Jason noticed the look on her face.
Leaning so that he was close to her neck, he had put one arm round her waist and with the other, he adjusted the platinum and sapphire necklace he’d bought her several years ago, and which worked so wonderfully with the silver lace dress she wore. His large fingers caressed her collarbone delicately.
‘OK, honey? You looked like you might reach over the flowers to stab Rob there for a moment.’
She hauled her anger back in. ‘It’s nothing,’ she lied. ‘Tell you later?’
He nodded.
Now, in the back of the car, she allowed herself to lean against him, smelling his cologne and feeling the warmth of his body as he put an arm around her. She wanted to ask him about Rob, find out if he thought his best pal might really have hidden money from Evelyn in the divorce. But Jason was obviously so happy with the whole evening and she didn’t want to ruin the closeness between them.
‘Great evening,’ he said, loosening his tie and popping his collar button. ‘You looked amazing, babes. Did you see those guys at the table to our right? They kept looking over at me and Rob: full of naked, undisguised envy.’ His hand slid under the bodice of the silvery dress and he cupped her breast with longing.
‘Not in the car!’ she said, although the feeling of his warm hand on her flesh gave her a shiver of desire.
Wonderful, she thought with pleasure. It seemed that Old Crone was off duty tonight. Maybe her menopausal flesh hadn’t withered and died.
Jason’s hand kept stroking. ‘The driver’s paid not to notice or watch.’
‘If I want an audience, I’ll try being a porn star,’ joked Callie. ‘Honey, let’s wait till we get home.’
Reluctantly, he pulled his hand out, but not before squeezing her nipple.
‘Jason!’
‘You look so hot tonight,’ he murmured. ‘Rob and I are lucky guys. Talking of which, what was up with you and Rob? You looked so angry with him. Don’t tell me – Evelyn was spinning more anti-Rob propaganda?’
Just like that, she felt her sexual urges vanish. Callie was so annoyed, she slid across the leather seat away from him.
‘Anti-Rob propaganda?’ she said. ‘He tried to hide assets from her when they were getting divorced. They have three sons, were together since school, Jason. That’s not how you treat someone you respect.’
‘He didn’t hide anything,’ said Jason, jaw tightening. He stared straight ahead, not looking at her, which was what he did when he was angry. ‘Don’t swallow everything you hear, Callie. You’re so bloody naïve sometimes.’
‘I’m naïve?’
‘Yeah, very naïve. Rob was good to Evelyn. He’s a rich man, he didn’t want to give her everything he’d worked his butt off for. So what? Does that make him the bad guy?’
‘They were together since they were teenagers!’ went on Callie. ‘Fine, he didn’t want to pony up every penny he ever had, but please don’t tell me that he treated Evelyn with respect when they were married. He screwed everything that moved, Jason: you knew that, even if you never told me. So he owed her decency and some honesty when they were divorcing.’
‘She got a good deal,’ said Jason.
‘Why did she need to get forensic accountants onto it then?’
‘It was a misunderstanding. Rob didn’t want to go through all that. He was good and fair to her in the end. Hell, he was just upset it was over. He loved her, despite the women, you must know that. Rob just needed a bit of variety. He’d have stayed with Evelyn forever if she hadn’t pushed him out.’
Callie said nothing. Was that really what Jason thought? That it would have been better for Evelyn to turn a blind eye to her husband’s philandering and then they’d still have been together?
The car pulled up outside their house and the driver silently got out and opened Callie’s door.
‘Thank you,’ she said, feeling ashamed that this was the first time she’d spoken to the man. Once, she’d have talked to every cab driver.
‘You’re better than nobody and nobody’s better than you, Claire’ – that had been her mother’s mantra.
Now she’d turned into one of those people who said nothing to the man who’d driven her home, and she’d let her husband feel her up in the back of the car, treating the driver like he was nobody, just hired help to be ignored. What sort of awful cow was she turning into?
Thoughts of her mother made her think of the row – again. Her birthday was looming and some of the most important people in her life wouldn’t be there.
That horrible scene from ten years ago was burned into her brain like a cattle brand. Jason and her mother had never got on, but when her mother had come for a rare trip to Dublin, Jason had had a few drinks at dinner at home – Jason would not bring his unworldly mother-in-law out to a posh restaurant – and unwisely, Pat Sheridan had sparked it all off by wondering why they needed such a big house, so much money? Would he never be satisfied? His own mother, long since widowed, missed him. His brother had long left Ireland, whereabouts unknown. Pat had not bitten her tongue on the matter.
‘She has nobody else, Jason. You need to visit her.’
Jason, an expensive cigar in his hand, had stared at her with a cold gaze.
‘Nobody tells me I need to do anything, Pat,’ he said harshly.
Callie could tell he was getting angry: that small muscle in his jaw was twitching He was furious. Why couldn’t the people she loved get on?
But her mother was angry now too.
‘You’re with me now, Jason,’ she said harshly. ‘You can cut the posh accent.’
The row had been pyrotechnic. Jason had yelled that he’d got out of his past and she was just jealous. He began to boast about the plans he had for a villa in a private estate in Portugal and how dare she think she knew what was enough. He would decide that.
‘You’re nothing but a jumped-up control freak who manages to fool people,’ her mother had said when Jason was mid-boast. ‘You don’t fool me, you never have. You control my Claire. I can see it even if she can’t. You’ve cut her off from her old friends and you try to cut her off from us—’
Jason had interrupted. ‘What’s wrong with cutting her off from drug addicts?’ he had spat back, eyes enraged. ‘Your precious son Freddie is nothing but a heroin addict who still tries to pal around with Callie’s ex, another damned junkie, even if he thinks he’s Mr Big Rock Star.’
‘Freddie’s clean, he’s getting help,’ hissed her mother, all sense gone now.