Authors: Sue Moorcroft
He poured the wine then swooped her up and on to his lap, nodding at the screen. ‘I’ve been doing a revamp of Ace’s agency site. I’m uploading files. Now I’ve started I need to stick with it for a while.’
‘Sure.’ She smothered a yawn and tucked her cheek against the hollow beneath his collar bone.
‘Tired?’ He traced her jawline with a fingertip. ‘It’s damned Robina’s fault. You could have stayed in your bed all morning. Like I did.’
She widened her eyes, fighting their demands that she should let them close. The first sips of wine, however crisp and chill on her tongue, had let fatigue press down on her eyelids. ‘You slept all morning while I slaved? I knew it, you rat bastard.’
‘I’d had a hard night.’ His lips touched butterfly kisses to her forehead.
‘You bet.’ Despite her best efforts, she heard her voice fading into the distance as sleep began to melt her. Then jumped awake when his doorbell rang.
He sighed. ‘I really hope that this is someone I can either get rid of quickly or push down the stairs. Not a sister. Sisters are like limpets when you don’t want them around.’
She let him pour her into a corner of the sofa, where she curled like a puppy. But her eyes reopened when she heard Ru’s voice. ‘Ru? What’s up?’
He slouched across the carpet towards her, hair falling over his face and hands so far in his pockets that it looked as if his jeans were going to slide off over his bony hips. ‘Nothing,’ he shrugged, aimlessly. ‘I just saw you coming up here so I thought it would be OK if I said hi to Martyn, too.’
Martyn, she could see from the frustration burning in his eyes, wasn’t totally appreciating Ru’s neighbourliness. She smiled at him, hoping she was telegraphing,
don’t throw him out; he’s just an insecure kid.
Ru dropped on to the sofa, next to Honor. ‘Cool laptop. Your download’s finished.’
Martyn took the remaining place, on the other side of Ru, with only a tiny sigh, lifting the computer on to his lap. ‘It was an upload. I’ve been working on someone’s website and the image files are so big I’m uploading them one at a time.’ His fingers moved over the keys and soon a new blue line began growing slowly across the screen.
Apparently hypnotised by its progress, Ru nodded. ‘Is it Front Page?’
‘No, that’s old hat now, it’s Dreamweaver–’ But then Martyn’s voice began to dissolve and, like syrup sinking into the dents in a waffle, Honor sank into sleep.
Swimming back to the surface, a couple of hours later, she found the computer had changed laps and Ru was tapping away happily, while Martyn kept one eye on him at the same time as watching a documentary about snakes on the enormous TV.
She yawned and stretched. ‘I fell asleep.’
Martyn turned a slow smile on her. ‘You certainly did. Ru’s raring to get the fish and chips.’
Ru shoved the laptop aside with an accusing, ‘Yeah, we’re starving, Honor.’ Clutching twenty quid from Martyn, he disappeared through the front door like a man on a mission.
Martyn regarded her sternly as he slid up the sofa towards her. ‘I’d better get some good hands-on reward for being nice to him while you slept our evening away.’
She glanced guiltily at her watch – it was after nine. ‘I was just so tired.’
He laughed, pulling her against him. ‘Evidently.’
She let her fingers wander inside his shirt, grateful that he hadn’t got rid of Ru with heavy hints as Stef would have done. Even if those hints were dressed up as jokes, they could still sting. ‘I owe you.’
His eyes half closed as her fingertips brushed his ribcage. ‘I will collect. I take it you don’t want him to know about us?’
Her conscience twanged, even as her heart hugged itself at the idea that she had got herself into an ‘us’. Then anxiety rolled in like a stomach ache as she followed his reasoning. ‘Robina. Holy crap, she’s going to be upset.’
He squeezed her, reassuringly. ‘Why worry about a stalker when we could worry about a husband?’
She hesitated. ‘She’s more than a stalker.’
‘OK, she’s your employer. But let’s not stress about it tonight, OK? Let’s just live in the moment.’
