dress with her arm draped around Adam’s neck? She was evidently unaware that the man she’d mercilessly manipulated, cared nothing for, had been on to her. This photograph was presumably designed to be the final push that would send Cassie over the edge. Not content that she’d already turned her into a demented, screaming harridan in front of her husband, she wanted to rob her of everything, including her sanity. Did she not realise this might be the final straw that would break her back? That Cassie, driven as far as she’d been, would cheerfully snap her neck?
Fifty-Two
Kimberley
‘Bloody rain,’ Kim cursed as she pushed through the front door of the cottage. God, what was the matter with the weather? Huffing irritably, wishing she’d remembered to take her brolly, she banged the door to and went straight through the lounge to the dining room, selecting Jemma’s number on her phone as she did. She cursed silently as it went straight to voicemail, again. ‘Great time to do a disappearing act, Jemma,’ she muttered, moving nearer to the large mirror she’d propped on the mantel shelf until she’d figured out where to hang it, wiping the mascara from under her eyes.
The woman didn’t deserve a reliable child-minder. She didn’t deserve a child. She had no idea how to be a mother to him, barely had time for him, in between her job and bleating on about her post-natal depression. She should try Kim’s life on for size. Some people didn’t know they were born. Jemma had everything: her own little family, a beautiful house. Kim was buggered if she knew what more she could want.
She’d almost felt sorry for her when she’d first made contact. She’d been watching her in the nightclub, trying to work out what it was Jemma had to offer compared to her, what it was that had Josh so besotted. Not a lot, as far as she could see. The woman had been a mess, dancing like someone possessed on the dance floor, knocking back vodka shots, so many Kim had been surprised she’d made it to the exit, let alone to the street outside, where she’d puked out her guts.
Feeling a smidgen of sympathy as Jemma had retched and sobbed, Kim had gone to her, held back her hair, wondered if it might be to her advantage to befriend her. When she’d blurted that she was pregnant, Kim had feigned sympathy and surprise. Listened attentively as she’d told her what a terrible person she was, that the baby wasn’t her husband’s. This much Kim knew. She’d smiled kindly. ‘You’re not a bad person,’ she’d told her reassuringly. ‘You wouldn’t be sobbing your heart out if you were.’
Jemma had said Kim had saved her, joked she was her green-eyed guardian angel as their friendship had deepened and she’d taken such good care of her baby. And now this was how she repaid her, too self-centred to even return her phone calls.
‘Jemma, it’s me,’ she said, making sure to keep her voice concerned as she left a message. ‘I’m worried about you, wondering if you’re okay. I’m a bit worried about Liam too, to be honest. Call me back, sweetheart, as soon as you can.’
Like now. Where on earth was she? Kim had got no answer when she’d gone over there and knocked on the door, and now she really was growing worried. She couldn’t keep telling Adam the baby was with a friend. She was sure he was beginning to wonder. She’d had to ad lib like mad the last time he’d quizzed her.
Sighing, she examined her eyelashes at close quarters, trying to decide whether to get a lash and brow tint, and then, catching a movement in the mirror behind her, she stopped, her blood freezing.
Shit. Fear slicing through her, she whirled around. There was someone there. She was sure there was. Her heart pumping manically, she scanned the darkness beyond the French doors that led to the conservatory. She’d seen something grey and ghostly flitting by past the…
Josh! Had he come back to haunt her?
She took a step forward – and then almost had a heart attack as a great fat wood pigeon swooped upwards from the garden to land with a claw-scraping thud on the roof.
Twit. She chastised herself and took a deep breath, trying to slow her rapid heartbeat. She was beginning to get the jitters being here on her own. Not surprisingly when she saw Josh every night in her dreams; the way