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‘J.J. is paying for everything,’ John whispered to her enthusiastically as he slipped his arm around her waist in a proprietorial fashion and urged her forward.
It was odd to think that once—and not so very long ago at that—the looks of disbelief on the faces of John’s work colleagues as they stared at her would have filled her with joy that at last she had proved herself worthy of being with John. Now it meant nothing—just as John himself meant nothing.
She saw the look of hostility that Felicity gave her as she clung to the arm of a much older, overweight, balding man, teetering slightly in her too high heels. Quickly Lucianna looked away.
J.J., whom she had only met previously at the firm’s Christmas dinner dance, smiled benevolently at her as John propelled her forward and re-introduced her.
‘So you’re John’s girlfriend. Excellent, excellent,’ he commented, giving her a warm smile and John an oddly probing, hard-eyed look. ‘John tells us that it will soon be wedding bells,’ he added jovially.
Lucianna tried not to let her shock show. ‘Wedding bells?’ she questioned John abruptly as a waiter ushered them to their places. ‘What was he—?’
‘Not now,’ John told her curtly. ‘Hello, Basil,’ he greeted the man standing listening to them.
‘So how does it feel to be back? Rather a shorter stay in Canada than was originally planned. Still, if I had a fiancée as pretty as yours waiting at home for me I expect I’d have been eager to get back too…’
‘Fiancée?’ Lucianna expostulated as soon as he was out of earshot. ‘John, what’s going on? You and I aren’t engaged, and—’
‘We’ll talk about it later,’ John interrupted her. ‘Just don’t say anything, there’s a good girl, and I’ll explain everything later.’
Lucianna stared at him. Be a good girl…? How dared he adopt that kind of tone, that kind of manner with her…?
‘John…’ she began warningly, but he was shaking his head, and since the other guests at either side of them were taking their seats Lucianna acknowledged that she had no option but to wait until they had more privacy to both demand an explanation and to tell him that, far from being his fiancée, as of this evening their relationship was well and truly over!
The meal dragged on interminably. A small frown creased Lucianna’s forehead as she saw how much John was drinking. Sweat beaded his upper lip and his fair complexion looked unhealthily flushed. Suddenly Lucianna could see how he would be in twenty years’ time. How on earth had she ever thought him attractive?
Automatically she stood up.
‘Where are you going?’ John demanded.
‘To the ladies,’ Lucianna informed him quietly.
There was only one other girl in the ladies’ cloakroom when Lucianna pushed open the door and her heart sank as she saw who it was.
Felicity and her ‘boyfriend’ were seated almost opposite Lucianna and John and Lucianna had noticed that she too was drinking heavily.
‘You think you’ve got it made, don’t you?’ she sneered to Lucianna. ‘You really think that the reason John’s come back ahead of time is because of you. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong…’ She gave Lucianna a pleased smirk before toying with her already thick lipgloss.
‘The real reason he’s come back…sorry, been sent back…ahead of time is because our John…your John…has been having an affair with the wife of one of the Canadian partners. And he found out about it and John’s been sent home in disgrace, although of course it’s all been played down. The wife is insisting it was all a mistake and that her husband’s got it wrong, and as for John—well, John’s claiming that far from getting himself involved with another man’s wife he’s actually been counting the days until he got home to his own little wife-to-be.
‘He doesn’t really want to marry you at all…but he knows that unless he toes the line and produces a wife p.d.q. he’s going to be out of a job.
‘Nothing to say?’ she challenged Lucianna dulcetly. ‘Well, if you don’t believe me why don’t you ask John? Not that he’ll tell you the truth. John’s got quite an eye for our sex on the quiet, you know. The Canadian partner’s wife wasn’t his first indiscretion. He likes them older and married…it makes them so much more grateful and so much easier to get rid of when the affair has lost its lustre…
‘Oh, dear, have I shocked you?’ she cooed with patent insincerity when Lucianna made a small shocked sound. ‘But surely you must have been suspicious? After all, before
he went away he’d made it pretty obvious that he’d lost interest in you, hadn’t he? So you must have wondered what was going on when he came back very much the adoring lover…Not, of course, that the two of you have been lovers, have you? He told me that the night he and I…Whoops! I don’t suppose you know about that either, do you?’
Lucianna waited until she had gone before going to the foyer to use the payphone to ring for a taxi, and to ask the receptionist for a small piece of paper so that she could write John a note. She kept it short and succinct, telling him that their relationship, such as it was, was over and adding that she would prefer it if he did not make any attempt to get in touch with her.
Strangely, as she climbed into the taxi and gave the driver the address of the farm, her strongest feeling was one of intense relief, a sense of having escaped—John’s affair or affairs meant nothing whatsoever to her, and she was simply quietly thankful that the fact that they had never had an intimate physical relationship meant that she need have no fears for her own health and well-being.
As the taxi turned into the farm lane, she instructed the driver to drop her at the normally seldom used front door instead of driving round into the yard.
John was a part of her life that was now—thankfully—over. She only wished she could say the same about the pain that loving Jake was causing her, but instinct told her that Jake and her love for him were things that she would never be able to forget or ignore.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JAKE had just stepped out of the shower when he heard the taxi draw up outside the front of the farmhouse. Grabbing a towel, he hurried downstairs, reaching the hallway just as Lucianna was pushing open the front door.
