She must have just missed Cassandra.
“Coffee?” Trudy offered pointing to the coffeemaker.
It wasn’t a sign of friendship. It was a gesture of dominance that was meant to proclaim Trudy as queen of the castle or more to the point . . . mistress of the villa.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll just have a glass of milk.”
Beth went to the fridge and took out a jug of milk and poured some into a long tall tumbler.
She would really have liked a mug of strong black coffee, but she thought perhaps it would be wiser to have some milk.
Milk would be better for the baby and she’d missed dinner yesterday evening.
She drank the milk thirstily and put down the glass.
Trudy gave Beth a glare of hatred.
“Poor Beth did you really think he would marry you. Jason was only leading you on to get back at me. But as you can see we’re back together again. Especially after last night. We’ve sort of kissed and made-up so to speak.”
“But he isn’t here . . .”
“No . . . Jason’s just left.”
For a moment the room began to spin and Beth’s knees were beginning to buckle under her.
She pulled herself together and thought that if Jason had wanted to teach her a lesson and make her jealous, he had certainly succeeded.
And she hadn’t seen any sign of him this morning. Usually he was the first one at the breakfast table.
He could have been with Trudy during the night for all she knew.
“He went to Athens, to the mainland to collect a very important package. He’s having something resized. Apparently it was too big. He shouldn’t be long . . . a couple of hours at the most. Or at least that’s what he told me before he disappeared from the bedroom.”
Trudy seemed very helpful in supplying the whereabouts of her host. Too helpful.
Beth felt as if she had been given a blow to the pit of her stomach.
Trudy was saying Jason had been in her bedroom and if what Trudy was implying was to be believed, he had probably spent the night back in Trudy’s eager arms.
“It’s none of my business what Jason does or where he goes . . . or even who he chooses to be with. He’s a free agent.”
Beth said the words bravely and defiantly. But she felt the tears beginning to well up inside her again.
The thought of Jason choosing to be with another woman was agonising, but more specifically . . . the thought of him choosing to be with Trudy was torture.
“You haven’t learnt how to manage men have you my dear and you haven’t learnt how to handle Jason. Darling . . . let me warn you about men with Jason’s power and wealth - you stick to them like glue.”
“But you left Jason at the hospital. When Jason had the plane crash and broke his leg and lost his sight . . . you left him. You didn’t stick it out. You disappeared whilst he was unconscious in the hospital bed.”
“Of course I did . . . I couldn’t stay with him looking like that. And anyway, you weren’t there. You didn’t see what he looked like. He had a horrid scar all the way across his face. We couldn’t have gone out anywhere. There would have been no parties, no dances. Even you wouldn’t have stayed?”
“But Jason was blind . . . You can’t just walk away from someone you love because they’ve been injured.”
“Jason was in a coma and the doctor didn’t know if he would come around.”
“But still . . .”
Beth had difficulty believing what she was being told.
She couldn’t grasp the idea that anyone could willingly leave Jason.
When she had first seen him after the accident, he had been sitting alone in his sister’s conservatory at Clifton Hall with his white stick.
Jason was a fighter and he had fought back and won, and not once during the time she’d been with him, had Beth wanted to leave his side.
She’d threatened she would leave. Several times. But she had never actually intended to leave.
Trudy was seeing the emotions running the gauntlet across Beth’s face and turned the knife in the wound.
“But I think it would be best if you left him now. Move on so to speak,” Trudy’s mouth twisted cynically and there was an evil glint in her eye, “It would be better for all of us if you just went away. Now, while he’s not here to stop you. He’ll get over you. Men always get over these things. And Jason really hates it when one of his past relationships gets clingy and becomes a nuisance and a bore.”
Beth couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t listen to what Trudy was brutally saying to her.
It would hurt unbearably. But perhaps Trudy was right – perhaps it would be best for all concerned if she did leave White Island and Jason.
* * * * *
Beth went in search of Stephan.
Stephan had become a good friend and he’d promised to help if she needed anything . . . and she did. She needed someone to take her away from here and get her to Athens airport before Jason returned.
This perfect existence with Jason in paradise couldn’t continue.
She’d known Jason would tire of her as he tired of all his women.
