Your Room or Mine? (10 page)

Izzy shifted from foot to foot, waiting on the delivery of a load of gravel to rake over the newly-laid paving.

So it turned out Shauna had been right all along. A no-strings fling could only work if it was anonymous.

Throw yourself into work, Izzy, that's right. Always worked before. Parents a nightmare? Chuck yourself into work, the more hours the better. Boyfriend is a serial one-night-stander when he's supposedly working towards your future? No worries, take on some extra contracts. See if you can't work seven days a week. Oops, your own no-strings fling starts to corrupt your work ethic? No problem, get back to work and keep your eye on the prize.

Once she'd worked out what the prize was now, of course. Not a deposit on a house and a family with Joe. Not anymore. And not to have as good and inhibited a time as you can with Oliver.

Just what the hell did she want?

She didn't know. All she knew was she was totally and consumingly miserable. And for the first time ever, work simply wasn't cutting the mustard as a distraction.

****

Oliver stared at his laptop screen, rereading the same email for the fifth time without taking a word of it in.

First had come incredulity. Had she really knocked him back?

Hot on its heels had come defensiveness.

There had never been any more to it than just a fling for her, then. Used to making a swift exit from his casual dates, letting girls down swiftly and efficiently, the way she'd simply dispensed with him rankled. Vaguely insulted, he told himself he'd had a lucky escape, he didn't need to end it on his terms, that was stupid self-indulgence. That it was ended was enough.

For a day or two that approach worked. Iron stubbornness held out as he threw himself with renewed vigor into work, taking on new cases, building his workload back up to breaking point, just as he'd cut it back these last few weeks as he told himself he needed a bit of breathing space, in reality because he wanted to spend more time with Izzy. He could see now that this thing between them had started seeping into his life, encroaching on his work focus. He'd been denying it to himself, believing that he was keeping things separate.

Work was one thing. Home was another. Every time he looked out into the perfect garden he missed her even more. He'd fallen short of what she wanted, what she needed. He was his father's son after all.

Izzy was the one who'd had the lucky escape, not him.

That she refused to remain in a situation that wasn't working for her made her somehow all the more appealing. With a childhood spent watching his mother hold everything together, letting her life slip by while his father did whatever he liked, the last thing he found attractive in a woman was a doormat. Someone who danced to his tune made him run for the hills. Yet they always had until now.

Wasn't that what had hooked him from the outset? Her initial detachment that first night came back to him. Her crazy ground rules. He'd only found her again after that night by chance. And he knew she wouldn't change her mind now – she'd proved that the first time they met when she'd blown him away just by walking away. To be pursued by a woman was an instant turnoff, to the point where any interest shown by her made him run a mile in the opposite direction. Yet that had always happened. Until her.

For the first time he acknowledged to himself that he wanted more, and it scared the hell out of him.

He glanced around his sitting room. Everything in its place, showhome-perfect. So quiet he could hear the clock on the high mantelpiece ticking. Material reassuring evidence that he'd made it, that he was safe, was everywhere he looked. Just having it had always been enough, but now what was the point of any of it without her to share it?

He stood up and grabbed his keys. He wanted,
needed
to see her again and leaving it to Izzy or to chance would be pointless. Neither was going to act on his behalf anytime soon. If he wanted her back he'd have to take control of the situation himself.

****

The beginning of a new project.

Usually Izzy's favourite part of the job, outdone only by the end result when she could hand back a finished garden to its owners and let go. A bigger project this time than the courtyard garden she'd designed for Oliver. Less intimate, more showy, with less of her own personal taste influencing it. Oliver had pretty much given her free creative rein and…

She slapped him out of her mind by forcing her eyes to focus on the agreed spec diagram in front of her. Left unchecked he filtered back into her thoughts in seconds. She was determined that would soon cease with time and a bit of willpower. She turned a page of her plans and moved down the garden. Water feature was going to be about halfway down, to the left. She ran through the work in her mind.

A sound behind her. Clearly not the occupants of the house. Both were at work, having entrusted her a key. She'd left the side gate open, waiting for the couple of student labourers she used on an ad hoc basis, perfect for the hard graft needed to clear and prepare the site at the outset.

She turned, ready to tell them to get started at the end of the garden where a decrepit old rotting shed needed dismantling and throwing in the skip out front, and her mouth closed with a snap.

How the hell was she supposed to stop him filtering his way into her thoughts when he didn't even have the decency to steer clear of her physically?

She sighed.

‘Oliver. You can't just turn up here. This is private property.'

‘I need to talk to you.'

His voice. The voice she loved that kept her awake at night. She deliberately didn't look into the hazel eyes, afraid it would remind her of the times she'd looked there before, their bodies entwined, his mouth against hers. She needed to forget what was past. What was gone.

‘I'm busy,' she said.

Keep it professional, Izzy. Work tones.

‘I'm starting this job this morning. I'm in the middle of setting up. I don't have time for small talk.'

‘It's important.'

She rounded on him then. Important now, was it? Not something to be fitted around more significant parts of his life? Not an afterthought?

Let him be fitted in for once.

She made a point of flipping through a couple of pages of her neatly-written plans, glancing down the garden as if totally preoccupied with her work.

‘My labourers will be here any moment to rip that shed down and start clearing out rubbish. I don't have time for this. We've said all there was to say, you made your point of view totally clear.'

She offered him a brief parting smile.

‘Goodbye, Oliver. Could you close the gate on your way out, please?'

She began to walk down the garden. Please let him just go. Please. Her heart wanted to rush into his arms. Her head was still busy feeling cheap at the way he viewed her, knowing she'd encouraged that. Her head won, easily. Her heart was too fragile to be in with a chance. She couldn't rely on it anymore. She never should have.

