She’d never wondered how the lovers and partners of those beautiful people coped with the way those shots were captured. The models had to get up close and very personal.
For distraction, she grabbed the laptop and booted it up.
There was a message waiting from Stef.
Honor, listen. You’re too good a woman to leave me. You just wouldn’t. The guys who get left while they’re in here, they’re pitiful. You couldn’t go back on your wedding vows that way. Not even I deserve that. You’ll wait until I get out so we can talk, because that’s all that’s fair.
She read messages from Jess and Zach and her father without really taking in their words about what was going on in their jobs and their relationships.
You just wouldn’twhizzed her pasta around uncomfortably in her stomach.You’ll wait until I get out so we can talk, because that’s all that’s fair.
Fair. That’s what she’d always been. Honourable Honor. Always fair.
Slowly, she tapped out a reply.Were you fair to me?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The morning was bright and beautiful and Honor floated from the bungalow to the Teapot in a happy dream. OK, the official end to her marriage was going to be painful and she had to figure out how and when to make it happen — which was going to be a can of worms, even if she argued that, by making bad decisions, Stef had, effectively, chosen jail over his wife.
Honor knew she would just have to steel herself to handle those worms, no matter how slimy. If Stef hadn’t been in a correctional facility, she would simply have filed for divorce.
ButifStef hadn’t been in county jail then the end of the relationship might never have happened, and if, and if, and if . . .
But there he was; and here she was, living in England ‘at the seaside’ (mentally, she put on an English accent to say that) and working for a couple of crazy hippies in a cute English tearoom. Today was Wednesday; tomorrow Martyn would be back and she’d worked yesterday to make it so that tomorrow and Friday were her days off, this week. And she was glad to be alive. Glad she didn’t have to go through life not knowing what it felt like to be touched as if she was the last woman he’d ever touch. To be kissed with ferocious hunger, to make love with a man who used his mouth as his main means of exploration. A gourmand. Pretty damned incredible.
As if on cue, one of the cream-and-red double-decker buses passed her going the other way, and a huge Martyn glowered down at her, a god in boxer shorts. Whoo. Funny, funny feeling . . .
Stepping up her speed, she turned up into The Butts, past Starboard Walk, where Martyn’s BMW should magically reappear tomorrow, past the butcher’s shop, past the greengrocers, past the pub on the other side, across the road into the Eastingdean Teapot.
The counter flap was up and she breezed into the kitchen, reaching automatically around to the hooks where her apron hung. ‘Hi, Sophie!’
Sophie looked up from pricking potatoes that looked like big brown pebbles. ‘Um, Honor—’
Robina shot out from the pantry. Her huge dark eyes overwhelming her face, so absolutely white. Her hands shook. Honor stared, wondering whether Robina was ill or eating the wrong kind of mushrooms. ‘Are you OK?’
Robina swallowed. A tear broke free of her eye. ‘You fucking bitch.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Honor recoiled.
‘You fucking bitch,’ Robina repeated, advancing slowly, pointing her trembling finger like a weapon. ‘You know how I feel about Martyn. You know I love him. Youknow. And as soon as my back was turned you stood right out in the street, touching tonsils with him. Did you think nobody would see? Because half the customers of the Fig Leaf must have been looking out and they couldn’t wait to rub my nose in it when I went in there, last night.’
Honor’s heart plummeted. ‘But,’ she began feebly.
Robina’s face twisted into a snarl, tears streaming. ‘I don’t want to hear any of your fucking excuses.’ Which sort of solved a problem as Honor had no idea what she would have said after ‘But’. Martyn was a free agent, considered Robina a total nut job and had made it clear that he would set fire to himself sooner than get in her bed. But it was difficult to know how to convey those sentiments without making the situation worse.
‘Get out.’
Honor took an involuntary step towards Robina. ‘Can’t we just—’
Robina clenched her fists. She hadn’t tied up her hair and it streamed out from her head and over her shoulders like springs. ‘Get. Out. Sophie will make up your wages and post them through your door. I don’t want to see you in here again.’ The tears had become a flood but, eerily, Robina’s voice didn’t even shake, though the misery in her expressive eyes made Honor feel bad clear through to the pit of her stomach.
‘Robina, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you—’ Honor had to push her voice past her heart, which had jumped to her throat.
‘Of course you did. Get out of my tearoom.’
Honor stood her ground, unhappily, searching for something, anything, to say, to make things better. She glanced at Sophie, whose flamingo hair had faded to a gentler party pink. Sophie shrugged and shook her head, her arms folded as if to fence Honor out. ‘You knew how she felt.’
