Diane began an eleven-point turn in a widish bit of lane. ‘Doesn’t matter. We’ll buy you some jeans and then we’ll have pizza in town. What do you say?’
‘Sounds like a plan. That’s cool, Mum, thank you.’ After a few minutes she added politely, ‘Of course, you’ve got all those clothes to make for Tamzin.’
‘But I can squeeze you in, sweetie.’
They were almost into Peterborough again when Bryony sighed. ‘Do you think Tamzin and George are serious?’
Diane followed the signs to the city centre. ‘I think they’re very new and exciting to one another at the moment.’ She indicated to change lane. ‘Have you told him that you’re pregnant?’
‘I haven’t had the opportunity.’ The hurt note was back in her voice.
Diane drove into the car park and found a space and ferreted out her change purse for the Pay and Display machine. ‘It hasn’t been an easy homecoming for you, has it? Perhaps you ought to ring round your old friends tomorrow – Stephanie and Katie and everyone. Pick up the threads of your life.’
Bryony nodded unenthusiastically. ‘What about George? Do you think it’ll be all right to ring him – you know, with Tamzin?’
‘He’s still your cousin, Bryony. He’s been your best friend since he was old enough to crawl about after you, so I don’t see why that should change.’ And then, because she knew her daughter’s faults as well as her wonderful strengths, ‘It’s not as if you’re immature enough to play any of those silly power games with Tamzin, is it? Vying for George’s attention and making her feel the interloper. Tamzin is your cousin, too. She’s very fragile and I think she’d be hugely relieved if you were friendly towards her.’
Bryony sighed again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
James was to meet Diane at Jesus Green, between Jesus College and the River Cam. He was supposed to be working from home but he’d diverted his calls to Lawrence and was playing hooky.
He was early enough to have a mooch around the pathways, enjoying the pleasantly shaggy Jesus Green, his heart doing flick flacks each time he thought about Diane.
She hadn’t coped well with being in the same room as him and Valerie; her sudden exit from Valerie’s hospital room could only have been guilt-driven. However tough a cookie she wanted him to believe she was, she had her marshmallow moments. He’d wanted to go after her, wanted to wait until she returned. Neither had been possible. He wasn’t precisely certain of affair etiquette but the number one rule had to be not to exhibit undue public concern for the other party.
Now he’d probably have to persuade her that even though an affair might engender emotional situations she hadn’t anticipated, it waspossibleand it wasworth it.
He’d planned the day with care. A walk, here, on Jesus Green, where nobody was likely to know them and they could talk and laugh without being overheard. Then a meal in a quiet little place. He would be warm but not hot. She’d been spooked and needed reassurance that a relationship with him wasn’t going to be scary and full of stress.
They would plan meetings. He was good at meetings.
They would be super careful.
They would manage. She would relax and he could tell her about the arrangements he’d already made.
‘Hello,’ she said, from behind him.
He swung round, heart leaping to see her standing there with the sun streaming all over her. ‘You’re early! I thought we were meeting at the entrance at noon?’
She smiled, her blue eyes and palomino hair shining in the sunlight. She was as beautiful as summer in a dress made of a collection of blue fabrics. She wore denim sandals and he felt unexpectedly turned on at the sight of her toes and slender, arched feet, reminding him of that evening in the back of his car when he’d been fascinated by her toes. He’d never been a foot man, till then.
‘The drive didn’t take as long as I’d thought, so I was killing time. I saw you by chance.’
He stepped closer, pulling her to him. ‘More time together.’
Ignoring passers by, eyes fixed to his, she ran her hands slowly up the outside of his arms to his shoulders, then pulled herself up on tiptoe and touched her open lips to his mouth. With a shock of desire he put a hand in the small of her back, pressing her to him. She kissed him hard, urgently, her tongue hot and sweet and he pressed the hardness of his arousal against her warmth as he concentrated on the wonderful feeling of wanting to be inside this woman. Again.
The kiss seemed endless. She was feeding from him and he forgot they were in the middle of a public park with children giggling and traffic grumbling nearby and focused only on her and this heart-thumping, scalp-prickling kiss.
Until she dropped back down onto her heels, pushed herself out of his embrace and stepped back. Her eyes burned with pain. ‘I can’t do it,’ she whispered.
His heart was still going like a train. ‘What?’
‘I can’t have an affair with you. I can’t do it to Valerie and Tamzin. In their different ways, they need you. You belong to them. And now that Bryony is home and pregnant I think she needs me and Gareth to be together for a while, too.’ She took another step back. ‘I could probably cope with the subterfuge and the guilt, but I can’t cope with hurting other people. Now’s not the time for us.’
He took a step after her, disorientated by the sudden, brutal reversal in his fortunes. ‘Let’s discuss it –’