‘Never works,’ she said, gloomily. ‘Stef always wanted to live in the moment if I worried about tiresome things like getting enough sleep before work or paying the rent ahead of the entertainment budget. The bad stuff just waits till the moment’s over.’
He nudged her hand, which had suspended its stroking beneath his shirt. ‘At least until I get back from Paris.’
‘OK.’
She tried hard, eating scalding fish and chips straight from the paper, laughing at Ru’s disgusting combination of vinegar, tomato ketchup and mayo on the side, refusing to believe that he would have topped the lot with cheese, had there been some. After, Martyn logged on to his Twitter and Facebook accounts, lazily dictating posts while Ru’s fingers flew over the keyboard. She even cheered when Martyn observed, ‘Ru, you’re an IT wizard. Would you be interested in taking over some of my routine on-line stuff? I’d pay you.’
Ru breathed, ‘
Wicked!
’ before Martyn had finished the sentence. Then Ru wanted to see every one of the sites Martyn designed and kept up, avid for information, for opportunity, to have something better to do than work in a tearoom.
Still, Honor couldn’t rid herself of the spectre of looming trouble.
It was hovering like one of the biggest, beadiest gulls down on the undercliff, just waiting for a tourist to come along to be crapped on.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Saturday began agreeably as Martyn, reasoning that he could catch up after Honor had begun her day at the Teapot and she had surely banked enough sleep by now, woke her with his mouth on her prettiest curves.
‘Whassa time?’ she muttered sleepily, shifting accommodatingly.
‘Six.’
She shuddered as he let his lips trace the lines down her abdomen, exactly as he’d pictured when he’d been lusting after her in her sports bra, exhibiting a body that was his definition of perfect. Taut. Pretty. Curvaceous to just the right degree. ‘Six? What are we doing awake at six?’ But her fingers threaded through his hair in a way that encouraged him to continue doing exactly as he was doing.
‘We’re making time for a fabulous sexual encounter before you go to work and I go to France.’
She groaned. ‘I was too tired to ask, last night. Tell me what’s in France.’
‘Paris.’ He blew gently over her damp skin, rewarded with a shiver and a pathway of goosepimples. ‘Eiffel Tower, Arc du Triomphe, the Seine, Avenue Montaigne, Rue St Denis, Boulevard St Germain, Moulin Rouge
… all the backdrops essential to sell mock-French cologne.’
‘Oh right.’ She shifted, as if planning to return his attentions. He moved his weight to keep her where he wanted her. Because he wanted her a lot.
Afterwards, when she was curled tightly in his arms, hair like ripples of caramel across the pillow and his shoulder, he said, ‘When I get back on Thursday, we’d better talk.’ Because there was a guy called Stefan Sontag whose first job when he regained his liberty was going to be to try and put his marriage back together.
He felt her heave a sigh.
Fitting his fingertips neatly into the dimples either side of the base of her spine he kissed her. ‘I know. It’s not easy. But, you know. If we want things to go on from here
…’
She kissed his shoulder and he felt her cheeks move as if she smiled.
He tried to see her face. ‘Have you had any more emails?’
She snuggled closer with a groan. ‘I didn’t look. I told him before I came out here that it was over. But he doesn’t want to hear. And right now isn’t the best time to yell it at him.’ She began to uncurl and sit up. ‘And then there’s the Robina issue. Martyn, that’s probably trickier than you thi–’
Hastily, he yanked her back down against him, skin on skin. ‘Oh no. I refuse to let
her
into bed with us!’
The Teapot was calling and she had to leave, in a flurry of kisses and one long, hard hug, her hair bright in the morning light. He wanted to hold on to her and kiss the tiny freckles spangled across her nose but she laughed and wriggled away. ‘I don’t want Ru to have to call me again to tell me to get my butt over to the Teapot.’
He leaned on the doorframe and watched her check out the street before she left, running lightly down the metal steps then up the street towards the Eastingdean Teapot, ponytail streaming above her backpack. It seemed faintly ridiculous that she should be sneaking around to avoid Ru – and therefore Robina – learning that they were sleeping together. Honor was being way too careful of Robina’s feelings, in his opinion. Robina was becoming more and more of a pain. He was organising too much of his life around her.
