the caresses of a lover, when she…
‘What I want right now is my dinner,’ she fibbed, completely redirecting the conversation. ‘I’ve booked a table at that new Italian place. It’s supposed to be very good.’
IT WAS—at least to judge from the enjoyment Jessica was exhibiting. For her part, Lacey found that she just simply didn’t have any appetite.
‘Ma, what’s wrong?’Jessica started to ask her, and then broke off to say admiringly, ‘Mm…now that’s what I call a man! Pity he’s too old for me.’
Lacey turned her head in automatic response to Jessica’s comment.
Three men had just walked into the restaurant, but she only saw one of them. This time there was no possibility of a mistake…no doubt. It was like a massive blow to the heart, numbing her body into complete immobility.
Lewis. It was Lewis!
‘Ma, what is it…what’s wrong? You look as though you’ve just seen a ghost,’ Jessica told her worriedly.
A ghost. She gave a deep shudder, her mouth twisting painfully.
Behind her she could hear Lewis’s voice—deep, masculine, so agonisingly familiar, so shockingly clearly remembered.
‘Jess, I’m not feeling very well,’ she said shakily. ‘Would you mind if we left?’
The men had walked past them now, leaving Lacey free to stand up as she kept her back towards them. Small chance of Lewis’s recognising her; why should he? she reflected with an unfamiliar stab of sharp bitterness.
She meant nothing to him. He probably didn’t even remember that she had ever existed. She wondered if he was still with her, the woman he had left her for, or if she too had suffered her fate; if he had gone on to fall out of love with her as well.
She pushed herself free of the table, shivering sickly, glad of Jessica’s warm protective arm around her shoulders as her daughter came to her side and said anxiously, ‘Ma, something’s wrong. Look, let’s get you home, and then I’m going to call Ian Hanson.’
Behind her she was aware of movement, of someone tensing, turning, but she couldn’t look back, couldn’t do anything other than freeze and shiver, aching to escape, knowing it was impossible to explain to Jessica just what was wrong, hating herself for causing her daughter this anxiety and for spoiling their last evening together…but how could she turn to Jessica now and say ‘You know that man you were just admiring? Well, he’s your father’?
She had always been honest with Jessica about her marriage, and told her when she was in her teens that she would never stand in her way if she ever felt she wanted to contact her father, but Jessica had remained adamant that she didn’t, that she wanted nothing to do with the man who had treated her mother so cruelly, even though Lacey had painstakingly explained to her that Lewis had known nothing of her pregnancy…had not realised that she was already carrying his child when he’d announced that he wanted a divorce.
‘You’d better let me drive,’ Jessica announced when they got to the car. ‘You went so white in there. Is something wrong, Ma?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I know you and how you hate me to worry about anything.’
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Lacey fibbed firmly. ‘I think I’m just suffering a bit of over-reaction to this evening. I was dreading giving that speech. You know what a baby I am about public events. I’m sorry I let it spoil our meal, though.’
‘Well, you certainly look a lot better now. Are you sure you don’t want me to call Ian?’
‘Stop fussing! I’m fine. A good night’s sleep and tomorrow morning I’ll be back to normal.’
She knew that it wasn’t true, but thankfully tomorrow morning Jessica was going back to Oxford. For the first time since her daughter had left home, Lacey actually wanted to see her go. Her mouth twisted bitterly.
CHAPTER TWO
TEN o’clock on a fine sunny morning. Lacey had the whole day ahead of her with a hundred and one things she could do, and yet all she felt like doing was crawling back to bed, like an animal seeking protection, oblivion almost, if not from life, then at least from her own thoughts…her tormenting memories.
Half an hour ago she had watched Jessica drive off, having assured her anxious daughter over and over again that she was fine.
She couldn’t blame Jessica for being anxious: one look in her mirror confirmed her daughter’s worried comments.
Her face looked bloodless, even with her make-up, her eyes huge and shadowed, her mouth…She shivered a little, rubbing the goose-flesh on her arms. Her mouth, always a good indicator of her feelings, looked, even to her own eyes, vulnerable, unhappy…shocked.
Dear God, if only she had been wrong. If only it hadn’t been Lewis last night. She knew that she wasn’t wrong. It was Lewis, although what he was doing here in town she had no idea—if he was still here; perhaps he had already gone. Her tension started to ease. She pictured him, driving away from the town, his wife, her successor, at his side. She pictured the back of his head, saw the speeding car, visualised its driving through the town towards the motorway network, felt her tense muscles starting to relax, told herself that she was panicking over nothing, that, horrible though the coincidence of his turning up at the restaurant had been, it meant nothing. He had obviously not recognised her. Why should he, after all? And even if he had…even if he had…
There was something wet on her face. She touched it with her hands and discovered that she was crying.
This simply would not do. She was a supposedly mature woman of thirty-eight with a daughter of nineteen to prove it; what right, what purpose did Lewis have to suddenly appear out of the blue to destroy her contentment?
Stop being so paranoid, she chided herself firmly. How could Lewis’s presence in town have anything to do with her? It was pure chance, that was all; an unfortunate chance, it was true, the sight of him stirring up, as it had done, memories; images; emotions which ought to have stopped hurting her years ago.
She had, after all, only been eighteen when she’d first met him. He had been twenty-one, almost twenty-two. They had both been invited to the same birthday party, he had looked across the room, and she had known then.
What? she asked herself tiredly; that he would break her heart…destroy her life? That he would claim to love her and then turn round and tell her that love no longer existed? That their marriage was a mistake?
It was just as well that she had arranged several days’leave from work to coincide with Jessica’s visit home: the last thing she felt capable of doing right now was dealing with the complexities of her job as Tony’s secretary-cum-PA.
She had a meeting later on in the day at the hospital with Ian; a final sorting out of some paperwork connected with the appeal. Ian had tentatively suggested taking her out for lunch but she had gently refused.
What was wrong with her? she wondered ruefully now. Why couldn’t she abandon the past, let go of her fears and inhibitions and allow herself to grow more intimately involved with another man?
She already knew the answer to that. Lewis had hurt her far too badly for her ever to want to risk suffering
