‘Fortunately since then I’ve learnt to use my head when it comes to women,’ Angelo grated. He opened his mouth to say something but she would never know because just then the doorbell rang. Literally saved by the bell.
She darted towards the door, breathing unevenly, and opened it to find that her saviour was Jack.
‘He’s here!’ she hissed under her breath, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and tugging him closer to her.
‘And he’s getting under your skin. Interesting.’
‘This is no time to joke, Jack. Just…just put your arms around me and do a convincing act of being my boyfriend, would you?’
With his arms around her, she felt safe from the coal-black eyes burning a hole behind her and, by the time she had unwrapped herself from the embrace, she was more or less back in control.
Angelo had finally taken the hint she had been giving him ever since he’d first stepped through her door earlier on and was ready to leave. He nodded briefly at Jack and then looked coolly at Francesca, who was presenting a united front with Jack pressed next to her.
‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘Of course.’ She smiled but her jaw ached. It was a relief when he closed the door quietly behind him and her tense muscles could sag.
‘You’re going to have to deal with him from now on, Jack.’ She headed towards the kitchen, knowing that he would follow and that he would also sense her mood and get her a cup of coffee while she sat at the table and tried to recover from feeling as though she had been mown down by a steamroller.
‘Do you want to jack the job in?’ He handed her a cup of coffee and sat at the opposite end of the table.
Weird, she thought, that he would be the one caretaking her now, when it had always been the other way around. Time certainly changed everything. His bad old days had gone. She felt as though hers were now about to begin and a wave of resentment flooded through her at the thought that Angelo could step back into her life and manage to turn it upside down.
‘And sacrifice my pride? Let us both down?’ She laughed shortly. ‘I don’t think so.’ Then, on a sigh, ‘But he’s playing with me, Jack. Let’s behave like adults and civilised adults can discuss the past without getting emotional. And he enjoys watching me when I react. He never used to be like that, like a cat toying with a mouse. He said he doesn’t intend to use his influence to our disadvantage and I believe him, but he’s happy to watch my discomfort every time I’m around him.’
‘And you’re uncomfortable because…? Why don’t you just tell him the truth?’
‘No.’ Why not? Because she didn’t want to watch the scales drop from his eyes. He might hate her for walking out on him, but if he saw her in all her honest glory he would be contemptuous and she didn’t want that. Her pride again, but then who didn’t have an abundance of that particular vice? ‘No, the answer is for you to deal with him. There’s no reason for him to call in a hurry, anyway. He doesn’t have the excuse of wanting to go through menus or anything like that and he’s not going to interrupt his work schedule to make pointless contact with us just because he likes watching me squirm in his presence.’
‘Then you don’t have anything to worry about.’ He dragged a chair over with one foot and settled into a more comfortable position. ‘So you can sit there and listen about me. You haven’t even asked why I turned up here when I should have been down at the pub…’
His convoluted story of an enraged husband—‘Never suspected a thing,’—a child in the background—‘I’ll never trust a blonde again,’—and a pleading woman—‘I told her from the start that I was all about the Fun,’—more or less managed to take her mind off the problem preying on it like a lethal virus with a mission to destroy. But as soon as Jack had left, walking back to his place after a couple of beers, she was thinking again about Angelo, replaying everything he had said to her.
She couldn’t believe that after all this time, and after all the changes she had made in her life, she could still find herself hurtling back into the past with such a lack of self-control. Back there, in the sitting room, when he had been standing in front of her deliberately baiting her with memories of when they were lovers, she had felt her body melting. Yes, he had been goading her on. Yes, he had liked seeing her rigid with discomfort. Yes, yes, yes! But she had still responded, against her will, against all rhyme and reason, and it had been written all over her face. No wonder he had been so insolently dismissive of her so-called relationship with Jack.