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‘Anyway, I already know what your bedroom looks like because people were leaving their coats here,’ he observed, standing in the doorway and regarding the double bed.
‘Come away from there,’ she said firmly.
‘What’s this one?’ he asked, swinging around to another door. ‘Let me discover your dark secrets.’
‘This’ was the tiny second bedroom that was filled with boxes.
‘I haven’t been here long and there are things I haven’t found a place for,’ Kelly explained. ‘So tonight I just tossed them all in there. I’ll get around to it soon.’
‘That’s not like you,’ he observed, letting her lead him away.
‘What isn’t?’
‘Leaving things. You were always so tidy.’
‘I guess my priorities have changed. I’m too busy to fuss about things these days.’
Jake sat down and immediately moved to reach for something that had been sticking into his back. It was a book.
‘Hey, what’s this?’ he demanded, studying it. ‘Moving On, In Bed and In Life!’
‘Marianne gave it to me,’ she chuckled. ‘It’s one of those New Age psychobabble things. Just a laugh.’
‘A laugh, eh? And all these bookmarks? Are those the places where you’re laughing hardest? Or did Marianne put them there?’
‘Some are hers, some mine.’
‘Which is which?’
‘Work it out. You met her tonight. The way you two danced you must know her very well by now. You should have followed up. She’s ready to move on and, goodness knows, you must be. Did she give you her number? Because if not I can—’
‘Will you let me organise my own sex-life?’ he demanded, harassed. ‘And what does this mean?’ He was stabbing the book which was open at a chapter headed ‘Time For a Toy Boy?’ ‘Did she mark this?’
‘No, Marianne’s done toy boys,’ Kelly said cheerfully. ‘If she wanted another one she wouldn’t be bothering with you. Let’s face it, Jake. You hardly qualify, do you? What are you? Thirty-eight?’
‘Thirty-two, as you well know.’
‘Are you sure? I’ve always thought—I mean you look—well, anyway, thirty-two is still past your best, and—’
‘All right, all right,’ he said, grimly appreciative of this wit at his expense. ‘So I take it the bookmark’s yours?’
She glanced over and shrugged. ‘Sure.’
‘Nice reading matter you go in for, Mrs Lindley,’ he said scathingly.
‘Miss Harmon, and it’s none of your business what I read.’
He recited aloud. “‘Don’t be half-hearted about the change you’re making. Feel the sense of liberation as you chuck out unwanted possessions”—would that include unwanted husbands, by any chance?’
‘Oh, don’t be a dog in the manger. You were bored to tears with me. You’re just mad because I made the first move to end our marriage—unless, of course, you consider Olympia the first move, which you could—’
‘Do not,’ he said dangerously, ‘mention her again.’
Kelly shrugged. ‘OK. Nuff said—about everything. Give me back my book.’
‘Wait, I haven’t finished. Where was I? “Unwanted possessions. Replace them with something as different as possible. A change of partners works wonders. If years of sex with the same man has left you feeling bored—” now we’re coming to it “—your new lover should be somebody young. He’ll bring freshness and novelty to your bed, as well as strength, vigour, and a sense of adventure.”’ He set the book down. ‘You must be older than I realised. I wouldn’t have thought you’d reached the age for a toy boy.’
‘Shows how wrong you can be,’ she teased, running her hands over the tight black satin. ‘Underneath this I’m all droop and sag.’
‘Let me check the facts.’
‘You’ve seen the facts plenty of times,’ she said, fending off his hopeful hand.
‘Not these facts, I haven’t.’
‘Well, look your fill of the outside, because that’s all you’ll ever see again.’
His eyes glinted. ‘Wanna bet?’
‘Jake! Do I look as though I was born yesterday?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’
‘I’m warning you. Keep your distance.’
‘All right. Let’s get back to the subject. Toy boy.’
‘I don’t have a toy boy—yet. I was just planning for the future.’
‘And this?’ He’d found a new source of outrage in the book. “‘If you’re tired of the old self, try a new one—or several new ones.” Oh, that’s great. How the devil are you supposed to know which “you” is on duty today?’
‘Easy. You give them each their own name.’
‘So I see. You’ve written a list of names in the margin. Yvonne—’
‘Sporty,’ Kelly said at once. ‘Likes the wind in her hair.’
