Her Ex, Her Future?: One Night with Her Ex / Seven Nights with Her Ex / Backstage with Her Ex

Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)

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One Night with Her Ex (#u65326248-a3b6-5a84-8522-6e9c2cd8cf25)

Lucy King

LUCY KING spent her formative years lost in the world of Mills & Boon romance when she really ought to have been paying attention to her teachers. Up against sparkling heroines, gorgeous heroes and the magic of falling in love, trigonometry and absolute ablatives didn’t stand a chance.

But as she couldn’t live in a dream world for ever she eventually acquired a degree in languages and an eclectic collection of jobs. A stroll to the River Thames one Saturday morning led her to her very own hero. The minute she laid eyes on the hunky rower getting out of a boat, clad only in Lycra and carrying a three-metre oar as if it was a toothpick, she knew she’d met the man she was going to marry. Luckily the rower thought the same.

She will always be grateful to whatever it was that made her stop dithering and actually sit down to type ‘Chapter One’, because dreaming up her own sparkling heroines and gorgeous heroes is pretty much her idea of the perfect job.

Originally a Londoner, Lucy now lives in Spain, where she spends much of her time reading, failing to finish cryptic crosswords, and trying to convince herself that lying on the beach really is the best way to work.

Visit her at www.lucykingbooks.com (http://www.lucykingbooks.com)

To the challenging, tough, frustrating, wonderful, crazy thing that is marriage.

ONE (#u65326248-a3b6-5a84-8522-6e9c2cd8cf25)

Right. That was it. Enough was enough.

As the last of Big Ben’s twelve bongs echoed through the night and the sky began to explode with fireworks, Kit Buchanan knocked back the inch of whisky that was left in his glass and glowered at the dazzling display erupting over the Thames beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse suite.

Forget the work he’d lined up to do this evening; he hadn’t touched it anyway. Forget the fact that it was the middle of the night and freezing cold; what with the burning sensation of the alcohol and the relentlessness of the thoughts drumming through his head he felt as if he were on fire.

And forget the fact that he was about to embark on a course of action that probably required a good deal more consideration than the ten minutes he’d just given it.

He needed to sort out the mess he was in. Now.

For five years he’d been suffering. Five long, torturous, frustrating-as-hell years, and he’d finally had it. He was through with the lingering guilt, the excruciating tension and the crippling anxiety, all of which vibrated through him pretty much constantly and all of which he’d had to live with for far too long. He’d had enough of beating himself around the head with more self-recrimination and regret than any man needed to experience in one lifetime.

And he was sick of having no option but to split up with the women he dated.

The last one, Carla, whom he’d been seeing for a month and with whom he’d broken up just a few hours ago, he’d liked more than usual. He wouldn’t have minded seeing a bit more of her, seeing where the relationship might head.

But that was pretty impossible given the problem he suffered, wasn’t it?

It really couldn’t go on.

Kit slammed the glass down on his desk and made a quick call to commandeer one of his hotel’s limousines. Then he grabbed his coat and strode towards the lift. He punched the little round button and waited, bristling with impatience as his mind churned with details of the trouble he had with sex.

For the first couple of years following his divorce he hadn’t been too bothered by his inability to function in bed. He’d told himself that after what he’d done he’d deserved it, and would willingly take the punishment. He’d assured himself that it wouldn’t last for ever, and that as he wasn’t a hormone-ridden, sex-obsessed teenager he could live with it.

But depressingly—and worryingly—it had lasted, and when matters hadn’t improved a year or two later he’d begun to get a bit concerned.

And while pride and the potential for total humiliation had stopped him from doing anything about it initially, eventually he’d gritted his teeth and summoned up the courage to make an appointment with his doctor.

Which hadn’t helped in the slightest.

The doctor had told him that there was nothing physically wrong with him and had suggested that perhaps his problem was psychological. He’d recommended a course of therapy, which had been pointless largely because Kit hadn’t been able to bring himself to be entirely open and honest with the therapist about his relationship with Lily or the circumstances surrounding their divorce.

After that he’d tried almost every option that was left, astounding himself with the lengths he’d been willing to go to to find a cure. He’d read books, scoured the Internet and acquainted himself with homeopathy. Plumbing the depths of desperation, he’d even given hypnosis a shot.

But he needn’t have bothered with any of it because nothing he’d tried had worked, and it had been driving him nuts.

This evening, after he’d said a regret-laden goodbye to Carla, he’d racked his brains for any course of action he might have missed, anything that might help, and it had suddenly struck him that there was something he hadn’t tried.

It wasn’t guaranteed to succeed, he thought, his jaw tight and a deep frown etched on his forehead as the lift doors opened with a sibilant swoosh and he strode inside, and God knew it wasn’t in the slightest bit appealing, but if the only avenue left open to him was to head straight to what the therapist had suggested might be the source of his problem—namely his ex-wife—and to see if talking might work where everything else had failed, then that was what he’d do, because frankly he couldn’t stand this affliction any longer.

* * *

‘You’re engaged?’

Lily leaned against the kitchen counter for support and wondered what more the evening held in store for her in the shock-to-the-system stakes, because if there was anything else waiting in the wings she was off to bed the minute she hung up.

‘That’s right,’ replied her sister, her voice holding a thread of excitement and happiness that should have been infectious but for Lily, who held the institute of marriage in deep mistrust, wasn’t.