He leaned down, kissed her again, and she could smell the coconut of his body lotion, taste coffee on his lips. Somewhere inside her, a rampage of feelings that had been locked in a vault a year ago burst free. Lust. Attraction. Sexiness. Excitement. And most of all… hope. Maybe she could do this again. Perhaps she could find the courage to open herself to someone new.
And Rex Marino would be a damn fine place to start.
‘I do,’ she answered, pressing the lift button so she could get moving again and out of here before her courage failed her and she changed her mind about going.
The lift doors opened, and she exited. She’d taken a few steps when she realised that instead of staying in the lift and returning back down to set, Rex was walking beside her. Ten metres. Twenty metres. She reached her office, and without saying a word, he followed her in and closed the door behind them.
7
NOAH
It was a relief when the clock on Noah’s office wall struck 10.30a.m., and he was forced to stop replaying what had happened downstairs over and over.
Anya.
It was her.
Walking towards him.
Looking almost the same as she had four months ago, when he’d taken her to Glasgow Airport and said goodbye, before she boarded a plane back to New York, to start a new life in the city she’d grown up in with her American dad and Scottish mum.
Another snapshot. They were twenty-one. Newly arrived in Scotland after deciding to study in her mother’s homeland, she’d walked into the vaulted hall of Glasgow University, where tables had been set up by all the clubs and societies on campus, to welcome freshers and enlist new members to their groups. Noah and Max were manning a table promoting the university’s basketball teams, and the minute this five foot ten goddess walked into the room, eyes like dark pools and cheekbones that belonged on a magazine cover, he’d fallen hopelessly in love at first sight. Or maybe lust. He was young and the lines were alittle blurry. Max had asked her out first, and she’d refused him, choosing Noah’s invitation for drinks instead, and that was it. Lost. Game over. He was hers.
Another image. She was walking towards him again, this time dressed in white, smiling at their friends and families that lined each side of the aisle. They’d lived together for a few years by that point, often with Max in the spare room for weeks or months at a time. Clichéd as it sounded, Noah’s wedding day had been the happiest moment of his life.For richer and poor. In sickness and in health. To the exclusion of all others. For as long as you both shall live.Years later, he would discover that Anya had broken one of those vows, with the man he considered a brother.
The next picture in the album of their lives. The one that he still saw almost every day. The two of them, Max and Anya, in an overturned car, bloodied, battered, somewhere between life and death.
Then he was back to the start. The last scene. Saying goodbye. Until now.
‘It’s okay. I’ve got this,’ he’d murmured to Keli, who had been standing beside him, rooted to the spot, going nowhere. Keli had only been twelve when Noah had first brought his new girlfriend home, but it had been love at first sight there too, and from that very second they’d grown as close as sisters, right up until the moment they’d all learned of Anya’s betrayal. As far as Noah knew, the two women hadn’t talked since. It was unspoken, but in the DNA of their family – if someone hurt one of them, they hurt them all. Ranks closed while they took care of whoever had been wronged or damaged.
In Noah’s case, it had brought him and Keli even closer and redefined their relationship, no longer big brother and little sister, but now two adults who were friends and equals.
Downstairs, Keli had backed off as he requested, with a glare of warning over her shoulder to the woman who had decimated his heart.
‘Noah, can we talk?’ He’d recognised the anxiety in Anya’s voice and the strain on her face, her wide eyes, the white knuckles as her hand clutched her bag strap. She was nervous. Uncomfortable.
‘I have clinic in ten minutes, and I can’t keep them waiting.’
A sad smile had appeared on her beautiful face. ‘You never could. It was one of the things I loved about you,’ she’d said softly.
Alarm bells, claxons and bloody great bullhorns had sounded off in his brain. What the hell was happening? What was this? What was she doing here? And why was his heart thudding like a fricking train?
He’d shrugged. ‘Some things don’t change, I guess.’
He’d spotted a flinch and realised that she might have taken that as a jab at her. It hadn’t been meant with any kind of malice, and she should know that. Even in their worst moments, in the hospital after the accident when she had finally told him the truth, he had tried to act with some kind of compassion and decency. She’d made a horrible mistake, but he’d tried not to allow that error to rewrite the history of who she was and what they’d had together. She had reasons. Flaws. Issues. Just as he had. Only difference was, he hadn’t shagged her best friend.
‘How did you know I was here?’ he’d asked, keeping his voice calm, reasonable. After almost two decades of medical training, keeping steady in a crisis came naturally to him, regardless of how he was feeling on the inside.
‘I went to the house and you weren’t there. Figured this was the next place to try. I remembered you often did an overspill clinic on a Friday. I hope it’s okay? I know I should have called, but I wasn’t sure you’d pick up.’
‘I would have answered, Anya,’ he’d told her. ‘How long are you here for?’
‘Until tomorrow. I just came for a couple of days… I had some things I needed to do. One of them is speak to you. Not here. Somewhere we can talk properly.’
His heart had begun thudding faster. What could they have to discuss? They’d said goodbye, drawn a line in the sand. Now it seemed that the tide was rushing back in, and he wanted to run, but what would be the point? Whatever it was, she was leaving tomorrow. He could give her the courtesy of a conversation.
In his mind, Noah had run through his plan for the day. Clinic. Then late lunch with Cheska. He wasn’t going to cancel on her for Anya, especially when she was the one who had arranged this lunch today. No, the friend that had stood by him for the last year took precedence.
