by Sara Wood
He’d been rejected all his life. In his own mind he must see this as yet another rejection. But what did he expect, when he’d behaved so badly? She was hurting. She’d been wronged.
‘Cut out the emotional appeal,’ she said jaggedly. ‘Give the facts.’
He drew himself up and his hands fell away from his eyes, which he kept lowered to the ground. Helen stared. His dark lashes were wet and glistening. Her gaze flicked to his hands where they lay loosely on his knees and she saw that there was moisture on his fingertips.
But sorrow didn’t equal innocence. She steeled herself. And in a halting rasp, he began.
‘I had an appointment in Brighton. Celine came, too. Unusually, she brought a flask of coffee.’ His mouth took on a harsh line. ‘I thought it was an accident, but I can see it wasn’t—’
‘What was an accident?’ she asked in confusion, unnerved by his uncharacteristic rambling. He was always incisive and clear-headed. Or was it her brain that was woolly?
‘What? Oh, the coffee. I was driving along and she suddenly poured it out and somehow it spilled all over my shirt and trousers. Black coffee, four sugars, she said. You can’t go to the meeting like that, she said. We’re near your house. Better go home and change.’ He grunted. ‘What an idiot I was! Oldest trick in the book.’
Helen waited. He looked sour, as if it had truly happened that way. And she could almost believe that it had…
Except for the abandoned clothes on the stairs, and Celine’s implication that this wasn’t the first time they’d had ‘fun’ together. Her head drummed with the questions he wasn’t answering.
‘And?’ she prompted dully.
‘We were running late. It was an important meeting and I was annoyed,’ Dan growled, his hands doubled into tight fists again. ‘I left Celine in the drawing room with a pile of magazines, stormed up the stairs, got out of my ruined clothes—’
‘Where are they?’ Helen asked suspiciously.
Dan frowned, his eyes flicking up to meet hers. ‘What?’
She felt her stomach loop the loop.
‘They weren’t in the bathroom or I’d have noticed—’
‘I left them on top of the laundry basket,’ he answered with convincing confidence.
They both looked. The basket sat in pristine solitude in the corner of the bedroom. Dan muttered something rude and strode over to lift the lid but his movements were already uncertain.
‘Well?’
Helen could hardly breathe. She wanted them to be there, for some part of his story to be true. Her desperate hope was that he’d stuck to the facts so far—that there had been an accident, and Celine had taken the opportunity to wander in while he was half dressed—and had come on so strong that no red-blooded man could have refused—
Dan’s expression destroyed her hopes. She flinched, a hollow sensation gnawing at her stomach. His lie had been found out.
‘My clothes aren’t there,’ he announced, his eyes burning feverishly in his face.
‘No,’ she said, her tone clipped and glacial as she watched him grimly flinging open wardrobe doors and hunting through drawers. ‘I never thought they would be.’
‘They were!’ he insisted, flashing her an irritated glance.
This was awful, she thought as he pretended to search for his supposedly stained clothes. He was making a good job of it, becoming more and more incensed and baffled as he explored every possible hiding place in the room.
‘Stop this,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m not impressed.’
He whirled, hot anger turning his eyes to glittering jet. His legs were planted apart, his entire body fired with suppressed fury. Helen gulped. He was beginning to believe his own lies, she thought, aghast.
‘Just listen to me,’ he hissed through his clenched teeth. ‘My clothes were splashed with coffee. I put them on the basket and went to take a shower—’
‘While Celine silently dashed up the stairs, grabbed your suit and shirt, stuffed them down her cleavage and then raced downstairs to hide them—only to lay a trail of clothes as she came back up again!’ she suggested sarcastically.
‘Yes! Something like that!’
‘Oh, come on, Dan!’ she scoffed.
His hand mussed his hair. ‘I know it sounds mad—’
‘Not mad. Preposterous,’ she said coldly.
‘Well, I don’t know how she did it…’ Dan continued to thrust an exasperated hand into his hair till it was as confused as his manner. ‘All I do know is that I came out of the shower to find Celine wearing nothing but that blue towel.’
