if I’d call her “nice”. She’s fifty-three, slim and elegant, and frighteningly efficient; she rules me with a rod of iron. You’ll probably love her, but it’s not like having you there, Jules. It was great working with you. You just knew what I wanted all the time and it was there, ready. I hardly had to think the thought, and sometimes I didn’t even need to do that. I miss you.’
‘I’m not coming back just because your new PA isn’t as good as me,’ she retorted, but his mouth quirked and he shook his head.
‘Oh, she’s good, but at the end of the day, when we’ve finished work, she doesn’t look at me like you did,’ he said, his voice lower. ‘As if she wants to rip my clothes off. And I don’t undress her in the shower and make love to her up against the tiles until the security staff wonder who the hell’s being murdered because of all the screaming.’
She felt a tide of colour sweep over her at that, and shook her head. ‘Max, stop it. It was only once.’
‘And it was amazing,’ he said softly, and, reaching out his hand, he cupped her flushed cheek and lifted her chin, as his mouth came down and found hers in a gentle, tender kiss that could so easily lead to…
She stepped back, her legs like jelly. ‘Max, no! Stop it.’
He straightened up, his eyes burning, and gave a crooked smile. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured, but he didn’t look in the least bit sorry. He looked like the cat that got the cream, and she could have screamed with frustration.
‘So—how about that walk we were going to have?’ he said, which just showed what he knew about babies and their timetabling.
‘The girls need lunch and a nap, and so do I. We can go for a walk later if it’s still nice.’
‘What am I supposed to do, then?’ he asked. She realised he was utterly at a loss with so much unstructured time on his hands, and she gave a wicked little smile.
‘You could wash the nappies.’
He’d never gone in her handbag.
It was one of those unwritten rules, like swearing in front of ladies and leaving the seat up, that his mother had drummed into him as a child.
But, with the house quiet and all of them asleep, he stood, arms folded, and stared at her bag. It was only the phone. Just one call. He could sneak down the garden, or out to the car, and she’d never know.
He could even see the corner of it, sticking up out of the pile of junk that she seemed to have in it. And that was a change. Her bag had always been immaculately well organised before, and now it was a walking skip.
With a phone in it.
He caught the corner of it gingerly between finger and thumb and lifted it out of the bag as if it would bite him. It was a very ordinary phone, and he knew how to use it because he’d made a call on it this afternoon. And he knew Andrea’s number was in there. He had to talk to her, he told himself, trying to justify it.
He had to.
He went into the address book and then, on impulse, he scrolled down to M, and there he was: Max, and his mobile number. And the apartment. And work. He looked under ICE—in case of emergency—and found his numbers all repeated.
In her new phone.
Because of the girls, he reminded himself, squashing the leap of hope, and then had a thought. If he rang his mobile number, it would ring, and he’d be able to find it…
What on earth?
She lifted her head, stared at the pillow and pulled it aside.
Max’s phone was ringing—on silent, because she’d silenced it, but the vibration had alerted her. And the number that had come up was her mobile.
Which was in her handbag.
‘You’re cheating,’ she said into it, and there was a muttered curse and he cut the connection. Suppressing a smile, she threw back the covers and slipped out of bed, pulled on her jeans and jumper, ran her fingers through her hair and went downstairs.
He was standing by the bag, her phone in hand, looking defiant and guilty all at once, and she felt suddenly sorry for him, plunged head-first into this bizarre situation that was totally outside his experience, dislocated from everything that was familiar.
Except her, and even she’d changed beyond recognition, she realised.
She smiled. ‘It’s OK, Max, I’m not going to bite.’
‘Just nag me.’
‘No. Not even nag you. I’m going to ask you, one more time, to take this seriously. To give it your best shot, to see if we can make a go of it. If not for us, then for the girls.’
He swallowed hard, and looked away. ‘I need to make a call, Jules. There’s something important I forgot to tell Andrea.’
‘Is anyone going to die?’
He looked startled. ‘Of course not.’
‘Or be hurt?’
‘No.’
‘So it doesn’t really matter.’
‘It’ll just hold things up a few days until they realise.’
‘Realise?’
‘There’s a document I was going to get faxed to Yashimoto.’
‘And he won’t ask Stephen or Andrea for it?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘So what’s the worst that will happen? You’ll lose a few thousand?’
‘Maybe more.’
‘Does it matter? I mean, it’s not as if you’re strapped, Max. You don’t ever have to work again if you don’t want to. A few pounds, a few days out of a lifetime, isn’t so much to ask, is it?’
He turned slowly back to her, his eyes bleak. ‘I thought we had it all. I thought we were happy.’
‘We were—but it all just got too much, Max. And I’m not going back to it, so if you can’t do this, can’t learn to delegate and take time out to enjoy your family, then we don’t have a future. And, to have a future, we have to be able to trust each other.’
He didn’t move for a moment, but then he sighed softly, threw her phone back into her bag and straightened up.
‘You’d better show me how to work the washing machine, then, hadn’t you?’ he said with a little twisted smile, and she felt the breath ease out of her lungs.
‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ she said, almost giddy with relief, and, leading him into the utility room, she introduced him to the concept of home laundry.
THE babies were cute.
Sweet, messy, temperamental and cute. And boring.
Not when they were awake, but when they were asleep, and Jules was asleep, and the house was so quiet he wanted to scream.
And it struck him he was the one doing all the adjusting.
How fair was that? Not fair at all, he thought, simmering, and it hadn’t been his idea that he’d been cut out of their lives.
So far—thirty-odd hours in—he’d learned to run a bath the right temperature, how to put the washing machine on, how to aim food at a baby’s face, not always successfully, and how not to drink tea. That had been lesson one, and one he was unlikely ever to forget.
But now, at eleven o’clock at night, when he would usually be working on for at least another three hours, Julia had gone to bed, the babies were settled till the morning and there was nothing