A Hundred Ways to Break Up (Let's Make This Thing Happen 2) (12 page)

The reality completely confounded those expectations. It was a beautiful sunny day, and this part of the city was leafy and tranquil – if anything, it reminded Emily of the part of Islington where Ray had his London home. Kayleigh just hitched her dress up around her ankles and led the way with her new husband. All around them everything came to a halt as people paused to watch the procession. There was something incredibly uplifting about seeing the reactions of complete strangers, the smiles and laughter, the honking of car horns, even a ripple of applause as they passed a pub where smokers gathered outside on the street for their lunchtime drinks and cigarettes.

The hall was a timber-framed Victorian building tucked away behind a row of shops. It had been renovated recently and had a little courtyard crammed with flowers, giving it an almost cottage garden look and feel.

The whole thing combined to reinforce Emily’s new spirit. Good things could happen, even amid tragedy and loss.

As they filed inside, Kayleigh leaned forward and gave Emily a big hug.

“Beautiful, beautiful day,” said Emily.

“It’d have been even more beautiful if you’d brought your new boyfriend,” said Kayleigh with a wink. “I
knew
you were holding something back.”

For a moment Emily was surprised and didn’t know how to react, then she laughed and realized it had become something she could talk and joke about. Something
normal
. She glanced back, but her mother hadn’t heard. She would tell her later.

They went inside and Emily did the rounds of catching up with family she hadn’t seen in too long, and making sure Marcia didn’t feel too left out.

It really was good to be out and in the thick of things again. She needed this. Needed to feel normal and energized and interesting again. She hadn’t realized quite how much the last few months with Thom had flattened her down.

A paper plate loaded with finger food from the buffet in one hand and a flute of champagne in the other, she was just about to try explaining this to Marcia when she glanced up and in the doorway there he was.

Thom.

He’d put on his old gray suit, which always hung well on him, but his tie was crooked and his hair messed up. If he’d shaved today he hadn’t done a very good job, and that look in his eye: it was only early afternoon but she knew he’d been drinking.

Marcia followed her look and sighed. “You want me to see him off?” she asked.

“No. Thanks, but this is my mess. I’ll deal with it.”

§

He gave a wide smile as she approached and spread his arms as if she would be stupid enough to hug him.

“Will you just leave?”

The smile melted away in slow motion. “I... I just wanted to talk,” he said, too loud.

“And you thought this was the time and place?”

“You’re hard to get hold of. This is the only place I knew you’d be.”

People were looking. Her
mother
was looking. Emily took a hold of Thom’s arm and tried to steer him back out of the door. He resisted easily and said, “It’s okay. I’m not causing any trouble.”

“You want some help?” It was Marcia. Then to Thom she said, “Will you just go? Do you realize how ridiculous you look?”

He straightened himself up, trying to look offended. “I just came here to say my piece and then I’ll go. I just came here to say you’re wrong: it’s not over. I want you back.”

“That it?” Even Emily was surprised at the steel in her own voice. “Okay, so you’ve said your piece: you can go now.”

“Don’t you think I deserve an apology?”

“You?
You?
” He’d lit the blue touchpaper and forgotten to step back. “You think I should apologize because I’ve finally decided to get out of this dead marriage and start to live again? When I’m the only one who ever tried to make it work? When you’ve been cheating on me since day one? How do you think it feels to know what you’ve been up to? That it’s been a hobby for you? Where other men go to the pub or the football, you sleep with other women.”

He’d raised his hands defensively as she hissed these words at him, and now he was the one glancing around the hall, aware that eyes were on them. “No,” he said, when she had ground to a halt. “You’re wrong. It’s not like that.”

“It is. It always has been. I
know
, Thom. You can cut the pretending.”

That was when a cloud passed over his face. At first she took it for acceptance, but then it became clear that it was something else. It was the same look that had taken over his face when he’d tried to punch her. A fierce, angry look that came immediately prior to lashing out with all that he had.

He looked past Emily to Marcia, and said, “
She’d
know about that, wouldn’t she?”

With that, he turned and stormed out of the building, but by then it was too late.

Emily turned and stared at Marcia. “You...?” she said, and the look on her friend’s face told her everything.

Marcia reached out to put a hand on Emily’s arm, but Emily batted it away.

“Once,” Marcia said softly, all the strength drained from her expression and her voice. “Just once.”

As if counting made any difference.

“At a party. I was drunk. It was awful. It was just once...”

Emily turned and Kayleigh was standing right there. She must have heard everything. Everyone in the damned hall must have heard. Kayleigh reached for Emily and drew her into a hug.

Then Emily straightened, forcing a smile onto her face. She remembered the strength Kayleigh had shown throughout the day, and in the lead-up to this day.

She would get through this.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.” This was Kayleigh’s day, and Emily was not going to spoil it.

“You sure?”

Emily nodded and, without even a glance at Marcia, took Kayleigh’s hand and led her back into the heart of the gathering.

§

A few minutes later, she slipped away from the little group gathered around Kayleigh and left the hall.

Out in the courtyard the sun shone down and the tubs of flowers formed pools of color and everything was blurred because now – only now – Emily had allowed the tears to well up.

She found a quiet corner and slid down into a squatting position, her back against a wood-paneled wall.

Marcia? Even Marcia...

Everything was falling apart around her.

There were no longer any certainties in her life. There never had been, but now she could see that.

She concentrated on breathing. On the sunlight and flowers.

No certainties, but one possibility... She remembered the video he’d sent through the day before.
Let’s make this thing happen
...

She rummaged in her bag, found her phone, found Recent Calls and pressed to dial one of the numbers.

