Читать книгу Marriage Reunited - Jessica Hart - Страница 9

‘YOU’RE just being a dog in the manger,’ Georgia went on, warming to her theme. ‘You haven’t wanted me for the past four years, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either. And please don’t try telling me that you’ve been faithful to my memory!’ She fixed Mac with a clear look. ‘Journalists are a gossipy lot, and I know all about your girlfriends.’

Faint colour tinged his cheekbones. ‘I’m not going to pretend I’ve been celibate for four years. Yes, there have been women, but I didn’t love any of them the way I loved you and, God knows, I tried.’

‘Oh, thanks, that’s very reassuring!’

‘I’m trying to be honest,’ said Mac with obvious restraint. ‘I know we both agreed we would be happier on our own, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel hurt and bitter about the way things had ended. I wanted to meet someone else, someone I could love, someone who wanted children too, but the harder I tried to forget you, the more I found myself missing you. I’d meet someone young and beautiful and gentle, she’d be good with children and longing to have a family of her own, and all I could think about was you.’

He sounded almost angry about it.

‘I did everything I could to get you out of my head. Over and over again, I reminded myself about your annoying habits, the way you drove me mad with your lists and your routines and the way you always had to be at the airport four hours early.’

But then he would remember her sensuality and her intelligence and her honesty, the kindness she kept concealed behind that brisk façade.

And, more treacherously still, he would remember her perfume, her warmth and her softness and the tickle of that glorious hair as she leant over to kiss him. Even now the very thought of it could make his whole body clench with desire.

‘So you were always there, whether I wanted you or not,’ he went on, resigned. ‘I went a bit crazy after you left. I threw myself into work. The more dangerous the story was, the more I wanted to go. I got myself sent on a long assignment in Africa, but even that couldn’t dislodge you from my mind. The thought of you just wouldn’t go away. In the end I gave up,’ he said simply. ‘I decided it was always going to be you.’

Georgia bit her lip. She had been through the long, weary process of trying to shake off a haunting memory herself.

‘If you felt like that about me, why didn’t you do anything about it?’ she challenged him, her grey eyes bright and direct. The last thing she wanted was to start identifying with him!

‘I’ve only reached that conclusion recently,’ he said, picking his words with care now. ‘I could have come back, but I think part of me was afraid to change the balance of things. I used to hear about you occasionally. I knew you were doing well and I guess the fact that you never did anything about a divorce made me think it might be better to leave things as they were until I finished my assignment and could try and see if we could have another go.’

‘In fact, I’m fitting conveniently into your schedule,’ said Georgia in a withering voice.

That was typical! She had spent her whole marriage waiting for Mac’s attention, waiting for him to finish one assignment, waiting for him to shake off the memories of some bitter, dreadful conflict that consumed him when he came home, hoping for a moment when he could stop thinking about what he had seen and think about her instead. But the call to the next war, the next disaster, the next misery had always come first.

‘No.’ Mac’s jaw tightened. ‘I got your letter, and that changed everything. I can make a living as a freelance, so I resigned and came home to find you. There was no way I was going to stay in Africa and let you divorce me without a word of explanation.’

‘I have explained!’

‘Not in a way that I can understand,’ said Mac. ‘I want to talk.’

Georgia regarded him crossly. It never occurred to him to think about what she wanted!

This was her new life, and she didn’t want him here, reminding her of what she had left in London, reminding her of the kind of person she used to be, leaving memories and associations behind after he had gone. He changed things just by walking into a room. Now she would never be able to look at that stupid chair he kept tipping back in without thinking of him.

‘I can’t talk now,’ she said irritably. ‘I’m busy.’

Mac lifted a disbelieving eyebrow and looked into the newsroom where Kevin now had his feet on the desk while he checked his mobile phone.

Georgia gritted her teeth. ‘I’ve got a lot to do, even if no one else does!’

‘You were just staring out of the window when I came in,’ Mac pointed out unfairly.

‘I was thinking!’

‘Well, I’m not going to sign any papers until we have talked some more,’ he said, ‘so when do you suggest we meet?’

Georgia could feel her shoulders tighten with tension. It was just like Mac to go on and on and on until he got what he wanted. He just never gave up. His persistence had won him some fantastic pictures, but it was a less appealing quality on an emotional level.

