Barbara Hannay - Falling for Mr. Mysterious

‘How amazing.’ Now it was her turn to be surprised, and she stared at her mysterious host with new respect. ‘Should I have heard of you?’

‘Not unless you like reading thrillers.’

Emily liked reading crime novels, and she didn’t mind a thriller plot, but she mostly read books written by women writers because they had more female characters in their stories. ‘I’m not keen on the really blokesy books,’ she said.

Jude actually smiled at that. ‘To be honest, neither am I. In fact, I always include at least one major female character in every story.’

‘Well—’ her respect for him was growing by the second ‘—I should be reading your books then, shouldn’t I?’

His head dipped in a mock bow.

Before Emily could ask anything else, he held up a hand as if to stop her. ‘I think that’s enough questions about me.’

‘Ah …’ Emily pulled a face. ‘So now we talk about Alex? Or world affairs?’

‘Or you.’

‘Believe me,’ she warned him darkly, ‘you don’t want to go there.’

While she’d come rushing to the city to tell Alex everything about Michael, she couldn’t imagine ever confessing her personal problems to Jude. The very thought of telling him about her cheating boyfriend made her face burn. She took a swift and, hopefully, cooling gulp of wine.

As if he’d sensed her sudden panic, he said, ‘I was wondering what sort of work you do.’

This, at least, was easy to answer. ‘I work in a bank.’

‘As a teller?’

‘As a manager.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ His intelligent grey eyes narrowed. ‘Do you mean you’re a bank manager?’

‘I do.’

Jude blinked at her.

‘Don’t you believe me?’

His smile was sheepish. ‘I’m very sorry if I looked surprised, Emily. It’s just—’ Pausing, he took a breath and clearly made an effort to stifle another urge to smile. ‘I’m fascinated, to be honest.’

‘Most men find my work boring.’ Or threatening .

‘Perhaps you’ve been talking to the wrong men.’

Well, yes, Emily had discovered this the hard way, but she wasn’t prepared to admit it now.

‘I’d love to hear how you’ve done so well so quickly,’ Jude prompted.

‘By a rather roundabout route, to be honest.’

‘The best stories are never straightforward.’

He managed to look genuinely interested, and Emily decided that Alex would be very pleased with his housemate’s efforts to play the attentive host. At least talking about her job distracted her from other thoughts.

‘The thing is, I never planned to work in a bank,’ she said. ‘I was always going to be a famous ballerina. After high school I went straight to Melbourne, to study ballet.’

‘A dancer. That explains …’ His voice tapered off.

‘Explains what?’

‘Why you’re so graceful,’ he said simply, but he looked unhappy, as if he wished he hadn’t said that.

‘I certainly loved everything about ballet. I loved the discipline, the music and the opportunities to perform. But—’ she twisted the stem of her almost empty wine glass ‘—after a couple of years, I ran into problems with a choreographer.’

‘A male choreographer?’

‘Yes.’ Looking up, her eyes met Jude’s and she saw that he was watching her with another thoughtful frown.

‘Let’s just say I have bad luck with men.’

She let out a sigh. Just being here in Alex’s kitchen reminded her of all the other times she’d been here, confiding in Alex. There was something about this setting, and the warm, exotic food and relaxing wine that seemed to encourage confidences.

And the man sitting opposite her might not be Alex, but he had the loveliest smoky-grey eyes. Right now they looked soulful and understanding, almost as sympathetic as Alex’s. Poor fellow. He felt obliged to fill Alex’s shoes.

With a shrug, she found herself saying, ‘When it comes to men, I make really bad choices. Or they make the bad choices. I don’t know. I just know I always end up miserable and running away.’

‘Is that what you’re doing now?’ Jude asked with surprising gentleness.

‘Of course.’ She lifted the glass and drained the last of her wine.

Then she jumped to her feet. ‘Now, let me clean this up, seeing as you so kindly paid.’

‘I won’t argue with that.’ He was on his feet, probably relieved to escape.

‘And, Jude,’ Emily said, as he turned to head out of the kitchen.

He turned back to her.

‘I’ll head off in the morning.’

His eyes grew cautious and he frowned again. ‘Do you have somewhere to go?’

‘I can easily find somewhere. I’ll be fine. Coming here was a spur of the moment thing. I had no idea Alex wasn’t home. Tomorrow I’ll leave you in peace.’

After a beat, he said, ‘If you’re sure.’

‘I am, truly.’

It was totally silly of her to be disappointed when Jude nodded, then retreated, wishing her goodnight and muttering something about checking his emails.

Shortly afterwards, with the kitchen tidied, Emily went to Alex’s room and, out of habit, she retrieved her phone from her bag. Almost immediately, she wished she hadn’t bothered.

The first message was a text from a girlfriend in Wandabilla.

Is it really true about Michael? OMG. How awful.

Already, the gossip was spreading.

Emily’s mind flashed to the photo she’d seen on Facebook just yesterday, a shot of Michael, her boyfriend of twelve months, with his pretty wife and two cute children, a little boy who looked just like him and a baby girl with golden curls.

Pain washed through her, an appalling tide of anguish and grief. How could he do that? She’d given him a whole year of her life, and she’d been ready to spend the rest of her life with him.

How could she have been such a fool?

NIGHTS were the worst for Jude. During the day, he could keep his thoughts under control and he wouldn’t allow himself to worry. At night, however, the shadowy fears returned to haunt him, jumping out to snare him when he was almost asleep, or sneaking by the back door, sliding into his dreams.

Tonight, he came awake, shaking and drenched in a cold sweat, and he sat up quickly, hating the fact that waking brought very little comfort. His real life was almost as frightening as his dreams. His increasingly frequent headaches pointed to something serious, especially as lately his vision had begun to blur at the edges.

Alone at night, with no distractions, he found it so much harder to stop himself from worrying. This damn problem was dominating his life right now—even though he tried to hide it as best he could. All his life he’d viewed any illness as weakness—a bad habit he’d no doubt learned from his father, who’d never had any sympathy for their childhood illnesses. Measles, flu, grazed knees … his dad had always made his irritation very apparent.

Once, when Jude was about ten, he’d broken his leg playing football.

‘This will be a test of your manhood,’ his father had said. ‘Nobody likes a whinger.’

It was a message Jude had taken to heart.

Now, he noted the time—three-thirty a.m.—which wasn’t too bad. He’d already had several hours’ sleep, and he only had to manage for a few more hours before it would be daylight again.

Rolling over, he closed his eyes and willed himself to relax, but in the perfect stillness he heard noises coming from down the hall.

Soft sounds of crying.

From Emily’s room.

Any lingering thoughts about his own problems vanished. Jude sat up, listening intently through the darkness. Emily’s sobs were muffled, no doubt by her pillow, but, even so, the crying went on and on in an uncontrollable outpouring of misery.