As Sarah’s lips found mine all I could think of was Claire. The moment had been brewing in my guts for days and it had all started days before I even arrived in Cambridge. I was out for revenge, for blood − Claire’s blood. In the end it wasn’t about Sarah, it helped that she was who she was, a sexually-confused housewife from Manchester with a dark complexion and a brooding secret. But I needed to find out if Claire could be as forgiving to me as I had been to her. She couldn’t really expect me to forget how much heart ache she had caused me with our open relationship. With the day’s talk of honesty and confronting your fears I had finally been able to give a voice to what had been simmering in my blood for years. Claire had fucked me up well and good. And now she was back. From the first moment I had seen her again, the sight of her uniquely pursed lips sucking the life out of me for seconds, I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk away from my love for her. It was Claire Burns. She had hurt me the most but only because my love for her was too undeniable, too acute to run from. It nailed me to the ground, it turned me inside out, it made me open my arms for her over and over again.

I used Sarah as much as she used me. She didn’t want to kiss me because of me − we had just met. This kiss wasn’t a sign of mutual longing, it was, for both of us, a loud cry of despair. Which is why, when the kiss ended, the moment ended. The body does what the body does, and for a split second I wanted to let my hands drift downwards from her neck, but, for several reasons, I didn’t cross the line. When our mouths broke apart for the final time we sat down on the bed, a formidable silence eating away the minutes. Sarah was still crying, but the intensity had changed.
“You should make it right,” I said. “Go to Montpellier, find Eliane and tell her what you just told me. It’s never too late for an apology.”
“Will you stay with me tonight?” Her jumper was so wet with tears it clung to her chest. “I haven’t slept alone in ten years. I need someone beside me.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that.” When it came to cheating on Claire it wasn’t a matter of will power. It was a matter of plotting my next move. Tonight was not the night.
“I don’t mean fuck me, just sleep in the bed with me.”
“Trust me, when I get in that bed with you, there is no such thing as just sleeping.”
“I would never cheat on Arif, not even with a woman.” For now, I believed her.
“Can I take your manuscript, please? I would love to read it.”
“Don’t we have to, huh, talk about what just happened?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

I wasn’t just hot for Claire and ice-cold to others. I felt deeply for Sarah, her story reminded me a bit of Lucy’s − a woman’s best years lost to an early heartbreak. At least she had her husband and her children, Lucy had absolutely nothing. I was attracted to Sarah, but I wasn’t compelled by an unbreakable spell to fuck her. I took the manuscript to my room and looked forward to a night of diversion with a bittersweet romance novel when I found a note stuck to my door. I was done with her for the day, but Vivian Carsey wasn’t done with me yet. Surely this had been one of the longest days of my life.

To be continued…