Jill Mansell - Sheer Mischief

I’m afraid of what he might do if I tell him it’s over. I don’t think he could handle it. He’s dropped hints, and they scare me witless. I really believe he would harm himself: how can I possibly afford to take that risk? How could ‘I ever live with myself if I called his bluff and he did commit suicide?’ She shook her head and shuddered helplessly at the mere mention of the word. ‘It would be on my conscience for the rest of my life. It would be my fault. I’d be the one who had killed him.’

‘Oh Janey,’ Guy gave her a ghost of a smile. ‘I’m sorry ‘I shouted at you. Do you understand now why I had to do it?’

He had been goading her deliberately, of course; forcing her to lose her temper with him and spill it all out. With a weary nod, she said, ‘I understand, but it isn’t as if there’s anything you can do to help. You knowing about my problems isn’t going to make them go away.’

‘Well,’ persisted Guy, ‘do you at least feel better?’

‘I don’t know.’ It was a lie. She did feel better, Janey realized, but how long was that likely to last? She would probably wake up tomorrow morning and kick herself. Ungraciously, she said, ‘I suppose you do, now you’ve weaseled that little confession out of me. At least your curiosity’s been satisfied.’

‘Don’t be bitchy.’

‘Don’t be bitchy?’ Echoing the words, she mimed frustration. ‘Five minutes ago you told me to stop being so fucking nice. You really do know how to shower a girl with compliments, Guy.’

He grinned, because there weren’t many people on the planet less adept at handling a compliment than Janey. When he’d once tried admiring her new trousers she had replied, ‘At least they hide my legs.’ When on another occasion he had said her hair looked nice, she’d promptly told him it needed cutting. If he displayed appreciation of her chicken casserole she invariably shook her head and said either, ‘Too much tarragon,’ or Not enough salt.’

If he thought for one minute it would help, Guy told himself, he would shower her with compliments. He would tell her she was beautiful, that she had stunning legs, wondrous eyes, a deeply kissable mouth .. .

He could also tell her that the prospect of spending the night with Valentina di Angelo had left him utterly cold, whereas the thought of spending the night with Janey Sinclair was infinitely desirable.

Guy smiled, because at least he could stop worrying about the male menopause. He also, finally, understood why he hadn’t wanted to sleep with Valentina. It was because he wanted Janey.

But it was hardly the time to make his feelings known. If anything was guaranteed to send her screaming out of the house, he decided, it was a declaration of lust from some bastard who had just bullied her into revealing the innermost secrets of her hopeless marriage to another bastard. Oh yes, that would really restore her faith in men.

‘What are you thinking?’ Janey demanded in accusing tones, because Guy was miles away and there was a hint of a smile around his mouth. If he was laughing at her, she would slap him.

‘Nothing. Sorry.’ Hastily, he composed himself. ‘Look, ‘I understand how you must feel about Alan, but this rubbish about killing himself is emotional blackmail. Janey, nobody has the right to do that to you. It’s ludicrous. If he wants to jump off a cliff, that’s his decision. You wouldn’t have made him do it, and you wouldn’t be responsible.’

‘But—’

Guy’s expression was severe. ‘No, this time you’re just going to have to sit there and let me have my say. What he’s doing is sick. It’s also selfish. And people who will stoop to such depths in order to get whatever they want are way too selfish to top themselves, believe me. He’s threatening to do it because it’s the only way he knows of making sure you don’t dump him. If he really loved you as much as he says, he wouldn’t dream of putting you through this kind of hell. Janey, if ‘I thought for one moment you’d take me up on it I’d bet my house, my car — my kids, for God’s sake — that he’s bluffing. If you tell him to take a running jump, believe me, the last place he’s going to visit is a handy clifftop.’

‘It’s so easy for you to say that.’ Just listening to him made Janey’s stomach squirm. ‘You don’t even know him. It’s different when it’s your own husband. I can’t gamble with his life.’

More’s the pity, thought Guy. But she clearly wasn’t going to change her mind. At least he had forced her to admit the problem; it might not be much but it was a start.

‘No. OK.’ He had to agree she had a point. Maxine, faced with a similar threat, would doubtless hand the poor chap a Stanley knife and run him a nice hot bath.

But Janey was Janey, and that wasn’t her style. She considered other people’s feelings, had probably never deliberately hurt anyone in her entire life, and was prepared to sacrifice her own happiness in order to avoid upsetting Alan bloody Sinclair.

That was the trouble with nice girls, he thought ruefully. They had a conscience. Sometimes it was bloody infuriating.

‘Now what?’ Janey glared at him, because he was doing it again. She never knew what he was thinking and it unnerved her.

He grinned. ‘We’ve finished the bottle. Shall I open another one?’

‘What, so that you can lecture me for another hour?’ She was only half joking. When Guy set his mind to it, he could be horribly persistent. Especially when he was determined to prove that he was right.

‘We could change the subject.’

Janey looked at her watch; it was gone eleven-thirty. ‘I can’t drink any more and still drive home,’ she said with a note of regret. ‘And it’s later than I thought. I’d better be making a move.’

‘You don’t have to drive. You could always spend the night here. In Maxine’s room,’ he said, before she had a chance to become flustered. ‘It wouldn’t do Alan any harm to wonder where you’d got to,’ he added slyly. ‘Serve him right for forgetting your birthday.’

But Janey was unfolding her legs, searching around for her shoes and stuffing Mimi’s book into her bag. ‘And tomorrow morning I’d go to work with a raging hangover.’ She pulled a face.

‘Thanks for the offer, but I have to be at the market by six.’

She had ignored the dig, resolutely refusing to rise to the bait.

‘Let me just go and check on the kids,’ said Guy, good-naturedly accepting defeat. ‘Then I’ll see you out.’

Janey was waiting in the hall when he returned downstairs. She wound a red cashmere scarf around her neck. ‘Are they all right?’

‘Well away.’ Guy nodded and grinned. ‘How about you, after all that interrogation? Are you OK?’

‘I’ll live.’ With a smile, she flipped the tasselled ends of the scarf over her shoulders. ‘At least you didn’t pull my fingernails out.’

‘I do have something else to say,’ he warned. ‘Before you go.’

Janey braced herself. She might have guessed he would. ‘Oh. What is it?’

‘Happy birthday.’ The red scarf was covering the lower half of her face. Before she realized what was happening Guy was gently pushing it down, out of the way. There was her mouth, wonderfully soft and inviting. When you wished someone a happy birthday, he reasoned, it was perfectly in order to give them a kiss to go with it.

But he didn’t want to alarm her. Instead, exercising almost superhuman control, he cast one last regretful glance at those slightly parted lips and aimed, instead, an inch to the left.

‘Except it hasn’t been too happy,’ he murmured.

Ridiculously, his heart was pounding like a schoolboy’s. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

Janey, startled by her own reaction to what was, after all, only a polite gesture, was deeply ashamed of herself. Just for a fraction of a second she had thought Guy was going to kiss her properly. What was even more awful was the fact that she had wanted him to.