With This Man

  Without question, Zara quickly and keenly taps her number into my phone and connects the call, letting her phone ring once before hanging up and saving my number.

  ‘Perfect,’ I declare as she hands it back and I slip it into my bag. She smiles. It’s such a warm smile. Friendly and accepting, and it makes me feel so at ease.

  We chat about almost anything for the next hour, almost anything except my recent accident. She doesn’t need to know that, and it’s a relief to have it off my mind for a while. Just talking. Getting to know someone. Someone who I’m not already supposed to know. I’m so wrapped up in the chatter, I completely lose track of time.

  ‘Goodness, where did the time go?’ Zara laughs, getting up from her chair. ‘I was supposed to be at a hair appointment fifteen minutes ago to sort out this mop.’

  Her hair looks just fine, long, dark, glossy waves that make her blue eyes more striking.

  ‘Don’t you work on Mondays?’

  ‘I usually work from home a few days a week, so I get a bit of freedom to sneak to yoga and the salon.’ She winks, and I laugh. ‘I’ll see you Friday?’

  ‘Sure.’ We walk to the door together, and as soon as I make it to the pavement, I spot Jesse’s Aston up the road through the trees lining the street. Oh no. John must have called him. I quickly find my phone and cringe. Missed call, texts and voicemails crowd the locked screen. I shrink a little. ‘My husband is waiting for me.’

  ‘Oh, where?’ Zara looks where I point, having to bend to get Jesse’s car in her sights. ‘That fine man pacing the pavement?’ She gives me a playful look. ‘You lucky thing, you.’

  ‘Oh, behave.’ I laugh, and she does, too, giving me a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Have fun at the salon,’ I call as she jogs off.

  I smile, thinking that I like Zara. My smile is short-lived, though, when I turn to find Jesse stalking down the street in my direction, looking nothing short of murderous.

  What’s his problem?

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ he barks, positively shaking with rage. ‘I’ve been going out of my fucking mind, lady!’ He seizes my hand harshly, and I look back to see if Zara is still around, because I know just what she would think if she saw this little episode.

  What the hell is he doing? ‘Get your hands off me.’ I snap, shoving him away. ‘I went for a fucking coffee.’

  His face is that of pure shock. And not because I went for coffee. ‘Mouth!’

  ‘Fuck you, you heathen.’ I barge past him, attempting to stomp to the car, but my leg is aching badly now. This? This ridiculously over-the-top reaction, just because I went for a coffee? The man has a screw loose.

  ‘God damn it, Ava!’ He’s coming after me fast, fuelled by his rage. I don’t care. He can’t stop me going for coffee, and come to think of it . . .

  ‘I’m going back to work.’ I must be fucking doolally. Why would I goad him like this? Why would I poke the fucking bear?

  He lands in front of me as I step into the road, every inch of his tall frame vibrating. I square my shoulders and lift my chin, displaying all of the grit I feel. ‘Over my dead body,’ he whispers lowly, getting his face close to mine. I don’t back up. Never. ‘You’re not ready to go back to work.’

  ‘No, I’m not ready to go back to your work. Because I haven’t got a fucking clue what I’m doing! As soon as I can, I’ll be applying for a job where I do know what I’m doing.’ It’s then, after the onslaught of my shouts, I realise that I haven’t just poked the bear, I may as well have stabbed the beast.

  His chest slowly inflates, his face getting redder and redder. I wisely back up now, ready for the beast to explode. But what will come first? Because there are two issues here, my language, and the fact that I’m threatening to get myself another job. He won’t let me work anywhere except with him? How stupid!

  ‘Watch your fucking mouth!’ he booms, practically silencing the entire street with the volume. Maybe even the whole of London. ‘And the day you get another job is the day you put me six feet under.’

  ‘Don’t fucking tempt me.’ I take a wide berth around him, aware of him close behind. I’ll be the one six feet under at this rate. With stress.

  I yank the car door open and throw myself into the seat heavily, wincing as I do. I hurt. Everywhere. I turn my face away when he lands in the driver’s side, his force putting mine to shame. ‘I’ve had a million heart attacks in the past hour!’