Really, she had more than enough problems at the moment without Mac strolling in and unsettling her, Georgia thought with a mixture of exasperation and weariness. It had always been the same. He would turn her world upside down, make a mockery of her attempts to stay cool and calm, send her senses spinning. She had hated the way he could make her feel wild and abandoned and out of control.

She had loved it too, a small part of Georgia acknowledged.

But not any more. She had changed, she reminded herself sternly. She had other priorities now, and they didn’t include resurrecting a doomed relationship.

Georgia wished that Mac would just go, but she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t move until he got what he wanted. Well, let him talk if he wanted to. She had made the decision to move on and change her life, and she wasn’t about to change her mind now, no matter what he might have to say.

She might as well get it over and done with.

‘Come to supper tonight,’ she said with a sigh. It was lucky that she had already invited Geoffrey. Geoffrey was safe and solid and reliable. His very presence would remind her of all that was good about the new life she was choosing and all that was bad about her life with Mac.

Putting on her glasses, she pulled a pad of paper towards her and wrote out her address in her characteristically neat script.

‘As you’ve tracked me down this far, I’m sure you won’t have a problem finding your way,’ she said as she tore off the sheet and handed it to Mac.

‘Thanks,’ he said, and twirled the paper between his fingers with a smile that Georgia only just managed to steel herself against in time. ‘What time?’

He was always late. That was the one reliable thing about Mac, she thought, just as she could always rely on Geoffrey to be on time. She had asked Geoffrey for eight o’clock, when Toby went to bed, so they would have some time together before Mac turned up.

‘Come at eight,’ she said.

Mac got easily to his feet. ‘Shall I bring anything with me?’

‘Just the divorce papers,’ said Georgia coolly. ‘Preferably signed.’

She waited until the door had shut behind him before she groaned and dropped her head on to the desk with a thump. What was it with life at the moment? She’d no sooner struggle over one hurdle than another would be dropped in her way.

Ever since Becca had died, it had been one thing after another. Adjusting her life around a small boy. Giving up the job she loved so much. Leaving London. Dealing with hostility over her appointment as editor here. Staff walkouts. And now Mac, thinking that he could stroll in here and take up where he’d left off!

Well, he would learn that he was wrong, thought Georgia with grim determination. She had listened to ‘I will survive’ and now she could sing along with Gloria Gaynor with the best of them. She had survived, and she was going to go on surviving. She had enough to worry about without Mac.

Of course, it was typical of him to come back now, just when she was getting her life under control, she reflected bitterly. But he would find that she had changed. She was stronger now, more sure of herself, and she had learned to manage perfectly well without him.

It had taken her four long years to get to this stage, though, and it had been a hard process. There was no way she was going through all that again, no matter how tantalising his smile might be. She was a professional woman, with a career and a life of her own. She didn’t need him and she didn’t want him.

Now all she had to do was convince her treacherous body of that. Particularly her heart, springing around like a boisterous puppy, and those legs, whose bones had dissolved at the mere sound of his voice…They were just going to have to shape up, Georgia thought as she lifted her head from the desk.

And as for her stupid senses, who knew no better than to start throwing a ticker tape parade, cheering the good memories as they marched victoriously past Georgia’s puny defences—well, they could just pipe down too. Her head was in charge now.

Unconsciously, Georgia stiffened her spine. That was better. She was not going to let Mac cast her into confusion and turmoil the way he had before. She had other problems to deal with and more important things to consider, Toby chief among them. Let Mac have his say tonight, if that was what he wanted, but he would just have to accept that she had moved on and that her own need was for a very different life now.

Surely he would be able to accept it when he saw how much she relied on Geoffrey now?

Which reminded her; she ought to ring Geoffrey and warn him that Mac was coming for dinner. Geoffrey was about as different from Mac as it was possible to be. The Y chromosome was about all they had in common, Georgia thought ruefully, so while Mac might like surprises and living on the edge, Geoffrey most certainly didn’t. He would want to be prepared.

Georgia settled her glasses back on her nose and immediately felt more businesslike. Reaching for the phone, she braced herself to deal with Geoffrey’s PA, Ruth, who controlled access to her boss with a steely efficiency and a crisp manner that even Georgia found intimidating.

Sure enough, her attempt to speak to Geoffrey was immediately stonewalled by Ruth. ‘I’m afraid he’s with a client,’ she said, and Georgia knew better than to ask her to interrupt the meeting.

