A Hundred Ways to Break Up (Let's Make This Thing Happen 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

stockings were on the floor, and now she remembered that the rest of her things – her blouse and underwear, her bag – were in the room next door, somewhere near the piano.
    She had a flashback to being pressed hard against the piano’s polished wood surface. Her face and breasts squashed, her arms spread wide along its top.
    She turned, and Ray was sleeping on his side, facing her, his mouth slightly open, the stubble now a dark mat along his jaw.
    She slipped out of bed and padded across the rug and then the bare wooden floor.
    This place. It still felt as if she was staying in a National Trust home, a living museum. At any moment a guided tour might come through the door, and here she was, walking naked through this suite’s living room, picking up her discarded clothing and bag.
    Her phone.
    Anxiety suddenly coming to a head, she checked for messages or missed calls but there were none. Even then, she wasn’t reassured. Was that a good thing, or bad? At least with messages you have a better chance of understanding what you’re anxious about, but how do you interpret silence?
    She stopped herself.
    She was being stupid. Allowing feelings of guilt to run away, out of control.
    She knew what she was doing. From the moment she had accepted Ray’s invitation to meet him at L’Auberge and bring some overnight things, she had known what she was doing.
    Her marriage was over. Dead.
    She had to move on.
    She had to explore what she really wanted.
    §
    She’d never thought about it like that. Not in such stark terms.
    Over.
    How did she feel about that?
    Relief.
    Sheer relief.
    §
    Her phone: she checked again, but there were still no messages. She was being stupid. Paranoid.
    She checked the time, but it was fine, it was still early. Ray had said there would be a car for her, either to get her to the station or right into the city for work.
    She walked back through and Ray was awake. He looked up, smiled, put his phone aside. “Sorry,” he said. “Just catching up on messages. You know.”
    She still had her phone in her hand so she waved it, her eyebrows raised, and said, “Yes, I know.” Then: “I’m going to have to get away. I need to get showered and into work.”
    He rolled over to face her, just a sheet casually draped over the lower half of his body. He looked like a photograph, a center-page spread. Did he just naturally fall into poses like that, or was this what it was like to be with a beautiful person?
    She hugged herself, suddenly self-conscious. She wasn’t a morning person at the best of times, but after a night like last night...
    “Come here,” said Ray.
    He’d seen right through her sudden rush of insecurity.
    She hesitated, still, and he rose to a kneeling position, the sheet still somehow tangled around his waist.
    She went to him, stopping at the side of the bed. He put a hand to her face and drew her in to a tender kiss. “You’re beautiful,” he said softly. “You blow me away.”
    Closer, until their bodies were pressing, his arm slipping around her waist to hold her firm.
    She felt weak, as if her legs would fail. That skin on skin thing, his chest against her, her breasts squashed against him, the hardness growing under that sheet.
    “I have to get to work,” she said.
    “I know.”
    “I have to get ready.”
    He nodded, reached down, and the sheet fell away.
    “I have to...”
    §
    Downstairs, later – too much later – she was showered and dressed in the fresh clothes she’d brought with her. The car was waiting outside, but she was going to be late for work, even if the traffic was in her favor.
    Ray walked outs with her, stopping her with a hand on the arm before she climbed into the back of the silver Merc.
    “Hey,” he said. “Be in touch, okay?” Then he drew her into an embrace, and held her there for long seconds before reluctantly letting her back away.
    She nodded, unsure of the sudden rush of emotion that swept over her then. She still didn’t understand