“How can you forget work like this? Thanks for dealing with those women, by the way.”
“You’re welcome. It was more excitement than I usually have in a day. Do you think I have a future in espionage?”
“No, but I think you have a future as an artist.” Finn bent down and took a closer look at one of the canvases. “They’re stunning. You have a real gift, Liza.”
“Thank you. That’s kind.”
“I’m never kind. Ask anyone who knows me.” He pulled one of the larger canvases out and rested it on the table. “Will you sell me this?”
“Instead of the other one?”
“No. I want both.” He studied her work in progress. “This would look perfect in my hallway.”
“It isn’t finished.”
“Then finish it and name your price.”
She swallowed. “Are you being polite?”
A smile played around his mouth. “I’m neither polite, nor kind. I’m buying it because I want it, and when I want something—” He left the pause hanging there and it grew and grew, fed by the tense atmosphere.
She wouldn’t have thought so much could be said without either of them uttering a word.
His face hovered close to hers and she had a crazy instinct that he was about to kiss her, right here in the leafy shadows of the garden.
She could barely focus, her mind hazy from need and wine. “I’m married.”
“I know.” His smile widened, seductive and knowing.
She shook her head, acknowledging the differences between them. And those differences, and the lure of the forbidden, were what made him so attractive, of course. It was hard not to feel flattered. Harder still not to be tempted. “Maybe you’re as bad as the rumors suggest.”
“Maybe I am.” His gaze lowered to her mouth and the heat in his eyes almost singed her skin. “How about you, Liza?”
How about her?
She’d always thought she was the type of woman who would never look at another man, but she was looking at Finn.
She was being pulled by an invisible thread to the edge of a cliff, and there would be no recovering from the fall.
His mouth was dangerously close to hers. “Think about it.”
She swayed, disorientated. “You mean about selling the paintings?”
“That too.” He stroked a finger lazily over her cheek. “Thank you for a great evening. Come over to my place tomorrow.”
Come over to his place? For dinner? For sex?
“What exactly are you offering?”
“That’s up to you.” He was so close that a fraction of movement on her part would have meant they were kissing.
“Finn—”
“Come at 7:00. That way we’ll have time for a swim before.”
Before what?
She opened her mouth to ask, but he was already strolling up the path away from her.
She stood, torn between calling him back and letting him go.
What was she doing?
Of course she couldn’t go to his place tomorrow. She wasn’t naive. It was obvious that he wasn’t inviting her to sample his cooking.
He hadn’t even touched her, but she felt as if he had. She rubbed her palms up her arms. Her skin felt warm, her whole body engulfed in a delicious melty feeling.
Shaking her head, she closed the door of the summerhouse and walked on unsteady legs back to the house, but Finn had gone.
She felt different, and it wasn’t the dress or the heels. It was the way Finn had looked at her. He’d made her feel attractive. Aware of herself as a woman.
But she wasn’t going to go tomorrow.
Or was she? She was going to be opening Ruth’s letters with her mother tomorrow afternoon. It could be upsetting. An evening with Finn would give her something to look forward to.
The doorbell rang and her pulse rate doubled.
Finn.
He’d changed his mind about waiting until tomorrow.
Smoothing her hair, she took a deep breath and walked to the door, feeling tall and elegant in her new heels.
She tugged open the door, a smile on her face, and almost fell over.
Sean stood there, hair ruffled, unshaven, eyes tired. In his hand was the article from the magazine, crumpled and torn in places. Eight signs that your marriage might be in trouble.
“Hi, Liza.”
19
LIZA
Liza slept badly, which tended to happen when your husband arrived unannounced and you were all dressed up and contemplating sex with another man.
She would not have slept with Finn, or so she told herself as she lay staring at the ceiling, thinking about Sean who she’d sent to the bedroom across the corridor.
It was the first time in their long marriage that they’d been in the same house and slept apart. She’d used the excuse that he must be tired after the journey and in need of a good sleep, but really it was because she wasn’t sure there was room in the bed for the two of them and her guilt. She needed to think everything through and she wouldn’t be able to do that with Sean lying next to her.
Why should she feel guilty? She hadn’t done anything. Thinking about something didn’t count, did it? Or maybe it did.
She’d felt like the one in the right, but now she felt like the one in the wrong which was what happened when you put off doing something that needed to be done.
She should have spoken to Sean right away, the moment those first doubts had crept into her head. Like spotting a weed in the garden, she should have said, Look at that! Let’s pull it up right now in case it spreads, but she hadn’t, and she’d let it spread until there were so many weeds she could barely see him through the tangled mess.
She saw now that she was as responsible for their problems as he was, because she hadn’t said anything. She’d expected him to know, as if he should have been able to read her mind after so many years. As if he had magical powers.
But life wasn’t magical, it was messy and real and never more real than when Sean turned up at the door, frantic because he’d found the article and didn’t want their marriage to be in trouble. She didn’t want it to be in trouble either, but her response to that had been to dig her head into the sand and then run away and press Pause on her life, whereas he’d immediately sped to her side.
She’d always thought she was nothing like her mother, but now she realized that wasn’t true. Being honest about emotions was easy when those emotions were positive and clear, but not so easy when there were difficult conversations to be had.