The Present Day

Casey woke at 5am to a sky that was still dark and a bad headache. She could blame the inability to keep regular hours down to jet lag, but she'd flown the wrong way across the Atlantic for that, and her heart knew that it was something else entirely. It had been a long time since Casey had slept well because her dreams were still haunted by memories. And recent events had made the dreams more real, more vivid.

Not only that, but she had made the mistake of picking up a discarded gossip magazine on the plane, something she promised herself she would never do again, but she hadn't been able to help it. Derek's face was across the front.

"Hockey star hits rock bottom", "Loss of wife blamed for meteoric fall from grace", "Friends and family at wits' end."

Casey bit her bottom lip. Derek had always insisted that she ignore the gossip magazines and she knew from the few times she had been the target just exactly how little of their sensationalist press you could believe.

It didn't stop her worrying.

She would have phoned her mother for a more balanced view of Planet Derek, but her flight had been delayed and she had got in late the previous night. Robbie would have school tomorrow so she was reluctant to phone the house. Besides, she was Casey. She wasn't supposed to give two hoots what happened to her nemesis.

But she did care. She had realised when he walked into the kitchen and caught her dancing as she made his breakfast…she still loved him: more, if anything, than she had before. He had made it clear, however, what he thought of their brief relationship. And it was obvious that he was still in love with Chloe even thought they had separated, because his career was suffering.

Casey rolled onto her side and stared at the clock.

She had walked away from his bed that day nearly three years ago because she knew he would get over her before she got over him and she didn't want to be around to see the light go off in his eyes. She had returned to her apartment and spent several days crying.

Derek never called.

She guessed this was because he understood why she had gone and he realised the futility of trying to talk her out of it. Or at least that's what she hoped. For all she knew, he was glad to see the back of her. The following day, still puffy eyed, she went back to her agent and told her she was ready to get back into work, whereupon Angela promptly sent her to Australia. And Casey couldn't have been more grateful, although she wept the whole time she was on the flight and for days afterwards.

Casey had cried a lot over the past three years. Three occasions stuck out most, however.

The first was a fortnight after she had slept with Derek and she cried because her period came. She hadn't deliberately slept with him without protection. There had been no particular agenda. She just wanted to feel him. But the loss of the possibility that monthly visitor meant was enough to switch on the waterworks – which she blamed on Aunt Flo and her hormones.

The second time she cried was on the way home from a coffee house about six months after that night: a coffee house where she had left Derek, knowing that he was about to propose to Chloe.

He had called her out of the blue and asked to see her because he needed to tell her something and he thought it was best if she heard it from him. In recent years Casey had become somewhat more of a realist, so instead of feeling hope that he still loved her, she went knowing she was going to hear something she wouldn't like…and she was right.

Derek had started by trying to make small talk, but she asked him to just tell her instead. She might have come across as cold and unfeeling – but she needed that camouflage for the pain she was really suffering. So he had taken a deep breath and asked her what she would say if he told her he was going to ask Chloe to marry him.

There had been a long expectant silence. It was every bit as painful as Casey had thought – and more so. Every part of her wanted to scream "No! Don't! I love you, don't do that!"

But she didn't. She had gripped her wrist under the table so hard that her nails left deep impressions. Casey had raised her eyes to meet his, and in a calm voice she had simply said "Congratulations!"

Derek had blinked and when his eyes reappeared they looked different, shaded and Casey knew then that the light had gone.

Somehow she had managed to sit there and discuss the marriage – he knew Chloe would say yes, apparently she had been dropping hints since they started dating. He said he knew it was quick, but there didn't seem to be any point in waiting and then he talked about Chloe not wanting children. Casey was surprised at how little it seemed to faze him, a man who she knew adored kids and had often talked about his "squad of Venturi hockey stars".

After a while, when she could stand the emptiness in his eyes no longer, she made her excuses and left.

The third time she cried was on the wedding day. Casey didn't go. She made sure she was across the other side of the world, and shook her head when Angela tried to re-arrange her schedule to make sure she could be there.

Casey sent a gift and it was the one way where she allowed herself the luxury of showing her true feelings.

