Steph nodded, unsure what else she should say. “You once told me that relationships ending were expensive in every way, what did you mean?”
“You have a very good memory, Miss Pryor. More wine?” he asked making her frown as she thought he was avoiding her question. “More wine is needed if you want me to answer that completely and honestly,” explained Jon.
“Okay, but at this rate you won’t be in any state to take me home.” She smiled.
“Then you’d have to stay.” He smiled more cautiously than her.
“We’ll see, but I am not having sex with you,” she told him firmly.
“Definitely more wine if we’re having a grown up conversation and no sex.” Jon was already returning, carrying the half empty bottle of Californian Pinot Grigio they’d started with dinner.
Twenty
“Right then.” He refilled their glasses and Steph felt relaxed enough to put her legs up on the sofa, resting her bare feet that stuck out from beneath a long, bright, floral print maxi dress in Jon’s lap where he began to stroke and massage them. “Relationships are very expensive, they cost time, effort and energy, but when they’re going well the rewards offset that investment, however when they go wrong, the time, effort and energy continue for a time but there is nothing coming back to offset it. Then there can be a financial penalty; divorces are very expensive, but unmarried couples can have expensive and messy separations, which I know from experience.”
Releasing her feet, he reached for his wine, took a gulp, placed it back on the table then returned his hands to her feet. “I went back to America under the guise of business, but the truth was that I was running away. I met someone and we got together.” He laughed. “I ended up in a relationship with Vicky. My stupidity was compounded by doing some business with her, joint ventures and when we parted, when I ended things, she kept the house in L.A., the business, and a shed load of cash, that’s what I meant by my comment.”
Steph stared at him wide eyed as his fingers began to rhythmically dig into the souls of her feet making her moan with a mixture of pleasure and pain. “Did she expect you to divorce Penny?”
“This makes me sound all kinds of fucked up, which I was. Penny and I kept our private lives just that. Her accident was reported locally in the news, but no more. When I took off and met Vicky I had all but convinced myself that I was single. I was for all intents and purposes. My guilt was crippling me and my grief for the loss of the Penny I’d known and my child were destroying me, so I blocked them out.”
“Right” A nervous Steph thought she might know what he was about to say and yet it still shocked her when he uttered the words.
“I never told her, about Penny or the baby. I figured I’d have time before she pushed for our relationship to become anymore. I am seriously fucked up and fucking up all the lives of those who try to get close to me; Penny, the baby, Vicky and you.”
“That’s not true. Penny married you through choice and the drugs were her choice too. My life isn’t fucked up and the bits that might be are not of your doing.”
Steph returned the weak smile Jon offered her and wondered how he had gotten into these relationships. She understood his desire to marry the mother of his child and secure a family and ensure a role in his child’s life, but Vicky? How had he ended up in a relationship with another woman he might have cared for but didn’t love, wasn’t in love with, certainly not enough to tell her about his past, his loss and his grief, not like he’d eventually told her after many previous attempts to.
“I don’t know you at all.” He took her statement in his stride, one hand beginning to gently stroke her ankle.
“You know me well enough, darling, just not about my past, but if it matters to you I can fill those gaps. I suppose I don’treally know that much about you either and I want to.” He smiled as his hands began rubbing her calves.
“You do know that I am really not going to have sex with you, don’t you?” she asked with a half-grin as Jon’s hands rested on her knees.
“I know, you said.” He smiled, looking younger, less tired and considerably lighter than he had done for a while..
“Then maybe you should pass that information to your hands.” She pointed at them inching above her knees now.
As Jon returned his hands to her feet he smiled, “I think you may regret that, darling.”
“I’ll live,” responded Steph before digging a little deeper into Jon’s past. “So, Vicky?”
Jon reached for his glass again.
“Tell me about you and her.” Her stomach churned at the thought of him entering another relationship he knew wasn’t really built on love.
“She was working for a company I was doing some business with and she was bright and beautiful. We worked closely on the deal between our companies and when the deal was done we began seeing each other. After about six months she suggested buying some small American companies together and I agreed; although she had wanted Brookers to buy into them, but I wasn’t that stupid, so it was my personal money that was used.”
Steph frowned.
“They were good deals and then Vicky suggested that we should consider making our personal relationship more formal.” Jon smiled at Steph’s horrified expression.
“And you agreed?”
“Yes, no, I just went along with the notion. I thought we made a good team, professionally and personally,” Jon admitted.
“I see,” pouted Steph.
