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‘There’s only one more day,’ Campion reminded her.
One more day, and then it would be a week since she had last heard from Guy. A week. She shivered, huddling deeper into her coat.
* * *
The tour was over, successfully, so Kyla said. Somehow or other, Campion had smiled and talked her way through a succession of interviews and chat shows. Somehow, she had managed to sign books and answer questions, and now at last it was over.
Like her relationship with Guy, she thought, as Kyla saw her safely on to the London train.
Her bloom had gone; it had been a brief flowering indeed, before shrivelling in the forest of loneliness and pain. Lynsey’s story had carried her away into fantasy, making her believe that she could be what she was not—a woman for loving. Now she had to face the rest of her life without Guy, because she couldn’t bear to hear the words of rejection on his lips, as they had once been on Craig’s rejection had crippled her; Guy’s, she knew, could kill her. Better to go back to the old, cold life and never see him again. Try to ride out the hurt. Perhaps one day she’d be able to put it into a book, she thought hollowly.
The journey seemed to take forever. London was cold and wet, and when she let herself into her flat all she wanted to do was to fall into bed.
The phone woke her, and for one crazy moment she thought it must be Guy. She picked up the receiver, her hand shaking.
‘Campion, are you all right?’
The incisive tones of her agent’s voice made her heart drop.
‘Helena, I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘What about you?’
‘Oh, I’ve been given the all clear now, and I’m raring to get back to work. In fact, I am back. That’s why I’m ringing you. How did the tour go?’
‘Quite well.’
There was a small silence, as though something in her colourless tone had reached the other woman.
‘Well, I’ve got some good news for you. The publishers are thrilled with your last manuscript. Guy’s left me a note saying that they want to get it into production as quickly as possible…Campion, are you there?’
She was gripping the receiver so hard, her bones hurt.
‘Yes…yes…I am. Guy’s away, then, is he?’
Oh, God, what was she doing to herself? If he wanted her to know his movements, he would have told her himself. Was this what love did to you, reducing you to begging for scraps of information, destroying all your pride and integrity?
‘Yes. He hasn’t had a proper break this year, and he suddenly decided that he wanted to get away. He’s gone to visit his sister, apparently. Look, when can we meet? The publishers are keen for you to do something else for them. A family saga this time, perhaps—historical again, of course—’
She had wronged Guy, Campion thought numbly. His absence was nothing so personal as a snub, nothing to do with Craig’s kind of petty revenge. She had simply been put back into her proper perspective as a very small part of a successful man’s life; a professional challenge that had had some importance for as long as the job lasted, but now just one more name on his agency’s list, another writer whose work he had an interest in selling.
Work…the universal panacea. Campion closed her eyes.
‘I seem to have picked up some sort of bug, Helena. Can we leave it until after Christmas?’
She could tell from the small silence that Helena was surprised, and no wonder. In the past, she had allowed nothing to interfere with her work.
‘Well, yes, of course. You’ll be spending Christmas with Lucy and Howard as usual, I expect?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I had hoped to tempt you out to a celebratory lunch…’
A celebratory lunch. Campion’s stomach heaved, and she felt guilty at her lack of enthusiasm.
‘I’d love to,’ she lied, ‘but this tour has left me rather behind. I’ll have a think about another book over Christmas and get in touch with you after the New Year,’ she added as a conciliatory gesture.
When she hung up, she sat and hugged her arms around herself, as though by so doing she could contain the fiery spread of her pain.
Surely Guy could have given the good news himself? Or was this his way of underlining the fact that their relationship was over, that she was now in his past and that that was where he wanted her to stay? Was that how these things were done? He wasn’t an unkind man, far from it, and she did not have the experience to judge how a man was likely to react when he wanted to end an emotional involvement.
