by Lucy Gordon
‘Oh, I see. You didn’t think I had the guts.’
‘I didn’t think you had the stupidity,’ he yelled. ‘Or the pig-headedness, or the short-sightedness. Where would you like me to stop?’
‘Right there. You’re talking nonsense. Our divorce was inevitable from the moment you slept with Olympia Statton.’
Goaded, Jake roared to heaven. ‘How many times does it have to be said? I did not sleep with Olympia.’
‘Oh, sure, you just did a little detour via her hotel room in Paris, at three in the morning, and left an hour later.’
‘I’ve never denied I went to her hotel room-’
‘Or why!’
‘All right! I went in for reasons I shouldn’t have done, but I changed my mind almost at once. I didn’t want to turn and run like a kid who’d lost his nerve, so I hung around drinking and making excuses to talk. Then I told her I wasn’t feeling well, and left. How was I to know that it was a set-up and the entire damned crew was out there timing me?’
‘Luckily for me.’
‘Unluckily for both of us. I didn’t sleep with Olympia, but they think I did, and you listened to them, not me. Dammit, even Olympia denied it, and you as good as called her a liar to her face.’
Which was what she wanted, Kelly thought. Oh, yes, Olympia had denied it all right, but she’d done it in a way that was half an admission, shaking her head earnestly so that her blonde hair swung around her delicate features, as if to say, You don’t really think a man could resist this, do you?
And Kelly hadn’t thought anything of the kind, any more than she’d thought Jake could be alone in a bedroom with that seductive, half-clad body, and not take matters to an inevitable conclusion.
‘Olympia said what you wanted,’ she told Jake now. ‘And later you admitted it, have you forgotten?’
‘I never admitted sleeping with Olympia,’ Jake said swiftly. ‘In the divorce papers I admitted “adultery with an unknown woman”-’
‘So that Olympia’s fair name shouldn’t be sullied. You’re a real knight in shining armour, Jake, you know that?’
‘I didn’t do it for her, I did it for you-’
‘From the goodness of your heart,’ she said sarcastically.
‘You were determined to have that divorce, one way or another. It wasn’t Olympia. She was just your excuse to be rid of me. So I made it easy for you. If it hadn’t been her it would have been something else.’
‘Something or someone?’
‘Whatever you’ve decided in that stubborn head of yours.’
‘Skip it, Jake, that’s all in the past. We’ve left it behind.’
‘Oh, sure! You settled what you wanted to believe and moved on.’
‘Wanted to believe?’ She whirled on him, eyes flashing. ‘If you think I wanted to believe that a man I used to love went out tom-catting then you’ve got rocks in your head. I believed it when I had to. And that was after years of refusing to face facts.’
‘Facts? What damned facts?’ he roared. ‘Are you suggesting that I made a career of infidelity?’
‘I’ve always wondered. What I did know for sure was that I spent my time waiting for you while you took off around the world at the behest of Olympia, who always seemed to have some vital job for you when we had an anniversary or a birthday coming up.’
‘Olympia is my producer; she trusted me with the assignments that made my name. I almost owe her my career-no, dammit!’ He checked himself, muttering curses under his breath. ‘No! What am I saying? It’s you I owe things to, that time you supported me so that I had nothing to do but hunt for assignments-I haven’t forgotten.’
‘Yes, you have,’ she said, but without rancour. She’d calmed down now. ‘And why shouldn’t you? It’s a long time ago. Never live in the past.’
‘Kelly-’
‘I’m the past; she’s the present-’
‘Kelly, please-’
‘And all our divorce did was recognise that. Now, I’m going to put the rest of the things in the sink.’
CHAPTER TWO
F OR the next few minutes Jake helped her clear away, and Kelly gave up the attempt to make him go. She washed and he dried, until at last he said, ‘I don’t know where to put things away in this place.’
‘Leave them and sit down while I make some coffee.’
When she took the coffee in a few minutes later she found him sprawled on her sofa, dead to the world. It was a familiar sight. How often in the past had she yearned for him to return, only for him to collapse with jet-lag as soon as he walked in the door?
The clink of the cups roused him and he pulled himself upright, rubbing his eyes, then closing them again at once.
‘Long flight?’ she asked sympathetically.
‘Ten hours. I’m dead.’
He got to his feet, yawning and stretching, and began to wander around her apartment. ‘Nice,’ he observed. ‘Shops nearby, that little park outside, not too far from the college, just the right size.’ He was opening doors as he spoke.
‘Hey,’ she said indignantly. ‘This is my home.’
‘It’s all right, I’m only snooping,’ he said, so innocently that it was a moment before she realised he’d admitted the offence. He’d always done that. It was how he got away with murder.
‘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 tha
t 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.
