The Final Seduction

‘Bureaucracy,’ Shelley scowled. ‘Need I say more? Apparently, they can’t get either of the services connected until the end of the week because of some stupid system of priority! The end of the week—I ask you!’

‘Oh, dear. Here—’ Jennie handed her a glass and filled it ‘—drink this, it’ll make you feel better.’

Shelley groaned as she took a mouthful. ‘Mmm. It does.’ She sat upright and assumed an expression of horror. ‘What’s happening to me, Jennie? Last night I went to bed still wearing my make-up and now I’m drinking wine at lunchtime!’

‘It’s a long, slippery slope!’ Jennie agreed gravely. ‘And do you know what I’d do in your situation?’

‘You’d leave town, or crawl under the bedclothes and pretend none of it was happening?’

‘Nope. I’d get Drew onto the case.’

‘Drew?’ questioned Shelley darkly. The secretive, controlling Drew, she wanted to add, but resisted. Even if a brother and sister fought like cat and dog, there was still such a thing as sibling loyalty. And she couldn’t really remark to Jennie that Drew was the person she was least likely to ask for help about anything. Not until she knew what reasons lay behind him taking her to his hotel, and pretending he was just Joe Ordinary. And oh, hadn’t she fallen for it—hook, line and sinker?

‘Mmm. He works miracles with stodgy officials—has them eating out of his hand!’

Enough was enough! ‘Oh, stop making him out to be such a saint!’ said Shelley crossly. ‘I thought he was stopping you from being together with Jamie! What about his dark, controlling side—why don’t we talk about that?’

Jennie looked down at her untouched sandwich. ‘He says he only wants the best for me.’

‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?’

‘He…’

Shelley stared at Jennie’s anxious face. ‘Tell me,’ she urged gently. ‘Go on—you’re bursting to get it off your chest, aren’t you?’

‘I guess so,’ Jennie sighed. ‘Well, when Jamie and I…’ She bit her lip as the words trailed off.

‘When you and Jamie what?’ Shelley prompted softly. ‘Is it that you’ve split up but can’t bring yourself to say the words out loud? Because saying them only rubs in that they’re true?’

Jennie looked at her in surprise. ‘Why, yes—that’s exactly it. How did you guess?’

Shelley pulled a face. ‘How do you think, Jennie? And it wasn’t a guess—I know—I’ve been there! People may have me down for Little Miss No-Heart, but I can assure you that I was…’ She remembered just who she was talking to and amended the sentence ‘…sad.’ Yes, sad was a good word—it implied calm, measured emotion, which had certainly not been the case at the time. A feeling that the most vital part of her had been torn out of her body without anaesthetic was closer to the mark. ‘I was very sad—when my relationship finished.’

‘You must have loved him very much?’

‘I…yes, of course I loved him. I loved him—’ her voice began to falter and she realised that in a minute she would blurt out her fear that she still did ‘—very much.’

‘Your face went all soft and dreamy then.’ Jennie’s voice was wistful. ‘I suppose there’s no chance that the two of you could get back together?’

Shelley shook her head. ‘No. None whatsoever. If he wants me at all now, it’s just for sex—’

‘And that doesn’t interest you?’

‘Well, I’m only human. Of course it interests me! It just won’t lead anywhere—so it would be sensible to avoid it, wouldn’t it?’ She wriggled her shoulders a little bit and gave a polite smile, the way people did when they wanted to close a subject. It didn’t really seem appropriate talking about Drew this way. Not to his sister. ‘Now tell me all about Jamie.’

Jennie refilled their glasses. ‘The pregnancy wasn’t planned—’ She looked up and met Shelley’s searching gaze. ‘Well, that’s not strictly true.’ She blushed.

‘You were careless?’

‘I loved him,’ Jennie explained simply. ‘And I just couldn’t get worked up about using contraception. Next thing you know, there’s a baby on the way.’ She sighed. ‘Jamie didn’t find me very attractive when I was pregnant, and then couldn’t cope with the baby crying all the time when she was born. He’s not much older than me, you see,’ she added, as if that explained everything. ‘We were living in Jamie’s tiny bedsit, and I seemed to be crying all the time, too—’