She almost laughed at the ridiculousness, the affair, the other woman he couldn’t actually remember.
‘Under the Christmas tree,’ she said, biting her bottom lip.
‘What was?’
She looked at him. ‘We had sex…under the Christmas tree.’
It was the biggest smile she’d seen since the morning after that very same night and he even began to laugh. ‘Well that could’ve been painful, what with pine needles everywhere. I don’t think you and I ever managed to put up a tree without making a mess.’
She let a giggle escape.
‘See, we were good together. Lydia, no matter what went before, I want to try. I want to make things right between us. I don’t want to throw away what we once had, all our history. And it’s not because I’m here on my own and want what I can’t have. It’s because I love you, Lydia. I really love you. Please, give us a chance. Am I too late?’
For a moment she almost forgot they weren’t sitting on the sofa in their own lounge next to their own fire, that he wouldn’t get up in a second and crouch down onto the floor in front of the hearth and get the flames going to great heights again, that this man sitting here next to her now had stepped out of their cosy terraced house in winter one day in December and in an instant their lives had changed.
‘I have to go, Theo.’ She moved to the door so fast she knew he wouldn’t catch her. It was rude and mean, but she needed to get away, away from the heat of the room, outside into the open air to be able to breathe again.
And when she stepped out of the front door she didn’t stop running until she was across the car park, out of the drive and on the quiet country lane.
Was it really too late to fix the relationship they’d had once before?
