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Start divorce proceedings. Contact her trustees to ask for a release of sufficient funds to buy a small flat close to her place of voluntary work. Take up the Chair’s suggestion that she make herself responsible for parting the wealthy from some of their excess funds.
And then—The ‘And then’ bit presented itself as a black hole, a yawning, featureless empty space. Zoe firmed her lush mouth and floored the accelerator.
‘Sweetie, I’m so glad you could come.’ Jenny tucked her arm through Zoe’s as she proudly showed her over her new home. ‘I sent the invitation on the off-chance. No one seemed to know where you and Javier were. Why isn’t he with you?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘That husband of yours would have added a touch of class!’
‘Working.’ Zoe wasn’t prepared to discuss the ending of her marriage, and she didn’t want to talk about him, or even think about him ever again. ‘I love those curtains,’ she changed the subject rapidly.
‘Great, aren’t they? Look.’ Easily diverted, Jenny picked up a remote and the heavy linen drapes swished back and forth. Zoe smiled her dutiful smile until her face ached and quashed the wish that she had never come. She had to learn to make a life of her own. And mixing with the old gang was a beginning.
‘Now you must see the kitchen. It’s got every gadget under the sun. Guy went bananas when he saw the size of the bill. Now all I have to do is learn to cook!’
Five minutes later, a glass of white wine in her hands, Zoe joined the other guests outside on the patio where most of the menfolk were gathered around the barbecue, drinking beer from cans, the laughter level rising, multicoloured fairy lights twinkling on the trellis as evening shadows lengthened over the garden, the smell of cooking meat turning her stomach.
Oliver Sherman was chatting up a redhead in a very small black dress. Zoe turned her back on him, joining a group of female acquaintances. Oliver was not one of the old gang she wanted to mix with!
But seconds later a voice at her shoulder told her he had other ideas. ‘Welcome back to the fold. Looking for some fun without that grim husband of yours?’
Zoe swallowed a sigh. Here we go again! she agitated, remembering the horrible scene at Guy and Jenny’s wedding reception and the shattering aftermath. She turned slightly, half facing him, and drawled coolly, ‘Oliver, don’t be such a bore.’
And then her face flamed with immediate colour, her flesh burning on her bones because Javier had emerged onto the patio with Glenda firmly in tow.
How dared he? How could he? If he wanted to humiliate her, demonstrate that his mistress took precedence in his life, he couldn’t have chosen a better method! She wanted to fall into a hole in the ground and never, ever, be seen again!
Blood thundering in her ears, she felt the heightened colour wash out of her face, leaving her ashen and cold. So cold she was shaking.
As usual he looked spectacular: tall, lean, urbane, dressed in beautifully cut pale grey chinos and a black shirt that somehow made the impressive breadth of his shoulders even more intimidating. And the impact of his darkly handsome face, all arrogant angles and brooding smoky eyes, stunned her into the drainingly painful recognition of all she had lost.
She couldn’t lose what she had never had was her immediate self-protective counter-thought, and that smack-in-the-eye fact had her entertaining the wild idea of getting up close and intimate with the still-hovering Sherman just to pay her adulterous husband back.
An idea just as swiftly jettisoned. She would hate herself for ever if she stooped that low.
As his eyes found her amongst the guests Zoe knew she couldn’t feel any lower than she did right at this moment, whatever she did.
Even with his mistress glued to his side she only had to see him
to be swept by a wave of longing that was frightening in its intensity. How low, how stupid could a girl get?
As he strode towards where she was standing her stomach tied itself in painful knots, her heart started racing as people automatically made way for him, deferring to his dominant personality, female eyes widening with admiration, male glances a mixture of awe and envy.
Helplessly, her own eyes were riveted on that devastatingly lean and handsome face. Was she the only person who came into contact with him able to hold her own? And, far more importantly, could she hold her own now, in this humiliating situation? Or would her battered and bleeding heart betray her?
His features were hard and unyielding as he reached her but there was one of his charismatic smiles for their hostess as she hustled up with a tray of drinks. ‘You have a lovely home, Jenny. I hope you and Guy will be truly happy here. But now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to drag my wife away.’
Taking Zoe’s untouched glass from her suddenly limp and unresisting fingers, he placed it on the tray. Smoke-grey eyes held hers with stark intent. ‘Shall we?’
A rhetorical question, Zoe recognised, panic setting in because quite obviously he and Glenda were going to present a united front when he admitted they were still lovers, and spelled out that, now it was out in the open, there was no point in continuing to stay in this misbegotten marriage, not even for a further year.
As his guiding hand cupped her elbow Zoe wanted to leap up, fasten her own hands around his throat and strangle him. For taking the initiative—she had wanted to be the one to confront him, demand a divorce with her new-found icy cool, sweep out leaving him looking and feeling small! For his effortless ability to steal her heart—and keep it—damn him!
Tears weren’t far away as they reached the pavement outside the house. His car was parked on the other side of the smart new cul-de-sac. Was he intending to say his piece here then whisk his gloating mistress away, leaving her standing alone, humiliated and hurting?
Zoe’s small chin came up, her spine stiffening, bracing herself for what was to come, and for the first time she let her eyes rest on Glenda for longer than the split second it had initially taken her to register the other woman’s presence beside Javier.
It was almost dusk now but still easy to see that the other woman’s smooth confidence had deserted her. Her shoulders slumped and her mouth drooped. Was her conscience pricking? Was that what was making her look so miserable? Whatever, Zoe didn’t want her pity.
Dragging her arm from Javier’s restraining hand, Zoe reminded herself of how very much she should violently hate him and lashed out through clenched teeth, ‘I don’t know what the two of you think you’re going to achieve by muscling in on my evening with friends.’
‘You will,’ he came back grimly, his hand capturing her wrist now in a vice-like grip. ‘Tell her, Glenda. Or I stop that cheque.’
