‘I didn’t. I just acted outraged and you took it as a denial.’
‘Deliberately making someone think something when it’s actually untrue is a lie. Did you think it might change whether I’d support you?’ Leah moved on to the next issue. ‘And it’s Bailey Johns. He’s all but a generation younger than Alister. And how do you think Jordan’s going to react when he finds out? He considers Bailey supercool.’
‘I keep telling you it’s a mess.’ Michele wiped a tear from beneath her eye. She didn’t look surprised that Leah knew Bailey’s identity. She’d probably worked out that letting him pick her up from the gîte had been a complacent step too far.
‘I don’t know whether to be indignant, envious or reluctantly impressed,’ Leah went on. ‘Bailey’s in his twenties!’
‘He’ll soon be thirty.’
Leah’s mind was buzzing as she tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle. ‘How on earth does Bailey come to be in France, anyway?’
‘He wanted to be near me. It’s not as if I invited him or planned it. But once he was here …’
‘Is he staying nearby?’
Michele nodded. ‘A hotel in Muntsheim.’
The sisters stared at one another. Anger began to prickle beneath Leah’s skin. Her voice dropped. ‘What the hell are you thinking? This midlife crisis is equal parts selfishness and insanity! You’re the Unstepford Wife, leaving your marriage, bringing your twinkie on holiday when you’re supposed to be with your family–’
‘My what?’ Michele looked confused.
‘Twinkie,’ Leah snapped. ‘Younger lover. Toy boy. You’re depriving your kids of their father for a fling with a twinkie.’
Michele dropped her chin on her palm and met Leah’s gaze. Now the horrible moment of discovery was over she was beginning to look relieved, almost relaxed. There was even a hint of defiance. ‘You’re trying to diminish what we have with scornful words but I’m in love. I’m in love in a way I’ve never been in love with Alister – unless it was so long ago I’ve forgotten. I got to know Bailey properly and suddenly all that was important was the next time I’d see him and the expression in his eyes when he looked at me. He knew I was married with children. He tried to keep away from me but I never tried to keep away from him because nothing else seemed to matter.’ Her eyes shimmered with tears. ‘I fell in love and the world changed.’
‘Love? Or infatuation?’
‘Call it what you want. I know what I feel.’ Michele looked defensive and rose to clatter around restlessly with the icemaker, dropping cubes into glasses, pouring iced tea from the fridge. ‘My contraception failed and I found myself pregnant like some clueless teenager. It plunged me into a nightmare of telling Alister we were over, and Natasha and Jordan we wouldn’t be living with their father any more. I hated myself for what I was doing to my children but there was no way back.’ Her laugh was like a sob. ‘Then I had to tell Bailey he was going to be a parent. But he wasn’t scared off, because he loves me.’
She brought over a glass of tea, mint and lemon floating on the top, and placed it before Leah like a peace offering. ‘Forgive me for not telling you the truth, Leah. I did need you on my side, here, supporting the family. Selfish and insane I may be but I know when I’ve got too much on my plate – and you have so little on yours. Your life’s just about you.’
‘That’s not fair!’ Leah jerked upright, stung by this offhand dismissal of her life choices.
But Michele was already onto the next point on her agenda, grabbing Leah’s hands across the table for emphasis. ‘I understand that Natasha and Jordan need their father … but Baby Three’s entitled to a father, too.’
Leah’s stomach felt lined with lead. She hadn’t been thinking through the Baby Three situation. But he or she was on the way, not just a little pudding mound under Michele’s dresses, not just a life-changing shock, but a tiny person-to-be. Inconvenient, unexpected, but as much Michele’s child as Jordan and Natasha. ‘Shit,’ she groaned. ‘What the hell are you going to do?’
Michele’s gaze grew beseeching. ‘I know you’re going to be even angrier with me – but I’m going away with Bailey. I need time to talk about the future and make the right decision for my kids. All three of them. And for me.’
‘No, Michele–!’
Michele steamrollered on. ‘It would be wrong to pretend my marriage can be saved. I’m done with pretending, with lying. I’m even going to admit to Bailey that I’m not thirty-nine.’
Leah felt pressure weighing heavily on her shoulders. ‘And while you go off and explore your options with your twinkie, I suppose you’re going to ask me to stay and help Alister look after your kids?’
‘Short term,’ Michele protested, a fresh tear forming beneath her eye. ‘Please. The children like and trust you. And it’s such a brief period out of your carefree life.’
Leah snatched back her hands. ‘Don’t make me sound like the irresponsible one!’
Michele hunched a defensive shoulder. ‘I just mean the way you’ve avoided having a partner or kids so you never have to put anybody else first. Even your job’s easy.’
Holding a deep breath for an instant before letting it hiss out slowly, Leah took stock. No matter how exasperated she was – for ‘exasperated’ read ‘wanting to shriek with rage’ – Michele’s family was in chaos and Leah couldn’t indulge in a hissy fit. ‘I’ll take issue with you about whether my job’s “easy” some other time,’ she managed, fairly calmly. ‘But it’s true that I’ve chosen the single life. You made different choices. You married Alister and you conceived Jordan and Natasha. You had an affair with Bailey and you conceived Baby Three. You don’t get to say now that it’s somebody else’s turn to live that life while you flirt with a new one.’
Michele’s gaze faltered. ‘But don’t say you won’t do it.’ The lonely tear suddenly had company, rolling down her face. ‘Please, Leah! I know I’ve messed up, and it impacts my family. I know I fell in love with the wrong man, gave way to my feelings and got pregnant but I’m buckling under the strain here. Please!’
Watching her sister begin to cry in earnest Leah tried and failed to resist being manipulated. Jordan. Natasha. Baby Three. All were her flesh and blood. The only aspect of this turmoil Leah could control was the support she could offer them. ‘Do you have any further bombshells to drop? Lies to confess? Omissions to correct?’
Michele’s head shook wildly. She wiped and blew, blew and wiped in an apparently inexhaustible flow of grief. Her skin waxed to the pallor that seemed a feature of this pregnancy and she clapped a piece of kitchen roll to her lips, shoving the remains of the iced tea aside.
‘OK,’ snapped Leah. ‘Just as long as you explain to your kids and husband before you go and you realise that this is only temporary.’ She tapped Michele’s hand to make certain of her attention. ‘On September the fourth I begin my new job. On September the ninth I’ve booked a track day with Scott. On the tenth I expect to be on my sofa watching the Italian Grand Prix in peace and silence. I chose those things and they’re my life. You need to be clear that I’ll be returning to it.’
Michele
