"Hey Soph."
She sat up, hauling the quilt over her body as she slammed the lamp on.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
Dan sat up too, facing her in what had been their bed. He'd obviously been asleep; his hair had that messed up way about it that she used to find endearing. Looking at him now with fresh eyes, Sophie saw less perfection than she used to see. But then she was measuring him up against an unfair opponent in Lucien. There weren't many men who would come off better in that particular comparison.
"I've come home."
"What?" She screwed her eyes up and scrubbed at them. Was she hallucinating with tiredness? Was she asleep and dreaming?
"I didn't think this was home to you anymore," she managed.
He looked reproachful. "I never wanted to leave in the first place. I left because you told me to."
"It was your doing. You wanted me at home and Maria away. How inconvenient for you that I found out." She couldn’t suppress the shake in her voice, whether from hurt or anger or surprise.
"Yeah, well you're hardly snow white in all this, are you?" Dan’s tone was defensive.
Sophie sighed heavily and reached for her robe off the end of the bed. She didn't have the stomach or the heart for this fight. Dan was right, in part. Her affair with Lucien – yes, there was no gilding it, it was an affair - could not be explained away or justified by his infidelity.
"I'm going to the bathroom. I want you gone when I get back."
"Sophie. You're not listening. I've left Maria. It's you I want."
Dan got out of bed to follow her as she crossed to the door. Unabashed by his own nakedness, he stood in front of her to make his case.
"Living with her was awful. Everything was wrong." He stepped closer, and Sophie found her eyes moving over his body. The football injury scar on his left hip she'd kissed more times than she could count. The pinkness of his nipples. Lucien's were brown.
"She smells wrong. She feels wrong. She's just not you, Soph." He reached out for her hand to pull her close, his voice choked with emotion. "I miss you so much."
He was saying all the right words, and he sounded as if he genuinely meant them.
"I don't care about that bloke. I know you did it to get at me. I don't even blame you."
Did she do it to get back at him? Not consciously, if at all. Truth was, Lucien would have been hard to resist under any circumstances.
"You don't blame me?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm sorry Dan, but I can't say the same. You've been with Maria for years."
"It's over, I promise you. I've told her I still love you."
"I see." Sophie surveyed him. "And I'm supposed to take you back with open arms?"
He looked down at her hand in his and tried to tug her closer, but she stepped back.
"Don't." She pulled her hand free of his. "You can't do this Dan. You can't just waltz back in here, get into my bed, and expect me to forgive you."
"I know that. I know that." He scrubbed a hand over the black stubble on his chin. "I know that, Sophie." He looked utterly dejected, and his nakedness rendered him vulnerable. "Please let me stay. For tonight, at least?"
Sophie' shoulders sagged in resignation. It was late, and it was cold out there. "One night, Dan." She stepped aside. "Not in here though. In the spare room."
Dan lay between the cold sheets of the guest bed and stared at the ceiling.
It wasn't exactly the homecoming he'd hoped for, but it was early days.
Sophie would take him back. She still loved him, he could tell. He still loved her. It would take time, but she'd come around.
He thumped the pillow as he turned over, acutely aware of Sophie so close by in the next room, wishing he could go and take his place in bed beside her where he belonged.
Maybe not tonight, and probably not tomorrow night either. But some day soon, and for the rest of their lives.
On the other side of the wall, Sophie lay equally wakeful and restless.
Dan was back. Here, in her house, in their house. Their home. There was a question mark unspoken. She ran a hand out across the other side of the bed, but the cool sheet no longer held the imprint of his body heat.
She drew her arm back into the warmth of her own side and sighed heavily.
He was home. Was this still his home? His name was still on the mortgage, and his belongings still lingered in the rooms. Did he feel justified in his presence here?
He'd seemed pretty at home just now, given the fact that he'd stripped naked, climbed into bed and then fallen asleep as if nothing had happened.
She closed her eyes, but sleep was a long time coming. Something had happened. It couldn’t just be put aside.
Some miles away, Lucien threw a log on the glowing fire and sat back down, a glass of deep amber malt whisky in his hand.
He was worried. The sensation was unfamiliar and he didn’t like it.
It worried him that Sophie might get the wrong idea, and that he would ultimately end up hurting her.
And he worried that left to her own devices, she might over-complicate things in her head and not come into work on Monday.
But most of all, it worried him that he missed her like crazy.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sophie woke up with a start. There was someone downstairs, she could hear them. Squinting her eyes at the alarm clock in the bright morning light, several things came back to her at once. She wasn't with Lucien now. She'd barely slept, even though it was after nine in the morning.
And Dan was here.
She flopped back on the pillow and blew out a heavy sigh. She could hear him moving around in the kitchen downstairs; the familiar sounds of the kettle and the radio, the boiler firing when he turned on the hot tap.
What the hell was she going to do?
Dan coming home was the last thing she'd expected. She had begun to accept at last that he had moved on, that he was with Maria. She'd put so much energy into resenting him, and she still resented him now that he was back. He couldn't stay here. She needed a shower, and then she needed to go and throw her husband out of the house for the second time.
"I made your favourite," Dan said when Sophie walked into the kitchen a little while later, dressed in jeans and wearing a touch of makeup as armour. He slid a pile of waffles and bacon on the table, twirled maple syrup over it with a theatrical flourish, then looked up with an expression of hopeful expectancy on his face.
It wasn't her favourite, actually. It was his favourite and she'd made it often to please him, but she didn't bother to correct him.
So she nodded, and took her seat at the table. And it was her seat. Dan sat nearest the window, she sat nearest the door. They took their customary positions as if the intervening months and indiscretions hadn't happened.