Questions of Trust A Medical Romance - By Sam Archer Page 0,19

at work. Another car was parked behind his, a Mercedes, flashier and pricier than his Ford. As Chloe drew abreast, a woman stepped out of the driver’s seat of the Mercedes and, swinging the door shut, began to stride briskly towards the front door.

In the glimpse Chloe got before she passed, she noticed that the woman was beautiful. Around thirty, Chloe’s age, she was elegantly decked out in an expensive-looking green sheath dress that clung to her slender figure. Her long blonde hair was carefully, discreetly highlighted and swung free, and her face had the high-cheekboned features of a makeup model. In her rearview mirror Chloe watched the woman reach up to the doorbell, and a few seconds later she saw the front door open and Tom appear. Then they were lost to view as Chloe turned the Astra off the main road.

His girlfriend, she thought.

And why not? He was a single, highly attractive man, with great looks, a winning personality and a good, well-respected job. A catch if ever there was one. It stood to reason he’d have no difficulty finding somebody, and no disinclination to do so. In any case, why was she even thinking about the subject? She ought to be concentrating on the piece she was going to write about the problems on the estate, shaping the prose in her head.

It was only when she caught her breath that Chloe realised she’d been forgetting to breathe for a few seconds. Gripping the steering wheel, she reproached herself. You’re turning into a nosey parker like Margaret McFarland.

She forced herself to think of her forthcoming article, of the supper she was going to make Jake and herself that evening, of the service her Astra was going to need in a few weeks. By the time she drew up outside her cottage, she was hardly thinking of Tom or the mystery woman at all.

***

‘Cup of tea?’

‘No thanks.’ As she’d done the other few times she’d visited his and Kelly’s home, Rebecca was casting a less-than-discreet eye over the décor, the furnishings. Her expression suggested she found them wanting.

Tom studied Rebecca. His ex-wife was perched primly on the edge of the sofa as though to sit back more comfortably would be to indulge in a friendliness she didn’t feel. She looked good, he had to admit. No, more than that: she looked absolutely stunning. Her clothes, her teeth and hair, were perfect. The tan looked natural, achieved on the beaches of the French Riviera rather than on a sunbed. And her body… it was dynamite, as supple and curvy as it had been when he’d first met her eleven years earlier. He’d been a medical student of twenty-two, she a nineteen-year-old studying fashion design. Little more than a decade ago, yet another era, it seemed.

The day was warm in spite of the earlier rain. Rebecca’s lustrous golden skin, the headiness of her perfume, all contributed to the atmosphere of mellow heat. But Tom felt cold as a man in rags on a winter’s night.

‘Where’s Kelly?’ asked Rebecca.

‘At nursery.’ Although Tom was at home, it wasn’t his usual split day. He’d asked his colleague Ben Okoro to cover him at the surgery for a couple of hours so he could meet Rebecca. Tom glanced pointedly at her handbag.

‘Are they in there?’

She arched a perfect eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The papers.’

‘Which papers are those?’

‘The legal papers. The summons, or whatever it is.’

She sighed, making even that sound elegant, practised. ‘It hasn’t come to that. There are no legal proceedings. I asked to meet you because I wanted to discuss this face to face.’

‘There’s nothing to discuss, Rebecca.’

‘Tom –’

‘Nothing we haven’t spoken about on the phone. You’ve wasted a trip here.’

She rested her pretty chin on her folded hands, looking away from him and blinking as though marshalling her thoughts.

‘I could take it further. Down the legal route.’

‘You could,’ he said. ‘And you’ll have to, frankly, if you want to pursue it.’

‘She’s my daughter.’

‘And mine.’

‘I’m her mother.’

‘In a sense.’ She stared at him as though stung, and he immediately regretted his words. He held his hands up in apology. ‘Sorry. That was a bit harsh. Of course you’re her mother, and she adores you. I’ve never tried to poison Kelly’s love for you, Rebecca. I never would, never will. I’ll never say a bad word about you in front of her. But you agreed to my having sole custody. Agreed even when your lawyer, and mine, both pressed you on whether you were