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Kaspar looked around.
‘Nice place. Been here long?’
She shifted her weight from one leg to the other. This was her chance to tell him.
‘Ten months. Since my marriage fell apart.’ She shrugged, as though it hadn’t felt like yet another catastrophic failure on her part, in her litany of mistakes over the last five years.
‘You were married?’ He made no attempt to hide his shock.
‘For almost four years.’
‘What happened?’
‘I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me.’ Another shrug as she desperately tried to keep the evening light. ‘In hindsight, we rushed into it. My father had just died and my brother had emigrated. I was looking for something to fill a void, and Joe was it. He was kind and he cared for me. It was a mistake.’
She couldn’t tell him about Faith. She wouldn’t be able to dismiss that loss as lightly. Besides, he was still processing the bombshell she had just dropped.
But what choice had she had? He’d rebuffed her attempts to talk to him. To tell him.
‘Your father had died, and your brother had emigrated?’
He raked his hand through his hair. A nostalgia-inducing young-boy action she hadn’t seen in any press photograph of him for years. Perhaps ever.
She swallowed, her tongue feeling too thick for her shrinking mouth. Then she raised a shaking hand to a small cluster of photos on the wall. They could say all the things she couldn’t.
He peered at them. Stepped closer. Stared harder.
She imagined she could see his eyes moving from one to the other. Photos of Robbie, of her father, of herself. And even the one with Kaspar himself.
The growing look of shock on his face twisted in her gut. He honestly hadn’t had any idea. The knowledge clawed at her insides. The silence crowded in on them. Sucking every bit of air from the room, making it impossible for her to breathe. It was an eternity before Kaspar spoke, the words hissing out of his mouth like some kind of accusation.
‘Little Ant?’
Despite his incredulity there was also a tenderness in the way he said her old nickname that pulled at her in a way she hadn’t been prepared for. And he’d addressed her as an individual in her own right, not simply as Robbie’s sister, which had to mean something, didn’t it?
Even so, he was already physically backing away, heading towards the door. And she hated it. Now, more than ever, she wanted that connection with him. The moment they had never had.
Abruptly, desperation lent her an outward strength. Her voice carried an easy quality that she hadn’t felt for years, even though her internal organs were working as hard as if they were completing some marathon or other.
‘It’s Archie now,’ she offered redundantly. Awkwardly.
‘God! I kissed you.’
Whether he was more disgusted at himself or at the kiss, she couldn’t be sure. Either way, it was everything she’d feared.
‘We kissed each other,’ she corrected, madly trying to slow her thundering pulse. ‘Oh, don’t tell me you’re suddenly getting all funny about it.’
‘Of course I am,’ he snarled, his eyes glittering. Dark, and hard, and cold...and something else. Something she couldn’t identify. ‘You used to be the closest thing to a little sister.’
He headed for the door, unable to sound more disgusted if he’d tried.
‘Exactly. Used to be,’ Archie echoed, refusing to cow at his tone, however it might claw at her. ‘It has been fifteen years, Kaspar, and you didn’t even recognise me. To all intents and purposes I’m no different from many other women at that party.’
‘You aren’t any other woman at that party. You’re Little Ant. You’re far more innocent than any of them.’ He reached for the door, opened it, and she’d never felt more powerless. ‘Certainly for someone like me. I have to get out of here. Now.’
And suddenly everything slowed down for Archie. She could read the anger and anguish at war on his face, and she realised what was going on. It bolstered her. A rush of confidence warmed her.
‘You’re not angry with me for not telling you so much as being angry at yourself that you still want me.’ Her voice held wonder. ‘You really want me.’