‘I came to say I'm sorry,' he called after her.

She stopped walking. Looked down at her feet and took a deep calming breath before turning back to him.

‘What exactly are you sorry for, Oliver?' she said. ‘We had a good time and now it's over. We both knew what we were getting into – right?'

‘I miss you. I miss what we had.'

What we had. There was exactly the point. No intimation still that he wanted any more than that. He'd had his playtime taken away and he didn't like it.

‘We had hot sex,' she said. She pasted a bright I-don't-care smile on to emphasise her point.

She watched him close his eyes briefly. Obviously exasperated that she wasn't just coming back running.

‘It was more than that,' he said.

‘Of course. I'd forgotten the dinners and the chat. Obviously hoops you felt you had to jump through in order to
get
to
the hot sex.' She gave him a smile. ‘I'm not complaining, Oliver. I went into it with my eyes wide open. And at the beginning that was what I wanted too.'

‘At the beginning?'

She ran a hand distractedly through her hair.

‘The thing is, Oliver, this just doesn't feel like fun to me anymore. It feels cheap, like I'm some bit on the side like that brassy woman who showed up on my parent's doorstep all those years ago.'

He walked down the garden and grabbed her hand. Her stomach fluttered in response.

‘This is not the same thing at all. You are not some bit on the side, as you call it. I'm not like your father. I don't have a wife or partner, I don't have a family.'

‘You don't have a wife or family, no,' she said.' You have your work, your ambitions, some stupid misplaced drive that means you'll never quit until you've made a billion or conquered the universe. You have this whole other life that nothing else penetrates. I want to share it but it's No Admittance. I don't even know what it is that you're so desperately working towards, but whatever it is you're striving for, Oliver, you're going to end up achieving it on your own. And where's the enjoyment of that without someone to share it with?' She took her hand away from his. ‘I'm sorry if you think I'm being unfair, if you think I'm moving the goalposts. When I met you a fling really was all I wanted. No strings, no comeback. But now I know I want to be with someone who shares their whole life with me, not just the scraps they can spare. We want different things, you and I. It was fun while it lasted but it's over.'

‘I didn't come here to ask you to reconsider.'

She stared at him. Then what the hell was this about?

‘You didn't?'

‘What I said to you was totally crass, I realise that now. Lining up a contract so we could carry on the way we were. Truth is, I was too afraid to ask you to stay properly so I tried to find a way of holding onto you that didn't have any risk.'

She looked at him, not speaking.

He raked both hands through his hair.

‘Izzy, my father was a layabout. I'm not sure he ever did an honest day's work in his whole life. My mother worked two jobs, sometimes three, so that she could keep things together. She claimed what state benefits she could, and as the eldest I was responsible for cooking and looking out for my kid brother when she wasn't around. We were always short of money, robbing Peter to pay Paul but my father had no problem spending the household budget at the pub. We were in a vicious circle that my mother could never break out of on her own.'

‘Your mother stuck by him?' she asked.

He nodded.

‘There was something about him that made her take him back again and again. She had this inner optimism that somehow he might change. He'd show up, telling her he had the promise of a new job, that things would be different, and it would last a few weeks, maybe a month before he fell out with his boss, or he began to take days off, and then the job would disappear and we'd be back to square one.'

‘So are they still together now?'

She was thinking of her own parents - stick it out until the end, happy or not.

He shook his head.

‘Eventually when my brother and I left home, she drew a line under it. As if she'd given him chance after chance because of us. Once we'd gone I think the motivation went with us and she decided to cut her losses at last. I don't blame her. I think she should have jumped ship much earlier.'

He gave her a small smile. ‘I didn't have much time for my father, we've talked about that before. But what he has given me is a strong work ethic. I never feel like I've done enough, there's always this nagging fear that the rug will be pulled out from under me and I'll lose everything. And after what my mother went through I never wanted to take anyone along for that ride. In case…'

He paused and swallowed hard, she heard the click in his throat. And suddenly she understood him.

‘In case you turn out like him?' she asked gently.

He didn't answer and didn't look up at her.

‘Oliver, just because he behaved that way doesn't make it a physical trait. You don't even belong in that world anymore, I mean look at your house, your job, your car. He chose to drift through life without a purpose. It was a choice, not a character flaw. You've chosen a totally different path. Maybe he
did
inspire you, just not in the way you wanted. Reverse psychology. Do you think you would have achieved all you have if he'd been a better father? Maybe you'd have ended up a different person, someone complacent. Maybe you would have drifted through life directionless if your father had been Joe Average. You shouldn't have regrets like that, it's destructive.' She paused. ‘For what it's worth, you seem to have turned out pretty well to me.'

‘I know my work ethic is crazy. The odd thing is, the first time in years that I've lightened up has been these last few weeks, knowing that you were at home. I shifted work around so I could make sure I was home for dinner. So I could see you. I realised I was looking forward to ending my day with you.'

‘In bed,' she said, face neutral.

He clenched his hands.

‘Izzy, please, it's
not
just about the sex. It never was. Right from the beginning I was trying to convince myself that it was because that made it safe, made it something I could walk away from, something where no one took any risk of getting hurt. But the more I got to know you the more it's become about being with you, talking to you, spending time with you, getting to know you.'

He looked up at her and the anguish in his eyes pulled at her heart.

‘I was too scared that I'd end up ruining everything to even acknowledge there was something between us worth keeping.'

‘You said you didn't come here to ask me to reconsider,' she said. ‘So what did you come here for?'