She had often thought that Ruth’s talents were wasted on a mere chartered surveyor. She should have been guarding the office of a Cabinet Minister at least. In fact, Rose could do with picking up a few tips from Ruth, Georgia reflected wryly. It might not be so easy then for the likes of Mac Henderson to stroll in and out of her office. No way would Mac have got past Ruth!

‘Can I take a message?’ Ruth was always polite, but Georgia sensed that she didn’t like her. Georgia wasn’t sure whether she was jealous of her relationship with Geoffrey or, in common with a good many other locals, resented her appointment as editor of the Askerby and District Gazette.

Probably both, thought Georgia wearily.

‘No, it’s all right, thanks, Ruth,’ she said, unwilling to launch into an explanation of the fact that someone who was technically her husband was coming to dinner. She could just imagine how Ruth would react to that little bit of information! ‘Just remind Geoffrey that I’m expecting him at eight tonight, would you?’

‘There won’t be any need for that,’ said Ruth primly. ‘He has eight written in his diary.’

In other words, dinner with Georgia was just another appointment for Geoffrey.

Biting back a retort, Georgia put down the phone and took off her glasses once more so that she could rub her eyes. She was fed up with today. She would write the leader tomorrow morning. It wasn’t as if it would change anything. People in Askerby knew what they thought, and they weren’t going to have any jumped-up journalist from London tell them any different.

It was hard to believe that she had grown up here sometimes. The ex-editor of the Gazette had been very popular locally, never mind that he had brought the paper to its knees, and few people were prepared to extend a welcome to Georgia when she was appointed in his place.

Geoffrey had been a notable exception, and she would always be grateful to him for that.

Although perhaps grateful wasn’t the best way to describe how you felt about a man you were seriously considering having a relationship with?

Georgia pushed that particular worry aside impatiently. Really, she had too much else to think about now. One thing about Mac’s reappearance—it would convince Geoffrey that she needed to finalise her divorce once and for all before she could contemplate embarking on another serious relationship.

She gave her email a final check and cast a quick eye over the agency reports in case anything dramatic had happened. Not that there would be much she could do about it if there were, she thought bitterly. Nobody in Askerby wanted news in their paper.

Her last job was to tidy her desk. She hated coming into a mess in the morning. Mac had used to call her a control freak but, if she was, she didn’t seem to be a very good one, Georgia had long ago decided. If she was so controlling, how come life so often seemed to be completely out of her control?

Shrugging on her coat, she went out into the outer office, aware, as always, of the tiny moment of silence that fell whenever she appeared.

‘I’m off now, Rose,’ she said, hating the way her voice sounded a little too hearty, a little too much as if she were trying too hard not to mind how long it was taking her to be accepted. ‘Don’t forget the editorial conference tomorrow morning. I want everyone there.’

‘I won’t.’ Rose looked important. She had been thrilled when Georgia had taken a chance on her and given her the job, and was even more pleased to find herself included in all the workings of the newspaper after being made to feel useless by her ex-husband for so long. ‘Have a good evening. Are you meeting your friend?’

‘My friend?’

‘Mr Henderson. He said he knew you,’ said Rose, suddenly anxious. She had made so many mistakes since she started, and she knew Georgia got impatient sometimes.

‘Oh…Mac,’ said Georgia. ‘Yes, we did know each other a long time ago.’

‘He seemed so nice,’ said Rose. ‘I thought he was absolutely charming.’ Her voice dropped as she leant forward to whisper confidentially, ‘And very attractive!’

Georgia couldn’t help smiling at her tone. In spite of the disastrous end to her own marriage, Rose was very concerned about her boss’s single state. She thought Georgia needed help bringing up Toby.

Georgia thought so too.

But Mac wasn’t the man to help her. Toby needed a father figure, someone kind and steady like Geoffrey, not someone like Mac, who had never really grown up himself.

Toby, come and pick up some of these toys, please!’

Georgia sighed as she stooped to retrieve a sock from the living room floor. It had been a shock to realise just how much mess one small boy could generate.

She had thought no one could be messier than Mac, whose habit of carelessly discarding clothes wherever he happened to take them off had driven her mad when they were married, but Toby was even worse. His bedroom floor was carpeted with cards, small plastic figures, bits of paper, crayons, books, unidentified and probably broken pieces of toys, and a good deal else that Georgia preferred not to think about too closely.

