Page 32 of Be With Us: An Urban Foursome Love Story

‘Don’t, not yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘Just leave it for now. Leave them alone,’ he said. ‘Planned or not, you’ve put the idea out there now. If the shoe was on the other foot, then we might be upset at first, but then we might talk about it.’

‘Do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are you just saying this to cheer me up?’

‘Yes and no. Just leave them to think about it. Mark approached me in the toilets of the mansion and started up a conversation because he’d caught me checking out his wife.’

‘You didn’t tell me that before,’ said Emilia, wiping tears from her eyes.

‘The point is, they might walk away and think about it and wonder if we were serious,’ he said, turning onto the motorway, dull yellow lights fading in and out across the dashboard as they passed under the lamps. ‘And if you text them now and apologise and say you were joking or whatever, then it shuts it down for good. Just leave them alone.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Emilia again.

‘It’s fine, we’re fine. I love you.’

‘I love you too,’ she said, leaning across and placing her hand on top of his.

‘I had a nice time tonight,’ she said.

‘Me too.’

By the time they got home, Emilia had fallen asleep, so Cassian picked her up and carried her inside the house and up the stairs to bed.

He took off her shoes and caressed her feet, and then unzipped her dress and slipped it off from around her shoulders. Then he lifted her up and helped her underneath the covers, kissing her on the forehead and tucking her in.

Then Cassian undressed himself and gradually shut down the house, hanging up Emilia’s dress, turning out the lights (with a slight shiver of fear), doing his teeth, and straightening out his jacket.

By the time he got into bed, Emilia was awake again, her cheeks wet with tears.

‘Will you make love to me?’ she said, softly.

‘Of course,’ he said and kissed her on the lips.

*

CHAPTER FOUR

EMILIA SPENT THE following day trying to keep herself busy, although she could barely concentrate. She kept replaying the conversation over and over again in her head, exploring different ways it might have gone. Picturing scenarios where Amy kissed her in the rain like a scene from a movie, and others where they argued and never spoke again.

She spent time thinking about what she would say if they were to see each other, and how that might play out, with her persuading Amy and Mark to just give it a try, with no pressure. She was so inside her own head it took her a few minutes to realise that she had gone into the kitchen three times to pour herself a glass of water and had forgotten to do so on each attempt.

Cassian had gone into work and Emilia envied him, he was better at dealing with anxiety and he was out, doing his job, distracted and focused. Maybe she could swap shifts with someone, but then she ran the risk of bursting into tears at work.

Every now and again she felt her heart ache inside her chest, as though it was heavy with sadness or loss. At other times she felt overcome with a heightened sense of awareness and nervousness and would frequently check her phone. She even began to hear phantom text messages noises, she was so desperate to hear something from them.

Having cleaned the house, vacuumed, mopped, wiped the mirrors and scrubbed all the bathrooms (in case they came round), she decided she should sit down and read, to try and take her mind away to another place. But after six or seven failed attempts to even finish a single page, she sat and cried.

She had got too excited too quickly. Why had she even thought this would work out? The first couple they’d met? She still wasn’t really sure if this was what Cassian wanted either. Had she really thought that meeting another couple with the same mindset as them would be so simple?

Yes. She had.

And not only had she thought that, she had fallen for Amy hard, just like Alice had said she would. She’d had crushes before, once in college and a couple of times at work, but never like this. She yearned for Amy, they had a connection and it was more than friendship. There was chemistry there. It all hinged on whether she felt the same.

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