When You Walked Back Into My Life Read Free Page A

Hospital getting his leg fixed.’ Flora took a gulp of wine and pulled herself up onto one of the high beechwood stools that lined a side of the square island in the centre of the kitchen. Her sister’s house always amazed her. She realised, of course, that it was Prue’s calling card for her design business, but still, there was no mess anywhere, none of the normal clutter, nothing out of the cupboards and drawers at all. Just clean, blank lines and gleaming surfaces, punctuated by an occasional art work, an elegant vase of flowers, some tasteful arrangement of fruit. Not even salt and peppermills or a bottle of olive oil sullied the black polished perfection of the kitchen.
    ‘Serves him right, stupid sod.’ Prue smacked a pan of water down on the stove, repeatedly jabbing at the controls of the black ceramic hob until the halogen plate was glowing.
    She leaned across the central island. ‘You don’t
want
to see him again, do you? After what he did? You’d be insane.’
    ‘No …’ In the face of her sister’s indignation, Flora wasn’t going to argue – too much like hard work right now – but it didn’t seem as black and white to her. Part of her wanted more than anything else in the world to sit with Fin McCrea and talk and laugh – and perhaps experience the intense sexual energy that had always existed between them. But part of her wanted to run a million miles in the opposite direction, so terrified was she at the thought that she might depend on him in any way again.
    Prue looked at her suspiciously. ‘You don’t sound at all certain.’ She topped up Flora’s glass and went to check on the water. It had boiled, and she tipped in the ravioli, prodding with a wooden spoon to separate the pouches.
    ‘I suppose I’m not.’
    ‘Uh?’ Prue spun round, letting out a gasp of horror. ‘Flora!’
    Flora held up her hand. ‘OK, OK, I know what you’re saying and I agree, of course I do. But …’
    ‘But nothing. You can’t go there, darling. You really can’t. Eight years together and he walked out on you, never called you, never even wrote. Just disappeared up one of his sodding, bloody mountains.’
    Flora met her sister’s angry stare. ‘I know all that.’
    ‘No, you can’t. Not if you’re even contemplating spending a single second in that bastard’s company.’ Prue paused, as if she were gathering together her arsenal before an attack. ‘He broke your heart. He wrecked your career. He made it unlikely you’d have the children you always wanted, and he sent you into a depression that you’re only now recovering from. What part of this sounds like a good idea to you?’
    Flora had to admit Prue was right, but that didn’t mean that meeting Fin hadn’t triggered all the feelings that, for nearly three years, she’d been trying to quash. Mostly unsuccessfully. The therapist to whom she’d been assigned when she’d been depressed had said she needed ‘closure’, to be able to draw a line under the relationship. But how could she do that without learning why he’d walked out on her so suddenly? Perhaps, she thought, it was important to see him again: to realise for herself what a selfish bastard he was, rather than just being told so by everyone else. She ignored the voice in her head, which said, ‘That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.’
    ‘Hello? Speak to me …’ Prue was waving the spoon in front of her sister’s face.
    Flora smiled. ‘Sorry. Just thinking. You don’t need to worry. It’s not like he’s after me any more. If he was he’d have got in touch years ago. He knows where you live.’
    Prue looked away for a moment. She seemed to be about to say something, then apparently changed her mind.
    ‘Anyway, I didn’t give him my number.’
    ‘Bloody good thing too,’ Prue pursed her lips, glaring off across the room. ‘It’s not
his
agenda I’m worried about …’ she added.
    *
    After supper, Flora made her way downstairs to the flat in the