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‘Sounds nice. We can have it later, after the cheese and biscuits.’
She chuckled and cleared away the table, put the cheese and biscuits out and the apple pie in the oven, then got herself a glass and poured a little wine into it.
‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you wanted some.’
‘It’s OK. I don’t usually, because I’m still feeding them, but tonight—well, I just thought I’d join you.’
‘Feel free.’
She swirled it round in the glass, then met his eyes over the top of it. ‘So—why were you so angry?’ she asked tentatively. ‘It wasn’t just the garlic thing.’
He sighed sharply and ran his hand through his hair, then met her eyes again. ‘I don’t know, it’s—Well, it’s this place, really.’
‘The cottage? It’s lovely!’
‘Oh, I’m sure, but I just hate the idea of it. You’re my wife, Jules. I don’t want you living in another man’s house.’
She pulled back and leant against the chair, eyeing him over the table and wondering if she’d been a bit too quick to forgive. ‘Isn’t it fortunate, then, that it’s nothing to do with you? Because we’re happy here.’
‘And you couldn’t be happy in your own house?’
‘You mean your own house?’
He sighed. ‘No, yours. I’d buy you one—in your own name. God knows I owe you that, at the very least, if you won’t come back to me. We’re talking about housing my children, for heaven’s sake.’
‘I can house your children.’
‘Yes, in someone else’s house, living off his generosity! I don’t like it, Jules. I don’t like it at all. I don’t like staying here, I don’t like the idea that he could come back at any time and have the right to be here. I want privacy while we sort this out, and all the time I feel as if I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.’
She studied him thoughtfully for a moment, then gave a gentle sigh. ‘Well, then, perhaps it’s just as well that you want to buy me a house, because he’s coming back in a month and I’m going to be homeless.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You could always come back to me.’
‘What, to the apartment? I hardly think so.’
‘We could buy a house in London. Hampstead, or somewhere like that, or Barnes or Richmond—’
‘Or I could stay here in Suffolk, near my friends.’
‘You’ve got friends here?’
He sounded so shocked and surprised she nearly laughed. ‘Well, of course I have. Jane and Peter, and I’ve made other friends, lots of them, through the hospital and the twins’ support group, and the Real Nappy network—’
‘The what?’
‘The Real Nappy network. And there’s a coffee group for young mums in the village which I go to.’
He stared at her as if she’d sprouted horns.
‘So—you want to stay out here?’
‘Yes. At least—until we know how it’s going to go with us. I don’t have any infrastructure in London, Max. I’d be so lonely there, and I know if we’re in London you’ll just be off all the time, popping into the office for a minute or whatever, and before I know what’s what you’ll be in New York or Tokyo or Sydney.’
‘OK. So you want a house here. Are there any for sale?’
She did laugh at that. ‘I have no idea, Max. I haven’t been looking.’
‘So what were you going to do?’
She looked down, her laughter dying. ‘I’m not sure.’ Go back to him? No. But tell him? Contact him? Almost certainly, because not to do so was too unfair.
‘How’s the pie?’
‘Oh. I don’t know.’
She opened the oven and pulled it out; it was crisp and golden and full of the fragrance of apples. ‘It’s done.’
‘So let’s eat it, and worry about the house later.’
Hell. She wanted to stay out here, in the middle of Suffolk?
With her friends—friends he’d never met—friends he’d only heard about, because she’d hardly ever seen them, so he hadn’t been able to track her down through them because he’d had no idea how to go about finding them.
She’d met up with Jane in town a few times, spent a weekend or two with her when they’d lived in Berkshire. He dimly remembered her saying they were moving, but not where to, just that it would be further. And, since he’d had no idea what Jane’s surname was, that hadn’t been a lot of help.
And they were more important to her than him?
No. Stop it. She hadn’t said that. She’d simply said that, until they knew what was happening with them, she wanted to stay near her infrastructure.
Well, he could understand that. He felt pretty damn lost without his.
‘Is it OK?’
He frowned. What?
‘The pie—is it OK?’
The pie. He stared at his plate, almost empty, and realised he’d hardly tasted it. He blinked in surprise.
‘Yes, it’s fine. It’s lovely. Thanks.’
‘You were miles away.’
He gave her a crooked smile. ‘Actually, no, I was right here, wondering what happens next,’ he confessed.
‘Next?’
‘About the house, I mean.’
She stared at him for a second, then looked hastily away, soft colour invading her cheeks. ‘Oh. Um—right. Well, I suppose I have to start looking.’
What on earth had she thought he was talking about? Unless…
No. She wasn’t interested; she’d made that clear. She’d been giving out hands-off signals since he’d arrived, pretty much. Apart from that one stolen kiss that she’d stopped in its tracks, she hadn’t so much as brushed against him except by accident.
So why was she blushing?
‘We could look on the Internet,’ she said, and he felt his radar leap to life.
‘Internet?’
‘Mmm—in the study. It’s John’s, but he’s happy for me to use it. He emails me regularly, and I reply, telling him how things are and sending him photos of Murphy and the babies.’
The babies? She sent John Blake photos of his babies? And then he stopped thinking about John Blake and paid attention to the core business.
There was a computer in the house. A computer with Internet access. Which meant he could check his email, keep in touch with his colleagues and employees, and keep an eye on what was going on in the financial markets. Before he went completely insane from the lack of information.
‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Let’s load the dishwasher and go and have a look.’
