jubilation killed dead the eroticism of the moment and in my anger and intense frustration I put my hands against his chest and pushed him hard away from me. I felt his cock slide out of me as he was forced to take a step back and I dropped my feet to the floor.
My whole body gave a throb of regret at the loss of intimate contact with his and an agonisingly familiar grief began to build inside me. But I knew I had to quash it quickly before my emotions got the better of me. Before he saw the pain and sadness I’d been hiding from him for all these years.
‘Don’t kid yourself,’ I said with all the disdain I could muster, pushing down the skirt of my dress. ‘This wasn’t about wanting you. It’s just a hate fuck. Something we’ve been dancing around for years. Which frankly has become very boring. It just felt like a good opportunity to get it over with and get each other out of our systems for good.’
He stared at me with his eyebrows pinched together, seemingly amused by my statement. ‘You’re really going to give up the best orgasm of your life to maintain your overblown pride?’
My laugh was scornful. ‘I wasn’t even close to coming then. You could never make me orgasm.’
He snorted in disbelief. ‘I seem to remember doing just that, quite a few times, in fact, back when you used to behave like a human being instead of a business-driven robot.’
I wagged my finger at him. ‘Newsflash. You didn’t make me come then, either. I faked it every time because I felt sorry for you and didn’t want to damage your fragile ego.’
This wasn’t entirely true. While I’d had trouble at first relaxing enough to orgasm, and had pretended I had out of shame at not being able to do it, I’d definitely come regularly once we were past the awkward new-relationship stage and we’d got to know each other’s bodies a whole lot better.
‘You’re a fucking liar,’ he said, pulling his trousers closed and buckling his belt.
‘Am I?’ I gave him my haughtiest look, one that reputedly could freeze people to the spot. ‘Honestly, you meant nothing to me then and you mean nothing to me now. You’re just a minor nuisance with a big mouth and an obvious lack of self-esteem. Perhaps it’s time you took a long, hard look at yourself.’ I straightened my shoulders, fighting back a wave of shame when I was certain I saw hurt flash across his face this time.
My gut clenched. What was wrong with me? The man had just lost his father and I was laying into him in the most vicious and hurtful way.
But he didn’t give me an opportunity to backtrack. He just looked me up and down with his jaw set, taking in my dishevelled state with a cool gaze, then turned, grabbed his jacket off the chair and threw it towards me.
I was too slow to catch it, so it just slithered down my body and landed in a heap at my feet.
‘You’re going to need that more than me. We wouldn’t want you getting any colder,’ he said before turning and walking away, slamming the door shut behind him.
* * *
I kept his jacket for far longer than I should have done.
It just sat there, on the back of the armchair in my bedroom, taunting me for the next few days.
I’m ashamed to say I ignored my better judgement at one point and picked it up and held it to my nose to remind me of the scent of him. I’m not sure why. Something deep and dark inside me compelled me to do it. An instinct to punish myself, perhaps. A form of self-flagellation.
It was wrong to have had sex with him. So wrong. Foolish and weak. And the shame of it infected me like a virus, waking me up night after night in a hot, feverish state.
Eventually, five nights after it happened, when I was still having trouble sleeping, I got up and angrily shoved the jacket into a carrier bag to be sent to the dry cleaners the next day.
It was funny, but as soon as it was out of the house I immediately felt better. As if I’d exorcised a malevolent spirit.
But of course I knew deep down that wouldn’t be the end of it.
Life didn’t work like that.
And, of course, I was right.
Jamie
I’VE FELT SO much anger towards April Darlington-Hume over the years, it’s impossible to quantify it.
At least, I think it’s anger.
It certainly feels like it most of the time.
Except for the times it doesn’t.
I’ve never known what to do with those feelings, though, so mostly I’ve tried to ignore them.
Which hasn’t been easy.
I fucking adored her ten years ago, imagining that we’d stay together after we graduated from university and make a real go of it. It would have been challenging, sure, with me travelling the world one way to take part in tennis championships and she the other to build her career in the business world, but we could have done it. If she’d been brave enough.
It was her father that got in the middle of us. I’m pretty bloody sure of it. He never thought I was good enough for her and in the end she clearly gave in and decided he must be right—even after I tried so hard to be there for her after her mother died. I knew exactly how much pain she was in because I’d been through the same thing in my teens when I’d lost my own mother—who had chosen her love of alcohol over her desire to stay alive and in my life and had succumbed to liver disease. I did nothing but send April letters, gifts and offer support and generally put my life on hold for her in case she needed me.
But she didn’t.
Instead she dumped me, without even giving me a decent reason, then proceeded to act as if I didn’t exist any more. She wouldn’t take my calls or come down and meet me at the door when I turned up at her house. And, when I finally managed to confront her when she left the house one day on her own, rather than hiding away in her chauffeur-driven car, she refused to talk to me, telling me to leave her alone and that it was over between us.
That she didn’t love me and she was moving on. That I would be a hindrance to her family responsibilities and her career.
That was all the explanation I got. After a year and a half of growing so close to her I seriously thought we’d get married one day.
Because she’d been my best friend as well as my lover. My other half.
But it turned out I’d meant nothing to her. Less than nothing.
It’s no wonder I lost the plot for a while after being treated like that. I’m not especially proud of my actions at that time but I was hurting and so fucking angry with her, I could barely think straight.
And now we’ve gone and raked it all up again.
I’ve not been able to stop thinking about her since that night at the fundraiser. Her words have turned over and over in my mind, especially the part about her faking her orgasms with me. I don’t believe that’s true. It can’t be. I would have known. I’m sure of it.
Wouldn’t I?
I’ve never had any complaints from women before.
But, despite being ninety-nine per cent certain I’m not misremembering our time together, that one per cent has planted a seed of doubt in my mind. Which has been fucking with my head ever since—so much so I’ve had trouble thinking about anything else.
That is until the letter from my father was handed to me by the executor of his will.
I’d been summoned to the solicitor’s office in Kensington a few weeks after I’d buried my father in the De Montfort family plot on a clifftop graveyard just outside