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"Steven?" Cara did her best to hide her shock at the sight of her ex-boyfriend on her doorstep, but she pulled open the door to her flat and gestured for him to come in. It was grey and gloomy out, the last thing that she wanted was for Steven to be rained on. "What are you doing here?"
"Elizabeth lives nearby," he said as he closed his umbrella. "My ex has the kids for Christmas, so I came out to visit her."
"Ex?"
"I got my college girlfriend pregnant," he supplied after a moment, as she led him into the kitchen. "We got married, had a second shortly after the first, but it didn't end up working out," he sighed. "These things happen, I guess. I should have known that I had terrible luck when it came to shotgun weddings after what happened with us."
"We were kids," she pointed out, although given that Steven was barely thirty and already a divorced father of two, Cara did have to agree that there was a missed opportunity for better judgment there. "I'm sorry that you don't have your kids for Christmas."
"It's fine. Billie offered to let me spend Christmas day with them, but I told her that I'd celebrate separately. She's their mother, after all…her parents hate me."
"Because of the divorce?"
He scoffed. "No. Because of the kids. They think I ruined her life. Maybe I did. That seems to be a common theme when it comes to my exes mothers. Your mother felt similarly, if I recall. She probably had a point."
"You wanted to make things better for me," Cara insisted softly. "We thought that running away and getting married was the right solution. Who knows what our lives would be like if we'd gotten away with it?" She scrunched up her nose. "I didn't know that Elizabeth lived in London."
"It's…complicated," he settled on. "She's dating Viscount Pennington. I think they're going to get engaged. She's pissed that I didn't bring the kids this year. I didn't want them around my mother."
"What's wrong with your mother?" Cara asked warily, beckoning him to a seat at her kitchen table, pouring them both cups of coffee. "It's been so long since I've seen her–"
"She had a nervous breakdown after you left," he supplied. "She's never really gotten better, in some ways she's gotten worse. My daughters are scared of her," he sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Why would I drag them across the world to be terrorized by her in a new location?"
"Why would you drag yourself?"
"I wanted to see you," he admitted. "It might have been naive of me, or hopelessly delusional, but I thought that it would be nice to reconnect. Even if it was just for the duration of my vacation."
"Okay."
"What?"
"I'm intrigued," she admitted. Cara knew that she shouldn't be so open to the concept of a rekindled relationship with her ex-boyfriend from high school, who was a divorced father of two with a batshit crazy mother, but she saw little issue in playing along with the notion while Steven was in the same country as her, and, if things went well, going from there. "We're both single, and I see no need to turn down the opportunity to mingle with such an illustrious member of the Set," she teased. "Viscount Pennington. You know, your sister isn't the only Elizabeth he's dated," she mused. "There was an Elizabeth Bennett who blew up his engagement."
"That was my sister," Steven muttered, the tips of his ears turning pink. "She was working for his family under an assumed name. How did you even know that?"
"It was all over the press," she informed him. "Had I known that was our Elizabeth, I might have called."
"I couldn't have answered it. Married, remember?" There was a bitterness to his tone. "I actually valued our marital vows."
"I remember when my parents divorced," she sighed, "and, I thought that it was the end of the world, at the time. I mean, my entire world had changed in a matter of a simple set of signatures on a divorce decree." She licked her lips. "My parents had struggled to pretend to be happy, Steven, for years longer than they should have. Don't you want your daughters to have parents who are happy, instead of two people trapped in a loveless marriage?"
He brought his mug to his lips, taking a sip of coffee before he answered. "Of course, I don't want our kids to be brought up in a climate of misery," he sighed, toying with a packet of sweetener that was on the table. "I have to deal with that, and it sucks. That doesn't mean that I don't resent how my marriage ended."
"How…?" Cara trailed off. It wasn't her place. "Never mind."
"We just grew apart," he settled on. "She was resentful and bitter about the fact that the pregnancy ruined her chances of being a classical guitarist, even though I made it clear at the time that I wasn't going to stop her from doing what made her happy, even if that meant having an abortion and leaving me, but she insisted that she wanted the baby, wanted to marry me…I thought we were on the same page. And, then, it turned out, we weren't." He shrugged. "We split them fifty-fifty. We'll see how long that lasts."
"Steven…you can't think that your daughters won't want to see you," she sighed. "Why? Because you left their mother?"
"She left me," he corrected. "For Jessica's ex-husband. Our neighbor…she was only married to him very briefly," he elaborated. "You can imagine that makes…well, you remember Jessica."
"I try not to remember Jessica," she admitted softly. "Is she also in London?"
"Unfortunately," he cracked. "She thought it would be funny to show up on the arm of Todd Wilkins. I had to escape. Even though I was worried that you wouldn't be home, or that I'd be stumbling into your perfect life–I'm not, am I? Are you married?"
She laughed. "No, Steven, I'm not married," she told him. "I won't say there haven't been other men in my life since we broke up, because I won't lie to you, but as of now…I'm all yours. Even if it's just because you want to piss your mother up by showing up to dinner with the Earl Pennington with me on your arm, claiming that we've decided to resume our engagement."
"Cara, I couldn't ask you to do that."
"Why not? I still have the ring, and it would be worth it, to see the looks on everyone's faces. It doesn't have to be real, Steven. That doesn't mean that it couldn't turn into something real, if we wanted it to, somewhere down the line. I certainly wouldn't object."
"No?"
"I mean, why would I? You're still Steven Wakefield. The cutest freshman at Sweet Valley U," she teased, pressing a friendly kiss to his cheek. "Just can't help that we're both older and stupider."
"No," he sighed. "I suppose that we can't."
"Cheer up," she clucked. "At least you aren't going to be on the arm of Todd Wilkins."
"Why would I do that?" He questioned. "I'd much rather have the company of a beautiful woman, especially if going with my first ex-fiancee will make my mother's head spin just as easily."
"You're wicked."
He licked his lips. "I was bound to learn something from Jessica."