‘Sure.’
She went over to the sink and scraped the remains of their meal down the sink into the waste-disposal unit, then turned back to get the rest of the things just as he arrived at her elbow with another plate and a pan.
‘Whoops,’ he said with a grin, shifting the pan out of the way before she collided with it, and instead she collided with his chest, her soft, full breasts squashing against him and her eyes flying up to meet his, wide and startled.
‘Steady,’ he murmured, putting the pan down on the side and setting the plate back onto the table, and then, suddenly reluctant to lose that soft, warm contact, he let his arms drift round her and drew her closer.
‘Max?’ she whispered, her voice little more than a breath. But it was enough—just that soft word telling him all he needed to know about how much she wanted him, and, without waiting for any further invitation, he lowered his head, closed his eyes and touched his mouth to hers.
She couldn’t let him do this.
She couldn’t…
She must taste of garlic. How he could tell after the paella, she didn’t know, but she thought back to their row, to her comment that it didn’t matter because nobody was going to kiss her.
But Max was kissing her as if his life depended on it—and suddenly she didn’t care about the garlic, only about kissing him back, feeling the strength of his arms around her, the powerful thighs bracketing hers, the harsh sound of his breathing muffled against her face as he plundered her mouth with his, his lips and tongue urgent, his body hard against hers, trapping her between him and the sink so she was under no illusions about his reaction.
One hand slid round under her jumper and cradled her breast, and she whimpered softly. The sound caught in his mouth and echoed back to her in a deep, primitive groan that was dragged up from his boots.
‘Jules, I need you,’ he whispered harshly, his mouth tracking over her jaw, his teeth nipping her, not enough to hurt but just enough to drive her further over the edge. And then his tongue stroked over the tiny insult, soothing, tasting, his lips dragging softly over her skin and leaving fire in their wake.
He was driving her crazy, and he knew it, but she couldn’t stop him. There was no way she could stop him, because she needed this every bit as much as he did.
Or so she thought, until the little voice clamouring at the back of her subconscious fought its way up to the surface and she realised that one of the babies was crying. Suddenly Max was shunted off the top of her list, and she felt the passion die away, replaced by the fundamental fact of her motherhood.
‘Max,’ she said, turning her head away, and he groaned and dropped his head onto her shoulder.
‘No, Jules. Don’t stop me, for God’s sake, please.’
‘The babies,’ she said, and he went still for a second, then sighed heavily and eased away, slashes of colour on his cheekbones, his eyes dark with arousal as he stared down at her. His chest was heaving, and, after the longest moment, he closed his eyes and turned away.
‘Go and sort them out,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait for you.’
But she knew that would be the stupidest thing she could do.
‘No, Max. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’m going to go to bed.’
‘No!’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. It’s not—We aren’t ready yet.’
He gave a rude snort, and, without waiting for him to say another thing, she fled for the stairs.
‘She’s not ready, Murphy. What do you think of that?’
Murphy thumped his tail and gazed up at Max with adoring eyes, and he sighed and rubbed the dog’s ears gently. ‘Yeah, I quite agree. Rubbish, isn’t it? What am I going to do if she’s never ready, Murphs? This is driving me crazy. The whole damn situation’s driving me crazy.’
He poured the last glass of wine out of the bottle and stared morosely at it. If only there was something to do!
Something more gripping than taking his wife to bed and making love to her until she was so desperate for him that she couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything except scream and sob with need.
He swore, short and to the point, and, picking up the TV remote, he turned the set on and channel-hopped. Nothing. Even the news was dull, nothing to hold his interest, and he was on the point of hurling the handset through the window when Jules appeared in the doorway, dressed in her little cat-pyjamas and that fluffy dressing gown, her bare feet sticking out of the bottom and looking vulnerable and appealing.
He wanted to kiss them, take each toe in his mouth and suck it slowly.
‘Is it safe to come in?’
He gave a rough sigh. ‘Yes, it’s safe. I’m sorry. It’s just—it’s been a hell of a long time.’
She nodded and came in, perching on the edge of the chair opposite him and eyeing him warily. ‘I’m not really being fair to you, am I? You’re not used to this, and you must be bored to death.’
‘I am. There’s just nothing for me to do except think about you and wonder what the hell I did that was so wrong.’
‘Nothing. You did nothing. That was the trouble, Max. You just carried on as you always had, and took me with you. And it wasn’t enough.’
‘It was enough for me. I loved working with you—watching your incredible ability to organise and sort stuff. Things just happened when you were around, and it was amazing. I didn’t realise what I’d got until I lost you.’
She sighed softly, and huddled further down in her dressing gown. ‘Max, if this is going to work, you’re going to have to cut back on your time in the office, you know that, don’t you? Your time away, particularly. It’s just not conducive to family life.’
‘My family managed. My father worked the same sort of hours.’
‘And he died of a heart attack at forty-nine! That’s only eleven years away for you, Max. Your daughters will be just starting secondary school. And I’ll be a widow at forty-four. That’s not something to look forward to.’
God. Eleven years? Was that all? No wonder his mother had found another man to share her life. She was only sixty-two now, fit and active and full of life. And her husband had died far too young; he could see that now.
Was that in store for him? Would he go to work one day and find not his PA but the Grim Reaper waiting for him, as his father had?
‘I’m doing it for us,’ he said, but his words had a hollow ring to them, and she shook her head.