That part could be true, she thought grudgingly. Before she’d left for work, she’d taken a fresh one out of the airing cupboard on the landing and had flung it on a bedroom chair ready for her shower later that evening.
‘And?’ she muttered, not sure she wanted to hear the rest.
He made an impatient gesture with his hand. ‘What do you think? I asked her what the hell she was doing, of course.’
‘And?’ Helen goaded. ‘What happened then?’
Dan’s eyes blazed at her temerity. ‘And nothing!’
‘I mean, what reason did she give for stripping off without any encouragement from you?’ she persisted.
A frown pulled his brows together. He appeared to be taking a while to think of an answer.
‘As a matter of fact, she seemed disconcerted at first, as if she hadn’t expected me to find her there—’
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘I know! Don’t ask me to read the damn woman’s mind!’ he snapped irascibly. ‘I employ her because she’s got a brilliant imagination and can think around corners. I’m the straightforward sort.’
‘Well, I’m a woman with the same talents as Celine,’ she said, ‘so let’s see if I can unravel the mystery. She deliberately threw the coffee over you, waited downstairs till you went up for your shower and then she stripped. After that, she went up the stairs arranging her things enticingly in reverse order, and slipped into our bedroom to take your suit away—perhaps to send it to the cleaners, like a good PA should,’ she suggested acidly. Dan glowered. ‘But you came out too soon and caught her snitching my towel, whereas her real plan was that you’d follow the trail of clothes down the stairs, getting progressively more and more excited. And she’d be reclining in a seductive pose on a rug, with a glass of champagne in her hand, a rose in her teeth and a huge smile of welcome on her face.’
He stared, appalled. ‘Do you really think—?’
‘For heaven’s sake, Dan!’ she scathed. ‘Can’t you recognise sarcasm?’
Two high spots of colour fired his cheekbones. ‘Well, women can be unbelievably devious,’ he said angrily. ‘I’m beginning to discover that to my cost. I can only give you my version.’
‘Which is?’ Helen asked, sweetly saccharine.
‘I came out of the shower and saw her. When she recovered her composure she just started talking in this odd, husky kind of voice. Saying that this was our opportunity. Stuff like that,’ he mumbled.
‘Details,’ she demanded.
‘No.’
‘Can’t think of any?’ she taunted.
He glared. ‘It was embarrassing.’
‘So relive it.’
‘It…was all about her feelings for me. The kind of man she thought I was,’ he said shortly. ‘I told her not to be so stupid and to get dressed.’
He was lying. He looked ashamed of himself. She would have preferred him to admit his adultery and to beg her forgiveness. This was just cowardly.
‘So you’re saying that you were confronted with a gorgeous, almost-naked woman who admitted that she worshipped the ground you walked on and said, “How about it?” and you said, “No, thanks, I’m married.’”
Dan’s astonished indignation was masterly. ‘Of course!’
‘You’re a saint among men.’
‘Don’t be sarky!’ he said angrily, his brows lowered over glittering eyes. ‘There’s no point in talki
ng to you if you’re not going to listen—’
‘Oh, I’m listening, Dan,’ she replied despondently. ‘I’m just sickened by what I’m hearing.’
He slung her a furious glare as if she was doing him an injustice. Past experience told her that this kind of reaction was common when people were in the wrong. They dealt with their fall from grace by seeking excuses for their behaviour, or finding fault with the accuser. It was the only way they could live with themselves.
‘If you ask me,’ she said coldly, ‘you’re lucky you’re not splattered all over the wall.’
Rage crackled in his eyes. ‘That’s it. I’m going. You’re not prepared to believe me—’
‘You’re giving up?’ she cried, sitting bolt upright, her whole body taut with outrage. He wasn’t walking out on her! Not till he’d been forced to tell the truth. ‘Don’t you have faith in your own story?’ she challenged.
‘You don’t. That’s the problem.’