Chloe had sent Casey directions for the wedding gift list with the unused invitation. When the latter went on line to view the gifts and make her selection she had fully intended to pick something normal for the new couple. But, unable to make up her mind she had given up with the official list. She had been staying abroad at the time and was in one of the larger northern cities in England. As she strolled around the shopping district the following day, she spotted a delicate vase from one of the Staffordshire potteries. It was pretty, and tasteful – well Casey thought so anyway. But she also knew that it was something that Chloe would absolutely hate.

Casey bought it, had it wrapped and dispatched to Toronto certain that it would probably never see the light of day.

But even if it did, she knew Derek would never spot that the small blue flowers in its design were forget-me-nots.

Ten days later, in Toronto, the new bride opened the parcel and frowned. Derek noticed.

"What's up?"
"Your sister really does have appalling taste, doesn't she?"

"Marti? Yeah well, you get used to it after a while."
"Not Marti, the step one."
"Lizzie?"

"No. Casey."

Derek sat up in his chair. "Why?" He asked cautiously, wondering what Casey had done. He had little or no communication with her anymore, and it hadn't been anything of a surprise to him at least that she cried off the wedding…although Chloe and the rest of the family weren't impressed.

"She's sent us a wedding present…honestly. Why she couldn't just have ordered us something for the kitchen, I don't know."

Probably because we have everything we could possibly need in the kitchen and Casey knows that because she put it all there. Derek thought.

"What did she get us?"

"This hideous vase!" Chloe gasped out. "I mean look at it. It's the sort of thing you put wild flowers in - on a grandma's dressing table. It's even got forget-me-nots in the design. Urgh! That's going straight to the thrift shop."

She made to place the vase in the "reject" pile but Derek deftly removed it from her hands.

"No." He said firmly. "I don't get rid of family gifts." He insisted.

"But…"

"No Chloe. If you don't want to look at it, stick it in my bedroom."

"Your bedroom!" She exclaimed. Derek cursed himself for the slip.

"I mean my old bedroom. It fits the décor in there. It belongs in there. Please Babe."

She huffed. "I don't see why it's important." But then she relented. After all, she was married to him now and before long she would have persuaded him to ditch this house with all it's period features and buy a nice modern penthouse in the centre of town. If she played her cards right the vase wouldn't survive the house move.

She smiled sweetly and gave in.

Chloe returned to work the following day, her tight schedule making for a short honeymoon. No sooner was she out of the door than Derek climbed the stairs to the former Master suite and opened the door. He still loved this room, but it wasn't for the location or the view, or even for the fact that Casey had loved it so much. He loved it for the woman he had made love to here, and for the memories of that night.

He had wanted to wake beside Casey that morning. He had wanted to tell her how he couldn't let her go, but she must have had some inkling of how it would be, because when he woke she was already gone. There had been no goodbye, whispered or written, just the mingling of their bodies over the previous evening. And he had to be content with that. She had voted with her feet, and he knew there was no point in pushing it.

Moving on had been tortuous, but he'd tried to do it. He wallowed for a month and then picked up the first available girl in the vicinity – who just happened to be that persistent celebrity groupie. After five months with Chloe, he realised that he wasn't looking for love anymore, just a companion and Chloe was decent enough that he reckoned he could make a go of it. She was using him, he realised that. He made her look even better than her supermodel looks. So he figured they were even. It wasn't a healthy basis for a marriage, but he wondered just how many marriages were based on healthy foundations.

Besides, he'd given Casey chance to talk him out of it, and she hadn't.

That had hurt. He had hoped that presented with the idea that Derek was going to get married she would beg him not to. He had hoped that it might spark something between them again. But it didn't, and the coldness calmness of her reaction had sliced through him.

But as he placed the forget-me-not vase on the dresser in their bedroom, Derek almost wished that she had sent the gift sooner, because then he would have been able to phone her and ask her about it. Did she know that the flowers were forget-me-nots? He snorted. Of course she did. Casey was a keener. So what did the flowers mean?

Derek could never ask her now. He was a husband – and not to Casey. He was committed to Chloe. He had not married her lightly.

The Derek and Casey ship had sailed and he wasn't on it anymore.

That didn't mean that he would throw away the vase – or the memories associated with this room.

The clock beside Casey's bed suddenly rang as she stared at it, lost in memories of that night. She stirred herself, smacking the clock silent and climbed out of bed for the shower. She had a meeting this afternoon in Toronto, but first she was going to drive to London and see her family.

She wanted to know what was going on with Derek.