Picking up a ball of what looked suspiciously like discarded chewing gum, she grimaced in disgust.

‘Toby!’ Her voice went up in spite of herself. She tried so hard to be patient and loving, but after a long day at work, with only a few minutes to prepare dinner for Geoffrey, let alone think about how she was going to deal with her soon-to-be ex-husband, it was a huge effort not to snap.

‘There’s someone coming to the door,’ said Toby, which at least proved that he wasn’t deaf. Ever anxious for an excuse to avoid tidying up, he was peering out of the window at the front of the house. He was wearing pyjamas and, having ignored her request to use a comb, his damp hair stuck out spikily in different directions.

‘It’ll just be someone delivering junk mail, I expect,’ said Georgia, forcing herself to stay calm. Nothing was gained by losing her temper. Toby just withdrew even further into his shell.

‘He’s got a cool motorbike,’ Toby commented, without leaving his vantage point at the window.

Georgia frowned slightly. Junk mail wasn’t usually delivered by motorbike. Miss Sibley at number twenty-three often pushed newsletters for the local neighbourhood watch through the door at this sort of time, but she didn’t ride a motorbike and, if she did, it certainly wouldn’t be one Toby would describe as cool.

Curious, she went over to join Toby at the window. Sure enough, a motorbike was propped on its stand in the road outside the gate. It was a mean-looking machine, black and gleaming and very powerful, and something stirred inside Georgia. She knew only one person likely to ride a bike like that.

A sense of foreboding gripped her as the owner of the bike, hidden by the porch, rang the doorbell, and her frown deepened with suspicion. There was something awfully familiar about the arrogance of that ring.

‘Who is it?’ asked Toby.

Nobody could call Toby a beautiful child. He was thin and gap-toothed, with big ears and an expression that was usually sullen, but when he looked up at her, like now, with implicit trust that she would know the answer to everything, Georgia would feel her heart constrict.

‘I don’t know who it is,’ she told him. But I’ve got a pretty good idea, she added mentally. ‘We’d better go and see.’

He followed her out into the hall and lurked behind her as she opened the door. Sure enough, there stood Mac, in faded jeans, a white T-shirt and his battered old leather jacket, camera slung as always around his neck. Not to put too fine a point on it, he looked gorgeous. His dark hair was ruffled where he had pulled off his helmet, and his blue eyes were warm with a smile that Georgia had to physically steel herself to resist.

‘You’re early,’ she said brusquely. ‘I said eight o’clock, and it’s not even seven-thirty yet.’

‘I thought it would be nice to meet Toby before he went to bed,’ said Mac, completely unfazed by the hostile welcome, and he winked at Toby who was watching him with a wary expression.

‘Who are you?’ asked Toby, which seemed a fair enough question.

‘This is Mac,’ said Georgia quickly as Mac opened his mouth to answer. Life was complicated enough for Toby without trying to fathom his aunt’s exact marital status. There was no need for him to know that she and Mac had been married.

Were still married, fool that she was. Why on earth hadn’t she followed through with the divorce when they had first separated?

‘I knew him a long time ago,’ she said to Toby, trying to keep her explanation of this strange man’s arrival as simple as possible. ‘It was a real surprise when he turned up in Askerby, so I thought it would be nice if he came to dinner.’

Georgia had a nasty feeling that she was babbling, but Mac’s presence on the doorstep was ridiculously disturbing.

He didn’t look disturbed, of course. He looked utterly at ease, as always, with that good-humoured assurance that had taken him through more dangerous situations than Georgia cared to think about.

‘Hi, Toby,’ he said casually, but wisely made no move to get any closer or to engage him in conversation.

Toby was very wary of strangers and hated being overwhelmed by attention. It had taken him a long time to accept Georgia, and even now she still had to handle him with care. Geoffrey’s laborious attempts at conversation were met with monosyllables at most. More worryingly, he didn’t seem to be any more forthcoming at school, and he was slow to make friends.

Mac turned back to Georgia and produced a mango from his pocket with a flourish. ‘For you,’ he said, holding it in his outstretched palm, and Georgia’s breath snared in her throat.

It was just a fruit. A beautiful piece of fruit, plump and juicy, its skin blushing from pinkish-green to ripe red, but still just a fruit, and not even that rare. You could even buy mangoes in Askerby nowadays, if you were lucky.

