she had a hot date and I imagine she was fooling around in the alley because she could hardly bring a man back to the room we shared when I was there. Not everyone has a private room or a yacht available for these things...’
Jax froze. ‘It couldn’t have been her! Why would she have been wearing the dress I bought you?’
Lucy sent him a weary glance of exasperation. ‘Because we shared our clothes. We didn’t have much but what we had, we shared. Half the clothes you saw me wear that summer belonged to Tara.’
‘It couldn’t have been her,’ Jax repeated again doggedly, struggling to remember her friend before dimly recalling the much more worldly blonde whom Lucy had worked and lived with.
Lucy shrugged a shoulder in a jerky movement. ‘Well, it doesn’t much matter after this length of time, does it?’ she traded.
‘It matters to me. And it must matter to you,’ Jax told her with assurance.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Lucy responded heavily.
Jax hovered and clenched his teeth hard. He wanted it dealt with and then never mentioned again. But could it have been Tara in that stupid dress? It had been dark and Tara had had long blonde hair too. Between the street lights and the shadows, it was possible that he had been mistaken. And if he had been mistaken, it would be the very first time in Jax’s life that he would ever be grateful to have made a mistake. Didn’t she appreciate that? Didn’t she understand what believing she would behave that way had done to him? Refusing to look at him, Lucy was staring at the tiled floor instead as if she were expecting it to start showing a movie and frustration racked Jax’s tall powerful frame. Women! She had gone into a weird mood now and he would probably get nothing more out of her.
‘I have a meeting. I was planning to reschedule it and take us back to Tifnos—’
‘No, go to your meeting,’ Lucy urged, her throat convulsing, and she still wouldn’t let herself look at him because she didn’t want what she felt in her heart to show.
‘We can fly back in the morning,’ Jax commented. ‘The timing would probably suit Bella better than a late flight.’
Lucy listened to the door close on his exit and continued to sit there with tears rolling silently down her cheeks. Jax had just shown her how he really thought of her and how he saw her and it was...it was ugly, uglier than she could bear or forgive or comprehend. To think that all those weeks on the island he had believed that she had been unfaithful to him and yet he hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even given her the chance to explain or defend herself. It was so cruel, so unfair but you couldn’t change a man, couldn’t alter what went on inside his head.
Jax didn’t trust her, had never trusted even a word she’d said. He had been her one and only lover and he couldn’t even believe that. She had been too young and immature at nineteen to recognise how cynical and distrustful Jax was. She had realised that he was pretty jealous and possessive but her awareness had gone no deeper than that. She thought of him seeing Tara in that grubby alley and believing it was her and a stifled sob of pain and regret and humiliation was wrenched from her. That hurt so much and it seemed with Jax at that moment that he did nothing but hurt and disillusion her. She didn’t want to stay married to a man like that, she couldn’t stay married to a man who thought so little of her...
And when the wave of conflicting emotions began to tear at Lucy more than she could stand she dug out her phone and rang her sister, Polly, desperately needing a shoulder to cry on.
Polly was a terrific listener. Lucy let the whole sorry story of her relationship with Jax and Kreon spill out and, very satisfyingly, Polly was even more appalled by the alleyway accusation than Lucy had been.
‘Come and stay with us, Lucy,’ Polly suggested warmly. ‘You need a holiday. I know you felt that you were happy with him at first but Jax doesn’t seem to appreciate you the way a husband should. It’s possible that he resents you for what your father did.’
To Lucy in that instant the prospect of walking away into a different environment shone like a bright welcoming light. ‘I don’t even know where you live, Polly,’ she pointed out unevenly.
‘In a country called Dharia. It’s one of the Gulf States,’ Polly explained.
Lucy was flummoxed by that news. ‘I don’t know how I’d get there or even how I’d get away from here.’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Polly told her assertively. ‘I will arrange everything. If you leave tonight, we’ll be having breakfast together in the morning and I can get hold of Ellie and she could be here by this weekend. We really do want to meet you and your daughter, Lucy.’
‘Leave...tonight?’ Lucy gasped in astonishment, wondering if it would be wrong of her to take her daughter with her as well and then deciding that, just at that moment, losing both of them was what Jax deserved for his distrust.
‘I don’t think you should waste any more time on the Antonakos family. They don’t love or value you but we will.’
And Polly’s enthusiasm was the deciding factor for Lucy, who usually took more time to decide anything of a serious nature. But at least she didn’t feel like crying any longer, she registered with relief, because crying after Jax had gone over her like a steam roller with his nasty allegations seemed feeble. Jax didn’t want her and his father didn’t want her in his precious family and her own father had seriously disappointed her. A fresh start and the friendship of her sisters looked a lot more promising than her current situation.
‘Tonight will be fine,’ she assured Polly. ‘I’ll start packing. I suppose it will be very hot?’
‘Yes, but the pal—er...my place is air-conditioned,’ her sister informed her.
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