She knew he would become bored with her, but she couldn’t bear for him to cast her off and discarded her. It would be too much to endure.
But with Trudy here on the island and saying she was back with Jason again, Beth felt she had to go. She refused to stay and play gooseberry.
At some point she would have to cut the ties she’d made with him.
She had to leave and it would have to be soon . . . before it was too late . . . and before he discovered she was pregnant.
His Greek blood would never let her go once he knew she was carrying his unborn child.
He’d never said he wanted children and not once had he mentioned having a family. But instinctively Beth knew she wouldn’t be allowed to escape Jason’s world should he find out.
Stephan was working on the rockery garden near the infinity pool at the top of the hill.
He saw Beth approaching and he waved a friendly hand in her direction but he carried on setting stones and boulders into the dry wall he was building.
“Hi . . . Beth, what’s brought you here?” he was standing and stretching his aching back, “Tell me you’ve come to help me build the wall and I’ll put you on the payroll.”
She didn’t answer straight away and when he looked at her he could see something was very wrong.
“What is it?”
“You once promised me that if I needed anything you would help.”
“Beth you look awful. Come and sit over here. What’s happened?”
“I’m alright, really.”
“What’s wrong?” concern showed in the worried lines across his brow.
“It’s Jason. Last night he said he wanted to marry me.”
“But that’s great.”
Then he saw the distressed look on Beth’s face.
“And Trudy’s told me he left her bedroom early this morning . . . before going to the mainland.”
“Uum . . . not so great?”
“Jason wants to stop Trudy getting to him and he thinks that by marrying me he will be safe from her. He doesn’t love me Stephan. At least he’s never told me he does. He has only said that I have to marry him.”
There was no denying Beth wanted Jason physically, but she wanted his love more and she needed him to say he loved her.
She couldn’t marry without love.
“You must have got it all wrong Beth. I’ve seen the way he looks at you . . .”
She shook her head disbelievingly.
“I need to get to Athens. Will you take me?”
“He’ll kill me.”
“Will you take me?” she asked him again and Stephan heard the desperation in her voice.
* * * * *
At the airport, Beth was about to board the plane when Stephan’s mobile rang. He answered the call without thinking. It could have been work, but it wasn’t.
>
It was Jason, and he was demanding to know where Beth was.
Since leaving Beth’s bedroom yesterday, Jason hadn’t slept.
He had been busy getting the ball rolling, planning and making arrangements for their wedding.
He was on edge and things weren’t going to plan.
Yesterday when he’d heard the arrival of the chopper, he had gone to the heliport to tell the crew to take their cargo back to the mainland . . . and to leave Trudy there.
But the pilots had told him there was an emergency out to sea.
Control had radioed through an SOS from a trawler in distress and the chopper was being diverted. There was no way they could take excess baggage back to the mainland and Trudy was classified as excess baggage.
There was no other option but to off load Trudy for the night and send her packing the next morning.
The following day Jason had urgent things to do in Athens and he’d booked a chopper to collect him at first light. But when the time came for Trudy to leave on the same chopper, Jason was packed and ready to travel but Trudy was still in bed dead to the world.
Cassandra told him where he could find his over-night guest and he’d gone to Trudy’s bedroom in a rage.
No amount of brute force or persuasion was going to get her off the island at that moment and he didn’t have the time to stay and argue with her.
The sound of the chopper blades swirling was a warning that he ought to be in the air and there was no other solution but to leave her where she was.
Trudy hadn’t lied to Beth. Jason had been in her bedroom but he hadn’t been in her bed in the way she had implied.
He couldn’t put off his trip to Athens. He had to go and he stormed out of the bedroom slamming the door shut behind him. There had been no other solution.
The first thing he did was collect a marriage licence and then he went to the jewellery shop and picked up the engagement ring he’d bought for Beth a few weeks ago.
Beth didn’t know anything about a ring.
When she’d been shopping in Athens for an evening gown for the concert at the Megaron, Jason had left her and gone to the jewellery department on the next floor.
He had bought a brilliant diamond solitaire.
The ring had needed resizing, but it was the ring of his choice and he was at the store collecting it now.