But for Georgia mangoes meant so much more than a exotic edge to a fruit salad. Mangoes meant long, hot tropical nights, creaking ceiling fans and eerie yips and yowls in the darkness beyond the veranda. Mangoes meant Mac. She had never eaten one until he had cut one carefully into almost-cubes so that she could bend back the skin and eat the fragrant orange flesh easily, and for her the taste would forever be associated with him. Just the sight of one was enough to swamp her with memories.

Almost without thinking, she reached out and took the mango from Mac and held it to her nose. Breathing in its distinctive smell, she was instantly transported back to their veranda in West Africa. Mac would cut up the mango for her and watch her as she ate it, the juice running down her chin.

‘You eat mangoes the way you make love,’ he would tell her, smiling in a way that made her blood flare, and he would lean across to kiss the stickiness away. ‘I love the way you do that. Everyone else sees just a little bit of you, the particular, precise Georgia, but I know what you’re really like. I know that behind that prim and proper façade, you’re a very naughty girl!’

They always ended up making love when he brought her a mango.

It was the happiest Georgia had ever been. Memories of those times gripped her cruelly now, tightening her chest until she could hardly breathe. She could just stand there dumbly holding the mango, struggling to make her lungs work once more.

Why couldn’t Mac be like Geoffrey, who brought her flowers without fail? They were always lovely flowers, not just a tired old bouquet from a garage forecourt, but nonetheless Georgia never had the sense that Geoffrey had any idea of what she would really like. He brought her flowers because that was the correct thing to do, and Geoffrey was always correct. Sometimes she wished he would surprise her, bring her a shiny conker he had picked up in the street, or a pot of honey, or a book that he thought she would enjoy.

Or a mango.

Why did Mac have to be different? she wondered in despair. Why did he have to choose the one gift that would mean so much, that would unlock so many memories? He had an uncanny ability to get under her skin when she least expected it, when she was certain that she could resist him, when she thought she was prepared.

Georgia’s hands closed around the mango. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said, her voice shaking with the effort to keep it neutral.

‘What’s that?’ said Toby as she stepped back to let Mac inside.

‘This? It’s a mango.’

‘No, that,’ he said impatiently, pointing at the camera around Mac’s neck.

‘It’s my camera,’ said Mac easily, and pulled it from around his neck. ‘Do you want to have a look at it?’

Toby nodded and, to Georgia’s consternation, Mac handed him the camera.

‘Um…do you think that’s a good idea?’ she said meaningfully. The camera was his livelihood, after all, and professional cameras didn’t come cheap.

‘It’s fine,’ said Mac, looping the strap around Toby’s neck. ‘He won’t drop it.’

Toby frowned down at the camera. ‘It doesn’t look like a camera,’ he said suspiciously. ‘It’s not digital.’

‘No,’ Mac agreed solemnly, ‘and you can’t use it to make a phone call, either! This is a camera that just takes pictures.’ He paused. ‘Would you like me to show you how it works?’

Toby nodded again, and Georgia was too pleased to see him interested to object when Mac sat down with him on the sofa and showed him how to look through the camera and use the telescopic lens.

So much for clearing up before her visitors arrived. Mac wouldn’t have noticed if he’d had to wade knee-deep through a rubbish tip to get to the sofa. He was as oblivious as Toby to any mess.

Life must be so much easier if you could just blank out whatever you didn’t want to see, Georgia reflected. She would have loved to have been the kind of person who simply didn’t notice or didn’t care about her surroundings. Sadly, she was obsessive—according to Mac, anyway—about keeping her surroundings clean and tidy, and there was no way she could enjoy her supper with the room looking like this.

Sighing inwardly, Georgia got down on her knees and began to pick up toys while Mac and Toby bent their heads over the camera. She was too used to Mac continually clicking away to be bothered when they began pointing the camera at her and talking about framing a picture. One thing about being married to a photographer, you never got shy when someone got out their Instamatic and started snapping photos. After a while, it was just background noise and you stopped feeling self-conscious in front of a camera.

It was oddly comfortable to be clearing up while the man and the boy sat on the sofa, absorbed in what they were doing. It felt almost normal. Was this what it would have been like if she and Mac had had a family? Georgia wondered.

Wrapped up in her thoughts, she didn’t at first register that Mac was talking to her.

