Just My Luck(33)

People were talking about leaving so she went to get their jackets. He was in the downstairs loo, just next to the coat cupboard. He emerged as she was rooting around. Had he been waiting for her? He didn’t mess about, didn’t ask with his eyes or his voice, he just put his hands on either side of her face and started kissing her. Not tentatively. Not apologetically. With real intent. She wasn’t a child or a prick tease. If she kissed a man, it was because she wanted him. Completely. There was no going back. They slipped into the downstairs loo and he took her from behind whilst their spouses were finishing their coffees.

A sexy, charming, handsome treat.

He was the one who first started talking about love, asking for more. Talking risks. Talking chances. At first he limited his declarations to specific parts of her body. He told her he loved her breasts, her arse, her eyes. Then he said he loved her laugh. He loved her cruelty. Finally, he said he loved her. That he was in love with her. No room for ambiguity. She had believed him. She had always been the sort of woman that men wanted to declare love to. And because she believed him, she allowed herself to think that maybe she loved him too. Or at least if she didn’t love him, he didn’t annoy her quite as much as her husband did.

But then last week, he didn’t show up. Last week of all the weeks, after her husband had found out about the affair and told her to pack her bags. He didn’t show up when she needed him most because he’d won the fucking lottery.

Now she loathed him. He’d deserted her. She wanted to hurt him. Very much so.

But she loved him. Could she get him back? She’d never hurt him.

She didn’t know if she was coming or going. She might still be able to keep him on side so she had made an effort. She was wearing a figure-hugging dress. She’d had a wax and was wearing lacy, claret-coloured underwear, just in case. Because there was a chance, wasn’t there? That he’d offer an explanation of some sort, that he’d still want her. Or at least take her. There was a lot of money at play. A lot. Nothing was clear-cut. And although it should have been a straightforward case of four voices against two, the two had stolen the march and so she had decided to make a two-way bet, cover off all bases. She had put on quite the performance today for those lawyers, but she wasn’t sure the people at the lottery were convinced by the claim she and Fred and the Pearsons were making. She had to use all her intelligence and charms to ensure everything turned out as she hoped. By saying she was in the loo, she was sending a message to Jake. When she received his text, she knew he’d got it. Loud and clear.

She had never considered leaving her husband for Jake. When her husband discovered their affair and screamed at her to ‘just fucking leave, get out of my sight. Go to him,’ she’d had no intention of doing so. She’d planned to stick around, see if things calmed down. She wasn’t the sort of woman who could live with a poor man. And Jake had, up until very recently, been a poor man. She could play with a poor man nicely enough, but she needed to be married to a man who was comfortably off. She liked living in Great Chester and could never have managed in Little Chester, the way Lexi did. She didn’t want to have to work and chip in on covering the bills; she enjoyed having manicures, pedicures, blow-dries.

Of course, Jake was now a very wealthy man. Obscenely rich, in fact. She had a lot to play for.

Last week, when he hadn’t turned up to their usual rendezvous – when there was no call, no message, nothing – she had sat in the hotel bedroom and worried about him. The thought made her rage now. She’d seriously considered that he had been in a car accident, she imagined him unconscious, his face bleeding and smashed against his steering wheel. She’d wondered about calling hospitals.

But then Ridley and Megan came home from school and told their parents about the lottery win.

She’d still waited for him to call or message. Still believed he would. Each time the tiny icon to say a message had arrived flashed on her phone or laptop, her heart leapt. But the messages were never from him. The silence stretched and physically tormented her as though she was being pulled apart on a medieval rack. She needed to speak to him more than ever. It was clear that he was trying to hide the win from them all. Even her. He had said he loved her. But people say all sorts of things.

The betrayal burnt.

It frightened her to think that he didn’t need her now. A man as rich as he was would have his pick of lovers because there was always someone willing to buy and sell. Many someones. That was the problem with being a mistress, it was a transient role. Everyone knew that. The wife had some power; she was propped up by children, society, shared history. Even if a mistress ever became a wife, she knew she had just opened up a vacancy. A more devastating thought was that he wouldn’t want a lover at all now. With this new-found wealth, maybe he’d settle for his wife again. Maybe he’d find he could buy up enough excitement and pleasure without having to have illicit sex on Tuesday afternoons. Perhaps all she’d ever been was the equivalent an exhilarating thrill ride at an amusement park. He could certainly buy bigger thrills than that now. He’d driven his Ferrari right past her house, for God’s sake.

Despite promising herself that she’d be charming, she found the moment he pushed open the hotel bedroom door and she set eyes on him – in his new expensive-looking clothes, with his new smug-looking expression – that her anger surged. Impulsively, she reached for something to throw at him. The first thing that came to hand was a hardback book about mindfulness. She flung it at him; the irony wasn’t lost on her. He ducked and the book sailed above his head hitting the door behind him. He looked amused.