‘Helena—’
‘Soulful and dreamy.’ Kelly was enjoying herself. ‘An intense inner life and a hectic imagination.’
‘Carlotta?’
‘A party animal. Always ready for a new experience.’
‘Don’t the fellers get confused?’
‘Not if you keep one personality for each man.’
He stirred his coffee, not looking at her. Suddenly he growled, ‘So which of them are you sleeping with?’
‘What?’
‘Carl, or Frank? Or the mysterious Harry who “misses you terribly”?’
‘Get lost!’
‘Or is it one of the other guys who were undressing you with his eyes tonight? Not that that would take much doing.’
‘Now you’re being offensive.’
‘No way. I like a woman who’s wise to herself. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. You’ve got it—and, boy, do you know how to flaunt it! That’s OK. You missed out a whole stage of life by marrying me, I know. I don’t begrudge you your fun.’
‘It wouldn’t make any difference if you did,’ she said pointedly.
‘Not since ten-thirty this morning.’
‘Further back than that. In fact, not since— Oh, don’t let’s go down that path again. We’d end up quarrelling and what’s the point?’
‘So you’re not going to answer my question?’
‘What question?’
‘Who are you sleeping with?’
She turned slightly, resting her arm on the back of the sofa, and smiled. ‘Mind your own business, Jake.’
He acknowledged this with a quirk of the mouth. ‘I’m still in the habit of thinking you are my business.’
‘You’ll get used to things being different,’ she told him, charming and implacable.
He allowed one finger to trail across the bare skin of her shoulder. ‘I’ll say things are different,’ he murmured, his eyes on her breasts, their shape emphasised by the shine of the black satin. ‘I could get jealous.’
The admiration in his eyes was frank, and for a moment the old Kelly, the one who jumped for joy at his slightest attention, lived again. But the new Kelly firmly sat on her. She knew every trick in Jake’s book, and once you could see the strings being pulled you were safe. Right?
With a face full of amusement she said, ‘Don’t waste your time, Jake.’
‘Sure I’m wasting my time?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘So it is one of them?’
‘You’re wasting your time again.’
He removed his hand. ‘I guess things really are different. You used to tell me everything.’
‘That was when I never had anything interesting to tell. I’d hunt around in my mind trying to find something about the house or my job that wouldn’t bore you rigid when you’d just come back from Egypt or Burundi, or wherever. Then you’d go on TV and talk about fascinating things in faraway places, and I’d think, Heavens, I told him about my argument with the dustman!’
‘Maybe I liked hearing about the dustman. It was real. It kept me down to earth.’
‘And maybe I got tired of just being your “down to earth”. You did all the flying for both of us. I was just earth-bound.’
‘I didn’t even know you tonight,’ he complained. ‘I left a librarian and I came back to the last of the red hot mommas.’
‘Not mommas,’ she said quickly. ‘Not red hot or any other kind.’
He frowned. Then her meaning hit him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a sigh. ‘It slipped out without my thinking. I didn’t realise it still hurt you so much after all this time.’
‘Yes, it’s seven years ago. I should have forgotten all about it,’ she said tensely. ‘Like you.’
‘That’s not fair. I haven’t forgotten that we nearly had a child. A child I wanted very much, by the way.’
‘Yes, enough to marry me just because I was pregnant,’ she said quietly. She didn’t add what she was thinking, And that was the only reason.
Perhaps wisely, he decided not to answer this. ‘Anyway, I meant the “red hot” bit,’ he said. ‘You really set the room alight this evening. Maybe I should stand in line behind Carl and Frank, and half a dozen others.’
‘No, you were at the head of the queue, but your time has been and gone. It’s over.’
‘But how “over” can it be when people have meant that much to each other for eight years?’
‘Now you’re being sentimental,’ she said firmly. ‘You meant “that much” to me, but I meant very little to you.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Yes, it is. Jake, this is probably the last time we’ll ever meet, so just for once let’s be totally honest. Let’s get the facts straight before we draw a line under them and move out of each other’s lives. You married me because I was pregnant and you believed in “doing the decent thing”.’
‘There was a bit more to it than that—’
‘Yes,’ she conceded, ‘you really wanted a baby. You couldn’t wait to be a father. It was one of the nicest things about you. And if I’d had the baby maybe we’d have been happy. But I didn’t. I miscarried in the fourth month, and I’ve never managed to get pregnant since.’
