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‘Where are you off to?’ He tried to keep the question casual but he heard a note of possessiveness in his voice. He was going to have to practise that and do better when Ellie was old enough to pick up her car keys and go out for the night.
‘One of the wine bars in town. The one in Abbey Street.’
He knew the one. Quiet and comfortable, a good place to talk and a nice bar menu.
‘Great. Well...’ He suppressed the temptation to ask her what time she’d be home.
She glanced into the mirror in the hall, running her fingers through the burnished copper of her hair. The arrangement seemed somehow softer, brushed to lie heavy on her brow, and Jack could see sparkles of twisted silver hanging from her ears. Her lips were... Jack wasn’t sure what shade of red that was. Delicious Red, maybe. Kissable Red.
‘You look pretty.’ Ellie supplied the words that he couldn’t. She looked gorgeous. Boots, a black suede skirt and a sheer top with a sleeveless slip underneath, which allowed a tantalising glimpse of the curve of her shoulders and the shape of her arms.
‘Thank you, sweetie.’
‘I want a handbag like yours.’
‘You like it?’ Cass flushed a little at the compliment and Jack almost fainted. Was she actually trying to make him dizzy or did she really not know just how amazing she looked?
‘I like the dangles...’ Ellie ran up to her, tugging at the long fringe that hung from the sides of her bag. Jack imagined that when she walked it mimicked some of the graceful sway of her hips.
‘Let Cass go, sweetie.’ Ellie was about to throw her arms around Cass and the thought of rumpling such perfection was unbearable. ‘She’ll be late.’
‘Bye, Ellie.’ She bent down and gave the little girl a hug, somehow managing to keep her make-up intact and her hair just so. ‘See you in the morning.’
‘Yeah. Have a good evening.’ Jack wondered whether he was going to wait up for her, and decided that if he did so it would be from the safety of his bedroom. Probably with most of the furniture piled up against the door, to at least provide some pause for thought before he marched out to ask her what kind of time she called this and then dragged her into his arms.
‘Thanks.’ She grabbed her coat, giving a little wave and a bright grin, and Ellie followed her to the front door, which gave Jack the chance to watch Cass walk down the front path and appreciate the fluid movement of her body.
Then she got into her car, a bright pearl shining in a sea of blue paint, mud and rust spots. Jack watched her draw away and turned, taking Ellie back inside. The house seemed suddenly very quiet.
* * *
He’d listened to the silence in the living room and then gone to bed early, just to see whether the silence in his bedroom might feel less grating. Finally, at eight minutes past one, Jack had heard the front door close quietly and then the pad of stockinged feet on the stairs.
The soft sound of her bedroom door closing allowed him to track her progress. Jack tried not to imagine her throwing her bag on the bed. Taking off her jewellery and slipping the sheer top from her shoulders. He turned over in bed and resolutely shut his eyes.
The silence seemed less a sign that something was missing and more an indication that all was well. Jack drifted off to sleep, but even then his unconscious mind was unable to filter Cass out of his dreams.
* * *
It seemed that Jack’s unerring radar for detecting any signs of movement on Ellie’s part had failed him once again. Cass, on the other hand, seemed to be picking up that instinct. Despite a late night, she woke early, to the sound of Ellie singing to herself in her bedroom.
She turned over in bed, trying to pretend she hadn’t heard. Jack would be up soon and it was his job to look after his daughter. The singing continued, and she found herself out of bed, struggling into her dressing gown, before she had a chance to think about it any further.
‘Go back to bed, sweetie...’
Ellie’s answering smile indicated that she would do no such thing. She reached her arms up for a good-morning hug, and Cass gave in to the inevitable.
Toast and some juice were followed by coffee for herself and a glass of frothed milk for Ellie. The little girl sat at the kitchen table, carefully mimicking Cass’s actions, sipping her milk slowly as if she too felt the caffeine bringing her round after a late night.
‘Morning.’ Jack was still bleary-eyed, his hair wet from the shower. Suddenly Cass was wide awake.
He looked good enough to eat. His washed-out jeans low on his hips, a dark shirt which seemed to have one of the buttons at the top missing, the extra inch or so of open neckline seeming to draw her gaze. Beautiful. From the top of his head to the tips of his sneakers.
Stop, it’s not like that. I don’t even fancy him. The lies she’d managed to half believe last night were coming back to slap her in the face this morning. And the questions from her friends about who she was staying with and what he was like had suggested possibilities that she’d been doing her best to ignore.
He bent to kiss Ellie and then turned his gaze on to her. ‘Did you have a good evening?’
‘Yes, thanks. Seems like an age since I’ve been out.’
