‘I made love to you.’
Her blush was so hot that she could’ve doubled as a patio heater and she glanced around to check that they couldn’t be overheard. ‘I hadn’t forgotten. But not every sexual encounter … I mean, it doesn’t follow that you’ve necessarily got a relationship … there are one-night stands.’
He folded his arms on the edge of the table. ‘I don’t want it to be a one-night stand.’
‘But,’ she pointed out, ‘it was just the one night.’
‘That’s just how it worked out. To me it was … an experience. I began the evening hardly knowing you, thinking that you were quiet – if quietly stroppy, sometimes – and probably a bit doormatty where Gareth’s concerned. After all, he’d somehow pulled that crappy trick on you without you even noticing – or you simply hadn’t wanted to see what was under your nose.’
‘So, naturally, you wanted sex with me,’ she observed. ‘Everyone gets uncontrollable passions for quietly stroppy, dim doormats.’
His eyes smiled again, as if he didn’t want anyone else to know that he had something to smile about. ‘I had already noticed you, physically,’ he murmured. ‘Not being blind. Then as we talked over dinner I realised what a great person you are, how switched on, how courageous, how principled. I took the Merc for a burn up purely to show off to you. And when we were alone in the dark, I experienced all the lust of a teenager on viagra. Afterwards – I drove home absolutely dazed. Then I messed everything up by not ringing you the next day, which was bloody crass. But while I was listening for hours outside Tamzin’s door, wondering if she was OK, wondering whether this would be the time when she would slice a vein, all the time I tried to keep that night with me, thinking that when Tamzin’s crisis was over I’d have this thing with you to explore.’ He drew in a deep breath. The smile in his eyes had vanished. ‘Only to find, of course, that the last thing I had was a thing with you.’
The gnats were being a nuisance, spinning around the lamps until they were dizzy and then splashing down in glasses of beer. Weary children were being gathered up by patient parents, the local teenagers had congregated in the middle of the green, their shouts of laughter drifting through the evening.
He slapped suddenly at his arm. ‘Bloody bugs! Come on, I’ll walk you back to your car.’ He settled the bill with a young waitress called Sarah, asking how her sister was doing at uni. They turned through the gap in the flower tubs and headed for James’s house, leaving their footprints in the dewy grass. The part of the drive where Diane had parked the car was screened by rounded green hedges, throwing the area into deep shadow. As she turned to say goodnight she found herself sandwiched between the car at her back and James at her front, a breath away, the heat of his body radiating over the space between them.
‘I want to make love to you again.’ His voice was quiet and almost conversational. ‘Lots of times. Now. In the future. All the time. I want privacy and light and comfort so I can relax and enjoy you. Your body.’
His fingertips brushed against her left hip.
She sucked in her breath. She hadn’t realised she had quite so many jangly nerve endings there. ‘You mean an affair?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’re both married.’
‘We were last time, too.’ He lifted his hand to her face, stroking her cheekbone and down to her neck, pushing back her hair. His skin was hot, yet Diane shivered. ‘Diane, it seems to me that your marriage is in injury time and you might be thinking about leaving Gareth. And I shouldn’t have feelings like this about another woman but I view my wife as a responsibility and she views me as an annoyance. Still, I can’t leave home at the moment, regardless of Valerie being stuck in hospital or whether she even cares about me. Tamzin couldn’t handle it.
‘But none of that stops me wanting you. I want to be with you, to hear your opinions and laugh at your jokes. When we’re alone I want to be able to kiss you and hold you and touch you. I can’t offer you much – certainly not anything that’s fair or equitable. I’m just telling you what I want. However messy.’
Straining her eyes to see his expression in the darkness, her heart thudded so hard that it was almost unpleasant. ‘I haven’t thought about leaving Gareth. Much,’ she amended. ‘Bryony’s coming home in two days and she’s full of happy family stuff. She’s made up a misunderstanding with Gareth – I think he orchestrated that. I –’ She paused. ‘I don’t know what I want.’
‘But it’s not me?’ His voice was gentle but gravelly with disappointment. His hand dropped from her hair.
She caught it and held it between both of hers, her voice husky. ‘That’s not true … I don’t know if there’s any point in beginning an affair. And I don’t know if I can do it. Sneaking around, lying to everyone. Making do in the backs of cars or in fields. Or checking into hotels for a few hours here or there and the staff being terribly polite butknowing. And I’d still be living with Gareth – wouldn’t you mind?’
He laughed shortly and his fingers tightened over hers. ‘I already mind. I mind that you’re his wife, I mind that he’s a shit, I mind that he’s slept with you for years. And, obviously, I’d mind about all the sneaking around, that that’s all I can offer you and all you can offer me. But millions of people do it. They meet when they can and take what happiness there is.’ Each of his fingers slid slowly between hers, lacing their hands together. ‘I think that that’s all there is for us, for now. I’m prepared to take it. Are you?’
She let her head droop until her forehead was lodged against his collarbone, hard and warm and real. ‘I don’t want a lovely thing to be squalid.’ Two hot tears escaped from her closed eyes.
His voice was deep and low. ‘I’ll make it as unsqualid as I can. You won’t have to face staff in hotels. I’ll arrange something.’ Lifting her face to his he kissed her damp eyelids and leaned against her.
‘I don’t know if I can,’ she repeated, weakly. ‘It’s so deceitful. I don’t know if I’ll cope. The guilt.’
He sighed. ‘You could always ask Gareth how it’s done.’
‘Ouch!’
He kissed her, quickly, his mouth firm and hot. ‘Sorry. It can’t have been nice for you to find out about that. But youdidfind out. You know that he has someone else. Doesn’t that clear your conscience?’
‘Or make me as bad as him?’ The summer night had thickened around them, the air full of the scent of damp grass and the sound of a thousand insects. Diane allowed herself to relax into his arms, feeling the thud of his heartbeat. It felt safe.
They stood, bodies pressed together, for so long that night-time creatures began rustling the hedges around them.
James said, quietly, ‘We could make each other happy.’
Chapter Eighteen
