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That stopped Naomi in her tracks and slowly she turned. ‘This afternoon?’
‘When he came by our apartment.’
Naomi felt sweat trickling between her breasts. ‘I thought the two of you...’ She halted herself, refusing to be drawn in, but Candice used her small opening wisely.
‘You thought we were finished. Is that what he told you?’
Naomi’s jaw gritted.
‘I guess Abe would say that, but of course we’re not finished.’
Naomi found her fire then, just for a second. ‘I know that he pays you...’
It was futile, of course.
‘Of course he does.’ Candice shrugged. ‘Abe likes me to look goodallthe time. In fact, I just signed a contract for another year.’ She took out her phone and pulled up a document.
‘I don’t need to see that.’
‘Oh, I’d suggest that you take a good look,’ Candice said, ‘because you really do seem rather clueless as to how this all works. There’s reams of it...’
And there was, and even if she tried not to look, she saw the Madison Avenue address and, yes, it was all too sordid for her.
Not that Candice had finished marking her territory and warning Naomi off. ‘In a nutshell I just accepted his terms again. I’ll turn the other cheek and be back by his side in the new year and back in his bed.’
‘Abe said that you don’t sleep together.’ Naomi was trying her hardest to keep it together, and she wasn’t being a bitch in her response, more trying to explain she would never be involved with Abe if she thought he was with someone.
‘And you believed him when he said that?’ Candice let out a tinkle of laughter. ‘As I said, I accept his affairs, although I have to say...’ she looked down at Naomi’s full figure ‘...he’s scraping the barrel right now. Maybe he’s having a fat phase. Then again, as my friend just said when she saw the two of you dancing, it’s always so much harder to get the vehicle serviced when it’s snowing.’
As Candice walked off, Naomi felt sick.
She felt embarrassed.
And guilty too.
Because even if nothing much had happened between herself and Abe, deep down Naomi had been hoping that tonight it would.
She admitted it to herself then.
The pampering and preening had all been in the hope of being made love to tonight by him.
Naomi had even accepted that for Abe it could only ever be a fling.
She had lowered her standards over and over to be met by him, all the way down to a one-night stand, but she would never have agreed to tonight had she known that he was still with Candice.
Naomi gripped the sink and tried to hold in the tears, but they had already started to come.
Big fat tears that took with them the lashings of mascara and slid down her cheeks in oily black streaks, and her nose went from white to red with the speed of a supercar’s engine.
And that red nose ran too.
She tried to blot the tears with one of the little fluffy hand towels and she tried to hold in the great shuddering sobs, but they were building and women were coming in, and looking at her sideways. And she thought about what Candice’s friend had said, about her size and how it was hard to get serviced when it was snowing, and for Naomi it was just all too much.
They werealllaughing at her, Naomi was sure.
And she was heaping loathing on herself for daring to dream that things could be different, even for one night.
Naomi walked away from the stares in the restroom to the stares in the gorgeous foyer, crowded with people collecting their coats, and it felt as if they turneden masseto look at her.
