“I’m sorry, Cash, that was –”
“Stop saying sorry, darling,” his burr sounded softly in her ear, her body experienced a top-to-toe shiver and he finished, “see you tonight.”
Then he disconnected.
Abby slid her phone shut and saw Jenny was staring at her.
“What just happened?” she asked and Abby had a fleeting feeling of fear that Jenny knew about the top-to-toe shiver.
“What?” Abby asked, trying to look innocent.
“Are Kieran and I really having dinner with you, Cash Fraser and Mrs. Truman?” Jenny queried as if she wanted above all else in the world for Abby to say “no”.
Abby was forced to disappoint her friend. “I’m afraid so.”
“My God,” Abby breathed, “we’re going to have to pretend he’s your new boyfriend. He doesn’t know about us.”
This was true.
“Oh my God,” Abby whispered, a new feeling of fear gripping her.
“Don’t worry,” Jenny rallied first, “I’ll talk to Kieran. Everything will be fine. Right?”
Abby nodded, as ever sucking courage from her friend in a time of need.
Abby and Jenny walked to the kitchen together.
“Was it okay?” Jenny asked, “Last night?”
Abby nodded, went to the kettle and took it to the sink to refill it.
She was going to lie.
If there was ever a time to lie, this was it.
Jenny already felt responsible enough. She didn’t need to know what happened this morning.
“He was really late,” Abby explained to her friend. “We just talked and then went to bed. He didn’t try anything.”
“How weird,” Jenny mumbled to herself then her eyes focused on Abby. “What’d you talk about?”
“Music,” that wasn’t a lie, really, “food,” that also wasn’t a lie, as such. “Not much, he was really late,” that was a total lie (well, not the last part).
Jenny looked at Abby closely and Abby figured her friend knew she was telling tall tales, or short, uninformative ones, but Jenny’s face cleared and her eyes got soft.
“He’s being okay with you?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Abby replied, setting the kettle on its charge and flipping it on. She turned back to her friend and rested her h*ps against the counter. “He’s a…” she hesitated and then went on, sharing just a little bit, “Jenny, I think he’s a good guy. He thinks I’m funny and…” she stopped.
“And what?” Jenny prompted.
“And that’s it. It’s weird sometimes because he’s so hot and, well, he’s rich and paid for me to be with him but when I forget that, it’s okay,” Abby told her.
“You’re sure?” Jenny asked and when Abby nodded, she watched her friend’s body relax and realised just how much Jenny was shouldering this burden.
She’d been right.
Definitely right.
Abby wasn’t going to share any of the things that were not okay with Cash.
Further, Abby wasn’t going to share any of the feelings about Cash she felt relatively certain Jenny would not think were okay.
Jenny walked to a cupboard and pulled down a mug asking, “So, what does Hot Guy, International Man of Mystery, Spy Master General wear to bed?”
At that, Abby knew, for now, everything was okay.
Chapter Seven
Late
Abigail Butler was stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She thought she was being smart. She had it all planned. Then, as usual, it all went awry.
She’d decided, since tonight was the night the use of hands, mouths, touching, tasting, etc. was going to “begin”, she’d delay it by spending part of the time together with Cash cooking.
What she wanted to make for dinner would take a half an hour, more if you counted cooking time.
So she decided to arrive at a quarter to seven and still be cooking when Cash got home. He’d have to wait to do… whatever-it-was-he-was-going-to-do… until after she was done cooking, the food was done grilling and steaming and they were done eating.
She lived in Clevedon, he lived in Bath. It was a forty-five minute drive.
What Abby didn’t know since she usually took the train or travelled during non-rush-hour-times, was that it was a forty-five minute drive on a good day.
On a bad day (which Abby seemed to be having a lot of lately or, perhaps, for the last six years) and traffic was heavy and an accident meant the cars were crawling on the motorway, it took a whole lot longer.
Furthermore, it was against the law to talk on your mobile in your car in England so when Cash called at seven twenty-five, she couldn’t answer.
Even though she turned up her music very loudly so she couldn’t hear the phone beeping to tell her she had a voicemail message, it rested on her passenger seat in a threatening way like a coiled snake waiting to strike, freaking her out throughout her journey.
Last, but not least, it was a veritable impossibility to park in Bath. She’d discovered that the day before but somehow forgot it in the twenty-four hours since driving there last.
She was a half hour late to be there for Cash’s arrival. It became forty-five minutes late by the time she parked and fifty-five minutes late by the time she hoofed it in her high-heeled boots to his house from her parking place which she was sure was closer to Sri Lanka than his townhouse.
She listened to his two word voicemail message on her walk to his house.
“Call me,” and he sounded not happy, to say the least.
At his door she fumbled clumsily in her purse for the key (which she should have extracted on the walk there, but she hadn’t thought of that), found it, unlocked the door and rushed through into the hall.
There were welcoming lights on and she had to stop when she saw them, the pain in her stomach was so acute.
If it was dark and she got home before Ben, she lit the house (just here and there, not anything blazing and environmentally unconscious) so he wouldn’t have to grope around in the dark to find the lights.
She’d never told him to do it but he must have realised her intent and, awhile after they were married, Ben started to do it for her too.
She thought of them as “welcoming lights” because they said someone was home, someone who cared about you, someone who didn’t want you to walk into a cold, dark house after a rough day and grope around to find a light.
It never occurred to her that Cash Fraser was the kind of man who wouldn’t want her to grope around to find a light.