Page 55 of That Reunited Feeling

My phone buzzes on the table next to me. Ordinarily I’d ignore it when I’m with the guys, particularly since it’s too late to be anything business-related from London. But the flutter of hope that it might be from Hannah draws my attention.

That flutter instantly turns to a sinking feeling. And not a fast one that gets it over quickly. A slow one. With a long, drawn-out death. Like the way theTitanicwent down.

LOUISA (09:47 PM)

How long are you going to ignore my lawyer’s email?

What the fuck is she talking about? And at almost three a.m. her time.

Our divorce is over. Done. Dusted. Tied up with a bow. So what the hell could she possibly want now?

There’s a nudge on my arm.

“Everything okay?” Walker asks. “You’ve gone weird and pale.”

I darken my phone. “Yeah. Fine. Just a work thing.” I stand up. “Need to make a quick call.”

“In the middle of the London night?” Max asks.

“It’s a sub-rights deal in Los Angeles.” Thank you, brain, for thinking of that so quickly even after two pints of Walker’s new Belgian-style ale and half a free-poured whisky.

There’s no way I’m going to tell them it’s Louisa, who will undoubtedly be after something. None of them have ever liked her.

I slip out the door into the hallway between the kitchen and the bar and bring up my emails. And there it is. Thought I’d seen the back of the dreaded Slate, White & Associates in my inbox.

I scan the message, my eyes freezing on the middle paragraph.

While we acknowledge the divorce is settled, as a gesture of goodwill we would appreciate it if you could turn over the house in Nice, France, to Ms. Worthington at your earliest convenience.

Ms. Worthington—who apparently didn’t hang around changing her name back—can go fuck herself.

She can’t come crawling back after the settlement and claim another property, even if…what is it they say…

It was she who procured the home on an inside tip from her personal friend Sir Elton John, oversaw all the renovations and decorations, and you have visited for only one weekend in the four years since.

Guess she’s already missing the chance to swan around telling people she has a house next door to Elton’s in the South of France.

Her shallowness and selfishness know no bounds.

And every man sitting around that table with me tonight always knew it. They only tolerated her because she was my wife, and even then only barely.

It’s not like I didn’t know she had those traits. But I ignored them, unable to stop myself from gravitating to the first person after Hannah to tell me they loved me.

After losing my parents and moving in with two different sets of relatives, I didn’t know where I fit in, where I belonged, or who I belong to. I was adrift, and Louisa was the wreckage I clung to.

For a long time, it worked fine. I was her gateway to the celebrity social whirl she craved, and she gave me the stable relationship and sense of home I desperately needed. In exchange for that feeling of security, I buried my head in the sand and ignored the fact that, deep down, she was never my kind of person. She would always be intrinsically self-serving. And she would never want a family with me—a child would prevent her from doing whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.

I told myself those things didn’t matter. But I knew they did.

Even when the issues rose to the surface and I couldn’t ignore them, I still hung on, trying to make it work, trying not to be the one with the broken marriage.

Until I saw the light last spring—saw that I couldn’t live the rest of my life with someone like that. And even if I couldn’t find my perfect person and have my own family, being alone would be preferable to being with Louisa.

The divorce was as fast as I could possibly make it and, thankfully, she didn’t contest a thing. Probably because I offered her more than even the best lawyer could have gotten her, just to get it done.

I’ve barely given that life in London a second thought. Ever since that first morning on Jim and Maggie’s landing, my mind has been on Hannah. Even more so now my mouth and hands have been on her too.

God knows what would have happened if Maggie and her new plant hadn’t burst in yesterday. I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands outside Hannah’s shirt or her pants much longer.

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