He studied her with a chilling coldness. Fear clutched at her heart as she realised that his love had now died. Nothing would resurrect their marriage now. Other than a miracle.
Please let there be one. She couldn’t live without Dan. Close to breaking-point, she clasped her trembling hands over her knees, her eyes huge and pleading.
‘I want to believe you,’ she croaked. ‘I honestly do.’
Her words seemed to placate him slightly. The high jut of his shoulders inched down a little.
‘OK. I left her in no doubt that I was furious with her. I went back into the bathroom and locked the door to make it clear I wasn’t interested. And I waited so she had time to get dressed. Clearly she didn’t bother. I assume she heard you and went out onto the landing. When I came out into the bedroom, I heard your voice too and realised you’d come home.’
‘That must have been a shock,’ she muttered.
‘My whole life passed before my eyes,’ he admitted grimly. ‘When I saw Celine still in that towel, I realised how bad it would look.’
‘Bad is an understatement. And you’re telling me that I came back just in time to prevent anything taking place?’
‘Yes! I mean—no, dammit, I mean nothing would have taken place—’
‘Supposing I go along with your version. What was her purpose in all this?’
‘To get me into bed, I imagine!’ he yelled, looking annoyed.
‘And yet up to now she hadn’t given you the least suspicion that she might be interested in you?’
‘No.’
He scowled and thrust his hands into the pockets of his robe aggressively. Even he was seeing that his story was unlikely.
Helen closed her eyes. ‘It won’t wash, Dan. There are no coffee-stained clothes. And the idea of Celine nipping up and down the stairs like a demented yo-yo is ludicrous.’
‘That doesn’t make it untrue!’ he declared.
She inhaled harshly, stoking up her courage to face the truth and accept it before moving on. Maybe they could pull things together. He could be made to see that you had to be straight with people and earn their love by never letting them down.
‘Why don’t you admit you’ve been having an affair,’ she said shakily, ‘and we can go on from there?’
‘Because I haven’t! I wouldn’t!’ he seethed, beginning to stride up and down. ‘It’s the last thing on earth I’d do. You don’t really know me at all, do you?’
‘No. I don’t,’ she agreed unhappily, stunned by his air of deep injury.
His shoulders slumped. ‘Well, that’s crystal-clear. You can’t have any idea how much you disappoint me.’
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish coming up for air. ‘I disappoint you? How arrogant can you get? You’re in the wrong, Dan, and yet you won’t unbend your stupid pride and confess! Instead, you come up with a story so weak that it’s laughable! I don’t believe any part of it!’
‘You must!’ he warned. ‘Or we’re finished.’
How dared he issue an ultimatum? Stifling an urge to cry, she fixed him with a steely gaze.
‘I’d like to be alone. You’d better use the guest bedroom tonight. Unless, of course,’ she added bitterly, her heart one huge ache, ‘you prefer to stay at Celine’s.’
Dan’s mouth tightened into a thin line of anger. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ he muttered scathingly, collecting up fresh clothes with feverish haste. ‘Nice to know how highly you rate my moral values and my commitment to this marriage.’
Bristling with wounded pride, he spun on his heel and headed for the door, the ferocity and speed of his stride leaving her in no doubt as to his mood.
After a short while she heard the front door bang, the sound of his car starting up and being wrenched violently into gear. The shriek of wheels spinning on mud. And then a hostile silence.
That was it, she thought bleakly, shocked by the cold reality of his departure. They were enemies now. The end.
CHAPTER FOUR
TO HELEN’S surprise she didn’t burst into tears. Perhaps, she thought morosely, that was because her brain had turned to stone and it was incapable of thought any more.
Staying in bed was impossible. Her own restlessness was driving her mad. Desperate to do something, she got up and put on one of Dan’s T-shirts and a pair of his walking socks.
They were her comfort clothes, she supposed. She’d often wear them on a Sunday when she allowed herself a precious few hours of leisure.
