Love notes (30 page)

The familiar monochrome
photograph had been enlarged and printed onto canvas. At the sight
of it, the memories rushed in on her so fast she became dizzy and
struggled for breath.

She remembered it being taken a
scorching afternoon at Ben’s house when all they’d been able to do
was swim or lie in the shade. Erika had fallen asleep on her side
and Aiden had lain behind her on the sun bed, his body spooning
hers and his arm curled possessively around her waist. At one point
he’d propped himself up and dropped a kiss onto her neck, making
Erika smile in her sleep and mould herself into him as if they were
two halves of one body.

Richard had captured the moment
with his camera, reducing it to black and white and turning it into
a still from an old Hollywood movie.

Even now, half a world away from
California, it evoked the smell of sun cream on Aiden’s skin, the
warmth of his body against hers and the happiness of waking up in
her lover’s arms.

A smile escaped her disguised as
a sigh.

“I’ve not seen that for a long
time,” she said, all too aware of Aiden moving to stand beside her.
“I’d forgotten what a beautiful photograph it is.”

“I asked Richard for it after
we’d…” Aiden’s voice broke off and he rubbed the back of his neck
again while he scrambled for the right phrase. “…once I got back to
England. It moved in here when I did.”

It surprised Erika that he’d
hang such a private portrait in such a prominent place. “I packed
all our photographs away after you left. They were too painful to
look at. I couldn’t have a daily reminder of how much I missed
you.”

“Lucky you. I didn’t have that
luxury.” Again the rebuke but nothing more than Erika deserved and
she didn’t argue. “Every time I opened a newspaper, turned on the
radio or went online, there you were.” Feeling he was losing
control Aiden made an effort to regain it, unable to look at Erika
for a moment. “In any case, you haunt this place,” he said
eventually. “Missing you was unbearable, with or without a
photograph. At least it reminds me how happy we once were.”

“We could still be happy,” Erika
ventured, not daring to look at him and wondering how many more
colossal hints she needed to drop before they started having the
conversation she’d flown six thousand miles for.

“Happy together?” Aiden
apparently didn’t agree. “Don’t you think it’s been too long?”

“No.”

“Then I admire your optimism.”
Although there suddenly seemed very little admiration in his voice,
and not a great deal of warmth either.

Wanting to reverse out of their
conversational one-way street, Erika returned her attention to the
canvas. In it, Aiden’s hand spread possessively across her stomach
and his legs entwined with hers as if they’d just finished making
love. She wouldn’t have liked to see such an erotic image in the
house of any man she dated and asked the obvious question.

“Don’t other women find this
picture intimidating?”

“No.” The word rapped out
sharply and he glared at her. “Because I don’t bring other women
here.”

“Oh.”

Tears of disappointment stung
Erika’s eyes, even though she fought to hold them back. What had
she expected? It had been a year after all. Of course there were
other women.

Suddenly, the urge to know
everything overtook her, even though she guessed the answers would
hurt her more than she could bear.

“Are you seeing anyone at the
moment?” she therefore asked, no longer caring about her lack of
subtlety.

“Yes.” Again, no hesitation and
a dart of anger at her intrusion. His tiger’s eyes burned into
her.

“How long have you been
together?”

“A couple of months.”

“Serious?”

“She is.”

An unseen hand reached in and
grasped Erika’s heart, ready to squeeze the life out of it. Her
blood pressure plummeted and she ran cold, her body weightless.
Tears began falling large and hot down Erika’s cheeks.

She wanted to run – to take
herself off and hide so none of this would be true – but Aiden
hadn’t finished with her yet. Anger flared in him at the sight of
her tears and he grasped her shoulders, pulling her toward him
roughly.

“What did you expect, Erika?” he
demanded, his fingers tightening painfully. “Did you imagine I’d
limp back to London and spend the rest of my life alone, pining for
you?”

“Of course not.” She struggled
to calm him but he’d lost control and tightened his hold on
her.

“How dare you cry? I was the one
who waited three months. And then six.” At each full stop he shook
her. “Still the phone didn’t ring. I spent weeks expecting every
call to be yours. But even when the trial ended - nothing.”

