Page 116 of The Honeymoon Affair

‘And I’m sorry for grumbling,’ says Steve. ‘It’s just . . .’

‘What?’

‘I keep thinking that if I hadn’t broken the engagement, you’d be doing all this stuff for me because you were my wife and not as a massive favour.’

‘You mean I’d be obliged to because I was married to you instead of from the goodness of my heart.’ I burst out laughing. ‘I’m not sure that’s the flex you think it is, Steve.’

‘I didn’t mean . . . Oh, hell, I’m useless. Absolutely useless.’ He buries his head in his hands, and I realise he’s crying.

I slowly fold away the towel and tidy up the bathroom, but I don’t say anything. After a while, he sniffs and sits up straight.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘And sorry for keeping on saying I’m sorry.’

I shrug.

‘And sorry for being the biggest idiot known to man.’

‘You’re not an idiot,’ I tell him.

‘I am,’ he says. ‘I’m in love with you, Izzy.’

‘No you’re not.’

‘I am. And every time I see that ring on your finger, I want to choke the guy who put it there.’

‘You’d struggle in your current condition,’ I point out.

He makes a face at me.

‘Seriously, though,’ he says. ‘Do you really love him?’

‘Of course I really love him.’

‘But he’s ancient.’

‘He’s only forty-nine.’

‘Listen, old people can say fifty is the new thirty all they like,’ says Steve. ‘But it isn’t. It’s fifty. And that’s nearly twenty whole years older than me.’

‘Twenty more years of learning how not to be the biggest idiot in the world.’

‘Touché,’ he says. ‘Izzy?’

‘What?’

‘Kiss me?’

‘No.’

I pat his face dry and help him downstairs, leaving the remote control beside him.

Fortunately he says nothing more about being sorry he dumped me or wanting to kiss me. I know that both these things are only because he’s here in my house, forced to be close to me. If he hadn’t had his accident, he’d be happily going about his life not thinking about me at all. Except . . . and the thought makes me uncomfortable, he was kind of shadow-stalking me already. He was texting me. He was keeping the connection there. So perhaps he really does feel that he made a terrible mistake. I feel good about that, to be honest. Like the nerd in school who turns up to the class reunion as the most successful and beautiful person there. I know that doesn’t ever happen in real life. But Steve is making me feel like it does.

When I come downstairs later in the evening, dressed for my dinner at Charles’s, he looks at me with real desire in his eyes. I’m wearing the butterfly Ted Baker again, but this time with my high heels and the cute pink cardigan that Celeste bought me for Christmas. I’m also wearing more eye make-up than usual and am rocking a Selena Gomez look, if Selena had short spiky hair.

‘I won’t be too late back,’ I tell him as I slide on my coat. ‘I’ll help you up to bed later.’

‘I’d like to go to bed right now,’ he says.

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