The Spark - Jules Wake Page 0,44

short blonde hair in a curly bob and a man with Sam’s confident beaming smile and very twinkly blue eyes. Sam was the perfect combination of both of them.

What would Sam’s mum and dad think of me? Suddenly I wished I wasn’t in their house when they weren’t. I felt like an interloper.

Snatching up the bowl, I turned and hurried back to the kitchen. I really shouldn’t be here.

‘When are your parents due back?’ I asked, stopping quickly at the sight of Sam tying on an apron.

‘Not until tomorrow,’ he said and turned around to reveal the words on his apron, Blow me, I’m hot. ‘What do you think?’

‘I’ll buy you a fan,’ I said wryly, putting down the bowl and busying myself with making a very basic salad, thoroughly relieved that his parents wouldn’t be turning up today. I could do without any awkward meetings. I was still feeling wobbly after yesterday’s Facebook post.

‘You OK?’ asked Sam, with his usual mind-reading ability.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I said, giving him a tight smile. ‘Salad takes a great deal of concentration, you know.’

He glanced back through the open door. The gallery of pictures was in full view.

‘It’s going to be all right, Jess.’

‘Is it?’ I asked a little bleakly, backing away when he went to take me in his arms. ‘I mean, really, how was last night?’ The unspoken ‘with all your friends and Victoria’ seemed to hover in the air and I felt sick. I did not want to come across as the jealous girlfriend.

Looking over at me, his eyes softened. ‘It would have been better if you’d been there.’

‘I’m not sure that would have gone down well.’

I’d noticed – OK, yes, I’d been on Instagram again – there’d been plenty of selfies of Victoria and chums in the morning. As always (except for when she adopted the victim look while hijacking dates; I hadn’t missed that deliberate style statement) she looked immaculate, in her ice-cold mannequin sort of way, wearing a fabulous pale-pink dress – she did wear a shift dress exceptionally well. But the frequent pictures had stopped dead halfway through the evening, which I thought was odd. Her Instagram feed had always been resolutely defiant with Gloria Gaynor ‘I Will Survive’ tones. I’d have expected the evening to give her even greater opportunities to reinforce what Sam was missing and to show the world what she was doing.

‘Possibly not.’ Sam’s jaw clenched and, for the first time, his easy-going expression darkened with a flicker of anger, which took me aback. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the lounger.

‘Something wrong?’

He raised an eyebrow and gave a self-deprecating sigh. ‘I’m trying to work out if you saw the Facebook post and are being cool with it.’

‘I saw it. And no, I’m not cool with it at all.’ I leaned back against the kitchen counter.

‘Fuck. I’m mean, that you’ve seen it. I’m sorry about that. Not that you’re not cool, because I don’t blame you.’

‘Actually, I’m mighty pissed off about it. Your girlfriend really went to town.’

‘She’s not my girlfriend anymore.’ Sam’s jaw tightened, he folded his arms and casually crossed his legs at the ankle, except I could see there was nothing casual in his wired stance.

‘Yeah, well, that message doesn’t seem to be getting through. She’s acting as if I’m the other woman, and I don’t like it.’ I slowly folded my arms, mirroring his stance. It was like a showdown at the OK Corral.

He snatched up his bottle and took a hasty swig and the angry pulse at his throat startled me. ‘I’m fucking furious with her.’ The growled words, reverberating with rage, made me straighten and study him with wary respect. Easy-going Sam wasn’t as easy-going as I’d assumed.

‘I made her take it down this morning.’ The grudging words were ground out through tight lips.

‘Made?’ I asked. The word made me feel uncomfortable. I’d seen too many women made to do things. Coerced. Forced. Bullied. ‘How?’ I tried to sound neutral.

Sam shot me a furious look. ‘I didn’t force her, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

I lifted my shoulders. ‘What did you do?’ I asked, my voice a little shaky.

‘I told her I’d never speak to her again if she didn’t take it down immediately.’ From the set of his jaw, I knew that when he said that to Victoria he’d meant every word.

I relaxed, my shoulders pinging down as if released from the talon-like grip of a griffin or some other Harry