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Up to this point he had never absented himself from work for this length of time, but he’d known that if he wanted to prove to Gwen he was serious about being part of Ellie’s life he had to show his willingness to adapt, show he didn’t want to be an absentee father.
He had not gone totally off grid; he had left an emergency number, but had made it clear to his second in command that when he said emergency he meant emergency.
So when the private number had buzzed earlier, the timing had been lousy but he had known he had to answer it.
He was glad he had. The conference call had certainly had its tense moments but half an hour later he was able to sink back into the padded swivel chair, happy in the knowledge that a costly disaster had been averted.
The noise from the party was reduced to a gentle hum in the book-lined study where he had used to sit in a corner with a book, watching his mother write in one of the journals she kept. One day, she used to tell him, she’d turn the words on the paper into a book—he wondered idly if she still intended to.
Spinning around, he was about to lever himself out of the chair when a breathy voice made him freeze.
‘Rio...so there you are, you naughty man. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’
He sighed. Some people just shouldn’t drink and Rachel was one of them. ‘Hello, Rach, what brings you here?’ The thing with Rachel was that, while perfectly charming when she was sober, when she was drunk the young widow was an octopus. He wasn’t the only one of her friends to notice that she was drunk a lot of the time these days and as yet she hadn’t admitted to herself that she had a problem.
‘Were you waiting for me, darling?’ she slurred as she swayed into the room on perilously high heels.
Rio’s sympathy was currently tinged with impatience. He really didn’t have time for this; he needed to get back to the party and Gwen.
‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘Oh, I think you were... Are we going for that swim now?’ She gave a little giggle. ‘Oh, yes, that would be lovely. I don’t have a swimsuit, but you don’t mind that, do you, darling?’
‘Nota good idea, Rach.’ Alarmed by the speed with which this farce was developing and the potential for it becoming something worse, Rio moved forward, but was too late to stop her pulling down the zip on her sparkling minidress. The back sagged open and it slid half off her shoulders.
‘Dios mio, Rachel, you need a coffee.’
She stood there swaying, her colour suddenly not good. He noticed the tears standing out in her eyes and his mood softened as he realised that on one level she had to know that she was making a fool of herself, and yet he and everyone else would carry on making allowances for her because you did cut some slack for someone who’d nursed the love of their life through a terrible terminal illness before being tragically widowed in their twenties.
‘No, I need to lie down...’ She blinked and the tears were gone and her seductive smile reappeared. ‘Lie down with me, Rio...’ She made a grab for his shirt and for a moment it seemed as if it was the only thing holding her up.
Grinding out a curse, he moved his hand to her waist to stop her slithering to the floor. She didn’t, but the dress finally surrendered to gravity and lay like a pile of chain mail at her feet.
It was into this scene that Gwen walked, and his first reaction was relief that there was someone to help him cope with his sad, drunk friend.
He was about to say,Thank God you’re here, when he saw her face, white as chalk, and her blue eyes frosted with suspicion and accusation.
He was ready to concede that at first glance this could look like an incriminating scenario, but she had towantto read it that way, he decided grimly, to carry on believing that. Unless, of course, Gwen really thought he was the sort of person who was likely to take advantage of a drunk and vulnerable woman.
Reacting to the direct hit to his pride inflicted by Gwen’s silent accusation, he found that, instead of appealing for help, he’d angled a look of challenge at her. He was almost daring her to say what she was thinking as the woman he was supporting snuggled up closer to him, the sense of betrayal he was feeling stoking his spiralling anger.
She said nothing, but her silence spoke volumes. Rio remembered his father’s toxic silences, meant to punish, and they had. They could last weeks after he had thought he’d discovered his wife having a non-existent affair that had been proven in his distorted eyes by a glance or even on one occasion, Rio remembered, a pair of shoes!
If Gwen could not trust him, that was her problem. He would not validate her jealousy by offering excuses, or demean himself by doing so.
But as she walked away, still without having said a word, he saw that Gwen was carrying her shoes, the same shoes he had earlier imagined her wearing with nothing else on as he carried her to their bed.
He still had Rachel in his arms, and getting her onto the couch while evading her attempt to grab his crotch did not improve his temper. Luckily for him the next person to appear in the doorway did not look at him with accusing eyes; instead, she was sympathetic and grateful. Rachel’s friend May had come looking for her.
Her face was solemn as she told Rio to return to the party; she would stay with Rachel, she said.
‘This isn’t the real her, you know,’ she added as Rio turned to go.
‘I know, but she needs help. She can’t go on like this.’
The other woman sighed. ‘I agree. Maybe it’s time we all stopped covering for her, before it’s too late.’
Minutes beforehand, Gwen had been able to circulate and feel as if she belonged with all these amusing, entertaining people. Now, as she returned from Rio’s study, she felt awkward and out of place, and whatever had made her feel she belonged, it was pathetic.
