Sins

Chapter Forty-Six

Ella lay in Oliver’s bed watching the early morning sunshine paint shadow patterns on the ceiling. Her body felt soft and relaxed, different somehow. A sharp thrill of knowledge flared through her. It was different. Last night she had had her first proper orgasm. Just thinking about it sent an aftershock through her, making her clitoris ache reminiscently.

It was nearly a week since she had first gone to bed with him, but last night had been the first time she had stayed all night.

She rolled over onto her side so that she could look at him. He was still asleep, his overnight growth of stubble darkening his jaw. Who could have thought that sex could give so many different pleasures, so many different sensations? She could look back now on the Ella she had been a week ago with both superiority and amusement. How naïve and foolish she had been, and yet at the same time how wise. Knowing what she did now, feeling what she had felt now, Ella knew that it would never have done for her to have gone to Brad as she had been. In her naïvety she had definitely made the right choice.

Things were working out remarkably well. Tomorrow Oliver was leaving New York for five weeks with the fashion team to do an important shoot out in the desert. His absence would bring a natural end to her tutelage She was grateful to him for everything that he had taught her, but of course it would be wrong for her to continue having sex with him now.

It would be the end of the summer before Brad returned to New York, by which time Oliver would be on his way back to London. No wonder she was feeling so relieved and so happy.

Last night had been skin-shiveringly wonderful. Her toes curled in on themselves in remembered delight as she replayed the things Oliver had done. There was no need for them to share this intimacy any more; by rights she should get up and leave now, whilst Oliver was still asleep. She had achieved what she had set out to, after all, and it was unnecessary for her to be here now in his bed, breathing in the scent of him, her body luxuriating in its memory of the feel of him against it and within it.

She could have sworn that she hadn’t made a sound, but nevertheless Oliver was awake now, turning his head to look at her, giving her that triumphant, arrogant look she had come to recognise.

‘Come here.’

The smile he gave her as he lifted his arm so that she could move closer to him told her all she needed to know about what he had in mind.

She could ignore his invitation. She could turn away. She should certainly do both, but she didn’t, and now it was beginning all over again, the delicious anticipatory build-up that would soon become an insatiable demanding ache, that would then…Aaahh, it was too late to go on thinking now. Too late to do anything other than feel and want and need for just one more time. Just one more time wouldn’t hurt anyone.

For the third night running Emerald couldn’t sleep. In fact, she hadn’t slept properly since she had last seen Max, which was a week ago now, and she knew why, even though she resented admitting it. There was an emptiness inside her, an ache, a need that infuriated her just as much as it ate into her, and it wasn’t for Max, the very thought of whom now made her shudder with distaste.

No, the cause of her inability to sleep was much closer to home. In fact, it might be said that it was ‘home’, she acknowledged irritably. It was Rose’s fault, with her ridiculous self-sacrificing behaviour, her…her very Roseness and the way it had made Emerald somehow so aware of her own isolation. The way it had made her recognise for the first time in her life what she had given up when she had set her own face so determinedly against being part of a loving family. That was because she would have had to share her mother’s love with others, and why should she? The smell of Rose’s denim jacket had touched a nerve inside her so painfully that even now just thinking of how she had felt in the hospital was like touching a raw wound.

If Rose had really had the concern for her she had pretended to, then she would be here with her instead of leaving her on her own.

But as hard as Emerald tried to reach for the comfort of the old tried-and-tested familiar contempt and animosity she had previously felt for Rose and the rest of her family, that new ache prevented her from doing so. The house felt so empty, even Robbie’s room immaculately tidy without him here.

Robbie. Her son. Her son. Emerald looked at her alarm clock. Half-past three in the morning; too late to telephone her mother, but in the morning…She lay back against her pillows and closed her eyes.

Janey couldn’t sleep. She desperately needed someone to listen whilst she talked through the problems she felt she was having with one of the new designs. She dare not think of anything but work. The merest thought of Charlie had her eyes welling with tears. She’d been so excited when she’d visualised the finished outfit inside her head. A simple little shift dress from the front, with a daringly low cut-out of a figure eight at the back, the fresh green and white patterned cotton she wanted to use trimmed with plain white braid. Then over the dress there was to be a summer coat, in the exact green of the patterned floral fabric, and lined with it. It would have three-quarter sleeves cuffed in the patterned cotton, huge buttons covered in it and a swing pleat at the back infilled with it. The whole idea really excited her. She’d even thought of adapting it for the Christmas season, in rich velvet, in dark colours, with the keyhole covered in cotton lace dyed the same colour.

The trouble was that no one was wearing green. Some people even thought the colour unlucky. Charlie had a gorgeous green floral shirt…No, mustn’t think about Charlie. Must keep working. At least that never let her down.

Janey needed to talk to someone who would understand. She was desperate. It was four o’clock in the morning, that meant that it would be around ten o’clock in New York. As quickly as she thought of solving her problem by speaking with her sister, the idea was smothered by reality: the cost of the telephone call–if she could get through–the length of time it would take to explain things to Ella, who would, she knew, demand exact and, to Janey, unnecessary detail.

Rose would sympathise, of course, but Rose was so practical, so purposeful, sooo organised and good at everything she did that Janey hesitated to reveal her own insecurities to her.

She had no one. There was no one for her to turn to, Janey thought miserably. Her eyes were beginning to sting again, and she reached for a rather damp handkerchief. And then she remembered John telling her that she could always turn to him, in that serious oh-so-reliable John voice of his. A small giggle broke through her despair at the thought of her explaining the finer points of dress design to dear lovely but unfashionable John. And he was a dear. So very kind and reliable. Just thinking about him made her feel much calmer. Janey started to yawn. Perhaps she would be able to sleep after all. Dear, dear John…

‘Yes, Mummy, that’s right,’ Emerald confirmed, as she wound the white cord of the telephone round her finger. ‘That’s why I’m telephoning. I’ve decided it will be better for Robbie if he spends some of the summer in London, so I’m coming down to Macclesfield for him today. We’ll stay overnight and then travel back tomorrow. Of course I’m sure. I am his mother, after all.’

Chapter Forty-Seven

‘I just thought I’d come and see you and give you a little warning. I know that you’re in love with Josh so there’s no point in you denying it.’ Patsy leaned across Rose’s work table to stub out her cigarette in Rose’s ashtray, making it plain as she had done since she’d walked in unannounced minutes earlier that she was the one who was in control of the situation. ‘And there’s no point either in you playing this silly game of dragging out the winding-up of the partnership.’

‘I am not dragging out anything.’ Somehow Rose managed to keep her voice steady, even though inside she felt as though she was dying with shame and humiliation. Knowing that Patsy knew that she loved Josh was like having the skin ripped off an unhealed wound. It made Rose feel exposed and vulnerable. But that didn’t mean that she was going to let Patsy make accusations against her that just weren?

??t true.

Patsy gave her a contemptuous look. ‘Josh loves me, not you, and he can’t wait for us to go to New York. But thanks to you he’s stuck here until this business of the partnership that you foisted on him is resolved.’

Rose could feel her face starting to burn.

‘Oh, I don’t blame you for wanting to keep him. In fact it was rather clever of you to tie him to you with the partnership, but you must see that he doesn’t want it, or you, any more.’

‘Josh knows that I am perfectly willing to end the partnership,’ Rose told her. ‘The delays are not being caused by me. It’s Josh who has insisted on waiting until the lease expires before formally ending things.’