Her Best Worst Mistake (18 page)

It was all too soon. Violet knew it in her gut, and
Elizabeth would be totally justified in feeling hurt and betrayed
and disrespected. It would be a miracle if the truth didn’t damage
their friendship forever, or at least alter it irrevocably. The
thought of Elizabeth being distant and wary with her was almost
more crushing for Violet than the notion that her friend might
repudiate her utterly once she knew what had been going on.

And so Violet continued to bite her tongue, and guilt
took up permanent residence in her belly, a hard, cold little
pebble that never quite went away, flaring up to stomach-ache
proportions when she spoke to Elizabeth and dying down to
almost-nothing when she was with Martin.

A part of her knew that the bubble had to burst
sometime. There was only so long that she could stick her head in
the sand and pretend that what was happening wasn’t happening and
that it didn’t mean anything to either herself or Martin or
Elizabeth.

Things came to a head when she and Martin decided to
eat out for a change one Wednesday night as February gave way to
March. So far they’d limited their venues to his place or hers,
mostly because it was much more convenient to have a closed door
between them and the world when things got steamy—as they
inevitably did, every time. But this particular Wednesday Martin
was late home from the office, and Violet had to huddle in the
doorway to his apartment building for nearly twenty minutes before
his car pulled up at the curb.

“
I’m sorry. I had a phone call from
one of the senior partners just as I was heading out the door...”
He rushed up the stairs to where she was standing and took her
hands, looking into her face with concern. “You look half frozen.
Do I need to stick you under a hot shower?”

“
Only if you’re part of the deal,”
she said, touched by his concern.

She turned toward the entrance of his building,
assuming they would be going inside now, but he held her back.

“
I thought we could eat out. I
didn’t have a chance to get to the supermarket tonight.”

She blinked, momentarily blind-sided by the
suggestion. As though the notion of going out in public and eating
together was a strange and new-fangled development that she needed
to get her head around instead of something that people did every
day.

“
You don’t want to eat out?” he
asked, looking mildly puzzled by her reaction.

“
Sure. Of course. What did you have
in mind?”

“
There’s a new Thai place over on
High Street. I haven’t tried it yet but it’s supposed to be
good.”

“
Sounds perfect.”

He led her to the car. She concentrated on putting on
her seat-belt, all the while trying to work out why she felt
off-balance all of a sudden. It took her a minute to understand
that it was because going out for dinner together was the sort of
thing that normal couples did. And she didn’t consider herself and
Martin either normal, or a couple.

After all, the bulk of their interactions to date had
been driven by an almost compulsive sexual chemistry, a need to be
naked that defeated both logic and willpower. That she’d discovered
she actually liked him as well as loved fucking him had been a
pleasant side benefit of it all, but there was no denying that sex
was the thing that had brought them together.

“
How was your day?” Martin asked as
he navigated his way through rush hour traffic.

“
A little slow. But it’s always like
this early in the year. I’ve got new stock coming in at the end of
the week and I’ll redo the window next Monday. That should generate
a bit more foot traffic.”

“
What have you got planned? For the
window, I mean?”

She glanced at him, sure he was simply being polite,
but he seemed genuinely interested. So she told him, describing the
props she’d been collecting. They continued to talk through their
meal, discussing his day and the big case he had coming up and the
fact that he was hoping to attend an international symposium on tax
fraud later in the year. Gradually she relaxed, feeling foolish for
her earlier unease.

At the end of the day, it was a meal. Food that they
were sharing in a public setting. It wasn’t a big deal. Not even
close to it.

Martin insisted on paying and they were still arguing
about it when they stepped out into the street.

“
Violet! What perfect timing—I’ve
been meaning to call you all week to ask if you have any of those
divine Cambodian silk scarves left.”

Violet’s head whipped around as Melissa bore down on
them, her husband Lewis in tow. Violet’s whole body tensed as
Melissa’s gaze slid over her shoulder and found Martin. Violet
launched into speech, panic surging inside her.

“
Wow, this is obviously the new hot
spot. I just ran into Martin inside.” Violet could hear herself
talking too fast but was powerless to stop it. All she could think
about was that Melissa and Elizabeth had gone to school together
and that she knew for a fact that they regularly exchanged emails.
“Clearly we’ve all been reading the same foodie blogs. Which is
probably why it’s full to bursting in there.”

Her smile was so wide it hurt her cheeks. Out of the
corner of her eye she saw Martin frown. Then he stepped forward to
shake Lewis’s hand.

“
I was just telling Violet to avoid
the red curry unless she has an ironclad stomach,” he said
easily.

Violet directed all her attention to Melissa, moving
subtly away from Martin. “To answer your question, sadly all those
scarves are gone. But I’m getting a new shipment this weekend,
along with a bunch of other stuff. You should drop by. I’ve sourced
some Italian cashmere shawls that I think you’d love.”

She continued to talk fashion with Melissa while
Lewis and Martin talked football. After five minutes Lewis caught
Melissa’s eye.

“
We’re going to lose our table if we
don’t make a move,” he said.

“
I need to get going, too,” Violet
said. “Lovely to see you all. Have a great night.”

She lifted a hand in farewell and started walking.
She could hear Martin taking his leave, too. She didn’t so much as
glance over her shoulder as she walked straight past his car, only
stopping when she was safely around the corner.

She let her breath out in a rush, closing her eyes.
That had been close. Too close. The idea of Elizabeth learning what
had been going on between her and Martin from a third party made
her feel dizzy with anxiety. She opened her eyes again just as
Martin’s car cruised around the corner.

