woman beside him told him she felt as if her guts were being torn, that right now, right this very minute, she was having great difficulty not pulling out her phone to check if there had been a text or a call from Courtney. Right now she wanted to drive past where her sister was living with her friend Louise and make sure that there wasn’t a wild party raging. She scrambled for something to say, anything to say, and of course she again said the wrong thing.
‘Sorry that you had a bad day.’ She watched his jaw tighten a fraction, knew, given his job, that it was a stupid thing to say, especially when her words tumbled out in a bright and breezy voice. But the false smile she had plastered on all night seemed to be infusing her brain somehow, she was so incredibly out of practice with anything remotely social.
He gave her the same brief nod that he had given Vince, then a very brief smile and very smoothly excused himself.
‘Told you!’ Jasmine was over in a flash the minute he was gone. ‘Oh, my God, you were talking for ages.’
‘For two minutes.’
‘That’s ages for him!’ Jasmine breathed. ‘He hardly says a word to anyone.’
‘Jasmine!’ She rolled her eyes at her friend. ‘You can stop this very moment.’ Bridgette let out a small gurgle of laughter. ‘I think I’ve just been assessed as to my suitability for a one-nighter. Honestly, he’s shameless…He asked if I had children and everything. Maybe he’s worried I’ve got stretch marks and a baggy vagina.’
It was midwife-speak, and as she made Jasmine laugh, she laughed herself. The two women really laughed for the first time in a long, long time, and it was so good for Bridgette to be with her friend before she jetted off, because Jasmine had helped her through this difficult time. She didn’t want to be a misery at her friends’ leaving do, so she kept up the conversation a little. They giggled about lithe, toned bodies and the temptresses who would surely writhe on his white rug in his undoubtedly immaculate city apartment. It was a white rug, they decided, laughing, for a man like Dominic was surely far too tasteful for animal prints. And he’d make you a cocktail on arrival, for this was the first-class lounge of one-night stands, and on and on they went…Yes, it was so good to laugh.
Dominic could hear her laughter as he spoke with a colleague, as again he was offered yet more supposed consolation for a ‘bad day’. He wished that people would just say nothing, wished he could simply forget.
It had been a…He searched for the expletive to best describe his day, chose it, but knew if he voiced it he might just be asked to leave, which wouldn’t be so bad, but, no, he took a mouthful of vinegar and grimaced as it met the acid in his stomach.
He hated his job.
Was great at it.
Hated it.
Loved it.
Did it.
He played ping-pong in his mind with a ball that broke with every hit.
He wanted that hard ball tonight, one that bounced back on every smash, one that didn’t crumple if you hammered it.
He wanted to be the doctor who offered better answers.
Today he had seen the dominos falling, had scrambled to stop them, had done everything to reset them, but still they’d fallen—click, click, click—racing faster than he could halt them till he’d known absolutely what was coming and had loathed that he’d been the only one who could see it.
‘Where there’s life there’s hope’ had been offered several times.
Actually, no, he wanted to say as he’d stared at another batch of blood results and read off the poisons that had filled this tiny body.
‘There is hope, though…’ the parents had begged, and he had refused to flinch at the frantic eyes that had scanned his face as he’d delivered news.
He loved hope, he craved hope and had searched so hard for it today, but he also knew when hope was gone, said it before others would. Unlike others, he faced the inevitable—because it was either cardiac massage and all lights blazing, or a cuddle without the tubes at the end.
Yes, it came down to that.
Yes, it had been a XXXX of a day.
He had sat with the parents till ten p.m. and then entered a bar that was too bright, stood with company that was too loud and tasted wine that could dissolve an olive, and hated that he missed her. How could you miss a woman you didn’t even like? He hated that she’d ring tonight and that he might be tempted to go back. That in two weeks’ time he’d see her. Shouldn’t he be over Arabella by now? Maybe it was just because he had had a ‘bad day’. Not that he and Arabella had ever really spoken about work—oh, they’d discussed their career paths of course, but never the day-to-day details. They’d never talked about days such as this, Dominic mused.
Then he had seen her—Bridgette. In a silver dress and with a very wide smile, with gorgeous nails and polished hair, she had drawn his eye. Yet on inspection there was more behind that polished façade than he cared to explore, more than he needed tonight.
He had been checking for a wedding ring.
What no one understood was that he preferred to find one.
Married women were less complicated, knew the rules from the start, for they had so much more to lose than he did.
Bridgette was complicated.
He’d read her, because he read women well. He could see the hurt behind those grey eyes, could see the effort that went into her bright smile. She was complicated and he didn’t need it. But, on the way down to her ring finger, he’d noticed very pale skin and a tapestry of freckles, and he’d wondered where the freckles stopped, had wondered far too many things.
He didn’t need an ounce of emotion tonight, not one more piece, which was why he had excused himself and walked away. But perhaps he’d left gut instinct in his car tonight, the radar warning that had told him to keep his distance dimmed a fraction as he looked over to where she stood, laughing with her friend.
‘Hey, Dominic…’ He heard a low, seductive voice and turned to the pretty blonde who stood before him, a nurse who worked in Theatre and one whose husband seemed to be perpetually away. ‘So brilliant to see you tonight.’ He looked into eyes that were blue and glittered with open invitation, saw the ring on her finger and the spray tan on her arm on the way down. ‘I just finished a late shift. Wasn’t sure I’d make it.’
‘Are you on tomorrow?’ someone asked.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘And I’ve got the weekend to myself. Geoff’s away.’ Her eyes flicked to his and Dominic met her gaze, went to take another sip of his drink and then, remembering how it tasted, changed his mind, and he changed his mind about something else too—he couldn’t stomach the taste of fake tan tonight.
Then he heard Bridgette laughing, looked over and ignored his inner radar, managed to convince himself that he had read her wrong.
He knew now what Bridgette’s middle name was.
Escape.
‘People are talking about going for something to eat…’ Vince came over and snaked his arm around Jasmine, and they shared a kiss as Bridgette stood, pretending not to feel awkward—actually, not so awkward now that she and Jasmine had had such a laugh. She wasn’t going out to dinner, or to a club, but at least she and Jasmine had had some fun—but then the waitress came over and handed her a glass.
‘For me?’ Bridgette frowned.
‘He said to be discreet.’ The waitress nodded her head in Dominic’s direction. ‘I’ll get rid of your other glass.’
Double yikes!
She glanced over to black eyes that were waiting to meet hers.
Wrong girl, she wanted to semaphore back—so very, very wrong for you, Dominic, she wanted to signal.