*****
“Have you seen my wife?” Thomas asked as he came back down the stairs. He'd gone up to check on her and to find out if she wanted to have a bite to eat with him. He'd ended the exhausting argument with his sister and had regretted that he'd said what he had about ending the marriage after a year. He wasn't sure he meant it anymore.
“She left a few minutes ago sir,” the maid told him.
“Left? Did she say where she was going?”
“No, sir.”
“Thank you.” He descended the stairs and taking his phone from his pocket he called her several times, but the calls went straight to her voicemail.
“Donna, please call me back. I need to know where you are.” He hung up and just as he was about to put back the phone into his pocket it rang. Thinking it was her, he answered immediately.
“Darling, how are you?”
He stifled his impatience and strode into the study, closing the doors behind him. “Caroline, what can I do for you?”
“You left the party so abruptly last night that we didn't get to finish our conversation. I'm having lunch at Gina’s,” she said, referring to a trendy restaurant a few miles from the manor. “I would like you to join me.”
“I don’t think that's a good idea—”
“Please, darling. I really need to talk to you.”
“I'll be there in half an hour.”
“Thank you.”
He hung up and tried his wife’s phone again. “Donna, I'm really getting annoyed right now. Please call me back.” He hung up the phone and went to the window to look out, a furrow on his brow.
*****
“Tell me that I'm a fool,” Donna said as she stretched her glass out for a refill.
“You're a fool, but you didn't need me to tell you that.” Andrea poured the amber liquid in the glass and topped hers up before sitting across from her friend.
“I know.” Donna sipped her drink moodily as she contemplated her plight. She'd spent a half hour driving around before calling her friend and asking if she was home and then had come over. “I'm in love with him, Andrea. In love with a man who has a stone for a heart. After we spent last night and this morning in bed, I thought things had changed. How stupid of me to think that having all that wonderful sex would change his attitude and feelings towards me.”
“What are you going to do?”
She shrugged. “He's right. I might be pregnant and if I am, I'm going to have to think about the baby. If I'm not, then it would simply mean walking away from him, whatever I'm feeling.”
“Are you sure you can do that?”
Donna gulped the wine. “I don’t know. Dammit! Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with a regular guy who has a nine to five job and is committed to me? I had to go and fall for a man who has more money than several hundred men combined and a family who hates my very existence!” She threw up her hands. “How am I going to live in that luxurious prison for a year?”
“You can do it. I know you, Donna. You're strong and resilient, and no one can break you.”
“You're right,” she said with a sniff. “I'm just going to concentrate on work.”
“And if you're pregnant?”
She sighed and sank back into the cushions. “Then that's a whole different set of problems.”
*****
He kissed the proffered cheek automatically as Caroline got to her feet. The elegant restaurant wasn't very crowded, probably due to the fact that people were resting after partying the entire night. Caroline looked cool and chicly composed in a silk green top and black dress pants, her hair combed back into an elegant chignon. All through the ride to the restaurant he'd kept checking his phone, expecting a call back from Donna, but nothing and he had decided not to call her again. Damn her!
“What are you having?” she asked him.
“The pasta Primavera.”
“I'll have the same and a bottle of Cabernet,” she told the waiter with a wave of her hand. “How have you been?”
“Good and you?”
“Coping.” She sipped her lemon water delicately. “I hate this, darling; this stilted conversation, as if we're strangers. We were lovers and more than that, we were friends. I know you had to go through with this travesty of a marriage, but it doesn't mean that we have to be like this. It's killing me.”
“I'm not discussing my marriage with you,” he told her grimly. “I already told you that I can't be with you and I'm not making you any promises.”
“Talia and your mother detest her, and I know that you do too.”
“You've discussed Donna with my mother and sister?” he asked her with a frown.
“You're already aware that Talia and I are friends, darling, and your mother and mine sit on the same charities. We're all upset about this.”
“And you all sit around discussing my marriage. Don’t you have anything better to do?” he asked coolly.
She looked at him in surprise. “Darling, I had the impression that you were as angry about this as we are.”
“I was, because I don't like being manipulated. But it seems to me that you, my mother, and sister are the ones doing the manipulating now.”
She waited until the waiter had set their meals down before she continued. “We aren't manipulating you, darling. I think the woman you married is the one doing so.”
“I don't want to discuss this anymore. Is that understood?”
*****
“Honey, as much as I love having you here, I have to tell you that it's getting late and I'm sure your husband is wondering where the hell you are,” Andrea told her as she looked at her clock. Donna had fallen asleep after half a bottle of wine on an empty stomach, during which time, Andrea had made pasta with meat sauce. It had gotten dark outside as well.
She'd checked her phone and noticed the missed calls from Thomas. She'd also listened to the messages but hadn't returned the calls.
“He doesn't care, remember?” Donna murmured as she got to her feet. “But you're right, I should be going.”
“I guess I'll see you at work on Monday?”
“You will.” She hugged her friend. “Thanks for dinner and the wine.”
“Next time you have to invite me to that fancy house on the hill.”
“Believe me when I say that you wouldn't enjoy the atmosphere,” Donna said wryly. With a wave she put on her jacket and headed for door. She was in the car when the phone rang again and this time she answered.
“Where the hell are you? I've called you several times.”
“I went out. Surely I'm allowed that much?”
“Donna, where are you?”
“On my way back. I'm driving now and can't talk on my phone.” With that she hung up on him and turned off her phone.
*****
He was waiting for her in the foyer when she got there. He turned to face her as soon as the maid opened the doors to admit her. “That’s all,” he told the woman with a nod.
“Don’t tell me you were worried?” she asked sweetly as she headed towards the stairs. He strode forward and grabbed her arm.