Although pleasantly heavy of limb, he was too restless to go back to sleep. He showered and packed instead, checking out his diary notes to see how the client wanted him
… stubble, which was pretty much standard. He hadn’t shaved for the last couple of days in anticipation.
Then Ace rang. ‘Everything OK, Martyn? All set?’
‘Airport at five, I’m booked into a Hyatt. How’s everything with you? And Shelli?’ He felt a twist of guilt that he hadn’t spoken to Ace since last weekend, when Ace had been so broken up. And he was intelligent enough to know why. It hung before his eyes.
Husband
. Ace was a betrayed husband.
‘Absolutely all over.’ Ace was obviously trying to keep his voice light. But. Still. Definite wobble.
‘I’m really sorry to hear that, man.’ The word hanging in the air changed to
hypocrite
. It followed him around as he finished the familiar task of packing, nipping and gnawing at him like a nasty dog.
And then, as he was throwing his small black case and suit carrier into his luggage compartment, Clarissa pulled up into the car park. ‘Going somewhere?’ She looked relaxed and cheerful, for once.
He snapped the hatchback shut. ‘Airport. Working in France this week.’
‘Oh, good. I can pinch your car-parking space for an hour, then.’
Obligingly, he backed the X5 out and let her pull into the space, waiting as she hopped out, beeped her car locked and ran over to his vehicle. As always, she was on her way to or from a class, pink training shoes bright against her black leggings and long black T-shirt knotted at one side. ‘Have you seen Honor? She’s not home.’
He kept his voice neutral. ‘She’s working at Robina’s tearoom, isn’t she?’ And then, curiosity aroused. ‘Something up?’
‘Only that she’s still not cutting the lawns. If she doesn’t want to do it then she’ll need to find someone to do it for her. It’s in the lease. Have a good trip.’ Through the open window, Clarissa squeezed his forearm, then turned and whisked around the corner, into The Butts.
As he drove away, he reflected that, by some miracle, Clarissa had neither sneered at his work nor tasked him with some of hers. And it was a while since she’d made an affectionate gesture towards him, too.
Months. Pretty much since she lost her husband to somebody new and, after screaming at him for being Rosie’s ‘other man’ – hadn’t that been fun? – had collapsed, sobbing, into his arms.
Switching his mind to the job in hand, he drove to Gatwick airport, leaving his car with the north terminal valet parking and checking in, enduring the boring lines of travellers at security, the familiar routine under the bright terminal lights, until he was seated in a traveller’s lounge with a newspaper and a cup of coffee, passenger announcements crackling and departure screens flickering. His flight to Charles de Gaulle was on time. All he had to do was relax and wait.
But relaxation wouldn’t come. He gazed at the print, but his thoughts chased each other around. Clarissa. Ace. And the way that he was hiding his relationship with Honor from them, as he dealt death blows to Honor’s marriage. All this sneaking around didn’t sit well with him at all.
But, Honor!
The coffee in his cup sloshed suddenly. Body like a dancer, smile like a fallen angel, heart like a lion. In his head, in his bed. The past couple of days had been a dream come true and what was done was done. But there was part of him – not that part – that wished he hadn’t lost control when he had found her in his arms in that tiny, stretchy excuse for a dress; that he could have put her down and hung in until she’d been able to wind things up properly with her husband. Been strong. He’d sworn after Rosie had made an idiot of him that he would run a mile rather than get involved with a married woman again.
Conveniently forgetting that running a mile was something he did with incredible ease.
Chapter Twenty-Five
By Sunday, Robina’s cakes had run out. Honor let Ru and Aletta do all the prep in the morning while she made chocolate cupcakes from the recipe she remembered from school, times five, and cherry scones from a recipe she called up from the internet on Ru’s phone. She used the last of Robina’s chocolate frosting from the fridge to swirl over the cupcakes, hoping she wasn’t contravening any health regulations and crossing her fingers that no one would get sick.
There was plenty of jam for the scones, which, because she included a little extra baking soda, rose every bit as majestically and drunkenly as Robina’s ever did.