Cruel Legacy

Still, though, she felt shaky and light-headed, frightened by the enormity of what she had done.

She waited for Joel to say something, accuse her, to sense her betrayal, but he was already turning away from her, uninterested in what she had said, unconcerned, unaware of what she was feeling.

The leisure centre seemed more important to him than she did these days, she reflected bitterly. He spent more time there than he did at home. He and Paul—listening to the two of them talking about events and people that meant nothing to her gave her a sense of alienation, made her feel excluded from their lives.

All she was to Joel these days was someone who paid the bills, she decided bitterly. He probably wouldn’t have cared if she had told him about Kenneth. He never listened to her when she tried to talk to him.

Angry tears burned at the back of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

* * *

‘Hello, there.’

Philippa tensed as she recognised Joel’s voice, replacing the library book she had just been reading. Joel’s eyebrows lifted as he read the title.

‘Home Maintenance Made Easy? Having problems?’ he asked her.

‘It’s the washing machine,’ Philippa admitted. ‘It isn’t spinning properly and the service people charge twenty-five pounds just to come out…’

‘I could come and take a look for you,’ Joel offered.

Philippa flushed. ‘No, it’s all right,’ she assured him uncomfortably, not wanting him to think that she had been deliberately trying to get him to offer to do so.

Or that she was using the washing machine as an excuse to see him again?

Her discomfort increased. He was a very attractive man and she had found herself thinking about him rather more than she liked. She had, of course, told herself that it was because he had been one of Andrew’s employees and because they were, as he had so succinctly said, fellow victims of Andrew’s egomania, but somehow her arguments had not been totally convincing.

‘You don’t trust me, eh…?’ Joel teased her.

‘No… no, it isn’t that,’ Philippa hurried to assure him, laughing herself when she saw the amusement in his eyes.

‘You’re learning to swim?’ she asked him, eyeing his own books.

‘Not exactly,’ Joel told her, briefly explaining why he wanted the books.

‘Coaching—of course, I should have realised,’ Philippa responded warmly. ‘I thought it odd that you should just be learning…’

‘Too old?’ he queried wryly.

Philippa shook her head, smiling.

‘No, of course not… no, it’s just that you don’t have… that you don’t look… Well, you look as though you would be good at sports,’ she told him lamely.

What she had actually thought was that he had the kind of body that looked as though he knew how to use it in physical activities, but she had recognised as she’d started to voice the words that her remark could be misinterpreted as being sexually inviting, and the last thing she wanted him to think was that she was trying to flirt with him.

‘Coaching,’ she continued quickly. ‘How did you come to get involved in that?’

Briefly Joel told her, warmed by her interest.

‘Of course it doesn’t pay anything,’ he told her self-deprecatingly, ‘and, although Neil thinks I ought to try to get some professional qualifications, there’s no guarantee that I can——’

‘Oh, but that’s wonderful!’ Philippa interrupted him enthusiastically. ‘And your wife must be thrilled as well?’

‘Sally? She thinks I’m wasting my time and that I ought to be out looking for a real job,’ Joel told her bitterly.

Philippa looked at him. So things were no better between him and his wife. She felt sorry for them both. Everyone involved suffered when relationships went wrong.

‘Look, it’s really no problem to look at your washing machine,’ Joel told her. ‘In fact I could come back with you now if you like.’ Sally had said something about working a double shift and he had no more classes at the leisure centre today.