“I was ill.” Erika rushed to
justify herself. The first early weeks rushed back in on her,
pulling every torn emotion and tear-broken night back to the
surface. Pain swamped her, as fresh and cruel as it had ever been
and she sobbed. “You’ve got to believe me. After the trial, I
simply broke down. If it hadn’t been for Ben and Richard I might
have gone crazy.”

“I did go crazy,” Aiden shouted.
He released her so quickly she staggered back against the desk. “I
felt you touch me in my sleep. I thought I saw you on every street
corner. I’d come here and convince myself I heard music.”

“Oh Aiden.” Erika laid her hand
tenderly against his stubbled cheek, finding his skin surprisingly
cold and feeling his jaw clench angrily beneath her palm. “I swear
I never meant to hurt you like this. I wish I could rewind time and
take this away but I can’t.”

Aiden jerked his head roughly to
one side so her hand fell away, but he couldn’t bring himself to
look at her. “We can’t go back.” His voice was cut through with
cruelty, the words designed to wound. “Whether or not you were
thinking straight, you ripped my heart out and left a gaping hole
inside me. It’s still there.”

The image made Erika crumble and
she cried uncontrollably. Such love. Such loss. And she’d been the
one stupid enough to throw it away.

“Then let me fix you,” she
begged. “Let me put the pieces back together again.”

“I can’t. It’s taken a year for
the pain to become bearable. I daren’t risk opening that wound
again.”

“It’s not a risk.” Erika
panicked as the argument slipped away from her. “I want us to be
together, Aiden. That’s what I’ve come all this way to tell
you.”

“Well you could have saved the
plane fare.” His eyes reflected utter defeat. “Love doesn’t come
with a no-risk guarantee. And you can’t expect me to put my sanity
on the line by giving you a second chance. How do I know you won’t
do the same thing again?”

“I won’t. I promise. I love you
far too much for that.”

“You love me?” Aiden repeated
the words furiously and rounded on her. “How the hell can you stand
there and say that after what you did? You destroyed me. No one
hurts the person they love that much.”

“Oh don’t they?” Tired of
begging, the gloves came off and Erika retaliated. “What about
first time around? I loved you then but you still went to bed with
someone else.” The scene replayed vividly in her mind and the tears
came afresh. “You destroyed me but I gave you a second chance.”

“Well maybe that’s where we’re
different. Perhaps for me it’s once bitten, twice shy.”

“Then that’s not fair.”

“Who’s talking about fair?”
Aiden exploded and put the width of the room between them. He
clenched his fists and looked ready to put his hands around Erika’s
throat. “I loved you. I opened up my chest and put my heart in your
hands. But it turns out you couldn’t have cared less.”

“I did care. I still do.”
Appalled at his false opinion, she rushed to her own defence. “All
I’m asking for is the chance to make it up to you. To spend my life
repairing the damage I’ve caused.”

“I’m sorry.” He seemed far from
it. “But I’m not letting you anywhere near me again.”

He stood firm; too obstinate and
proud to back down, and the pain splitting open Erika’s heart
became unbearable.

“You’ve got to take me back,”
she cried. “We can’t give up on everything we were to each other.”
Her hand spread across his chest, feeling the explosive rhythm of
his heart and hating herself for having made him so miserable.
“Please Aiden. I’m not too proud to beg for a second chance.”

His expression registered his
decision before the words did. “I can’t,” he said on a huge sigh.
“I’m sorry. But, for me, there’s no going back.”

“You can’t mean that.” Erika
wouldn’t allow herself to believe it. Couldn’t give him up so
easily. “I love you, Aiden. More than life itself. I was a fool to
send you away and stupid to leave it so long before coming back.
But that still doesn’t alter the fact that you’re the love of my
life. I can’t live without you.”

“Well you’ll have to. Just like
I did.” His face contorted with contempt. “Did you honestly think
that turning up here out of the blue would fix everything?”

“Of course not. I have so much
to make up for.”