He stopped beside her and she met his eyes,
unsurprised to see that he had his lawyer face on, utterly
expressionless. She walked to the passenger side and got in. He
pulled out into traffic. Neither of them said a word for a few
seconds.

“
I take it you still haven’t told
Elizabeth about us?” His voice was carefully neutral.

“
I didn’t see the point.” Not
strictly the truth, but she was hardly going to give him a detailed
rundown of her mixed up, guilt-laden thought processes where he and
Elizabeth were concerned.

“
Didn’t you?”

“
Be honest. How long do you think
this thing between us is going to last? A couple of
months?”

“
It’s already been more than two
months, Violet.”

“
You know what I mean. We’re oil and
water, Martin. The only thing we have in common is great
sex.”

He was slower to respond this time. “I was under the
impression that there was a little more going on than that. But if
that’s how you see things, then I was obviously mistaken.”

His face was still carefully blank, but a muscle
flickered in his jaw and Violet knew that she’d hurt him with her
reductive assessment of their relationship.

“
How do you see things, then?” The
words slipped out without her permission. Her stomach did a slow,
nervous roll as she waited for him to respond.

“
Does it matter?”

There was a tightness to his expression and she
remembered that not so long ago the woman he’d asked to marry him
had rejected him in no uncertain terms. Suddenly the way she’d
denied him—denied them—back at the restaurant took on a new
light.

“
I don’t know what you want from
me,” she said.

He glanced across at her as they turned the corner,
his gray eyes very direct. “Yes, you do.”

She swallowed. Deep inside, she’d known this
conversation was coming, and it scared the shit out of her. She
felt as though her insides were shaking, as though she might lose
her dinner.

“
Not so long ago, you despised me,”
she said. “You could barely stand to look at me.”

“
And now I can’t keep my hands off
you or get you out of my head. Which one of those reactions is the
more accurate reflection of my true feelings, do you think, Violet?
Let me give you a clue here—even though we’re arguing, even though
I’m almost one hundred percent certain that you’re about to walk
out on me, I have a hard-on with your name on it. That’s how much I
can barely stand to look at you.”

The rawness of his confession brought tears to her
eyes. He was so much braver than her.

“
How could I possibly walk out on
you, Martin? In what universe do you think I would be able to do
that?” she said, her voice breaking.

He swerved the car to the curb and the next thing she
knew she was in his arms, being crushed to his chest as he kissed
her with a savage, overpowering intensity. She gripped his
shoulders so tightly her fingers ached, straining to get closer to
him. After a handful of desperate seconds they eased apart, looking
into each other’s eyes.

“
It’s not just the sex, is it?” she
said.

“
It was never just sex.” He leaned
forward and kissed her again, a gentle, tender promise of a
kiss.

“
Does that mean you want me to go to
the Savage Club dinner with you?” The words slipped out of their
own volition. She’d been thinking about that invitation and what it
meant to him and how much she wanted him to ask her to be his
partner ever since she’d seen the damn thing on his
mantle.

“
Of course.”

To his credit, he said it without hesitation, but she
knew he must have reservations. It was one thing to acknowledge
that they’d somehow stumbled into a relationship, but she wasn’t
exactly cast from the same mold as Elizabeth.

Far from it.

“
I won’t embarrass you, don’t
worry.”

“
I know you won’t.”

“
Believe it or not, I know how to
play the game. I can even be quite good at it. If you’re worried,
you can—”

He kissed the words from her lips. “I’m not worried.
We’ll go. We’ll have a good night, or not. It’s not a deal
breaker.”

“
I know how much getting into that
club means to you.”

He lifted a shoulder casually. “It would be nice. But
I’m not prepared to sell my soul for it.”

There was hard won self-knowledge in his eyes as they
met hers and she understood that he’d been reassessing his life in
the wake of his broken engagement.

“
Is that why we drank the Chateau
Margaux on Christmas Day?”

“
That’s exactly why.”

He looked very solemn and a little chagrined, as
though he was angry with himself for some of the decisions he’d
made and the paths he’d chosen. She reached out and smoothed away
the small frown between his eyebrows with her index finger.

“
Take me home, Martin,” she said
simply.

Martin felt buoyant, maybe even a little euphoric, as
he walked into work the following morning. He’d just left Violet
naked in his bed and he planned on carrying the image of her sated,
sultry smile with him through the day.

A weight had lifted from his chest after their
conversation last night. Over the past weeks he’d come to realise
that what was happening between them had the potential to redefine
his life. Violet was vibrant and bold and passionate and impulsive
and so sexy she could make him hard without batting an eyelid. She
made him laugh, and she made him look at his world with new
eyes.

And, yes, she was about as different from Elizabeth
as it was possible to get.

Thank. God.

His mood dimmed momentarily as he remembered the
earlier part of last night, the part where Violet had distanced
herself from him outside the restaurant and lied through her teeth
to convince Melissa and Lewis they’d accidentally run into one
another.

Even though he’d suspected that she still hadn’t come
clean with Elizabeth about what was going on with them, he hadn’t
known for sure. The confirmation of his suspicion combined with her
denial had knocked him well and truly off balance.

He knew he was probably a million miles from the kind
of men she usually dated. He wasn’t wild, he wasn’t Bohemian. He
didn’t come from the right sort of family, he didn’t rub shoulders
with the right sort of people. But he also knew that he rocked her
world in the bedroom and that she appreciated his dry, acerbic
sense of humor and that she seemed as eager to spend time with him
as he was with her, both in and out of the bedroom.

What he hadn’t known until last night was if all of
that was enough for Violet. If he was enough.

But she’d answered that question for him last night.
For the first time they’d both acknowledged that this thing that
had taken them both unawares was real, and that it was worth
hanging on to.