‘Not for lack of trying,’ he mused.
‘We tried and tried, but I guess that was my one shot and it’ll never happen again. And you still want to be a father, don’t you?’
‘It would be nice,’ he agreed after a silence. ‘But maybe it’s not meant to be.’
‘It isn’t meant to be—for us. But your next wife will probably give you a dozen.’
‘Don’t talk about my “next wife” like that. We haven’t been divorced twenty-four hours and already you’re marrying me off.’
‘I’m saying that we’ve both moved on, and that’s good.’
‘And what have you moved on to?’
‘Archaeology. I’m an academic now.’
‘And no doubt you’ll be spending your vacations on digs—with Carl. Good plan. It’ll keep the others wondering.’
Kelly merely raised her eyebrows. Jake frowned, trying to decipher that look. It threw him off balance not to be able to read her easily. Just who was this woman?
‘Enjoying yourself, are you?’ he demanded.
‘You’ve already agreed that I’m entitled to.’
‘Just be careful, that’s all. I’ve got my doubts about some of the men here tonight.’
‘I’ve got my doubts about just one,’ she riposted.
‘Hey, you really snap back at a guy these days,’ he said, nettled. ‘Except when you won’t answer him at all, that is. Faxes, e-mails, letters—you name it. I sent it, you ignored it.’
‘I didn’t ignore them all. I answered at first, but I stopped when it was clear you weren’t listening to what I said.’
‘That was because you made me mad by not letting me pay you anything. You gave up college to help out with my career. You’re entitled to a big chunk of what I make, and I’ll bet your lawyer told you the same.’
‘Oh, he’s as mad at me as you are,’ she confirmed.
‘I told him, “Anything she wants”. And you made him write back saying you didn’t want anything from me. Boy, that was a great moment! And I’ll tell you an even better one—when I found out that you’d taken a job. A real dead-end job after all the other dead-end jobs you took to help me! How can you get a good degree if you’re wearing yourself out working as well? You supported me in the lean years. You should at least let me support you through college.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because I owe you that,’ he said angrily. ‘And I like to pay my debts.’
Kelly regarded him levelly. ‘If you think of our marriage as a debt to be paid off, then we’re further apart than I thought. You’ll never understand, will you?’
He wanted to slam something against the wall, preferably his own head. No, he didn’t understand, and he was furious with her and himself. He wasn’t trying to ‘pay her off’, only to express his gratitude and appreciation for all she’d done for him. And it had come out all wrong, as so often with him. Before a news camera he was at ease, the words pouring out in a golden flow. But with this one person he was tongue-tied and clumsy.
‘Then explain it to me,’ he said through gritted teeth.
‘What I did, I did because I loved you. We were a team. Remember how we told ourselves that?’
‘Of course I remember. But it didn’t work out much of a deal for you, did it?’
‘I wasn’t making deals,’ she said quietly. ‘I was doing something for the man I loved. What I forgot—or was too young to know—was that two people who think they’re doing the same thing never really are. Not quite.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said flatly. ‘I never could follow when you talked like that. I’m a plain man and I see things plainly. I don’t think that was ever enough for you.’
‘I only meant that you saw our marriage differently from me.’
‘I did you an injustice,’ he said, clinging to the one thing that was clear to him. ‘And I’m trying to put it right.’
‘But you can’t put the past right. You can’t make it something it wasn’t. It’s dead and gone.’
His combative streak would have made him fight that view, but there was something melancholy about ‘dead and gone’ that silenced him. He’d never been able to cope with her subtler wits. Handling facts was easier for him, and somehow it had always been tempting to use them to evade an argument. After a while Kelly had given up trying to make him talk things through, and he’d been relieved.
Kelly gave a little sigh. ‘Oh, well,’ she said. ‘No point in arguing now.’
‘Perhaps I want to argue,’ he said illogically.
Her lips twitched. ‘Nonsense, Jake, you never wanted to argue. You just wanted me to keep quiet and agree with you. Failing agreement, keep quiet anyway.’
‘You make me sound like a monster,’ he said, appalled. ‘A bully.’
‘No,’ she said with a touch of wistfulness. ‘You weren’t either. Just a man who always thought he was right. Much like all the others, really. No worse, anyway.’
