But he didn’t.
Which left Fran with no option but to try to sort out the tatters of her career and ultimately, her life. When she had left Ireland, people had been cancelling assignments right, left and centre. Her savings weren’t huge, and she fully expected to have to go trawling round the employment agencies, looking for secretarial work to tide her over.
But she quickly di
scovered that people had very short memories and that offers of work, if not exactly flooding in, had certainly started trickling in steadily enough to provide an income. A old friend of Cormack’s wanted a twenty-first birthday party arranged for his daughter. Through that came the request to organise a corporate function.
Fran found that she had enough work to keep herself busy and occupied…but there was a great, yawning space where her heart should have been.
Several times she lifted the telephone to ring him, and each time she slammed the receiver down with determined resolution. She had spent most of her time with Sholto overlooking his various betrayals. If she had learnt one lesson from her broken marriage it was that she was not going to be a doormat.
It was on a Sunday morning when Fran was wakened from a heavy sleep by the loud shrilling of the doorbell. She looked at the bedside clock. It had taken her hours to drop off last night and the plus side of having no social life was that she had blissfully imagined being able to sleep until noon. Or beyond.
She groped her hand out for the sun-gold dressing gown and struggled into it just as the doorbell shrilled again, and when she opened the door, there stood Sam. She stood there just gaping at him, swamping down her instinctive feeling of pleasure at seeing him. And replacing it with one of righteous indignation.
‘Yes, Sam?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Last time you didn’t bother asking.’
‘That was then.’ His mouth flattened at the corners. ‘This is now.’
She thought fleetingly that he didn’t sound in the least bit apologetic. She opened the door with a shrug. ‘Feel free.’
His mouth flattened even more and Fran could have cursed herself for her rather unfortunate choice of words.
They stood in the hallway, facing one another like two boxers in the ring, wariness and suspicion on both their faces. But Fran noticed one emotion which was clearly etched on his features.
Fury.
She studied him as coolly as she knew how. ‘Well?’
‘Have you always had such a problem with communication?’ he queried, in a voice which was even colder than hers. ‘Is that what helped your marriage to break down?’
She stared at him, not quite understanding.
‘So that whenever there’s a problem in your life, you bury your head in the sand—’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘By running away and refusing to discuss anything? Is that what you used to do with Sholto?’
‘You leave Sholto out of this!’ she flared. ‘He has nothing to do with it!’
‘Are you sure?’ The blue eyes glittered. ‘Aren’t the sins of the first husband being revisited on every man who follows?’
She wasn’t going to take this opportunity to point out that he was the only man who had followed. ‘No. You have enough sins of your own, Sam.’
He seemed bemused. ‘Then maybe you’d care to list them. Who knows, it might save me a visit to the analyst!’
She willed her voice to stay steady, to present the facts as clearly as she could, without resorting to hysteria. Which is what she felt like doing. ‘It’s quite simple.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘You were furious with me after the Valentine ball, weren’t you?’
‘That’s hardly a state secret, Fran! I came here to tell you that myself if you remember!’
‘And the deal was that I would come over to England and organise your mother’s birthday—to make up for what happened?’
‘That was the deal,’ he agreed steadily.