  ‘And a seizure. And a stroke, by the look on your face. I had a coffee, for crying out loud. Aren’t I allowed that?’

  ‘Who with?’ He revs his Aston hard, the car sounding as angry as him. ‘Because I rang Kate looking for you, and you weren’t with her.’

  ‘I have other friends, too, you know.’

  ‘Like who?’ He roars off down the road, throwing me back in my seat. Oh, he’s mad all right. Good. So am I. Who does he think he is?

  ‘A friend from yoga,’ I tell him snootily, not willing to elaborate. Call me pathetic, but I kind of like the idea of having someone all to myself. ‘You’re driving like an idiot.’ I clutch the side of my seat when he zooms through an amber light, cutting someone off when he switches lanes. We get honked at, and Jesse proceeds to flip the finger, not once, but twice, hurling a barrage of abuse out the window. Jesus Christ, the man is a fucking lunatic.

  ‘Given my accident,’ I say, quietly alarmed by his recklessness, ‘I’m surprised you’re being so careless.’ The brakes screech, and we’re suddenly crawling along the road at a snail’s pace. ‘Now you’re just being stupid.’ I fire him a filthy look, but note very quickly that he’s not being stupid at all. He’s being serious, his brow all crinkled in silent thought. And I know those thoughts are of the day he found my mangled car before he found my mangled body. I can see the flashbacks in his rapidly dulling eyes, his anger morphing into pain. And that pain finds its way into my heart and makes me feel like the worst person in the world.

  Damn it. I close my eyes briefly and sigh, reaching for his hand where it’s squeezing the wheel, his knuckles white. He lets me prise his fingers free and bring his hand to my lap, where I cup it with my other, holding it tightly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, a million strands of regret woven between the two small words. There’s that instinct again. The one that desperately wants to ease his pain. To make him calmer. To give him what he needs.

  He pulls the car over to the side of the road and takes his hands back, scrubbing them down his face slowly and harshly. The evidence of a tear streaks his bristly cheek. Oh God. What have I done? He looks on the verge of breaking down. I unclip my belt and crawl across the centre console, onto his lap, pulling his hands away from his face. Deep green eyes overflowing with dread gaze back at me. ‘You need to chill out, Jesse.’

  ‘I’ll chill out if you stop trying to kill me dead.’ He’s serious, yet the crack in his voice is clear. His true fear is sobering. And, I realise, I shouldn’t toy with that.

  ‘Be quiet and kiss me,’ I demand, taking the reins, doing what I’m fast learning he needs me to do. And I don’t have to ask him twice. I’m taken in a kiss that’s full of appreciation as he sighs his thanks into my mouth and settles beneath me. His heart settles too, lowering to a soft thrum in his chest, reverberating against mine.

  ‘And to be clear,’ he mumbles, and I roll my eyes behind my lids, knowing exactly what’s coming. ‘You’re not getting another job.’ I don’t argue. Not now, though I plan on breaking him down gently over the coming weeks. Even I know I’m not ready to go back to work just yet. His head falls back against the headrest, his face serious. ‘Why didn’t you call me? Text me? Anything.’

  I look away, a bit embarrassed. ‘I don’t know how to use that stupid phone.’ I can feel a lump growing in my throat. It’s so stupid.

  My jaw is clenched and my face pulled to his. His face is agony. ‘I’m sorry for being unreason
able.’

  I feel immediately better. ‘So you’re going to let me work elsewhere?’

  ‘No,’ he says simply, with no apology. ‘That’ll never happen.’ The confidence in his voice almost makes me believe him myself. We’ll see. It is what it is, and he is what he is. Neurotic.

  And I am what I am.

  Falling in love with him.

  Chapter 26

  After my heart attack of yesterday, I kept Ava at home today and gave her an in-depth tutorial on how to use her phone. I only let her leave the house to keep her therapy session, and I drove her, waited, and brought her home. And she didn’t argue. Fucking hell, I’ve never been so panicked. The whole time she was missing, I tried to reason with myself. Tried to keep myself calm. It didn’t work. I was terrified, and then when I found her, that terror turned into anger. I couldn’t hold back. But what was she thinking, disappearing like that? It’s taken a whole twenty-four hours to get my heartbeats back to a safe level.

