Helen shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
‘You don’t want to tell me about it, hm?’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘But you don’t know if you’re seeing him again?’
‘No.’
‘Okay,’ Jenny shrugged. ‘Like some coffee?’
‘No, thanks. I think I’ll just get straight to sleep.’ Helen climbed into bed.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, then. I’m going to have a coffee.’
Helen lay awake long after Jenny had had the proposed coffee and come to bed herself, her troubled thoughts all of Leon Masters. He had professed not to be put off by what she had told him, and he did still seem to want to see her. But did she want to see him? Telling him the truth about herself had hurt and humiliated her, and yet it had somehow ma
de her feel free too. To have actually spoken to someone of the events of her short marriage was exhilarating, but that it should be Leon Masters she had told made her blush. How would she be able to face him again? Did she want to, that was the point?
She was so confused, more confused than she had been before seeing him this evening. She had nothing to offer him, nothing to offer any man. If she carried on seeing him he would come to expect something from her, some show that his attraction was reciprocated, and while she acknowledged that he was a very handsome and magnetising man, she couldn’t see him in any other light than as a predator. And she was his prey!
‘Are you still awake?’ Jenny questioned in the darkness.
She hesitated about answering. ‘Yes,’ she finally admitted.
‘Are you worrying about Leon?’
‘In what way?’ Helen queried sharply.
’In any way,’ Jenny clarified.
‘Not worried about him exactly. He confuses me, Jenny. What I feel for him, for all men, and how I react to him are in complete variance with each other.’
‘Then you do feel something for him?’
‘Something,’ Helen agreed slowly. ‘He’s so handsome, everything about him is—attractive, and yet…’
‘I seem to remember that you once said he had too much of everything,’ Jenny teased.
‘And he does too! Mainly too much charisma.’
‘I’ve noticed,’ Jenny said dryly.
‘But although I can see him as an attractive man, can even feel drawn to him in some ways, I shy away from him every time he comes near me.’
‘You need time, that’s all,’ Jenny said excitedly. ‘I’m just so pleased that someone is getting through to you at last.’
‘But what if he doesn’t have the patience to wait?’ Helen voiced worriedly. ‘He’s never struck me as the patient type.’
‘I doubt that he is. But that he understands your problem will be a help. He does understand, doesn’t he?’
‘If you mean did I tell him about Michael, the answer is yes. I told him everything. I think in a way I was hoping to put him off once and for all. I thought I had succeeded at first, but driving me home—well, he hasn’t been put off.’
‘And you will be seeing him again?’
‘He says so.’ Helen sighed. ‘But he’s going to be away for a couple of weeks, he could have forgotten all about me by the time he gets back.’
‘That isn’t very likely.’