Vivienne reached out to pull the bathroom door shut, pleased that it didn’t stick the way the other one had. She smiled. Oh, yes, Jack could be relied on. She wondered if she should text him, tell him that the door man had come and done a splendid job. Yes, of course she could. He wouldn’t mind. But she wouldn’t ring. He’d told her he didn’t like to be rung when he was at work, not unless there was an emergency. Which there wasn’t. But she did so want to contact him. It would be like touching him. She did so like touching him. With a shiver of remembered pleasure, she hurried out to the kitchen where she’d left her phone.
* * *
‘Marion says I’m to make sure I get a proper contract with you,’ Vivienne told Jack later that night. They were in his very nice bed in his very nice apartment, lying in each other’s arms in a state of post-coital bliss. ‘She says I’m not to let you take advantage of me, and then she warned me that you must be ruthless to become as successful in business as you have.’
Jack’s eyebrows lifted. ‘And do you agree with her? About my being ruthless?’
‘Not really. No, I don’t think you’re ruthless. You are a tough man to deal with on a professional basis, but fair. And I told her so. You’ll be glad to know, however, that I didn’t inform her that on the personal side you’re a bit of a softie.’
Jack laughed. ‘That’s not what you said a few minutes ago. You said I was hard as a rock.’
She gave him a playful slap on his magnificent chest. ‘Don’t be silly. You know what I mean. I was talking about the way you love your family, especially your mother. A man who loves his mother couldn’t be bad.’
‘Really? I seem to recall reading somewhere that Hitler loved his mother.’
She glowered up at him. ‘You just made that up.’
He faked a shocked expression. ‘You don’t think I read?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘I’ll have you know I read all the time. Only yesterday I picked up a copy of Playboy at a building site and read it from cover to cover. Very interesting articles in that magazine.’
Now it was Vivienne’s turn to laugh. ‘I’ll bet. No seriously, do you like to read? Because I do. Very much.’
‘Can’t say it’s my favourite pastime,’ he admitted.
‘I couldn’t be without a book. I read every night before I go to sleep. Or I used to,’ she added, thinking she hadn’t read a word since she’d started her relationship with Jack. He left her exhausted naturally after their passionate nights together.
‘If that’s the case, how come you don’t have bookshelves crammed with books in your place? Or do you keep them all under your bed? I haven’t been in there yet.’
And neither will you, Vivienne thought with a spurt of panic. She didn’t want to be with him in the same bed she’d shared with Daryl. A small part of her was still afraid that if she did that she might revert to being the same pathetic bed partner she’d been with him, something which still occasionally bothered and confused her. If she’d loved Daryl—truly loved him—why hadn’t she been more passionate with him? Why hadn’t she enjoyed sex with him the way she did with Jack? There was no making sense of it. Really, there wasn’t.
‘I don’t keep the books I read,’ she told Jack in answer to his question. ‘I buy a couple at a time from a local second-hand bookshop and when I finish reading them I return them and get two more. No point in keeping them after I’ve read them, is there?’ she said, and glanced up at him.
Jack shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You could always lend them to friends. Doesn’t Marion read?’
‘Yes, but not the kind of books I read. She likes romance and I like crime.’
‘I see,’ Jack said. ‘I like watching crime shows on TV,’ he ventured.
‘I do, too. Which ones are your favourite?’ she asked, and they talked at some length about their favourite programmes, Jack discovering that Vivienne liked shows which mixed crime with relationships, not just crime itself.
‘So you do like some romance in your stories,’ he said at last. ‘Just so long as it’s not all romance.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose that’s true.’
‘Now, you told me earlier that you were driving Marion to the airport on Saturday, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘What time?’
‘Around one. Her plane goes just after three.’