Stella hovered, glancing back at the door as if planning flight.
Then she flounced into a chair, folding her arms on the tabletop and regarding Diane warily.
Hospitably, Diane fetched another cup. ‘So. Tell me all about your affair with my husband.’
Stella flushed. Her hair was carefully styled to frame her face, her nails were perfect ovals painted pale sugary pink with silver diagonal stripes. ‘Gareth got in touch after I split up from my husband. It all went from there.’
‘Rewind, Stella. There’s more to the story than that.’
Stella met Diane’s gaze with more defiance. ‘All right. Me and Gareth had a thing, before that. I didn’t want to hurt you, honestly, although I don’t suppose you’ll believe it. We were very, very careful. We even used to bicker at family gatherings, as a smoke screen.’
Diane flinched at just how long, and how easily, they’d fooled her.
‘And then we had a big bust up. Gareth didn’t speak to me for months.’
‘He’s good at that.’
‘So I began the thing with that teacher to make Gareth jealous. It worked too well and he split on me to the old man.’
Wearily, Diane nodded. ‘I hadn’t thought about him being instrumental in the ending of your marriage, but it makes sense. Gareth isn’t very good at sharing.’
Stella sniffed. ‘Well, my marriage went for a burton and me and Gareth got back together. After a bit, Gareth got this place.’ She encompassed it with a wave of her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Diane.’ She did look sorry – in a cross-to-be-caught-out kind of way.
Chin on hand, Diane gazed back. ‘I used to like you. I called you my friend.’STMin Gareth’s phone book, she thought, suddenly. Stella Teresa Musgrave.
‘You don’t live here, Stella, do you? You’ve got some shower gel in the bathroom cabinet and a couple of changes of clothes in the wardrobe but that’s as far as he’s let you encroach, isn’t it?’
Stella looked found out. ‘He doesn’t live here, either.’
‘So far as I can work out, he lives here two days a week plus an occasional evening,’ corrected Diane. ‘How often do you come? Once or twice a month?’
Stella jumped up, hunting around the kitchen as if looking for something to occupy her. Her voice wobbled. ‘It’s been horrible not knowing how he is. He borrowed someone’s phone and sent me one text but I’ve been going out of my mind. I … I care for him.’
‘I’ll make sure he gets his phone.’ Hearing her own voice, so cold and composed, a wave of nausea sluiced over Diane. How casual she could be about her husband having an affair. How unsurprised that it was Stella in his bed; Stella, who’d pretended to be Diane’s friend. Nobody was reliable.
Not even herself.
And not James. Not James.
Chapter Twelve
Banging the door to Gareth’s room open, Diane burst in like a gangster on a death mission.
Gareth jumped. ‘Enter,’ he drawled, pointing the remote at the television and pressing the off button.
Diane flung herself into the chair, breathless and flushed. ‘Shall we stop pretending?’
‘About?’
From her back pocket she extracted a navy blue passbook and threw it on the bed. Slowly, he picked it up, smoothing out the slight curve it had taken on from the shape of her behind. He didn’t speak. Probably waiting to hear what she had to say.
Which was fine because she had plenty! The words tumbled over each other in their efforts to leave her mouth. ‘I’ve been to see your cottage. Nice, isn’t it? Nicer than our house, rather nicer furniture and decor, bigger garden – no vegetables in your garden, I see, but then you don’t have to eke out the pennies as I do.
‘Two hundred thousand pounds,’ she hissed. ‘And a house.’
He held on to the passbook, his eyes flickering. ‘You wouldn’t believe what those bastards took off me in tax –’
She leaned her elbows on the bed. ‘Rich people do pay a lot of tax. They pay a lot of everything. Including alimony. And Harold paid the tax up-front and so younettedtwo hundred K, didn’t you, Gareth? And as long as Harold doesn’t die in the next seven years you won’t have to pay tax on the cottage. Harold has just explained it all to me on the phone, very interesting, it was, about the financial specialist who negotiated with the taxman when Harold discovered his eldest child and wanted to make up to him for all the lost years.’ Launching herself out of the chair, she prowled around the bed.