§

Mo answered. “Hey, friend of Marcia,” he said, as he always did, and only Emily was able to appreciate the irony just then. “What can I do for you?”

“I need to speak to Ray.”

“I’m his messaging service. Just fire away.”

“This isn’t one of your dramas or media games, Mo. Just get Ray on the line for me, would you?”

He must have picked up her tone, because a moment later there was the fumbling sound of a phone being handed over and then Ray was on the line: “Hey,” he said, “What’s happening? Shouldn’t you be at–?”

“I am.”

He stayed silent. Her tone, again.

“Listen. I don’t know where I stand. I don’t know what we are. I don’t know where we’re going. I don’t know why you left the country or what you feel about me or Róisín or anything. I don’t
know
anything.”

She paused and took a deep breath, then continued: “Or rather, there is one thing I do know. I know that if there’s even a part of you that really cares, if you think there’s even a chance that we might be able to make this thing happen, then you’ll get your sorry ass here as fast as you can because my whole world is being ripped apart, and I need to know whether I’m going to be rebuilding it alone or with you. It’s your choice, Ray, and only you can make it.”

She took the phone away from her ear, stared at the screen for a few seconds, and then thumbed the red telephone icon to disconnect the call.

Now another of Ray’s songs came back to her, the one he’d played for her when they’d stayed at Ronnie’s mansion.
If there are ninety-nine ways to get together, there’s a hundred ways to break up
.

She’d broken up with Thom, but by giving him an ultimatum was she in the process of breaking up with Ray, too?

She went back inside, pausing briefly in the Ladies’ to fix her face. She had to be strong. She’d already come close to wrecking Kayleigh’s day: there could be no more dramas.

She looked around, but couldn’t see any sign of Marcia. Had she slipped away while Emily had been outside? She didn’t know what she felt about her old friend and what she’d done, but she understood enough to know she would need time before she could really know. Maybe that was why Marcia had gone now: she always had been able to understand Emily better than almost anyone else.

She found the wine, and poured herself a fresh glass. It would be so easy to lose herself in a bottle or two right now, but she wasn’t going to do that. Now wasn’t the time for easy.

She tried not to think about Ray, for now. That old advice: focus on what you can control and let everything else go. She had no influence now over whether he was heading for the airport to get back here as soon as possible, or if he was just kicking back with Rake with a bottle of a local Vouvray by the chateau’s pool. She had to let that go, not even think about it, or she might just be sick.

She went over to join her mother, who was talking to another cousin and his wife whose name would come back to Emily soon, she was sure.

Her mother took one look at her, smiled apologetically at the cousin and his wife and led Emily away.

Finding a quieter spot, she stopped, put her hands on Emily’s arms again, and said, “You look like shit, Emily. Are you going to tell me why, now? It’s more than just Thom, isn’t it?”

Emily swallowed, then nodded. “It’s a long story,” she said.

“Then you’d better get started.”

§

She hadn’t expected him to just march right into the reception: Ray Sandler, in amongst the wedding gathering. She spotted him before most of the others did and then, slowly, people registered who he was, nudged each other and whispered until everybody had stopped and turned and stared.

When she’d said he had to come back for her, she hadn’t meant quite like this. Whatever had happened to discreet?

He stopped a short way into the hall and peered around. When his eyes found her his mouth opened a little, his eyes widened. He stepped towards her, then stopped, suddenly uncertain.

“I came,” he said.

The hall was in absolute silence. So much for no more dramas...

“I’d come back already,” he said. “I hadn’t finished working but I left Rake to finish off the last couple of tracks – he knows what I’m after. I had to come back, Emily. I couldn’t be away from you for any longer. Not when I knew what you were going through. Not ever.”

Emily didn’t know where to look, or what to say.

“What do you want?” she asked, finally. “What’s this all about?”

“It’s about you. You’re the most extraordinary, beautiful person and you just don’t see it. I’m awe-struck by you. Star-struck. Emily, it’s you. It’s always been about you, since I first laid eyes on you. Can’t you let yourself see that?”

He held out a hand towards her.

“I should warn you that the press are out there,” he said. “They followed me, and now they’re waiting. It goes with the territory. If  you come with me you’re going to have to accept that they’ll be photographing us, in our faces, hoping for a juicy story. There’ll be no hiding: you’ll be there, with me, in public. It’ll be
us
, Emily. You and me. And that’s exactly what I want. I came back for you, Emily. I love you.”

She swallowed. Looked around. All eyes were on the two of them.

She stepped forward, reached out, took his hand.

Immediately there was a loud whoop from Kayleigh. Emily turned and looked at her, and her cousin was jumping up and down. “You go, Emily,” Kayleigh yelled. “You go, girl!” That was when it struck her that she was the star of this show – Emily Rivers – and Ray Sandler was grateful just to have a role. In his eyes it really had been all about her.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get out there and face them.”

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www.pollyjadams.com/about.php

Writing under other names, PJ Adams is a successful novelist, with several novels published by major publishing houses and optioned for movies. As PJ Adams, she writes in the genre closest to her heart, erotic romance – love stories with that added heat, including the international bestsellers
Winner Takes All
and
Black Widow
. Working as Polly J Adams, she writes best-selling erotica, relationship stories crammed full of explicit sex. Among Polly's most popular stories are the Girls’ Club series, and
Wings of Desire
, the story of a young woman's relationship with the wealthy owner of a New England sex club.

You can find out more about PJ and her writing on
her website
, on
http://www.facebook.com/pollyjadamswriter
and on Twitter
as @PollyJAdams
.

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