“Too much.” There it was again.
The finality. The thick, black line drawn under what they’d once
been to each other. “It’s over, Erika. Done. I won’t allow myself
to be that vulnerable again.” He corrected himself. “I can’t. Not
even for you.”

Erika grew desperate, throwing
everything she could into fighting for her love, life and future.
“I know you’re too proud – or maybe even too terrified – to admit
it, but you’re still in love with me.”

“You can’t say that. It’s been
too long. You don’t know me any more.”

“Then look at this house.
Everything about it is mine. You built this hoping I’d come back.
You said so yourself – I’m in every brick and timber and it didn’t
come to life until I walked in.” When he still didn’t waver, she
added, “If you were honest, you’d admit I’m in every bone and vein
of your body too.”

For a moment, she thought she
saw a flicker of indecision but it passed quickly, leaving Aiden
taut and unconvinced. The defences went up for the final time and
he withdrew from her both physically and emotionally.

“You once said our relationship
might only be about sex and memories,” he reminded her. “And I now
know you were right. It was a fling. Fun. Intense. And exciting
because it was so risky. Nothing more.”

“How can you say that?” Erika
heard Aiden describing a different couple. “We were so much more to
each other – and still are. We can’t throw it away because of my
mistakes and your damaged pride.”

“It’s no good.” Again the
certainty that it had to end. “You’ve hurt me too much. I’ll never
trust you again. Even if I did still love you, I couldn’t go back
there.”

Although she’d heard him say it,
Erika refused to believe it. Making amends would never have been
easy but she’d naively believed that wanting him enough – loving
and wishing enough – would bring him back to her.

Now she saw how desperately
wrong she’d been.

Her newly-healed heart broke and
collapsed in on itself. “So that’s it? We’re over?”

Aiden shook his head. “We were
over a long time ago. Since I left America, I’ve been learning to
leave all that heartache behind. I’m moving on, selling the house,
packing away the memories and building a relationship with someone
else.”

“Do you love her?”

Aiden’s quickly-concealed
surprise showed he hadn’t expected such a direct question. He
allowed himself only a moment’s thought.

“Cally’s beautiful. She’s good
company. She loves me.” His eyes silently asked Erika whether she
could really blame him. “Maybe all that makes her a safer pair of
hands for my heart.”

It made no sense. The Aiden
Erika knew and loved wouldn’t have given in this easily, or have
been content with something so imperfect.

“How can you settle for so
little after everything we had?” she demanded.

“It’s a question of survival.”
The bravado and certainty slipped from him, exposing him as
vulnerable and prepared for the inevitability of their break up.
“I’ve finally worked out that it’s better to love someone less,
rather than risk loving a woman who’s so ingrained in my soul that
my body shuts down without her.”

Only at that moment did Erika
understand that sending Aiden away had altered his DNA; making him
a different person, one for whom trust, vulnerability and love
would always now be words from a foreign language.

One he no longer spoke.

He deserved better. He was
entitled to more than the pain she’d caused him. More than the
heartache she’d forced upon him. If she truly loved him, Erika had
to return the favour he’d once done her and give him back his sense
of self.

Even if that meant letting him
go to someone else.

And the only way she could do
that, was to leave.

Reaching up, she drew the backs
of her fingers down his cheek before resting her thumb on the
centre of his lips. They gathered into the gentlest of kisses that
told her the most violent of goodbyes and her heart shattered into
a thousand pieces that would never now be reassembled.

Before life and strength
deserted her, she turned away from the man she adored and ran out
of the house.

Erika now wished she’d driven
straight up to London but she’d only just made it back to her
car.

Blinded by tears, she’d fumbled
her way out of Aiden’s house and across the fields, running as
though all her demons were in pursuit. Her ears had strained for
Aiden’s voice, shouting for her to turn around and come back to
him, but the only sound had been the rush of the water and the
swish of her legs through the long grass.

At the pub, she’d packed quickly
but had been crying too hard to consider driving. Instead, she’d
flung herself onto the bed and let desperation and loss overtake
her. Her broken heart had spilled so many tears onto the pillow,
she’d prayed for her body to run dry.