Accidental Reunion by Carol Marinelli Read Free Book Online

what did come next.
    ‘You’re telling me that you threw it all away on the basis of a misplaced laugh?’
    Lila looked up sharply at him, her blue eyes meeting his steely grey ones. Not a hint of the carefree charmer she’d known so well looked back at her. No lazy smile, no crinkle as his eyes met hers now. Just the cold steel of his stare.
    ‘You hurt me,’ she intoned.
    For the longest time he stared, bewilderment clouding his eyes for an instant. But only for an instant, the ice soon returning.
    ‘What the hell do you think you did to me, then?’ And turning, he left her standing there.
    Suddenly her entire perspective of that fateful day had shifted. That bitter argument had formed the basis for a burning and later simmering anger, an anger that had stayed with her for eight long years. An anger that had kept the pain of her loss at bay.
    For she had lost so much on that day—her partner, her lover, her best friend.
    As the horror truly dawned, Lila put a shaking hand up to her lips.
    Had she been so blind that she had let everything go? Let everything go for nothing?

CHAPTER THREE
    ‘O H , COME on, Lila, even if you just come for an hour.’
    Lila shook her head. ‘Sorry, Sue, I really can’t.’
    ‘But why not?’ Sue insisted. ‘You don’t have to buy anything, it’s more just an excuse to have a glass of wine and a bit of a giggle.’
    A glass of wine and a bit of a giggle sounded pretty tempting, but the logistics of going to Sue’s lingerie party simply weren’t worth it. Lila hated dumping on Shirley. Particularly on a Saturday night and even more so now.
    Somehow, and probably with no good reason, she didn’t want Shirley to feel even more tied to her sister. Didn’t want to add any more fuel to the fire.
    ‘Give me a copy of the brochure,’ Lila suggested. ‘I’ll buy something.’
    Handing over a brochure, Sue gave Lila a worried look. ‘I don’t want you there just to buy something.’
    ‘I know,’ Lila assured her, acutely aware that Declan had just joined them at the nurses’ station.
    ‘So why can’t you come?’
    Lila shrugged dismissively.
    ‘You never seem to go out…’
    Lila shot Sue a look that told her to be quiet, but, unperturbed, Sue continued relentlessly. ‘There’s the emergency department ball in a couple of weeks. I bet you don’t go to that either.’
    Declan seemed to be concentrating hard on the notes he was writing, but Lila was positive he was listening.
    ‘I might,’ Lila said lightly.
    ‘But that’s what you always say, and then you end up not going. Come on, Lila, if you can’t come to my lingerie party at least come to the ball. I’m not taking no for an answer. We single girls need to stick together, and anyway it will be fun.’
    ‘What, seeing the Horse in a new blanket?’
    Sue grinned. ‘Can I put your name down, then? Everyone will be rapt if you finally make it to something.’
    Lila took a deep breath. Sue had a point. She rarely attended work functions, and the truth was that her low social profile was starting to be noticed.
    ‘OK, OK, I’ll come,’ Lila said finally, to keep Sue quiet in front of Declan.
    ‘When you’ve finished arranging your social schedule, there’s a patient I’d like a hand with, Sister.’ Declan’s animosity didn’t go unnoticed.
    It had been two weeks since their confrontation in Hester’s office. Two long weeks where they had studiously avoided each other or, when forced to, had spoken almost politely.
    At work she coped, or at least appeared to. Not quite the consummate professional—the chance of a promotion wasn’t that inviting. But she worked diligently, determined that Declan shouldn’t see how hurt she was, how he had overturned her world just by coming back.
    How devastated she was that he was seeing Yvonne.
    ‘Ellen Whiting, eighty-four year old. She’s been admitted from a nursing home with fever for investigation. I need you to help me sit her up so that I can listen to her