“I’ve got to take a shower and get to the office.”
For some reason, Colin’s announcement made Sibyl feel a vague sense of disappointment.
Well, if she was honest, not all that vague. It was more like a keen sense of disappointment.
She hid it by pushing her face into his throat again and then she worked with every ounce of strength in her to push the disappointment aside.
This, she had to remember, was a temporary arrangement. He’d paid for this, paid for her.
This was not boyfriend and girlfriend having a morning quickie and an affectionate chat.
This was not that at all.
And with those thoughts firmly (kind of) planted in her brain, she whispered against his skin, “I need to take Mallory for his morning walk.”
Then she shoved away from him and started to leave the bed but he caught her forearm.
Half in, half out of bed, Sibyl looked back at him.
“I’ll be back tonight,” he told her, his grin gone, he was watching her and she felt as if he could see passed everything, straight to her heart.
“Same time?” she asked and the words made her feel wrong. They made her feel like what she was to him, a word she was not allowed to say but she should never allow herself to forget.
“Yes,” he replied.
She nodded and with a rough movement jerked her arm away. She had to get away from him, now. She could get lost in him, she knew, especially when he turned into sweet, teasing Colin. When he was like that, Sibyl could start pretending that this was more than it was and she mustn’t ever do that.
Ever.
She snatched her robe off the hook on the back of the door, shrugged it on, grabbed some clothes and ran out of the room.
She dressed in the bathroom.
Then, with effort, throughout her errand of the morning, she kept her mind carefully blank.
After she arrived back from Mallory’s walk, Colin was gone.
Chapter Eleven
Reprieve
“I’m dreaming about him.”
It was the next Monday morning and Marian was having her breakfast with Sibyl.
Marian was also realising that Sibyl clearly needed a confidant.
“Yes, my dear?” Marian prompted. “Who?”
Sibyl looked distracted, the streak of fine weather had broken and the day was grey, rainy and cold and Sibyl was gazing moodily out of the diamond-paned windows. They were eating in a small breakfast nook in Sibyl’s warm and cosy yet elaborate kitchen. Marian had visited Granny Esmeralda’s abandoned cottage many times when the last owners left it unoccupied for years but she had not been there since the unknown (now known) Americans had bought it and refurbished it as a holiday home.
She’d been delighted when Sibyl suggested they not meet at a café but instead asked Marian to come to her house and Sibyl would cook for her. She’d been captivated by the loving renovation that Sibyl explained she and her father had done to Granny Esmeralda’s sweet cottage. It felt welcoming and warm and Marian was immediately relaxed and at peace there.
And her young friend was an excellent cook, making Marian homemade American pancakes with maple syrup and big bowls of bite-sized pieces of ripe, delicious fruit.
Now, food consumed, Sibyl was on her second cup of coffee and Marian was finishing a pot of tea.
“He’s away in London for three days,” she changed the subject, or at least Marian thought she did.