Perhaps she’d do some housework. Despite not feeling very well, she was too angry to sit still. Cleaning would pass the time and use up some of her suppressed anger as she imposed her will on the hated farmhouse. So she gathered up some cleaning equipment and set to work.
In an odd way, she almost enjoyed the activity, and felt grimly satisfied to see that Dan’s study curtains quivered in subdued terror after she’d whacked the dust from them with a table-tennis bat.
‘Be afraid,’ she muttered, glowering at the rest of his room. ‘Be very afraid!’ And she cleaned it within an inch of its life.
All of the rooms had borne a sad and neglected air when she’d started. Housework had never been high on her list of priorities because the builders and plasterers kept ruining her efforts.
But by the time she’d polished and dusted and hoovered everything with manic attention to detail, the spiders had fled in shock and each habitable room hummed with the energy she’d expended.
The house almost looked homely, she mused grudgingly and pretended not to notice the deep sob which lurched up from nowhere into her throat.
It was only when she’d cleared rubble and plaster from the builders’ latest extension project—ironically the nursery-to-be—that she paused for breath, remembered where she was and suddenly found herself convulsed with weeping.
That was it. She spent a chilly hour in the nursery hunched up in the dust, mournfully twisting the knife into herself by gazing at the place where she’d planned to put the cot and its precious occupant.
The floodgates opened. Her burst of displacement activity was over. Almost too blurred to see through the curtain of tears, she dispiritedly made herself a fresh hot-water bottle and dragged herself up to bed.
Eventually her howling turned to intermittent sobbing and she found herself listening for Dan’s car, every sound outside rocketing her hopes up to a peak of anticipation, only for disappointment to follow. Dan didn’t come back at all. In her heart of hearts she knew he wouldn’t, not with Celine panting eagerly on the sidelines.
Most of the night she spent awake, morbidly cuddling his pillow, reflecting that she’d never been really unhappy before. Unlike Dan, she’d had a childhood unblemished by tragedy or trauma. Her parents—now enjoying life in the Californian sun—adored her. She’d been popular at school and clever enough not to worry about exams.
This feeling of deep misery was totally alien. For the first time she understood what it was like to be unhappy and to lose a person you loved. It was frightening, she mused, to surrender your
whole self to someone and to have that commitment flung back in your face as if it were worthless.
She felt as if he’d crushed her. Trampled on her dreams, knocked the confidence out of her. He’d chosen someone else, effectively telling her that she wasn’t good enough. So her self-esteem was at an all-time low.
Wearily she crawled out of bed the next morning and rang in sick. All through the day she continued her onslaught on the house, with frequent breaks for a crying fit whenever she came across something that reminded her of Dan. Which was often. Yet she slogged on with dogged determination.
She still felt sick but she was learning to ignore that. The house needed to be in good shape if it was going to be photographed and put on the market. Tomorrow she’d speak to her solicitor. At the moment she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t bawl down the phone. She had her dignity, after all.
Dusk was now falling. She’d been working since dawn, clad as before in Dan’s big T-shirt and the cosy socks.
A sudden dizziness made her clutch at the table in the hall that she was polishing. The duster floated to the floor and she stared vacantly into space, weak from her stomach bug, from exhaustion and lack of food.
An eerie silence descended on the house, almost suffocating her. The loneliness of her situation hit her like a ton of bricks and a sense of hopelessness weighted her down. She was a reject.
Her eyes widened in shock at how deeply Dan had wounded her confidence.
‘I’m fabulous!’ she told herself with a sniff. ‘A catch for any man.’
She wasn’t convinced. Desperate to feel better about herself, she found her way to the wine rack in the farmhouse kitchen and poured herself a modest measure. Red wine was good for you, full of iron and things, she thought vaguely. She relaxed a little as the liquid wound its way down to her stomach and calmed it.
But she couldn’t shut out the thoughts of Dan that were now crowding her mind, taunting her, slicing her heart with ruthless precision. So she finished her drink, intending to have another, thinking it might be a good anaesthetic.
