‘Got my wallet.’ He lifted it from the table to provide proof of this fact and she had the sudden thought that maybe the whole ‘left wallet’ thing was a deliberate manipulation so that he’d have to come back tonight. Or was she just overthinking everything about him now?
‘Great. So Kayleigh said you’ve decided to come to the party tonight.’
‘Yeah. I mean, your mum was good enough to invite me, so as long as your dad doesn’t put bouncers on the door to stop megetting in, I thought it would be kind of cool to have a family night out again.Ourfamily.’
Her dad’s distrust and general disdain for him had never been vocalised to Flynn directly, but it didn’t take a psychologist to spot it.
The reference to ‘family’ was very clearly loaded, though, so she decided to jump right in.
‘You know, I was thinking about what you were saying this morning.’
‘You were?’ He looked suitably pleased with this information.
‘I was.’ Her answer was breezy, as she was still trying her best not to give away that he was about to stroll right into an ambush of his own making. She’d thought about how to play this the whole way home, and this was the best she could come up with at short notice. ‘But if we’re going to give it another try, then I don’t want there to be anything that could come back and bite us on the arse later. No secrets. Nothing that could hurt us. So if there’s anything you think I should know, then I need you to tell me now and we can talk about it, move on and forget it.’
A very slight frown of unease made two little creases appear between the sexy eyes, but he kept up the cool and easy vibe.
‘Like what?’
She shrugged, acting nonchalant. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe just things like whether we’ve seen other people since we split. No details. I mean just, like, ballpark. Bullet points.’
He immediately deflected, as she’d anticipated that he would. ‘Why, have you?’
‘No.’
‘No one? Like, at all? Since we split up?’
Georgie shook her head, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. ‘No. Not even a date. I was a bit busy with the salon and being with our daughter.’
Hopefully, despite the words, she’d managed to keep any hint of resentment or accusation out of that, because if he got defensive, then she’d never get the truth. ‘I’m also inherently lazy and terrified of dating apps, so there’s that. It’s not a moral thing. If Ryan Gosling had shown up on my doorstep, then I totally would have.’
His shoulders dropped just a tad, but it was enough to show that she’d put him at ease again.
Time to go in with, ‘What about you? And please be honest, because I can take it. Like I said, I just want to clear the decks so we both know there are no secrets.’
He took a swig of his beer before he answered. ‘Look, I have seen a few people. Like I said, it’s been three years since we split, Georgie. Two years since the divorce. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.’
‘No, no – I don’t either. This isn’t a blame game here, and I promise there are no right or wrong answers.’ She waited for a bolt of lightning to strike her down for the obvious lie there, but when it didn’t come, she carried on. ‘So when you say you’ve “seen” people – do you mean dates, or actual relationships?’
Headlights. Rabbit.
‘Dates. Yeah, like a few dates, but that’s it.’
‘So no one long term, no one serious?’
Argh, this was so difficult. She wanted to blurt out that she knew about Monica, that the game was up, and she had all the facts at her disposal, but she’d promised that she wouldn’t tell him about his girlfriend’s visit, so that option was off the table.
‘No, nothing like that. I think I always hoped on some level that we’d get back together, so I haven’t been interested in anything that could get in the way of that.’
Oh, he was good. If she hadn’t known he was lying throughhis teeth, she might be believing this.Today’s lesson is being brought to you courtesy of the word, ‘gullible’.
One last question for the prosecution. ‘And you’re not seeing anyone right now?’
He leaned forward, elbows on the table, ‘No. Georgie, do you think I’d be sitting here if I was seeing someone?’
Yes. Yes, I absolutely would. But she said that on the inside. On the outside, she went with, ‘I guess not. I mean, that would be a pretty underhand thing to do. You hear about guys like that, that play a couple of women along at the same time. Total shitbags. I had a client the other day whose ex-husband was trying to get her back while still shagging his secretary.’
His Adam’s apple moved as she said that and there was a definite squirm in his chair, but she carried on in a light conversational tone, as if just relaying a story.
