Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,72
out of his office on Monday, save for work related e-mails that were generally sent to everyone. She wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. On the one hand, she knew that they had a lot of time together coming up but on the other, he seemed to blow hot and cold. She didn’t know why she was surprised at the lack of communication, considering that it was her that had slammed out of his office in the first place. She could hardly blame him.
Cole had been on much better form and was really pleased for her having the opportunity to spend this time with Vaughn. Apparently he had a reputation in this field and there were high expectations that Vaughn would be gaining several promising contacts. They had not discussed Cole’s situation any further as she reckoned that he was as confused as she was and needed time to process everything. There was absolutely no doubt that he was attracted to girls; his endless pursuit of most of the female population of the office was testament to that and she knew that there was definitely a simmering attraction between the two of them – he just needed to work out what his feelings were for his own sex and that was something that really only he could straighten out in his own head.
Grabbing the overnight duffel bag from the back of her wardrobe, her eyes lingered briefly on her dress, the one she had worn to Indigo – and slept in at Vaughn’s flat. She toyed with packing it for dinner tomorrow night but knew that it would be a working dinner and it really was a party dress rather than a formal one. Sighing forlornly she went back to the task in hand and pulled out her dark blue trouser suit for the day of the conference. It was smart, practical and comfortable and she could wear her flats with it, which would be a godsend when she would be on her feet all day.
For Thursday, which was their day of travelling and setting up, she decided to wear her smart jeans and a grey halter neck top that had a matching knitted jacket. It was casual but tidy and would be perfect for travelling and lugging dirty conference equipment around.
That just left dinner, and for that she selected her failsafe little black dress with a high oriental collar neck and mid length sleeves. It was longer than her usual dresses and skimmed her calves giving her the illusion of extra height. She usually wore her black suede heels with this dress so she packed those too.
Once she was all packed, she left her bag by the front door ready and had a long hot bath before turning into bed. Dale wasn’t home yet. True to his word, he had been working long hours to try and make up the time he had lost and had not been getting home until at least ten pm. As far as she was aware, he’d not had a drink since Monday, which had meant for a relatively cordial attitude at home although they had hardly seen much of each other which had been a blessing for Elise. Neither of them had mentioned the conversation that they had had in the car the day he left hospital, and Elise felt that him drinking almost immediately after discharge rendered the whole discussion pointless in any case. He had clearly not managed to change his ways for long and although the atmosphere at home was calm, Elise couldn’t shake a nagging feeling of dread that this was most definitely the ‘calm before the storm’ and that Dale was just biding his time. She had been married to him long enough to know that these quiet periods never lasted for long however she also knew that this time, when the blowout finally came, that there would be a hell of a lot more at stake.
Thursday arrived and Elise went into the office as usual. The plan was for her to leave her car in the underground car park and they would go together in Vaughn’s. They were due to leave just after nine so she made sure she was in by eight-thirty to check on any last minute details and answer any e-mails before she left.
Sure enough, just after nine she saw him striding through the office towards her desk and she hastily shut down her computer and grabbed her handbag.