Mainly, though, he’d realised that whatever he felt for her, and whatever she felt for him, they weren’t over. Not by a long shot.
Setting his jaw, Kit reached for the phone again and was about to hit the redial button when he paused as a thought occurred to him. Despite it being a public holiday, maybe Lily was at work. Maybe that was why there was no answer from home. Maybe she was on the tube and her mobile out of range of a signal. Maybe she was in a meeting. It could be that she wasn’t avoiding him. Merely busy.
Filling with renewed resolve, he looked up her company’s details then punched the number into his phone and sat back to wait while it rang. His stomach churned and his mouth went dry, but that was probably down to the fact that it had been a while since his last coffee and he’d been too preoccupied to bother with breakfast.
‘MMS, good morning.’
‘Zoe?’ he said, recognising the voice of his former sister-in-law.
‘Yes. How can I help?’
‘It’s Kit.’
There was a long silence. Then a faint, ‘Oh.’
‘How are you?’
‘Fine. Yes. Good… Kind of surprised to hear from you, to be honest.’
‘It’s been a while.’
‘You can say that again. How are you?’
‘Fine. Happy New Year.’
‘You too.’ She paused. ‘So…were you after Lily?’
‘Is she there?’
‘No. But then I’m at home. The office is closed today so your call was diverted to my mobile.’
‘Right.?
?? He frowned. That blew his theory that Lily was at work out of the water. Of course she wasn’t. Who was? It was New Year’s Day. So was she avoiding him after all?
‘Is there a problem or something?’ asked Zoe and he snapped back to the conversation.
‘She’s not answering either of her phones or replying to emails.’
‘No, well, she wouldn’t be.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she’s on a plane.’
Kit frowned, a bit taken aback. A plane? She hadn’t mentioned anything about going away. Not that she’d been under any obligation to, but still… ‘When will she be back?’
‘Not for a couple of weeks.’
A couple of weeks? He wasn’t sure he could wait that long. Patience had never been his strong point—probably one more contributory factor to the breakdown of their marriage—and right now it was wearing increasingly thin.
‘Right. I see,’ he said, switching to his agenda with a couple of clicks and seeing that there wasn’t anything that couldn’t be moved or dealt with by someone else for a couple of weeks. ‘Where is she?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, for one thing, she’s on a job and the work she’s doing requires a certain degree of anonymity and a low profile.’