"I'll come early next week with Kate."

"Why will it take you a whole week?" He sounded annoyed.

"Well...I've got people to say good-bye to...and things..." I faltered.

"I'd prefer if you came sooner," he said sternly.

"No, James, really, I'm sorry, but...I need time to adjust," I said weakly.

"Just so long as you don't change your mind," he said with what sounded like a forced guffaw.

"I won't," I said wearily, knowing that I couldn't. "I won't."

"Good!" he said. "Well then, I suppose I'll head back to London immediately. If I go to the airport now I'll be able to pick up a flight. I wonder if I can get a refund on tonight's accommodation?"

"What a pity I didn't make up my mind and tell you sooner," I said. "It's probably too late now to get your money back for tonight."

"Never mind," he said kindly, "it couldn't be helped."320.

What an asshole!

I was being totally sarcastic!

"I'll call you tonight when I get home," he promised.

"You do that," I said quietly.

"Give my love to Kate," he said.

"I will."

"And see you soon."

"Yes, see you soon."321.

thirty-one.

"So when are you leaving?" asked Mum.

"You're leaving leaving?" screeched Helen.

"Yes," I mumbled, aware of how weak and pathetic I must look in her eyes.

"I think you're crazy," she exclaimed.

"But Helen, you don't understand..." I struggled to explain to her. "It wasn't his fault. He had a really hard time with me. I was so demanding and childish. And he couldn't cope. So he looked elsewhere out of desperation."

"And you believe that?" she asked, sneering in disgust. "You're crazy.

It's bad enough that he was sleeping with someone else, but for him to blame it all on you, well, that's just totally crazy crazy. Have you no self-respect?"

"Helen, it's more important that self-respect," I insisted, desperately trying to convince her. Maybe if I convinced her, I might even convince myself.

"He's the father of my child. And we were happy together. Very happy"-because we had been-"and if we work at it, we can be again."

"So how come you look so miserable?" she demanded. "Shouldn't you be happy? The man you love is taking you back. Even though he was unfaithful to you."

"Helen, that's enough," said Mum in a warning tone. "You can't understand. You've never been married. You've never had a child."

"Well, I certainly never want to, if it turns me into a total 322 basket case like her," she stormed, looking at me with contempt.

"You're crazy crazy!"

And she thumped out of the room.

Silence followed.

"She has a point," Mum eventually said.

"What do you mean?" I asked listlessly.

"Well, you don't seem very, well... happy happy exactly. You're not having second thoughts, are you?" exactly. You're not having second thoughts, are you?"

"No," I sighed. "I'm not. I owe it to all of us to try again. But I feel it's all wrong. I feel manipulated. I feel kind of steam-rollered by him. As though he wasn't going to take no for an answer. I sort of feel as though I'm lucky to get him back. Yes, that's how he makes me feel. Lucky Lucky!"

"But aren't you lucky to get a second chance? Not every woman does,"

said Mum.

"No, not that sort of lucky," I said, desperate to make her understand, to understand myself. "He makes me feel I'm lucky even though I don't deserve it. As though he's being nice to me even though he doesn't have to be. But because he's a good person. Out of the goodness of his heart. Or something. I don't really know. But it does feel wrong."

"But he is being nice to you," she said, seizing on the one important thing to her.

"Yes, but..."

"But what?"

"But...but...he's being nice to me, but like you'd be nice to a naughty child who was very bold but that you've now decided to forgive. And although I'm lot of things, I'm not a naughty child."

"You're probably just paranoid," she said, trying to be helpful.

Thanks, Mum!

"It can't have been easy for him, coming back, eating humble pie, admitting that he was wrong."

"But that's just it! He didn't eat humble pie. He barely admitted that he was wrong."

"Claire, your nose is probably out of joint. He didn't arrive back in floods of tears with a whole shop's load of red roses, he didn't beg you to take him back," she suggested.323.

"It would have been nice," I admitted.

"But flowers count for nothing. And love does," she said.

"Yes," I agreed despondently.

"I feel like he has me trapped now," I burst out, finally, realizing exactly how I felt. "I've got to be perfect all the time or else he'll leave me again. I can't say a word against him because it'll just prove that I'm only thinking of me. I feel I should be so grateful to be back with him that I can never dare complain about anything ever again. That he can misbehave any way he likes and I have to keep my mouth shut."

"Well, now, you don't have to put up with any more nonsense from him," blustered Mum. "Any suggestion of another woman and come back here immediately."

"Thanks, Mum."

"But in the meantime, be glad you have another chance. And give it a go. Try your best. And I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised."

"I'll try," I promised.

After all, what had I left to lose?

"One other thing," she said a bit awkwardly.

"What's that?"

"I'm not sure that I should tell you."

"What! What aren't you sure that you shouldn't tell me? Tell me, for God's sake," I demanded.

"Well," she said, looking sheepish, "that Adam called."

Adam!

My heart gave a lurch. Or it might have been my stomach. Sure as anything something something lurched. lurched.

"When?" I demanded breathlessly. I felt excited, dizzy, happy. You know, the way James should have been making me feel.

"A few times," she admitted, looking very sheepish indeed. "Yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon when you were asleep. Last night when you were out."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think you needed any distractions while you were sorting things out with James," she said humbly.

"You should have let me be the judge of that," I said, annoyed.

A thought struck me.324.

"You didn't tell him where I was last night, did you?" I asked quickly.

"Yes," she said, sounding defensive, "I said you were out with your husband. Why shouldn't I? It was the truth, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but..." I trailed off.

What did it matter now? I was going back to London. I was going back to James. No more Adam.

But I had to see him. I had to say good-bye. I had to thank him for being so nice to me. For making me feel so beautiful and desirable and interesting and special.

"Did he leave a number?" I asked hopefully.

"Er, no," she said, looking away shamefacedly.

"Maybe he'll call again," I said, a bit frantically.

"Maybe," she agreed doubtfully.

What had had she told him? she told him?

"And if he does, I want to talk to him, do you hear?" I told her.

"No need to bite my bloody head off," she muttered.

True to his word, James called me later on Tuesday evening to say that he had arrived back safely. Had I set a date yet for my return?

"No, not yet," I said weakly, "but soon, I promise."

"Just make sure it is," he said with a suggestive leer in his voice. Which actually made a spasm of dread-fear, almost-run through me. The thought of sleeping with him, having sex with him again, was not a pleasant one.

As soon, as I-gratefully-hung up on James, the phone rang again.

It was Adam!

Beautiful, tall, kind, funny, sweet Adam.

"Hello, Claire," he said in his gorgeous voice.

"Hi, Adam." I felt so happy to hear him. I felt all girlie and giggly and tingly and simpery.

"I hear congratulations are in order," he said in a cold, hard voice.

It was a bucket of cold water on my warm delight at hearing from him.

"Wh...what do you mean?" I asked. I was some hard-hearted bitch who had seduced him for the fun of it. Who had 325 no real interest in him. Now that my husband was back I had no further use for him.

"Helen just told me that you're going back to London. Going back to James," he said accusingly.

"Well, that's right," I said apologetically. "I feel as though I must. You know, for Kate's sake."