The Three-Year Itch. Liz Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ that was the way he was going to deal with it. Pretend last night had never happened. Love means never having to say that you’re sorry? Maybe. She lifted her hands to his shoulders, raised herself a little on her toes and kissed him, very lightly. ‘Thank you for the rose.’

      ‘I’m glad you liked it.’ His face relaxed into a smile. ‘I risked life and limb climbing over the park railings to pick it for you.’

      ‘Grey!’ she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth at the idea of a sober-suited solicitor clambering over the park fence at dawn. ‘You didn’t!’ He lifted one brow. ‘Idiot!’ she exclaimed. ‘Suppose someone had seen you?’

      ‘If it made you happy it was worth the risk.’ He put one arm about her to draw her closer, and with his other hand he raked back the thick fringe of hair that grew over her brow and dropped a kiss there. ‘Besides, I know I could rely on you to bake me a sponge with a file in it and ingeniously smuggle it into jail. Your cakes are so heavy that no one would suspect a thing.’

      ‘Idiot!’ she repeated, but this time flinging a punch at his shoulder.

      ‘Possibly,’ he agreed. ‘And I’ve got something else.’ He produced a pair of theatre tickets from his inside pocket and held them before her eyes. ‘You did want to see this?’

      ‘Grey! How on earth did you manage to get hold of them?’ she demanded, eagerly reaching for them so that she could see for herself. ‘They’re like golddust.’

      He smiled at her reaction. ‘You’ll have to retract the “idiot” first,’ he warned her, holding them tantalisingly out of her reach.

      ‘Unreservedly. Heavens, all this attention will go to my head,’ she said happily, leaning her head against his chest.

      ‘Oh? And who else has been spoiling you?’

      ‘Only Steve Morley. He took me out to lunch,’ she added, lifting her head to look into his eyes. Was she hoping for some immediate confession about his own lunch date? If so, she was disappointed.

      ‘Lucky Steve,’ he said, with just a touch of acid in his voice. It was not lost on Abbie. Grey had never said anything, but Abbie sensed a certain reserve in his enthusiasm for that particular journalist and his newspaper. But then, since they took particular relish in hounding his brother, Robert Lockwood, a politician and the most glamorous member of the government front benches—including the women—that was hardly surprising.

      ‘Did he take you somewhere nice?’ She told him and his brows rose to a satisfactory height. ‘Spoilt indeed,’ he said, releasing her and crossing to the fridge to extract a carton of juice. ‘He must have been very pleased with your feature.’

      ‘Very—in fact he immediately offered me a month in America.’

      ‘I’m impressed,’ he said, without much enthusiasm, as he tipped the juice into the glass.

      ‘And so you should be,’ she declared, and, just a little peeved by the lack of congratulations, didn’t bother to tell him that she had turned it down. ‘You’re apparently married to one hot property. Steve was talking about awards for the tug-of-love story.’

      ‘Just as well I didn’t leap at the chance of fatherhood, then.’ He sipped the juice. ‘So when will you be going?’

      ‘You wouldn’t mind?’ she asked, heart sinking just a little. ‘I’ve never been away that long before.’

      ‘We made a deal, Abbie. I’m not going to start coming the heavy husband now you’re on the brink of something special. You have to be available if you’re going to be a star.’

      Being a star was becoming less attractive by the day. ‘I thought being good meant that you were able to pick and choose your assignments,’ she said. ‘Besides, what about our holiday? I’m looking forward to having you to myself for a couple of weeks.’

      ‘You’d trade two weeks at an isolated cottage in Wales for a month in the States?’ She would trade anything for two weeks alone with him, and it didn’t matter where, but he didn’t wait for her answer. ‘Anyway, there’s been a bit of a hitch about the cottage.’

      ‘Oh? I thought it was all arranged.’ Before she had gone away he had been full of plans. Most of them involving lying on the beach and doing absolutely nothing except making love for two weeks. He must have seen her disappointment, because he put down the glass and crossed to her.

      ‘I’m sorry, but Robert wants to use the cottage this summer, Abbie. It’s the one place the Press don’t know about; even if they found out, it’s hardly the easiest place to find, and the locals have a way of forgetting how to speak English when anybody starts getting nosy. He needs to spend some time with his family.’

      Abbie felt a little stab of guilt. She had a very soft spot for her brother-in-law. Grey’s older brother was good-looking, brilliant—the youngest minister in the government. He should have been the happiest man alive. But he had a wife who kept him glued to her side with the threat of a scandal that would wipe out his career should he take one step to end their disastrous marriage. So he continued to play happy families for the benefit of the media, although he spent as much time as possible at his London flat and Jonathan, their son, was now at boarding-school.

      ‘How is Robert? I saw his photograph in the newspaper when I was on the plane. I thought he looked more at ease than I’ve seen him for a long time. Has there been some kind of reconciliation?’ she asked. ‘Is Susan going to the cottage with them?’

      Grey didn’t answer, although his mouth hardened into a straight line. ‘Come on, let’s go out and enjoy ourselves.’ And it was only later, as she drifted off into sleep, that she remembered about the painting.

      It was three days later that Abbie saw Grey with his ‘pretty piece’. She had been shopping and had decided to drop in and see if he could join her for lunch in a local wine bar they occasionally went to.

      Her cab had just dropped her off outside the office when she saw his tall figure heading purposefully along the road and then turning into the small park in the square around the corner from his office. She set off after him. If he’d bought sandwiches to eat in the park she would happily share them.

      The good weather had brought out the office workers in droves, and they were sitting on benches and lying on the grass, soaking up the sun. Abbie lifted her hand to shade her eyes and swept the area for Grey. For a moment she didn’t see him. Then she did. And in that moment she wished, more than anything in the world, that she hadn’t seen him. That she hadn’t followed him. That she had decided to stay at home and do some dusting. That she was anywhere but this small green City oasis.

      A ‘pretty piece’ Steve had called her. Steve was right. But then he had a well-tuned eye when it came to a woman. She was small, with a delicate bone structure and the translucent complexion that so often went with very dark hair—hair that hung down her back, straight and shiny as a blackbird’s wing. Abbie felt a sharp stab of jealousy as she recognised that special kind of fragility that made men feel protective—the kind of fragility that she had never possessed as a self-consciously gawky teenager, a tall young woman.

      Grey was the only man she had ever known who had to bend to kiss her, but never in the way he bent now to tenderly kiss the cheek of his dark beauty. Then he put his arm about her shoulder as he leaned forward over the padded baby buggy she was wheeling, reaching out to touch the tiny starfish fingers of the infant СКАЧАТЬ