Babyville Page 0,139

and pity intertwined. “The poor cow's having multiple orgasms whenever she looks at me.”

“Oh, don't be mean. I think it's rather sweet.”

“Only because of what she looks like. If she were five foot nine and gorgeous you wouldn't think it so sweet.” They both laugh softly as Sam prepares to throw up. She wants to switch it off, to pretend this isn't happening, but she can't move.

“True. But be nice. And do stop leading her on. I know it's your favorite game, but those puppy-dog looks are getting too much even for me.”

“I know, it is rather pathetic, isn't it? You're just jealous,” Dan says softly. “Come here.”

The sound of them kissing jerks Sam out of her inertia, and she flicks the monitor off, turning to catch the shocked expression on Maeve's and Mark's faces.

“Excuse me,” she whispers, as she turns to flee from the room. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

30

The one saving grace was that Chris didn't hear.

At least, that was what Sam told herself. Repeatedly.

The rest of the evening was, unsurprisingly, something of a disaster. Jill and Dan came back downstairs to find everyone, bar Chris, pale and shaky. Sam couldn't even look at them, and within a few minutes had retired to bed, claiming to have a sudden migraine, where she lay curled in the fetal position, shame and humiliation engulfing her to the point where she was unable to do anything except moan.

Jill realized very quickly what had happened. She had walked into the kitchen to ask Maeve if Sam was okay and spied the monitor, still switched off, on the window shelf. She visibly paled as she turned to Maeve and asked in a thin voice, “The monitor . . . ?” She had intended to say more, but Maeve's steely gaze stopped her.

“Yes,” Maeve said, “the monitor.” She stared her down, and Jill quietly turned and whispered something to Dan. A few minutes later they said good-bye to Maeve and Mark, unable to look them in the eye, collected a very tired and unhappy Lily, and left.

The only one who didn't have a clue about what was going on was Chris.

“What's happened?” he said, immediately after Jill and Dan left. “Did I do something wrong? Or was it you, Mark? Did you piss them off? Scare them away?” He had fallen into the easy banter he and Mark once shared, but his grin elicited nothing from Mark, just a shrug and a shake of the head.

Mark and Maeve left shortly afterward.

Chris cleared up in silence, taking a cup of tea and three Nurofen Plus up to Sam when he had finished. He hesitated outside their bedroom door, listening to her moaning, then padded in and sat next to her on the bed.

“How do you feel?” he said, stroking her back. “Is it really that bad?”

“It's terrible,” she groaned.

And burst into tears.

Chris rubbed her back gently, his hand moving in slow rhythmic circles until her sobs reduced to uneven hiccups. She was so filled with shame she could hardly bear to look at him.

As for Chris, he was aware that something had happened. He might have been thick-skinned, but he was not thick. He had, despite what everyone thought, noticed the way Sam shone when Dan was around, and was aware that she had been harboring a secret teenage crush. But he believed in his marriage, believed in Sam, and knew it would pass.

He also knew that something must have happened. He could guess, but he didn't want to go down that route, didn't want to think about what might have taken place. It was enough to see that that night would almost certainly mark the end of her crush. That it, whatever it was, had passed. Abruptly and definitively.

It was over.

And that was the only thing that mattered to Chris.

Sam doesn't sleep much that night. For a change. Instead of lying there fantasizing about Dan, she hears his voice, his patronizing tone, over and over. Trying to push it out of her head, she forces herself to focus on other things, but his voice keeps slipping in.

The poor cow's having multiple orgasms whenever she looks at me.

Oh God. Oh God. Sam cringes, physically, at the humiliation, at how wrong she'd been, how stupid for ever thinking it was anything more than Dan leading her on.

And, worse, he'd seen her for who she really was. She thought she'd been sexy, and curvaceous, and gorgeous, and he thought she was ridiculous.

The poor cow.

He'd seen