‘Sorry?’ she said, sitting back on her haunches and smoothing a stray hair back from her face.

‘I was just saying that Toby and I could finish tidying up if you want to go and change.’

Mac’s blue eyes held a strange expression as they rested on her, and for some reason Georgia flushed.

‘It’s all right, thanks,’ she said stiffly, aware for the first time that she was still wearing her work clothes. ‘I don’t usually bother to change any more.’

Mac frowned. He had always loved the moment when she would change in the evenings. That was when she would unbutton the crisp, cool Georgia and let the secret Georgia out, the Georgia who ate mangoes in a way that made the breath dry in his throat, the Georgia who was warm and loving and so sensuous that it was hard for him to think clearly when she was near.

‘Why not?’

Georgia shrugged. ‘Oh, the usual reason—no time. There’s just too much to do every evening.’

And there was no one to change for any more, she added to herself as she gathered up some plastic counters that were scattered over the carpet.

Oh, there was Geoffrey, of course, but he inevitably came from work in his suit and, anyway, he would no doubt think that it was practical of her to stay in her work outfit too. Georgia couldn’t imagine how he would react if she were to greet him at the door wearing one of the little numbers she had used to wear for Mac.

But she had been younger then, and everything was different now.

Mac watched her crouching down, piling Toby’s toys into a box, and he felt the old familiar tightening of his chest. Her skirt was tight over her bottom and thighs, and he could see the graceful curve of her spine, the way her silky top rode up slightly as she stretched out.

He had once asked her why she wore such prim clothes instead of dressing like the warm, sexy woman that she really was. ‘Because when I’m with you it’s the only way I can keep any control over what’s happening,’ she had said. ‘With you, everything’s chaos. I don’t know which way up I am when you’re there, and when you’re not I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing. At least if I get up and put on some suitable clothes to go to work, then I feel as if I’ve got some control over what’s happening.’

Poor Georgia; it hadn’t been easy for her, Mac thought with some compunction. She liked everything in its place and firmly under control, and she had never got used to the fact that love just didn’t work like that.

‘Can I take a picture of Georgia?’ Toby asked him, holding the camera reverently.

‘Sure,’ said Mac absently, still thinking about Georgia.

‘Look at me, Georgia!’

Glad to hear him sounding so animated, Georgia looked up dutifully and smiled.

Toby lifted the heavy camera in his thin hands and pointed it at her, then glanced up at Mac. ‘Now?’

‘Well, you could take it now,’ Mac agreed, ‘but she doesn’t really look like Georgia when she’s posing like that, does she? The thing about Georgia is that she’s not an easy person to capture,’ he went on easily, talking to Toby as if he were an interested adult rather than a small boy who simply wanted to press a button. ‘You’ve got to think of it like hunting a wild animal. You have to be very quiet and wait until she’s forgotten that you’re there with a camera, and then—snap!—you can catch her unawares.’

Toby was listening intently to his advice, although Georgia was sure that he had no idea what Mac was talking about. She did, though. Catching her unawares, the way he had done today, was what Mac had always done best.

Well, he wasn’t going to capture her this time.

Over Toby’s head, she met Mac’s amused navy-blue gaze, her own eyes bright with unspoken challenge, and the space between them was suddenly charged with an electric tension that sparked and sizzled alarmingly.

It was interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. ‘That’ll be Geoffrey.’ Georgia leapt to her feet in relief. ‘Toby, can you just finish putting away the last of the toys?’ she asked, without much hope that he would oblige.

Toby heaved a sigh. ‘Geoffrey’s Georgia’s boyfriend,’ she heard him mutter glumly to Mac as she headed for the door. ‘He’s boring.’

Georgia suppressed an equally heavy sigh. She wished Toby would accept Geoffrey. He might not be fun or have a ridiculously expensive camera for Toby to fiddle with, but he was a nice man and very kind, quite apart from being the only friend they had at the moment.

She wished he wasn’t standing on the other side of the door, though.

It was bad enough with Mac here, making her feel edgy and hassled, without having to deal with the two of them together. Dinner was shaping up to be its usual disaster, too. What Georgia really wanted was for both of them to disappear so that she could put Toby to bed and collapse on to the sofa with a stiff gin.

Still, it was too late for that now. Pinning a suitably bright smile to her face, she opened the front door.