She luxuriated in a deep bubble bath. Shutting her eyes, she thought back to a particularly romantic weekend they had spent in the South of France. They’d stayed in an amazing hotel in the hills, where they ate, drank, laughed, danced and made love all weekend. The memory itself made her feel a little bit horny. Yes! Professor Princeton’s words were ringing true. Maybe she wouldn’t be a barren old bag who would never have sex again. She was a sensual, sexual woman who deserved to be loved. It wasn’t that Lewis didn’t find her attractive physically, it was just the grief had been all-consuming and she had lost herself along the way. Had lost the person he had fallen in love with. She wanted to feel better, to feel attractive again, and it was only her thoughts and attitude that could change this.
After applying copious amounts of her favourite shower gel, she shaved herself smooth. Then, opening her wardrobe, rifled around for the best matching underwear she could find – stockings, suspenders, the lot. Her highest heels were donned. And to complete this outfit of seduction, a short black mac she hadn’t worn for years.
The minute he walked through that bedroom door, Lewis Blair was going to get what she hoped was a very happy surprise.
SIX
Maya Bakova checked her phone. Where was he? She tried to call him and was greeted by the very annoying –this person’s phone appears to be switched off.
‘Yes, thanks, I gathered that,’ she said aloud, then swore in Czech.
The professor never failed to turn up when he said he would. He said he’d be with her after seven thirty but it was gone ten. She could have worked tonight if she had known.
It annoyed her that he had begun to have such a hold on her emotions. She had tried so hard to keep him at arm’s length, keep whatever this relationship was, purely sexual. But he was different. Never ordinary in bed or in conversation. He intrigued her. Excited her. Made her laugh with his eccentricities. And despite trying to push them away, she couldn’t deny that she was beginning to have feelings for him. Feelings that she hadn’t felt before in her twenty-two years on this planet. Feelings she knew she could never divulge to a married man. It would be so much easier if he was one of her paying clients. She would never allow the lines to get blurred. But he wasn’t and they were, and she really wasn’t sure what she was going to do about it.
SEVEN
‘Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks!’
Scott Princeton realised he’d left his phone at the university and that he hadn’t texted Maya. It was just as well, though, that she couldn’t call him now he was home, especially as it was his wedding anniversary. It was a bonus, too, that he could use the excuse that he couldn’t reach Emma to sort picking her up, since he’d also forgotten all about that.
He’d had twenty quid on a five-to-one winner, so had gone to a bar, had a bottle of white and a burger and was now home awaiting Cynthia’s return from her Ashtanga class. He had managed to find a dozen red roses on a flower stall outside the Tube station. She didn’t usually eat after yoga, so they could sit and share a bottle of Saint-Émilion and have a chat.
He was even considering going to Cynthia’s bedroom tonight as he was feeling horny just thinking of Maya tying him up earlier. God, he loved having sex with her. In fact, he quite liked her company, too. She was dismissive of him, unlike the fawning students he was around all day, and it actually turned him on more. She was intelligent and streetwise. Yes, definitely streetwise: something he had never really been. His brain was full of unnecessary facts, and he wished he could be more down to earth like her. He also wished he could switch off his whirring mind sometimes. Tonight had been a rare event. He loved eating alone, watching the world go by. For despite his job involving the study of the human mind, he didn’t actually like people very much.
If he stopped and thought about it, he knew that it was wrong to be having an affair with Maya, especially as she was just four years older than his daughter. But, for the past few years, he had had minimal sex with his wife, so seeking relief elsewhere didn’t amount to unfaithfulness in his mind. Maybe Cynthia wouldn’t have quite the same view in her menopausal state. Or maybe that was all a ruse for her lack of libido, and she was doing exactly the same as him! He batted the thought away, not sure that he would like that scenario.
Their ten-year age gap had never been a problem. Cynthia didn’t look her age. And added to that her position of power, he quite often noticed other men ogling her. She still had a sensual edginess. Like Helena Bonham Carter. In fact, she looked a lot like her.
He often thought that the complexities of men and women should never allow them to live together in perfect harmony as a couple. He also thought it interesting that after having had a thing for older women in his youth, he was now craving the love of someone younger. But it wasn’t love, was it? It was pure non-committed sex.
A harem would be a far better scenario. For Cynthia still stimulated his brain; Maya stimulated both his cock and his mid-life crisis. He had free access to both a barrister and a barista, what more could a man want!
Emma appeared in the doorway of the conservatory. Scott had his head in his iPad, catching up on the day’s news.
‘Hey, Dad.’
‘Emma, darling. Sorry I couldn’t collect you earlier. All OK?’
‘Yes, all good. Mum called a while back. She’s gone out for dinner with Pearl, said she wasn’t wasting her night waiting in for you.’
‘Ah, OK. Totally understandable. Do you want to join me for a glass of wine?’
‘No thanks. Josh is upstairs.’
‘Then why on earth would you?’ He winked as his daughter shook her head and ran off up to her top-floor bedroom.
He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. Maybe he could go to Maya.
Gracie came into his mind. She had had a good session with him that evening. She had left him with a bounce in her step. He hoped that she was doing exactly as he had suggested and was seducing that man of hers right at this minute. If anyone deserved happiness that poor girl did.
EIGHT
It was 3 a.m. Lewis sat in the black cab with his head in his hands. He was in that awful stage when the drink was wearing off and the hangover was beginning to start. What had he done? In seven years he had never been unfaithful to his beautiful Gracie. And he had been so unkind to her yesterday, too.
Losing the babies had not only made them drop the ball on their relationship, but on real life as they knew it as well. They had never been very good at communicating and last night, something just snapped. How could he have been such an arsehole?
‘You all right, mate?’ the cabbie enquired, noticing tears in his fare’s eyes as he looked in the rear-view mirror.
