The Final Seduction

She picked up her keys and both he and the baby looked up at her as they started to jangle like Christmas bells. ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed your evening,’ she said stiffly.

He smiled, but it was an empty smile. ‘That’s probably the most insincere thing you’ve ever said to me, kitten,’ came the soft reply.

CHAPTER NINE

JENNIE came round the following morning to inform Shelley that Ellie had been suffering from a twelve-hour bug which she had quickly shrugged off in the way that only babies and children could.

‘So she’s okay?’ asked Shelley.

‘She’s fine.’ Jennie’s eyes were like saucers. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I came back to find Drew there!’ She pulled a face. ‘Jamie wasn’t very happy about it.’

‘I wasn’t ecstatic about it myself,’ said Shelley. ‘We don’t have the easiest relationship in the world, as you know—but he was the first person I thought of calling when I saw she wasn’t well.’ She sighed. ‘I have to say, though, that he was absolutely brilliant—though I sort of knew he would be!’

Jennie smiled. ‘Funny—that’s exactly what he said about you!’

‘Did he?’ Shelley clamped down her enthusiasm. ‘What time did you get back?’

Jennie looked slightly sheepish. ‘Er—about two.’

‘And didn’t Drew mind?’

‘Well, he had a bit of a moan—but it was more on the lines of whether I had told you that I was going to be so late. And of course I hadn’t. Sorry about that, Shelley.’

‘Honestly—it doesn’t matter.’ She hesitated. ‘How was your evening?’

‘It was blissful—really blissful. And if Jamie weren’t so worried about money all the time it would have been quite perfect.’

Shelley nodded but wondered just how realistic Jennie was being. It was all very well thinking that an injection of cash would make everything in her world wonderful, but life wasn’t as simple as that. Wasn’t that a bit like someone thinking that losing weight would solve every problem they had?

She broke into Jennie’s distracted air with a question. ‘How much does he actually need to buy the boat?’

Jennie shrugged and mentioned an amount which didn’t seem particularly vast—not to Shelley, anyway. But then she was used to Marco’s world, where enormous sums were made as profit on a single painting.

‘And has he spoken to his bank manager?’

Jennie gave a cynical laugh. ‘Oh, he’s spoken to him, all right—but banks only seem to lend money to people who are already earning huge amounts of it—which makes you wonder why they want to borrow it in the first place!’

‘Well, that’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.’

She set about giving the house a proper face-lift, and hired a steamer to take off all the wallpaper in the hall then painted it bright blue. The modern walls were in good enough condition to take such a vivid colour and Shelley bought a huge mirror and hung it next to the door—so that the smallish space looked twice the size. She found a deep blue vase to stand on the floor and filled it with tall twigs which looked dramatic against the intense colour.

Decorating was hard work, but it meant that she slept well at night, after an indulgent evening of reading or television, with supper on a tray. Early each morning she would walk along the pebbly beach—sometimes taking Ellie with her. It had always been her favourite time of day, when the sky and the sea were both at their purest.

But she resisted the urge to follow the small track down through the sand-dunes to take another look at the coastguard’s cottage, even though she was tempted. She didn’t want to be seen hanging around Drew’s place like a groupie!

And there was no doubt in her mind that she felt a little cheated. After the definite truce which had sprung up when they’d looked after Ellie, he had dropped out of sight almost completely, and she found she missed him more than she wanted to. In fact, she saw him only once—standing windswept in front of one of the large seafront villas which she presumed he was working on. He was wearing jeans and a waterproof jacket and stood talking animatedly to another man, his dark head bent over some flapping sheets of paper which looked like plans.

She briefly toyed with the idea of asking Jennie just how good a friend Amanda was to Drew, but decided against it. Because it was none of her business. Was it?

And then one morning—out of the blue—he sent her an invitation to a fireworks party.

She recognised the writing on the envelope immediately—even though she hadn’t seen it for years. He had a distinctive black-inked and crabbed style, and her heart was bashing out a very irregular rhythm as she ripped the envelope open.