Three Wishes(66)

At the last possible minute, Lily explained she had just remembered an urgent errand she had to run. Nate had glanced at her with a look that was both annoyingly patient and, more annoyingly knowing but she’d ignored him.

She said her brief good-byes and disregarded Laura’s disappointed look. She rushed to her beat up Peugeot, coaxed it to start and took off as fast as the little car would take her which, admittedly, wasn’t very fast.

Fazire, as planned, called her mobile when the coast was clear.

She and Fazire had carefully arranged their next avoidance tactic.

Unless Fazire phoned her, Lily was to work at the shop all day and go to the grocery store after. This, she hoped, would give Nate plenty of time to have his visit with Tash and leave. Horseback riding lessons didn’t last all day, only an hour. Even still, over a bottle of wine the night before, Lily and Fazire had made up a half a dozen excuses for her to leave again straight away in case Nate was still there when she arrived home (it wouldn’t do for him actually to know she was evading him).

Alistair encouraged her avoidance of Nate, even demanded it. He was currently working with Nate’s solicitors to set a visitation schedule and make it plain that Lily had no interest in what they were calling a “reconciliation”.

Nate’s solicitors were refusing even to broach the subject of visitation, demanding reconciliation and had gone so far as to present Alistair with a prenuptial agreement. This, Alistair returned after Jane had shredded it. Alistair didn’t read it and certainly didn’t give Lily the opportunity to do so, even if she had wanted to, which she did not.

She tried not to think of what Nate had said while they were retrieving the photo albums though she was quite unsuccessful. He thought she’d left him, which was absurd, and this confused her. He had not come after her and this angered her. That he didn’t know that Jeff and Danielle had plotted to keep them apart was obvious. That he accepted her leaving without even trying to discover why dumbfounded her. Especially since, now he clearly intended to have her back.

Then again, when he thought she’d left, there was no child involved. Now there was and if there was anything Lily understood, it was the importance of family. Lily didn’t for a second think that he wanted her but that he wanted them. More than likely Tash, with Lily as a companion and willing bed partner thrown in to sweeten the deal.

And Lily wanted no part in that.

It was closing time and usually Lily was happy to go home to Tash and Fazire on a Saturday when they’d get fish and chips and stroll the seafront or pop in a DVD. Tash liked Pixar, Fazire liked Westerns, Lily didn’t care what they watched.

Instead, she locked the doors, saw, very slowly, to the business of tidying the store, locking away the register drawer and seeing to the most minute task that would hold her back. Then she went to Tesco and instead of whipping around the store in her normal, busy-mother-on-a-mission frenzy, she checked product labels, assessed quantities and spent vast periods of time contemplating the inventories of the larder at her home before she decided on a purchase.

She packed the car, carefully placing every bag safely in the boot as if she’d be graded on its arrangement. It was strange, having time on her hands. It was an alien feeling she hadn’t had in so long, she couldn’t remember the last time she had it.

Yes, she could, when she lived in London with Nate.

Then she wandered back to the cart store to return her trolley, humming to herself idly as if she had all the time in the world.

Then, against her will for the first time in her life, she went home.

A gleaming, sleek, sporty car was parked at the front of her house, dashing all hope that Nate had already left and Fazire had just forgotten to phone.

She expertly, from years of practice, parallel parked the Peugeot into the spot behind the Aston Martin (Nate, she saw, had not changed his predilection for fast cars), mentally preparing for what was to come. She went over her excuses, deciding which was best – an emergency trip to the mall because her hair dryer was broken, which it was not but everyone knew a woman could not live a single day without her hair dryer.

Taking as many bags as possible from the boot, she struggled, arms laden, to the house.

She was barely halfway up the walk when the door was thrown open.

“Mummy!” Natasha flew out with her usual spiritedness, followed urgently by Fazire who had a look on his face that could only be described as “stormy”. “You would not be… lieve!” Natasha cried excitedly.

Nate followed Fazire and Lily fought back her reaction at seeing him casually strolling from her house. She couldn’t count how many times she’d dreamed of that very vision coming real.

She found it immensely annoying that he was more charismatic, more attractive, more handsome than eight years ago. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved chambray shirt, the sleeves rolled up partially at his forearms and he looked immensely masculine.

“Believe what?” Lily asked, trying to smile at her happy daughter at the same time ignoring Nate and finding both difficult.

She decided that, too, annoyed her.

Fazire walked by her, flashing her a glance filled with barely contained ire.

He muttered as he passed her, “Tash confiscated my mobile thingie-whatsit and would not allow me to use the house line.”

Then, on that strange announcement, he stomped to the boot to get the rest of the groceries.

“Daddy has been busy today. Busy, busy, busy,” Natasha told her with delight. “Fazire wanted to call you but I wouldn’t let him because it was a surprise!”