And have you had your fill of feeling me up?’

‘George—’

The way he said her name...it caused her bow arm to tremble.
She forced it to stillness.

‘—do you have to drag it down to such a level?’

‘What level should it be at? You’re not interested in a
relationship but you’re not above a bit of casual sport at my expense?’

His arms dropped. Not scorched, but definitely not relaxed. ‘I
hate this.’

‘Not my fault. You set the rules.’

‘I don’t recall making any rules.’

‘By implication.’ She lowered her bow. There was no way it was
safe to fire an arrow while she was this distracted. But she didn’t turn around.
‘Or have you changed your mind about relationships?’

‘Why can’t we just...feel our way?’

She turned. ‘Are you asking me on a date?’

Instantly he stiffened. ‘I’m... No. Aren’t we a bit beyond
dates?’

‘So you’re asking me just to sleep with you at your
request?’

His brow folded. ‘No. George—’

‘You’re offering me sex with no commitment, Zander,’ she
pointed out. ‘And that can’t work.’

And, astonishingly, she saw clearly for the first time why.

But he couldn’t. ‘Why not?’

An insane kind of lightness flooded her. ‘Because I know who I
am, now. And I know why I proposed to Dan.’ Even though it had been unconscious.
To bring his lack of commitment to a head. And sure enough the very next
relationship she walked into was the same. Worse.

‘What’s Dan got to do with this?’

‘Nothing. And everything. Dan had a dozen little ways of
keeping me at emotional arm’s length. You have a hundred.’

He lowered his head.

‘I don’t want to beg and scrounge for scraps of emotional
intimacy,’ she said. ‘I’m worth more than that.’

‘No one’s going to promise you a ring before you even begin
exploring who you are as a couple, George.’

His words cut deep. But she stayed strong. ‘You’ve ruled a
commitment out right from the start. Why would I set myself up for that?’

‘Because of what we have?’

‘What do we have? Cracking chemistry? Intellectual
compatibility?’ She started packing up her gear. ‘You’re either condemning me to
still be waiting for you to throw me a bone when I’m eighty or a courteous
breakup in two years when you tire of me. Either way I lose.’

‘You’re losing now.’

It wasn’t conceit. She absolutely
was
losing. ‘I’m cutting my losses.’

‘So that’s it? New improved Georgia wants all or nothing?’

‘No.’ She looked up at him. ‘I definitely want it all. But I’ll
choose nothing if I have to.’

He stared, thinking. ‘Maybe I’ll change my mind?’

‘Really, Zander? Based on what? Give me some criteria for what
will mean you can get over what happened to you in the past.’

His lips thinned.

‘Because otherwise you’re expecting me to just limp along
hoping I’m being the kind of girlfriend that a man like you changes his mind
for. That I’m saying the right things, doing the right things, wearing the right
things. Dying a thousand deaths every time I find that maybe I’m not.’

‘George—’

‘I’m not negotiating, Zander, I’m explaining. I’m telling you
why I’m choosing nothing, because everything is not on the cards with you.’

He hissed his displeasure.

She took a long breath. ‘I’ll come back for the Valentine’s
show but you should have enough audio to carry you through Christmas and
January. I’m done rediscovering myself. I’m done with classes.’

‘You still have twenty thousand left—’

‘You can keep the change.’

In more ways than one.

‘Wait...’ But he had nothing to say after that.

She took a breath. Took a chance. Exhausted from holding it in.
And lying to herself. ‘I love you, Zander. I love your dedication to your sport,
I love your hermit ways, I love your big, pointless garden, and the joy I saw on
your face in Turkey. I want it all with you. What are you going to do about
it?’

His eyes flared. He stared.

But said nothing.

Her heart crumpled inwards as if it were vacuum sealed. ‘And
there we go.’

She picked up her bag and moved to the door. He stopped her
with a hand on her arm. Gentle. Uncertain.

‘So that’s it? I’m not going to see you again?’

‘Isn’t that how you prefer your life? As empty as your house?
Surely it must be easier to keep yourself from forming relationships that way.’
She curled her fingers around his. ‘This isn’t judgement, Zander. This is my
choice.’

He stared, then dropped his eyes to her fingers as she used
them to unclasp his from her arm.

‘Goodbye, Zander. Good luck.’

And then she walked out. Straight. Steady.

Just as an arrow through the heart should be.