Page 44 of The Trouble With Love

Kai stared at me, then started to laugh. He laughed until he spilled his tea. ‘And whose idea was that?’ he managed to say eventually.

‘Aiden’s. I told you, threesomes, blokes, girls, he’s a bit obsessive.’

‘God, that’s cheered me up.’ Kai rubbed his face. ‘Oh, and for the record, Holly, I’m a strictly one-on-one guy.’ He grinned and raised an eyebrow and I came over all flustered for a moment and had to change the subject.

‘Vivienne,’ I said suddenly. ‘If I can get across the wood to her cottage, she might lend me her car.’

‘We’ll have to walk,’ Kai nudged my tea closer to me. ‘So drink that down. You’ll need to be warm inside as well.’

‘Don’t. That sounds like something Aiden would say.’

He looked at me, suddenly serious over the scrubbed table. ‘I don’t want to be anything like Aiden.’ His eyes were dark, almost brown this morning, hollowed with tiredness and shadowed with something else, something deep.

‘Kai . . .’

‘The other day, up in my room. You remember?’ He stretched out a hand across the table and touched my cheek. His fingers were warm from the tea mug. ‘I’m tired of the games, Holly. Tired of the lies and not facing up to myself. And now, all this, my past coming out of the woodwork . . . I want . . .’ His voice trailed off and he started to concentrate very hard on the tabletop.

I let the silence sit for a moment. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want something more. Not just a body to fuck and a face to go out to dinner with. Something settled, something to rely on. Somebody in here.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Where you are.’

‘I’m . . .’

‘Ssshh. This is just me, just what I’ve been coming up with. Your input — welcome, of course but — I wanted to lay it on the line for you. You are the first woman who’s been there for me, Holl. Not wanting anything, not in it for the glory or the perceived glamour or wanting to be seen with a guy who’s made his name . . . for me. Just me, as I am. I know you’ve got your own demons . . .’

‘Have I?’

‘Oh yeah. I just think you’re too close to see them, that’s all. To you they look like normality but to everyone else . . . But I want to be there when they start to become visible; there for you. For me, it’s all or nothing now.’

He stood up and I stared at the lean length of him. Wondered what the hell it was that I wanted. ‘Kai.’

‘Tell me, Holly. Tell me what it is you feel. What you think is happening here with us.’

‘I don’t . . . I don’t know. You’re . . . just so . . . so . . . When I turn round, there you are, and you keep telling me things about myself, about Nicky and the way I am and all that, and there’s all the’ — I made a rather feeble wave of my hand — ‘leather and stuff, and it’s like you’re built out of solid Understandium or something and . . .’ I ran out of words and all that came out now, was breath.

‘Yeah,’ he said, coming over to where I sat. ‘Yeah, I know.’ Long fingers drew me up and his mouth came down so that we met in the middle in a kiss that warmed me more thoroughly than the tea had.

The kitchen door opened, and behind Kai’s shoulder I saw Cerys appear. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I guess you want some privacy.’

‘You guess right,’ Kai said without looking at her. Looking, in fact, right into my eyes, down, through to my soul. ‘Shut the fucking door, Cerys.’

‘All right, all right,’ I heard her grumbling as she dragged the door closed, then the muttering as she joined up with Nicholas in front of the TV.

Then Nicholas’s yell of, ‘She’s what?’

Kai and I grinned at each other. His eyes were softer now, and his mouth had lost the sardonic upturn it perpetually wore. ‘God, I want you,’ he said very quietly.

I cleared my throat. ‘Short and intense, wasn’t it?’

A slow nod. ‘I have the feeling that it’s going to be pretty intense, yes. But I think that you want something else too, now.’ He was still gazing down into my eyes. I felt the orbital tug of his stare. ‘Tired of the games?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t want to marry Aiden, I know that much.’ Cautiously I reached up, touched his cheek. It was sharp with stubble and his bones seemed very close to the surface. ‘But my life is pretty good, apart from that. I don’t know if I’m ready for someone . . . for you.’

He laughed, a sudden rip through the calm air. ‘Yeah. I guess I deserve your uncertainty. There’s still stuff you need to work through, I can’t make decisions for you, Holl. Like I said, from the outside it’s obvious what’s been going on, but you need to arrive at that conclusion for yourself. You need to arrive at your own destination.’

I let my hand fall. ‘But for now I’d better try to get to Vivienne’s. Aiden might be desperate for a pee and that’s a new duvet. What are you doing?’ Kai was wrapping a scarf, that looked as though it might have been knitted by Cerys — or at least someone with more enthusiasm than ability — around his neck.

‘I’m coming with you.’

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