He’d dialled the villa’s number and got the news from Cassandra that Beth had said good-bye and had left White Island Villa with Stephan.
“Where the hell are you?” Jason asked.
“She alright. She here with me,” Stephan answered trying to calm the irate Jason.
“Bring her home,” Jason shouted down the phone and Beth could hear Jason’s voice on Stephan mobile from where she was standing at the check-in desk.
Beth mouthed a word to Stephan.
“No.” and she started shaking her head vigorously from side to side.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Put her on.”
There was to be no argument.
“We’re about to board.”
“Damn it Stephan . . .”
Instantly Stephan obeyed Jason’s command and the mobile was handed over to Beth like it was a hot potato.
“What?” she asked practically screaming down the phone.
“If you think I’m going to beg you Beth you’re out of luck.”
“And if that’s all you have to say to me Jason your luck has been and gone.”
“Trudy doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Jason this isn’t about Trudy . . . don’t you get it? There will always be somebody like Trudy in your life and I can’t fight your women and I’m not even going to try. I don’t have their polish and sophistication and I’m not in your league. I never have been and I never will be. But it’s not about them Jason . . . it’s about us.”
“Us?” he still didn’t know what she meant, “But we’re good together. We’ve always been good together. You have to stay here with me.”
How dare he?
How dare he try and control her and tell her what to do?
Who did he think he was?
“What you really mean is that we’re good together in bed,” she said heatedly.
“And we are . . .”
“Were,” she corrected him, “Jason we had sex. You were never my lover. There was no romance between us.”
Stephan coughed reminding Beth where she was and that everyone in the airport check-in queue was listening to her side of the phone conversation.
Beth gave a deep sigh of sorrow.
Jason still hadn’t realised she had never heard the words “I love you” on his lips.
The words she had wanted to hear but they had never been spoken.
“Jason, I hope you will be happy. I truly do.”
She heard him as he swore long and softly beneath his breath.
“You’re mine Beth. You’ll always be mine, no matter where you go or where you are . . . I’ll find you.”
She shivered at the threat in his voice and passed the mobile back to Stephan.
“You’re making a mistake Beth . . . a big mistake,” Stephan told her.
“I know. But there’s no other way.”
There was no going back and she picked up her flight bag, gave Stephan a good-bye kiss on the cheek and boarded the plane taking her away from Jason.
* * * * *
Beth was exhausted physically and emotionally.
She totally ignored all his calls. They were redirected to voice mail and all his text messages were deleted without being seen or read. She cut off all communications with him. She thought a clean break would be best.
The plane was descending into Heathrow and the runway lights shining on the runway below were coming up to meet them. And then there was touch down.
The plane had landed and she was back in England.
She’d left everything Jason had bought her on the island and as she only had her flight case to carry, she went straight through to customs and into arrivals.
In the arrivals lounge there was a customer services department in the corner and as she passed it she was tempted to hire a car and travel south, but she thought better of it.
She wouldn’t be concentrating on the road.
Her mind would be on other things.
Things she’d rather not be thinking about.
She decided it would be a four hour journey by train - which wasn’t too bad - but it would be dark by the time she got home.
The journey had taken longer than she anticipated. The train had got into Exeter on schedule, but it was finding a vacant taxi to take her to the farm that had caused a delay.
There was some sort of festival and the city streets were full of party goers.
Eventually when the taxi pulled into the farm yard she thought it strange to see the lights on down stairs.
She knew Paul her business partner and his girlfriend Clair often checked on the place and she thought perhaps they’d left the lights on. Thinking no more about it, she paid off the taxi driver and opened her front door.
She shrugged off her jacket and dumped her luggage in the passage before walking into the lounge.
Beth saw the one person she thought she would never see again.
He was sat on her sofa in front of her fire and he looked completely at easy.
Jason was sprawled out on her sofa and he was watching television.
Beth felt like she was about to collapse from the shock of seeing him.
Her knees were beginning to buckle and she legs were giving way beneath her.
Jason jump up from where he was sat and ran to catch her.
Beth was in a dead faint. Just as she was about to hit the floor, Jason caught her and carried her to the sofa.
Even with her newly acquired suntan she looked pale.
She looked almost as deathly white as Jason did.
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