just ridiculous. We really can’t go on being married.’
His warm eyes glossed over so fast, so icy cold, it made her shiver. ‘Is there someone else you wish to be married to?’ he asked. He took a slow bite of his bread but his gaze held fast to hers.
‘No!’ Kelly shook her head manically and flapped her hands in front of her face.
Simon’s smile warmed up again, this time even enough to showcase a sexy crease on each cheek and she cringed.
Hmm. Probably could have made that ‘no’ less emphatic.
‘So what’s the rush?’ he asked, his expression a model of nonchalance.
If my readers find out I am married, my life as I know it is all over! That’s the rush!
‘Five years is hardly a rush. And considering I could not find you for the first three, that shortens the time span a little.’
The last of the cool in his eyes melted. ‘You looked for me?’
‘What do you think I did? Do you think I just said, “Oh, well, my husband has disappeared, but them’s the breaks, so may as well get on with the rest of my life”?’
Still he was silent, yet he seemed to be basking in the knowledge that she had cared enough to search. And it made Kelly furious. The hurt, the confusion, and the loss she had spent five years overcoming swarmed in on her all over again.
‘Well, think again, boyo. You may have enjoyed running off to the other side of the country and reinventing yourself into this!’ She flicked a hand around the cool apartment. ‘But I was left here to face my family and try to explain why the man I had spent my life defending had done the very thing they had always warned me he would do.’
The warmth in Simon’s eyes switched to a burning flame. ‘I bet they relished the fact.’
Kelly jumped to her feet and slammed her hands on the table.
‘Of course they did! You proved them right. What about proving me right? What about proving yourself right?’
‘I think I have done that, don’t you?’
‘No. Unless all this is some sort of charade, you have sold out. But somehow I don’t think it is. I would put money on the fact you would have more suits in your closet than old jeans, and if so you have become what they wanted you to be. Not what I loved you for being.’ Her voice finally cracked. The cool Kelly act was fast coming apart at the seams.
Simon slid to his feet and was around her side of the table in a second. His hands taking a tight hold on her upper arms were the only things keeping her upright.
She wished he would stop looking at her like that. As if he was so sure he was right. As if he had all the answers and all she had to do was surrender to them. His beautiful hazel eyes burned deep into her mind.
‘I have become what you always knew I would be, Kelly. I am wealthy. I am successful. Just as you always predicted.’
And then she realised he was only centimetres away. Not the miles and miles he had been for so very long. Centimetres could so easily become millimetres and then she would be enfolded in his strong arms. But she knew, from his fervid objection to what she had become, if he even sensed what she was feeling he would be appalled by the very thought.
It is all just an echo, she reminded herself, an echo of bygone desire. A mirage, a shimmering memory that belongs where it came from. In the past. He is here to ease his own guilt, no other reason.
Kelly’s strength returned and she pulled away, rubbing away the tingle in her arms where he had held her. Her head swam. She had to get away. Away from the stifling apartment. Away from him.
‘No, Simon, you are wrong. What I wanted was for you to do whatever you felt you had to do, but with me at your side. But that is all water under the bridge now. Now I want a divorce. I’ll send you the papers.’
She turned and walked to the front door, her legs all but turning to jelly beneath her. As she closed the door she looked his way one more time and her heart lurched in her chest as she watched him slump into the dining-room chair and lower his head into his hands.
Kelly felt more herself when her home, St Kilda Storeys, an old, no-frills apartment building located a block from the beach, came into view. Her parents thought it a rundown hovel but Kelly preferred to think it had loads of character. Add to that the fantastic location, and the dozen fabulous young neighbours, on her meagre budget she could not have hoped for better.
When Kelly opened her top-floor apartment door her tiny dog, Minky, bounded into her waiting arms.
‘Hey, baby doll,’ Kelly cooed. ‘Gracie not home?’ she asked the diddering dog.
Kelly called out, but her flatmate must have left already. She worked shifts at the Crown Casino as a croupier in the high rollers room so they crossed paths between shifts and on weekends, which worked well for both and gave Minky plenty of company.
But right then Kelly wished her little-seen flatmate were home. She needed a friendly ear. She kept Minky with her and walked back down the stairs until she reached the ground-floor apartment.
She knocked on the door. Her other Saturday Night Cocktails buddy, the young owner of the St Kilda Storeys apartment block, and sometime stylist for Fresh, classy Cara, opened up chewing on a slice of honey-covered toast. Kelly eyed the food and salivated. Minky did the same.
Cara happily fed them both. And when she heard the good news, she threw her arms around Kelly, careful to keep her sticky, crumby fingers away from her friend. ‘A contracted columnist at Fresh. Didn’t I tell you the two of you were made for each other?’
‘So I can get you the rent in a week if you can wait.’
Cara fluffed a hand across her face. ‘Next week’s fine. Don’t worry about it. So Single and Loving It! is here to stay. But can you do it? Is there enough vitriol in that tiny frame of yours to castigate men infinitum?’
Kelly thought back to Simon’s self-righteous certainty and nodded. ‘You bet. With more and more ammunition coming my way on a daily basis.’
‘Ooh, that sounds juicy. What happened?’
‘Ran into an ex today.’ Close enough. ‘Wasn’t fun. But did make me feel that much more right about sending my ideas and resolutions out into the world for other women to emulate.’
‘How not fun? Details, darlin’.’
How was it not fun? They had been fairly polite. They had even broken bread together. It had all been terribly civilised. And that was where the fun was lost. In the past they had been beyond passionate. Whether clawing at each other’s throats or at each other’s clothes, the one thing they had never been was civilised.
‘Saving it for the column.’
‘Thank God names must be changed to protect the innocent or I have a feeling this guy would be pulp by the time you were finished with him.’
And Kelly smiled. Simon had blown that one. By writing to her and begging a response, there would be no need for protecting the innocent. Or the guilty as the case might be.
‘Cocktails Saturday night?’ Cara asked.
‘Always,’ Kelly promised, planting a kiss on her friend’s cheek. ‘Thanks for the ear, Cara. I’d better go.’
Kelly had a column to map out and the ideas were flowing thick and fast.
CHAPTER THREE
KELLYISM:
YEARNING FOR A MAN WITH WHOM TO SPEND YOUR TIME?
GET A HOBBY INSTEAD!
BY SIX the next morning Kelly was up at the front of her kickboxing class. She had almost become used to picturing her mother’s disappointed face on