This faint praise did nothing to appease him.
‘Have you been thinking like this all the time?’ he demanded.
‘Not all of it, no. But it wasn’t much of a marriage at the end, was it?’ She began gathering cups and headed for the kitchen. ‘No, stay there.’ She stopped him rising. ‘There isn’t much.’
She wanted to get away from him. The conversation had taken a turn that she was finding hard to cope with. She should never have started talking about love with Jake. It aroused memories best forgotten.
But do I really want to forget? she asked herself wistfully. Would I wipe out the last eight years? I know they took a great deal away from me, but they gave me so much.
She remembered herself at seventeen, a schoolgirl, slightly overweight, shy, lonely, earnest, not laughing enough. She’d worked hard at school, driven by dreams of escape from the dreary little provincial town and the single mother who’d resented her. Mildred Harmon had still been in her thirties, ‘with my own life to live’, a phrase she’d used often and with meaning.
The last year at school had been punctuated by various lectures about career options. Kelly’s sights were set on a brilliant college career, but she’d attended the meeting about journalism, expecting to see Harry Buckworth, editor of the local rag, whom she knew slightly. But Harry had gone down with flu. Instead he’d sent Jake, who’d been on the paper a year.
And that was it. All over in a moment. The twenty-four-year-old Jake had been like a young god to the ultra-serious schoolgirl. Tall, lean, jeans-clad, spinning words like the devil. And such words: a fine yet powerful web of bright colours that turned the schoolroom into a magic cave. And he’d laughed. How he’d laughed! And how wonderfully rich and free it had sounded. She could have loved him for that alone.
Afterwards she’d strolled home in a dream, scheming how to meet him again, so oblivious to her surroundings that she’d collided with someone, and been halfway through her apology before she’d realised it was him.
He’d taken her for a milk shake and listened while she talked. She didn’t know what she’d said, but when they’d left the evening light had been fading and she’d returned home nervously, wondering how she would explain her absence. But the house had been empty and cold. On the kitchen table there had been a note from her mother, out with her latest boyfriend, telling her to microwave something for herself.
After that they’d seemed to bump into each other a lot, just by chance. The meetings had followed a pattern. Milk shake, talk, stroll home. Sometimes he’d helped with her school projects, looking up facts, guiding her to useful web sites, letting her bounce her ideas off him. Or he would discuss his assignments in a way that had made her feel very grown up.
Once they’d reached her home to find Mildred peering through the curtains and beckoning them in. She’d looked Jake up and down thoughtfully, and when he’d left, said to her daughter,
‘Watch out for him. You’re becoming a pretty girl.’
She didn’t know how to say that Jake had never so much as kissed her, but two weeks later, on her eighteenth birthday he finally did so, taking her into seventh heaven.
‘I was waiting for you to be old enough,’ he said.
Life was brilliant then. Mildred, evidently feeling she’d done her motherly duty, was out more than she was in, and Kelly was free to indulge her happiness.
Then Jake had lost his job.
‘I had to fire him,’ Harry explained when Kelly buttonholed him. ‘He’s a hard worker, I admit, but by golly he’s an opinionated young devil.’
‘A good journalist needs opinions,’ Kelly protested, parroting Jake. ‘And he shouldn’t be afraid to stand by them.’
‘Standing by them is one thing. Riding roughshod over everyone is another. There was this assignment, an important one—I told him how it should be handled, and he just went his own way, wouldn’t take advice. I had to be away for a day and when I came back the paper was nearly to bed. If it had gone in like that it would have offended our biggest advertiser—’
‘Advertisers!’ Kelly said scornfully.
‘That’s him talking,’ Harry said. ‘He’s brash, thoughtless, and he’s got more mouth than sense.’
And it was true, Kelly thought now, standing in her kitchen eight years later. Brash, opinionated, cocky, insufferable. When he got in front of a camera it all turned to gold, but we couldn’t have known that then. And I knew him when he wasn’t like that…
She forced herself back to reality. She’d promised herself not to hark back to the past, and it was time to be firm and drive Jake out. She returned to the living room, ready to deliver the speech that would send him away. But it died on her lips.
Jake was where she’d left him on the sofa. The jetlag had caught up with him again and he looked as if he’d passed out the moment she left him. That was how he’d always been, she reflected. He spun his web of words, he slept, he passed on. And she should have remembered that.
