What the Lightning Sees: Part Three (12 page)

“Isn’t this nice?” Millie asked, scanning the restaurant before her eyes rested on me.

“Sure,” I replied. A happy Millie was much easier to handle than a miserable one.

“They do a thing with black cod here which is meant to be amazing. It was in
Tatler
last month.”

“
Tatler
?” I asked. I thought
Rallegra
was a vacuous magazine but
Tatler
was elitist
and
vacuous.

“They have the best recommendations. This place is super-hot right now. I can’t believe I managed to get a table.”

I couldn’t tell if Millie was simply ignoring me or just didn’t notice my reaction to her reading material.

“I like that Italian by you.”

“Harry, don’t be a spoil sport. Anyway, I can’t eat pasta. I don’t do carbs.”

“Jesus. You’re not dieting when you’re pregnant! You have to think of the baby, for crying out loud.” A crash exploded in my head. This situation was ridiculous. She was so selfish and trying to be nice to her in the hopes that she would do the right thing by me and my child was utterly futile.

I wanted to leave. The fact that I was having dinner with Millie and not Haven was unacceptable. Even if I couldn’t have Haven, there was no way I was going to go back to Millie or someone like her. If necessary, I’d take Millie to court to get proper access to our child. I wasn’t going to mollycoddle her anymore.

“I’m not dieting. I’m just being careful,” she said softly. At least she had the good grace to blush.

“You need to be healthy. Are you even taking folic acid?”

“Um, yes, I’m doing everything the doctor recommended. But sometimes it’s hard, especially when I’m on my own.” She sounded sad again. Was she trying to make me feel bad for wanting her to take fucking vitamins? There was no need for us to spend time together. I’d been an idiot for indulging her. I looked down at my plate. I couldn’t wait to leave here and get home, away from Millie.

“Let’s change the subject. Did you find a new flat you like?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Really? So Beth is moving out? That’s amazing. Can I come and see it?”

“Maybe,” I replied. There was no way she was going to see my place. I wanted to keep it separate from her. Things needed to switch to a different setting between us.

“Do you need a hand picking furniture? You need to make sure you go classic, rather than modern bachelor. I saw a great mirror in Elle Interiors this month, it would look fabulous—”

“Stop.” If I could render her mute until I dropped her off, that would be ideal. I could be working at the moment, rather than wasting time with someone who didn’t deserve my attention.

The silence between us only lasted a few minutes.

“Did you show your parents the video of the ultrasound?” Millie asked, bringing the conversation back to the baby.

I shook my head.

“Doesn’t your mother want to see?”

Had I told her my mother had died? I couldn’t remember. I hadn’t told my dad about the pregnancy. It wasn’t that I thought Millie was lying, but there was something stopping me from telling people. The only people who knew were Beth and Haven. It felt as if I was living in some kind of limbo and when things started to become more concrete, with Elemental Energy, with the new flat, with my dad and the baby, then I’d be able to put words around my future.

I shrugged. “How’s your sister?” I asked, trying to change the subject. If Millie was talking about herself then she couldn’t be asking me questions. I just needed to get to the end of this meal and then renegotiate our relationship. It wasn’t working for me. I was done indulging her. Done with her trying to engineer something more between us, and done with spending any more time with her than was absolutely necessary.

“She’s good. She’s been with Matthew a few months now. I think she’s hoping for a ring at any moment. When they get engaged, they’ll move in together. I’ll be on my own apart from you and the baby.”

“You won’t be on your own. You have your parents and your friends. Your sister isn’t moving to a new country. Anyway, she’s not engaged yet.”

“Oh, she will be by the end of the year, whether or not it’s to Matthew.”

I drew my eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”

“She was always going to be engaged by twenty-five. And she’s twenty-five in December.”

“But what if she hasn’t found the right guy by December? Or what if Matthew doesn’t ask her?”

“She’ll give Matthew until the end of the summer and then if he hasn’t proposed, she’ll dump him and have three months to find someone else,” she said.

“But she’s in love with Matthew?”

Millie shrugged. “I guess. He has family money. They make a good couple.”

Everything she said cemented my feelings, or lack of them, for Millie. Relationships weren’t about love to her. She reminded me how what I’d felt for Haven had been so different, so amazing. Now I couldn’t imagine my life any other way. I relaxed. I’d been trying to find something in Millie that just didn’t exist. I could accept that now. I’d made a decision to take her out of my life as far as possible, and it felt good.

“It’s so great to spend time together like this, isn’t it?” Millie said, scanning the restaurant again, no doubt searching for famous faces. It was the last time we would ever spend time together like this.

Haven

It was about nine by the time we finally got out. I had given in and washed my hair. Ash was right; I needed to feel as though my life was moving forward.

Ash told the cab to head toward Soho. “Where are we going?”

“To find hot men who want to shower us with attention,” Ash replied.

“Really?” I was grinning at her. The night sounded increasingly promising. “We’re going out with the gays?”

Ash grinned. “Old Compton Street,” she said to the driver. “Everyone needs more gay in their life.”