  Now I’m waiting for her in the hallway so we can meet the gang for dinner. I pace, back and forth, over and over. Where the hell is she? I glance down at my Rolex and sigh. Normally, I’d be up there helping her along in my own little way, but nothing about our lives feels normal any more.

  Wandering over to the mirror, I take in my Wentworth grey three-piece, pulling in the jacket and straightening my blue tie. ‘Perfect, Jesse,’ I say to myself, smoothing my hair into place. My hand pauses mid-fix. My suit might be dapper, my body carrying it well, but I look tired. Exhausted, in fact. Jesus, I’ve aged ten years in two weeks. I groan and blink my green eyes, feeling at my stubbled jaw. Stress appears embedded in my skin, clouding my eyes. I actually look my age, and that fucking sucks when you’re fifty. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I dial my mum.

  She’s quick to answer. ‘Jesse? Everything okay?’

  ‘Yeah, Mum. We’re getting there.’ The last thing I want to do is give her more cause for concern than there is, and there’s already a lot. ‘I need to ask you a question.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Answer truthfully.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How old do I look?’

  There’s a slight pause, and then she starts chuckling. ‘Darling boy, you don’t look a day over forty.’

  I catch myself in the mirror again, scoffing under my breath. ‘You’re just saying that to make me feel better.’

  ‘You’re tired, son.’

  ‘Fucking knackered.’

  ‘Jesse Ward, watch your language.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I grunt and continue faffing with my hair. ‘How’s Dad?’

  ‘Worried.’ She doesn’t beat around the bush. She doesn’t need to. Everyone is worried. ‘How is Ava? Any improvement?’

  ‘A little,’ I admit, wishing I could tell her there’s been a mammoth breakthrough. ‘The doctor’s been encouraged by the small signs we’ve seen so far.’

  ‘That’s good. You must be pleased.’

  I hum half-heartedly, telling myself once again that I’m expecting too much too quickly. ‘I have to go, Mum. I’m taking Ava out for dinner.’

  ‘Oh, how lovely!’ She sounds thrilled. ‘Bet you’re looking forward to that.’

  Not really. ‘I am. It’s like we’re dating again.’

  ‘Then make sure you woo her.’

  ‘Are you giving me relationship advice?’ I ask, hitching a sardonic eyebrow. I’ve known my wife for over twelve years. I do not need tips on how to woo her.

  ‘Well, we’ve all heard of your persistence in the early days of your relationship.’

  ‘I already told you, Ava exaggerates. I’ll call you tomorrow.’ I hang up, ready to yell my impatience up the stairs, but my phone rings again. I answer without looking. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Jesse?’ Sarah’s voice sinks into my ear and burns my brain.

  ‘How did you get my number?’ I’m instantly angry. Fucking fuming. Doesn’t she know what’s good for her? I hear the bedroom door closing. ‘Don’t call me again, Sarah.’

  ‘But I need—’

  I hang up on her, working hard to cool myself down before Ava questions my pent-up state. Be cool. Be calm. Then I catch sight of my wife. ‘What the fuck, Ava?’ It just tumbles out of my mouth but, Lord have mercy, what the fuck is she wearing? I gawk, studying the little red number, every little thread. It doesn’t take me long.

  ‘What?’ She brushes down the front of her dress with her palms. I’m hoping to get some kind of horrified gasp when she sees the thing that’s clinging to her lithe body, thinking maybe she missed the full-length mirror on the way out of the dressing room. But there’s no gasp. Just a questioning, curved eyebrow as she looks back up at my twitching form.

  What? What? Let’s start with the length of the damn thing.

  ‘Where did you find that?’ I ask.

  ‘It was at the back of my wardrobe.’

  I snort. At the back of her wardrobe hidden from me. When did she get it? When was she planning on wearing it? Shit, has she already? ‘You’re not wearing that.’

  Her head tilts, making her long hair skim her half-exposed boobs on one side. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Over my dead, decomposed body, Ava. You and I have a deal,’ I tell her, marching up the stairs towards her, set on turning her right around and sending her back to the bedroom in disgrace.

