“I love you.”
“I know it.”
He didn’t come back to bed after the first drink.
* * * *
Lydia woke up alone the next morning, only remembering when she noticed the state of the sheets that Milan was here. Or was he?
She threw her bathrobe back on and peered into the living room.
He was deeply asleep on the sofa, his feet hanging off the end, his arm thrust out, still holding a glass that had tipped to a disastrous angle, staining the carpet with expensive Czech brandy.
His skin was drained of colour. She could almost have imagined he was dead, if it wasn’t for the snuffling breaths he took. She went back into her bedroom, took the duvet off her bed and covered him with it, then went to take a shower.
He didn’t even wake when she practised her playing in the ‘rehearsal corner’. The smell of coffee couldn’t rouse him, or the reheated mulligatawny soup she ate for her mid-morning brunch. Was he ever going to wake up?
The clock warned that rehearsal time was coming soon. Surely he would want to shower, eat, freshen up before that?
She grabbed one of his feet and stroked the instep. He began to writhe and splutter. For the first time in what seemed an age, she laughed. He opened his eyes reluctantly and squinted at her, propping himself up on one elbow.
“Fuck, Lydia, what are you trying to do to me?”
His voice was slow and slurred.
“Rehearsal starts soon. We have to get ready and get into town in one hour.”
He let his head fall back down on the armrest.
“I can’t do it. Not today.”
“Milan! You’re the conductor! You have to go in.”
“Tell them I’m sick. Leonard will do it.”
She stared at him speechlessly then made an angry swipe for the glass that lay on the floor, stalking into the tiny kitchenette with it and banging it on the counter.
“So that’s what all your plotting and skulduggery was for, was it? So you could get the job of your dreams and then piss it all against the wall? You aren’t going in because you’re hung-over? That’s your idea of commitment?”
Milan clutched his forehead.
“Milácku, you are making my head go crazy. Please stop.”
“You’re a… Oh, I can’t even get the words out. Suit yourself, then. Ruin your life if that’s what you want. Don’t expect me to help you with that, though.”
He pulled the duvet over his face.
Trembling with unexpected rage, Lydia went into the bedroom to breathe deeply and try to calm down. So Milan wanted to pull a sick day. Was that so totally unacceptable? There was something else drawing all this anger up above the surface, something deeper. Everything he had put her through, every tear she had shed, every night she had lain awake checking her phone for messages.
“Why me?” she whispered, covering her face with her hands.
Chapter Three
On the Tube on her way to the rehearsal, Vanessa Barber was asking herself the same question, but in a rather more exhilarated manner.
She had to be imagining it, didn’t she?
Gorgeous twenty-seven-year-old men didn’t have any interest in forty-two-year-old divorcees who lived with two cats and a set of kettledrums. Did they?