It was good that he’d slipped away from her yet again. It got things in perspective.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE fetched a blanket from the cupboard and gently draped it over him. Then she turned out the lights and made her way to her bedroom, but no sooner had she closed the door when a loud thump made her open it again. In the half-light from her bedroom she could see Jake on the floor.
‘Hell!’ he said, shaking his head. ‘What was that?’
‘You turned over too far and fell off the sofa,’ she said.
‘Uh-huh!’ He yawned and rubbed his eyes.
She rearranged the cushions and when he’d hoisted himself back up she began to take off his shoes. ‘Let’s get you comfortable,’ she said, swinging his legs back into position and drawing the blanket up.
‘Are you going to tuck me up?’ he asked with a grin.
In the near darkness she could discern little about his face except the mischievous gleam in his eyes. The likeness to a cheeky kid was so clear that she assumed a motherly, teasing tone. ‘Yes, I am, so you be good.’
‘I’m always good.’
‘Yeah. Sure. ’Night.’
She wasn’t sure how he did it, but one moment his arms were safely tucked under the blanket and the next they were around her waist.
‘Don’t I get a goodnight kiss?’
‘No,’ she said, although he was already pulling her near. ‘Jake, this isn’t just goodnight. It’s goodbye.’
‘A goodbye kiss, then.’
One last time couldn’t do any harm, she promised herself as he drew her closer. She was armoured against him now, and this was a good way to prove it.
The shape of his mouth was a shock. She knew it well, yet somehow it felt unfamiliar. It seemed such a long time since she’d last felt it against her own. There had been no kissing in the last weeks of their marriage. She’d seen his mouth tight with exasperation, and finally hard with anger. Now it was firmly purposeful, yet gentle, as she’d first loved it. She’d longed for that gentleness and had thought she would never know it again. Suddenly it was returned to her, like a present, and she couldn’t give it up just yet. She would enjoy it for a moment, and be strong later.
They kissed like strangers exploring new territory, intrigued, ready to be surprised, even more ready to follow the dancing light of desire. His mouth was eager against hers, even a little predatory in a way that thrilled her. Lips that were purposefully seductive, arms like steel bands, hands that were tender even as they imprisoned her: this was Jake at his most overwhelming.
Into her mind crept the unwanted memory of Craig—Craig somebody—who’d had the temerity to whisk a scoop from under Jake’s nose. He’d smiled pleasantly, stood Craig a drink, acted the good loser. But the following week he’d trumped him with a much bigger scoop that turned Craig’s story into small potatoes.
‘I’m not a good loser,’ he’d explained.
Kelly had divorced him, rejected him in the eyes of the world, made him look like a loser. No way was he going to leave without reclaiming her. Even if nobody else suspected, the two of them would know, and that would be enough for him.
So the moment to be strong was now. Not later, now. And she would manage it—in just a moment. Something in the movements of his lips was making her resolution slip away. His tongue teased her, flickering against her mouth, urging her not to be a spoilsport. It began to seem ridiculous not to do something she really wanted so much, and suddenly her mouth was open to him, inviting him to explore, for his own delight and hers.
The tip of his tongue, wickedly caressing her inner cheek, sent delicious tremors through her. Too late for caution now, she thought, challenging him back. Wherever this led, she had no choice but to follow. She moved in slowly, taking control of the kiss, surprising him. She could feel his astonishment in her flesh, in her bones.
After a few minutes of intense mutual enjoyment he drew away, regarding her. His eyebrows were raised, giving him a quizzical look.
‘Hmm,’ he said, considering. ‘Yvonne? Helena?’
She drew a swift breath. ‘Carlotta,’ she said, greatly daring.
‘Well, that’s what I thought—hoped—because she sounds such an interesting lady.’
‘You don’t know just how interesting,’ she murmured with a little chuckle. ‘Not that she lets everyone in on the secret.’
‘Always ready for a new experience,’ he repeated her words from earlier in the evening.
‘Ready for anything,’ she confirmed.
Jake took her at her word, letting his hands drift very slowly over her body, thinly covered in tight black satin. A few brief touches were enough to confirm his suspicions that she wore nothing underneath, but there was no way he was stopping at brief touches. A woman dressed like this for only one reason: to tempt a man to undress her. That was fine, as long as he was the man.