‘If you’re ringing about meeting for coffee, then it’ll have to wait,’ said Jessica. ‘I’m in Cornwall.’
‘Oh, okay.’ There was a pause. ‘Jessica...this might sound like a crazy question but I don’t suppose Loukas is with you, is he?’
Afterwards, Jessica would think how strange the human brain was—that it could sift out a single word from a sentence and focus on that alone.
‘Why would it be crazy?’ she asked, because maybe it was time to stop pretending this wasn’t happening. To start acknowledging that she and Loukas were in some sort of relationship.
‘Oh, just that someone at Lulu said they thought you two were dating.’
‘I don’t know that I’d exactly describe it as dating. But, well, yes. He’s been staying here.’
‘So it worked,’ said Patti, in a flat kind of voice.
‘What worked?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Oh, come on, Patti—you can’t do that. You can’t half say something and then leave me wondering the worst.’
There was a pause. ‘I like you, Jessica. I like you very much.’
‘And I like you, too. Mutual admiration society established. So what aren’t you telling me?’
Another pause. ‘Remember when the photos weren’t working that first time in Venice? You know—when you were all wooden in front of the camera.’
‘Yes, I remember. What about it?’
Patti’s voice sounded hesitant. ‘It’s just that the art director said that what they really needed was for you to look like a woman who had just had sex. And the next day you did. The photos were absolute dynamite and everyone thought...’
‘Everyone thought, what—that Loukas had taken the suggestion literally?’
‘Something like that,’ said Patti uncomfortably. ‘And I wouldn’t say anything, but... Well, it’s just that he has such a reputation, and I’d hate to see you getting hurt. I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘No,’ said Jessica, with soft urgency. ‘You should. Don’t worry about it, Patti. You did exactly the right thing. You told me something I needed to know.’
She couldn’t settle to anything after that. Loukas rang to say he was on his way back and she slumped down into the chair, her embroidery untouched and nothing really registering until she saw the low flash of winter sun glinting from his windscreen.
Her heart had started pounding and her palms were clammy. Wiping them down over her jeans, she prepared to greet him. And even while her heart was feeling the pain, she was running the whole scene like a film through her mind. This is the last time I’ll see him drive up here like this, she thought. The last time he’ll walk up this little path with the sun glinting off his black hair. The last, dying moments of being a couple were almost upon her and Jessica could barely summon up a smile with which to greet him.
But she didn’t want this to turn into some kind of awful screaming match. She’d witnessed enough of those before her parents’ divorce to put her off displays of high emotion for ever. She would be very calm and very dignified. It might even come as something of a relief to Loukas. For all she knew, he might have been trying to work out a diplomatic way of ending it himself. She wasn’t going to do accusations, or regret. She would do it neatly and without a scene, just as she’d promised right at the beginning.
His sleek car came to a halt and he got out. She saw those impossibly long legs unfolding themselves and the expression on that dark and rugged face making her feel...
She gave herself a mental shake. She wasn’t going to feel anything. It was safer that way.
The crunch of the gravel was replaced by the sound of a door being opened and closed and then suddenly he was standing in front of her, framed in the doorway, like some dark and golden statue come to life.
‘Hello, Loukas,’ she said.
‘Hello, Jess.’
Loukas waited for her to jump out of the chair and fling her arms around him. But she didn’t. She just sat there in her jeans and sweater staring up at him, with those extraordinary aquamarine eyes narrowed and giving nothing away.
She never gave anything away, did she?
‘Did you have a good trip?’
‘Good in parts,’ he said, just about to tell her that he’d missed her when something stopped him, only he wasn’t sure what. He stared into her tense face. Perhaps he was starting to get a good idea.
He looked around the room, noticing the spray of berried branches in a blue and white vase and he narrowed his eyes in surprise, because that wasn’t usually the kind of detail he noticed.
‘So how was your brother?’
‘Is my brother the reason you’re sitting there looking so uptight?’ he questioned. ‘Is my brother the reason you haven’t kissed me, or looked as if you’re pleased to see me?’
‘I’m very pleased to see you.’
‘Liar,’ he said softly. ‘Or maybe you’re just not as good at hiding your feelings as you used to be. Are you going to tell me what’s bugging you, Jess—or are we going to play a game of elimination?’
She shook her head as if she was having some kind of silent tussle with herself and when she spoke, it was as if she was picking her words with care.
‘Let me ask you a question, Loukas. How important was it to turn the company around, when you bought Lulu?’
He shrugged. ‘Very important—naturally. I’m a businessman and success is part of the deal—the biggest and most measurable part there is.’
She nodded as if his answer had just reinforced something she already knew, and suddenly her hands were clenching into fists so tight he could see the whitening of her knuckles.
‘Did you have sex with me just to get me to relax for the photo shoot?’ she hissed.
‘What?’
‘You heard me perfectly well. Don’t try to think up a clever answer—just tell me the truth.’
‘You seem to have already decided for yourself what the truth is, without bothering to reference me first,’ he snapped. ‘Where the hell has all this come from?’
‘It doesn’t matter where it came from. Just that I heard that after the first disastrous shoot in Venice, the art director said I needed to look as if I’d just had sex.’ Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes defiant as she stared him full in the face. ‘And so...’
Her words tailed off and he felt his heart clench with anger. ‘And so you thought that I would make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the company? That I’d take you to bed and loosen you up, thus ensuring that we had the requisite sultry photos to headline the new campaign. Is that what you thought, Jess?’
She opened her mouth and then closed it again, before nodding her head so vigorously that her blonde hair shimmered up and down.
‘Yes,’ she said fervently. ‘That’s exactly what I thought because it’s the truth, isn’t it, Loukas?’
He stared at her for a long moment and then he began to laugh.
FEELING