I suppose it was silly to hope Mark would stay with me into the evening. An even slimmer hope that he’d stay overnight and give me a chance to show off my skill in cracking an egg.
‘You know I would if I could,’ he said, buttoning his shirt wrong, swearing softly under his breath as he started again.
It would have been easy to have started one of those conversations that went round in circles. The one that said you could if you wanted to, if you really wanted to and ended by him screwing up his face and admitting that he didn’t want to hurt his wife, that he needed time, that he loved me but… And the words would trail off, just like that. It was a conversation that was always destined to fail, so why start it? It was pointless making Mark feel more guilty for cheating on his wife and was shooting an own goal to make him guilty for upsetting me. ‘I know you would, darling,’ I said, climbing from the bed and moving closer to wrap my arms around his neck and press my naked body against him. This was the memory I wanted to leave him with. ‘I’ll be here when you come back.’
His hands swept down my back and lingered on the swell of my buttocks. ‘I really wish I didn’t have to go,’ he said. He pulled back, then kissed me so gently, it made me quiver. ‘I’ll work something out, I promise.’
Work something out? A step in the right direction perhaps, but we seemed to have reached a plateau. Perhaps I should have stayed with my mother for longer, ramped up his sympathy for my plight, denied him sex until he was ready to make a commitment to me.
I threw on a T-shirt and stood on the balcony watching as he walked down the street. I wondered if he’d call into his office, just so he could tell his wife he’d been there.
It was a little after five, a long evening lay ahead, hours of time and space to decide what I was going to do with what I’d learnt at my mother’s. The balcony chairs weren’t comfortable so I didn’t linger there, getting to my feet and giving the view a final glance. I’d turned away before someone caught my eye. Not all the men I’d been with over the years had stuck in my mind, and even when their faces or bodies did, their names certainly didn’t.
But this man I knew, and I frowned, immediately suspicious to see him there.
Coincidences happened, but this one stunk. And if something stinks, it’s usually wise to smell a rat.