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Nico concealed his surprise. “That sounds like a long time for a relationship that was doomed from the start.”
“What can I say? I’m a fighter.”
He didn’t turn to look at her. “Are you?”
Silence.
“Does your Yaya ever come here?”
He understood. She needed to retreat for a moment. He sipped his viognier, his eyes trained on the placid water that made up the surface of the ocean just off the coastline. “No. I think there are too many memories here for her.”
“Sad memories?”
“Even happy memories can cause a rush of nostalgia that is sad, at times.”
She was quiet again.
“How did you meet?”
“Meet who?”
“Your ex. What was his name?”
“I’d…” Her eyes flashed, then she looked down at her feet. “I’d prefer not to say it here.”
Certainty was a blade in his chest. It was such a strange response, but not if her ex had done something so heinous she couldn’t bear to invoke him by giving him a name.
“Okay.” He looked at her, smiling in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “So how did you two meet?”
“At a bar.” She fidgeted her free hand in her lap, her eyes trained on her fingers. “I’d been out with my editor. I was pretty buzzed on champagne.” She shook her head in a way that could only be described as self-condemnatory. “I’m sure you know the story.”
A muscle clenched in his jaw. Unfortunately, he did. For Nico’s part, he had some hard and fast rules in life and not sleeping with a woman who’d had enough to drink that she might not know her own mind was one of them. He liked his partners to be fully engaged in the moment, not affected by alcohol consumption.
But there were some men who felt the opposite, who saw tipsy women as easy quarry, who purposefully pursued women who had obviously been drinking. It fit the mental image he was building of Maddie’s ex that the guy would have been one of the latter.
“He was charming, and handsome, and funny.”
Despite the realisation he was having, Nico felt a burst of jealousy. It surprised him for its force and uniqueness – he was not prone to envy. “Love at first sight?”
“I think I probably thought so, back then. I don’t believe in anything so stupid now.”
“No,” he agreed with muted approval.
“I was…so naïve.”
He heard the criticism in her tone and wanted to refute it, but not now. Not when she was showing signs of opening up to him. Instead, he stayed quiet, watching her, waiting for her to continue. Most people would, once the
y got on a roll. But Maddie wasn’t most people and if he was right, her experience wasn’t a common one. She stayed quiet, her lips clamped together so they were lined with white from the pressure of her expression.
“Do you still speak to him?”
Fear – unmistakable – filled her eyes. “No. Never.” Then, with an obvious effort, she smiled at him. “He messages me still. I should change my number.” A frown. “I don’t know why I haven’t done that yet.”
He nodded slowly. “I can have one of my assistants do it for you.”
Her smile was more genuine now. Slowly, she was coming back to him, returning to what he thought of as a normal version of her. “One of your assistants? My, how the other half lives.”
He turned his back on the view, propping his elbows on the railing and looking at her until a hint of pink filled her cheeks.
