KARMA

31. EPILOGUE

LISA

I grab a shopping trolley and head for the rear of the store, pushing past the bottles of Organic Cleansers and laundry detergents and brooms and mops. I throw chocolate chip cookies and potato crisps into the trolley and head for the ice cream aisle. I pass a woman wearing a shirt that says, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Turning down the ice cream aisle, I shiver.

"Cold?" I yelp, and swing around so fast my shoulder upsets a display of waffle cones, piled high into a triangular mountain.

I watch Maxim pick up the boxes one by one, stacking them swiftly and efficiently. He smiles at me, his eyes amused.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." His eyes are dancing. He totally meant to freak me out.

"What are you doing here?" I narrow my eyes suspiciously at him. "Are you --- are you stalking me?"

He laughs.

"Really. I don't know who you are. I've never seen you before in my life. I just happened to be in the neighbourhood. And I just happen to want to buy..." His eyes skim over the shelves. "...Walkers original potato crisps." He grins. "My absolute favourite." His hands are in his pockets and he is bouncing up and down on his heels. "And chocolate chip cookies. We share the same tastes. What a remarkable coincidence." He gives me a charming smile and my bones turn to jelly. He drums his long fingers on the shelf.

He's playing some kind of game with me. The Let's-Pretend-We-Don't-Know-Each-Other game. We play games all the time. With our children, Chloe, five this year, and Christopher, just turned three. And we play games too, naughty ones, without our children, just him and me, alone.

I feel my heart start to pound.

"Do you live in this neighbourhood?" he asks politely. His eyes are wicked.

"Yes." I smile slowly, and flip my hair. I bat my eyelashes at him. Let's see who cracks first.

"My wife lives here." He grins.

"Really?" I widen my eyes. My feigned surprise makes him laugh. "So," I say casually, opening one of the coolers. I pretend to stare at the tubs of ice cream. I frown in concentration, and his grin widens. "What's your wife like?"

"My wife" --- his dark, amused eyes scan me from head to toe slowly, and I feel my breath hitch --- "hmm, she looks a lot like you actually." He tilts his head to one side and studies me lazily, his eyes lingering on my lips. "It's uncanny how much you resemble her...she's very beautiful and cool and smart. I'm crazy about her."

I giggle, I can't help it. His shoulders are shaking with silent laughter.

"So why are you chatting me up when you should be..." I wave a hand vaguely, "wherever... you know, with her?"

"Ah." He leans forward, and murmurs in my ear, his shoulder almost touching mine. I feel a delicious tingle ripple down my arm, all the way to my toes. "She's here. She's buying my favourite foods. She's crazy about me, too, you see."

"Really?"

"Really," he says huskily, still watching my lips. "She's a feisty woman, my wife. But that's one of the reasons I'm so crazy about her. Because she's so damn exciting...there's never a dull day with her around..." He stretches his hand, and lifts a strand of my hair off my shoulder, and tucks it behind my ear.

I stop breathing.

"Would you like to grab a cup of coffee?" he asks. "I can fill you in on my whole love story." The tingle at my feet works its way up my body.

"No," I mutter. "I can't. I'm um, busy."

"Busy?"

"Yes, busy. I'm buying ingredients. To bake a cake."