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Deborah groaned as she opened her eyes. The light felt like ice-picks, the pain in her head agonisingly sharp, the taste in her mouth…
Groggily she tried to sit up and then stopped as she felt her stomach heave and then it heaved again as the events of the previous evening came back to her.
Garth… oh, God… What had she done…?
Queasily she swung her feet to the floor and then froze as the bedroom door opened.
‘Ah, so you are awake; I thought I could hear you…’
‘Garth…’
‘Feeling hung over?’ he asked sympathetically. ‘Never mind; I know just the cure?
?’
‘Garth…’ she repeated anxiously.
He stopped beside her bed, sat down on it and looked at her. ‘It’s OK,’ he told her quietly. ‘Nothing happened.’
‘Nothing happened…?’ Deborah stared at him.
‘More fool me,’ Garth added, grinning. ‘All these years I’ve been waiting for you to look past Mark and see me and what happens when you finally do…? I go and get a fit of conscience and do the gentlemanly thing——’
‘You mean my coming on to you turned you off as much as it does Mark?’ Deborah interrupted him bitterly.
‘No way.’ He reached out and took hold of her hand between his own, ignoring her attempts to pull away from him. ‘Listen to me and listen good. If I’d thought for one moment that it was me you wanted last night, then nothing, and I mean nothing, would have kept me out of your bed… Even though I’d have probably had to wait until this morning to get you to fulfil those promises you were making me,’ he added ruefully.
Deborah looked at him.
‘You’d passed out by the time I carried you in here,’ he told her.
‘Passed out!’ Deborah stared at him.
‘The wine… remember?’ Garth prompted her.
Remember? How could she forget?
‘Want to talk about it?’
‘The wine?’
‘No, not the wine,’ he told her softly. ‘Mark… Mark, and the reason he… Mark… and what’s happened to the pair of you.’
‘What’s happened.’ Deborah gave him a twisted smile.
‘Are you sure you really want to know?’
‘I’m sure,’ Garth told her.
* * *
‘Well, there’s one thing I can tell quite categorically,’ Garth announced half an hour later when Deborah had finished speaking. They were seated at the kitchen table, Deborah still grasping the now cold mug of coffee he had made for her.
She was still wearing the clothes he had put her to bed in the previous night. Her face was pale and drawn as she relived the unhappiness of losing Mark.
‘It isn’t you Mark’s stopped loving, Dee, it’s himself.’
‘Himself…?’ She shook her head. ‘No.’
