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Rosalie listened to Beth who had phoned moments after the news item had ended, politely agreeing and saying she was perfectly all right about it all, before putting down the phone.
She sat in the quiet of her sitting room for a long time, trying to make sense of it all. In the end, she knew she couldn’t.
The news crew had veered towards the humanitarian aspect of the natural disaster, emphasising it was the poorest who had been affected most by the cyclone but that on such desperate occasions man’s humanity to man could spring into action. Holiday-makers and visitors from abroad in the area had all pulled together with the rescue services to help those injured or trapped under the debris of their houses in the shanty towns, it had proclaimed, showing pictures of the good Samaritans in action. ‘Courage and hope mingling with helplessness and despair’ type of reporting.
Her heart had nearly leapt out of her chest when she had seen Kingsley. Her breath caught at the memory. Her body felt strange, all tight and hurting, as though she had been pummelled and kicked about by something.
He had been in the background actually involved in digging an elderly man out from under the tin shack that had been his home until a tree had demolished it. A miraculous escape, the man they’d been interviewing had said. Part of the roof had fallen in such a way that the man had been cushioned in a small chamber and was virtually unhurt.
Her eyes had been fixed on the tall dark figure in the background and she had barely noticed anyone else—until Kingsley had been joined by a certain familiar and voluptuous brunette, that was. And Little Miss Canary hadn’t been at all shy about kissing him full on the lips as she’d flung herself into his arms.
The broadcast had shifted at this point to the story of a little girl, who had managed to save the family’s goat by untying the animal from where it had been tethered in the nick of time and bringing it into their house, which had survived the tropical storm, but the images of Kingsley with the woman who was his friend’s sister were burnt onto the scree
n of Rosalie’s mind.
She exhaled sharply. Even Beth had been forced to admit that the kiss hadn’t been a sisterly one, and as Kingsley’s arms had gone round the girl she had pressed herself into him with all the finesse of a bitch on heat.
She could understand Alex’s sister coming to see her brother after the accident, of course she could, and Kingsley had known her for years, but that kiss…
What was she going to do? Reality hit, and with it a gut-wrenching pain. Her body ached as it did when she had the flu but this wasn’t a virus, unless you could call love a virus? Maybe you could at that, she reflected silently. She swallowed hard.
What had she said to herself only twenty-four hours ago when she had decided that she was going to plunge head first into this relationship? Her fears and emotions might lead her down a certain path, but she had to stand on logic and trust. Logic and trust were all very well but when millions of people had seen the man she loved embrace another woman…
Logic—Miss Canary had embraced him. Trust—maybe he could give her an explanation as to why Alex’s sister thought she had the right to give him a body massage but without using her hands? And maybe pigs could fly. Helplessness at her ability to contact Kingsley right at this second and ask him what the hell he thought he was playing at gripped her.
Could she envisage a future with a man she couldn’t trust? Would Kingsley want a future with a woman he felt didn’t trust him?
Rosalie stood up, walking out of the sitting room and into the bathroom, where she washed her tear-stained face before straightening and looking at herself in the small round mirror set over the basin. Tragic, tear-swept eyes stared back at her from a face even her nearest and dearest would have to admit was blotchy.
She’d had enough of crying. The thought sent something hot and deliberate coursing through her blood, and she took a deep breath, speaking it loud. ‘I am sick and tired of crying.’ The eyes applauded her stand. She wasn’t going to do it any more. Kingsley would contact her soon. Her throat tightened. And she wasn’t going to play any games or pretend she was feeling anything else than what she was feeling. She would ask him about the Canary calmly and composedly, but only when she saw him face to face. That way she would know if he was lying.
Her whole instinct was to run at the moment. Run from any commitment, run from confrontation, run from Kingsley, from love. But she was a grown woman now, not a scared, confused little child who had just lost the two people she cared about most in the world, or a broken young teenager whose love had been trampled into the ground in the cruellest way imaginable.
She had to face this head-on. Not hysterically, admittedly, but neither was she going to brush what she’d seen aside and pretend it wasn’t real. She’d done that with Miles, she realised suddenly. Ignored the tell-tale signs of his affairs because she hadn’t been able to bear to think he would do that to her. But he had. And because he was weak and flawed, not because she hadn’t been enough for him. As Kingsley had said, Miles had been an emotional cripple, inadequate and cruel. Kingsley. Oh, Kingsley, Kingsley. Please come through for me. Please give me an answer that I can believe because it’s true.
He phoned her the next day. ‘I’m coming home, Rosie.’ She liked the way he said home, and then warned herself not to get too starry-eyed so she couldn’t see clearly when she asked him about Tweety Pie. ‘I land at Heathrow at seven on Monday evening.’
‘I’ll meet you,’ she offered carefully.
‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
He was smiling, she knew he was smiling, and for a moment she felt anger that he was all hunky-dory and smiling, and she felt wretched. She took a deep breath. ‘How are the cleaning-up operations going out there?’
‘Not too bad. It’s tough when you see the poverty and some of the locals have lost everything, but it’s incredible how they pull together. Family is strong out here, that’s the thing.’
‘And Alex?’ she asked even more carefully.
‘The doctor his father brought out with him from the States says he can safely be moved at the end of next week, but he’s already seeing signs he feels are hopeful. How hopeful will depend on the tests they run in the hospital back home. Rosie—’
‘His father?’ She interrupted his voice, which had gone into silky soft mode when he’d said her name. She couldn’t handle how it made her feel right now and she needed to be strong. ‘It’s not just his wife who’s out there with you, then?’ she asked, thinking, As if I didn’t know.
‘No, they’re all here.’
Aren’t they just? ‘Right.’ Full marks for the cheerfulness, Rosalie.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked softly.
Or perhaps not full marks, then. ‘Wrong?’ Everything. ‘Nothing,’ she lied firmly.