  Her eyes follow me all the way until I’m before her, her face plain confused. ‘What deal?’

  ‘You wear what I tell you to wear.’ I take her shoulders to turn her, but get shrugged off on a scoff.

  She’s off down the stairs before I’ve realised she’s missing from my grasp, leaving me a big bag of incredulous man at the top. ‘I’m changing the deal,’ she calls, fixing an earring in her ear as she goes.

  Excuse me? I fly off down the stairs after her. ‘You can’t change the deal.’

  ‘I just did.’ She disappears into the kitchen as I round the bottom of the stairs at one hundred miles an hour, skidding my way around the corner after her.

  I find her collecting her bag off the island. Her face is begging me to challenge her. Oh, I challenge. Doesn’t she know me at all? My brain spasms at that thought, and I boot it away before I can spend too much time agonising over the fact that she doesn’t at the moment. Well, she soon will. ‘The dress goes.’

  She lifts her dress even higher up her thigh, and I recoil at her sheer insolence. And cheek. And bravery. ‘The dress is staying.’ She looks down herself again. ‘It pulls me in at all the right places.’

  She doesn’t need pulling in. What she needs is a dress at least a foot longer. Ordinarily, she knows I can’t be held responsible for my actions if some stupid prick makes an inappropriate or rude remark, and the chance of that happening when she’s wearing a dress like this is multiplied by a million.

  ‘What are you gonna do, anyway?’ Another challenge, and I have to stop myself from laughing.

  ‘You really shouldn’t ask me that question. I’m not above doing it again.’ I walk over to the drawer and pull it open, searching through the utensils. Give me strength, that dress barely covers her arse.

  ‘The scissors are in the other drawer,’ she says, so matter-of-factly, almost casually.

  ‘What?’ I nearly chop my fingers off when I slam the drawer shut, swinging around to face her. How did she know I was searching for the scissors?

  Looking a little blank, she lifts her arm and points to a drawer. ‘That one.’

  I’m no longer shaking with anger, I’m shaking with excitement, but I force myself into something close to nonchalance. It’s fucking hard. This is colossal. I move slowly to the drawer and place my hand on it, never removing my eyes from hers. ‘This one?’

  She nods and I pull it open, blindly reaching inside for the scissors. Pulling them out, I calmly shut the drawer. And she fro
wns. ‘Why are you looking for the scissors, anyway?’

  I refuse to let her sudden confusion beat me down. What just happened was another glimmer of hope. Lifting them, I point them at the offending red dress and snip the air. ‘Are you going to remove the dress, or am I cutting it off?’ I tilt my head, a little serious, but mostly playfully. Truth be told, I’d let her wear the dress now. My mood has changed considerably.

  Comprehension slams into her, her jaw dropping. ‘Oh my God, you cut off my dress?’ Her hands come to the sides of her head and press against her temples, like she could be trying to squeeze the memory to the front. ‘What kind of unreasonable arsehole are you?’

  ‘The one you love,’ I declare, walking forward, snip-snipping at the air, a cunning smirk pulling at my lips. ‘Remove the dress.’

  ‘Fuck you, Jesse.’ She’s absolutely outraged. It’s sweetly reminiscent. ‘Jesus, did I actually let you do that?’

  ‘Yes. You were too distracted by all my handsome glory to notice what I was doing until it was too late.’

  She snorts. ‘I’ve never met such an egomaniac.’

  ‘Yes, you have.’ I continue to stalk forward, ready to pounce when she bolts. ‘And you married him.’

  ‘I must have been mad.’

  I take no offence, don’t let her claim faze me, since there’s absolutely no conviction in her tone. Just lust. ‘Crazy mad,’ I whisper, smiling when she starts taking steps back, trying to keep some distance between us.

  ‘Crazy mad,’ she murmurs in reply, her eyes clouding over with a ton of desire. ‘You are the crazy-mad one.’ Her arse meets the worktop, her retreat blocked. I reach her and press my front to hers, dipping to put my mouth at her ear.

  ‘Take it off.’

  ‘No.’ She’s being defiant for the sake of it, playing the game. She knows one way or another this dress is coming off.