“That’s exactly what we need.” I was excited for the first time in I couldn’t remember how long. Maybe I would enjoy myself. I was beginning to remember what happy felt like, even if I wasn’t feeling it at the moment, there was a possibility that I might. Especially when men were off the menu—straight men anyway. I wasn’t close to being ready for a straight bar. The thought of trying to find someone new, waiting to be approached by a guy only for it to happen and for him to be too short, too weird, too boring. In Old Compton Street, all the men were fixated on each other and would want nothing from me but a dance partner. Kylie Minogue and gay men—the ultimate heartbreak cure.

As we got out of the cab, noise and heat assaulted me. It felt as if everyone was on holiday. The windows of the bars and restaurants that lined the road were thrown open, and people were spilling out into the street, making their way from one place to another so that you didn’t know where one party ended and the next one started. In every direction, groups of friends and couples threw back shots and sang along to whatever music was playing closest. Everyone’s joy surrounded me. It slid through me and lifted my mood. It was the first time since I’d left Jake that I thought I might just make it through.

Ash led the way into what used to be a favorite bar of ours and we headed through the crowds to find some shots of our own. “What can I get you two beautiful ladies?” the gorgeous barman asked.

“Can we order you?” Ash asked, fluttering her eyelashes.

He grinned. “If I ever decide to play for the other team, you will be first on my list,” he replied. “In the meantime, what cocktail can I make for you?”

“I’ll have a screaming orgasm please,” Ash said with a wink.

“I bet you have plenty of those in your life,” the barman said.

“Yeah, but unfortunately most of them are self-inflicted. This one,” she said, tilting her head to me, “will have a cosmo.”

We got our drinks and headed to a table by the folded back windows so we could, when we’d had enough to drink, touch the tight t-shirted men walking by.

“Why are gay men so much better looking than straight men?” Ash asked.

“Genetics? And they care more about their appearance than straight men.”

“Not more than George,” Ash said.

George was Ash’s ex-boyfriend. He was very definitely a metrosexual. “No. Not more than George. Unlike you, I refuse to date anyone who puts more effort into how they look than I do. It’s not what nature intended.”

“That’s a low bar. Most men shower,” Ash said, beaming at me.

I laughed. “Hey, I shower. And I wear makeup and look at me! No hair where it shouldn’t be. I even shaved my legs for you tonight.”

“And I’m mighty grateful. But you’d have been fine to leave them, you would have just been mistaken for a tranny.”

We laughed and it felt good. I hadn’t used my laughing muscles recently.

“You ladies seem like you’re having a good time, can we share your table?” A beautiful looking black man said as two almost as beautiful men loitered behind him.

“On one condition,” I said.

“Name it,” he replied.

“I want your friend’s hat for the evening.” His blond friend, sporting a bright pink cowboy hat, took it off and placed it on my head.

“It’s on loan, mind. I’m seeing Dolly next month and it’s part of the uniform,” he said.

“Understood, cowboy, I wouldn’t want Ms. Parton disappointed in you.” I winked at him and they all took their seats.

“Okay, I’m going to get some shots, do you boys want in?” Ash asked as she jumped to her feet.

“No Sambuca, Ash, please—”

“Hey, isn’t that—” Ash pointed out of the window at something and then quickly turned back to me.

“What?” I asked, briefly turning in the direction she had indicated.

“Nothing, I just thought I saw something,” she said quietly. “No Sambuca, got it.”

“What?” I asked, ignoring her efforts to try and change the topic. I turned properly so I could see what had caught her attention.

I wished I hadn’t. It was the unmistakable sight of Jake. My heart actually stopped beating and I couldn’t breathe.
How I missed him.
My Jake. He had his back to me and I realized he was opening a car door . . . for Millie.

I kept watching as he rounded the hood and settled in on the other side. He was laughing as he drove away.

“Haven,” Ash said.

I downed my cosmo. “I want to go home and drink a lot of tequila, in private where it doesn’t matter if I vomit.” I took off my hat, stood up and walked toward the exit.

Jake

“I had such a great time. Thanks so much for taking me out,” Millie said as we got to her front door after what I was sure would be our final dinner together.

“I’m glad you had a good time,” I said as I hovered in the doorway.

“And we never run out of things to talk about. And now with the baby. It could all be perfect, Harry.” She placed the palm of her hand on my chest. “Don’t you think? And now you’re single and I’m single, and I’m having your child . . .”

She stroked her fingers up my neck.

“It’s as if life rearranged itself for us,” she said.

I gripped her wrist. “Stop. We’re not together. We’re never going to be together.”

“You don’t mean that.” She grinned. “Don’t you remember that thing I can do with my tongue?”

I jerked away from her.

“I said no. We’re not like that.”

“I’m carrying your baby.” Her voice became colder, harder. “You need to support me.”

“I am supporting you.”

“I want a ring, Harry. You should have bought me a ring already.” Her eyes narrowed and she pointed accusingly. “You broke it, you
have
to buy it. Don’t you get it? I don’t understand what your fucking problem is. You’re supposed to be smart.”

God, she was nasty. But it was no surprise.

“I’m sorry if you ever got the impression that this was different than it is, but I’m going to be really clear. I am never going to marry you. We might be having a baby together, but that’s where it begins and ends. I don’t love you, Millie. I won’t ever love you. In fact, I don’t even like you that much. I will support the baby, but that’s as far as this relationship goes.” I turned and headed toward the stairs and let Millie’s shouting blend together to make noise. I didn’t hear what she was saying. I just wanted to get away from her.