I recognised Mark’s wife, of course, although she seemed even more dull and plain than I remembered. But I’d only seen her that one time. It had been as much as I’d needed to see. Enough to tell me she was no competition.
I recognised her, but I couldn’t figure out what she was doing there or how she’d known where to find me. Maybe I’d underestimated her. No, I groaned as I shuffled to the side of the bed and swung my feet to the floor. It wasn’t her I’d underestimated; it was that stupid prick, Ethan. He’d obviously snooped while I’d slept, found out more about me than I’d ever shared.
I thought I’d dropped him gently so wasn’t expecting him to be vindictive, but obviously, I was wrong.
‘What are you doing here?’
Her mouth opened and shut like a gormless goldfish. Seriously, why had a man as gorgeous and intelligent as Mark stayed with this moron for so long. I slipped my feet into the shoes I’d kicked off a few hours before and combed fingers through my hair. No doubt I looked a sight, but even then, I’d leave this mess of a woman in the shade. ‘Well?’ I was losing patience.
‘I want you to leave Mark alone.’
The poor fool. ‘That’s not what Mark wants.’
‘We were happy before you turned up flashing your…’
She seemed to be lost for words so I decided to help her out. ‘My tits?’
More mouth opening and closing as if she was offended by the word. ‘Your somewhat obvious attributes,’ she said. ‘Some of which I’m guessing you weren’t born with and some of which are beginning to look a little ridiculous on a woman of your years.’
My years! I was almost forty, although I only ever admitted to thirty-six to new acquaintances. But Susan spoke as if a woman had to stop trying to look her best after a certain age and as if it was a crime to get a little helping hand when it was necessary. No wonder Mark had been so easy to reel in. I almost felt sorry for her. But only almost. ‘Perhaps if you’d made more of your somewhat meagre attributes, Mark wouldn’t have felt the need to look elsewhere. Have you thought of that?’
‘I love him and know he loves me. If you’d go away, we’d be all right. I know it.’
I wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince me or herself. It didn’t matter; I was bored with her. I wanted her to go so I could order a takeaway, have something to eat and relax. ‘Well, I’m sorry. I’m not going away. Mark spent last night with me. He’s promised to tell you that he’s leaving you.’ Almost promised. A day or two missing me would have swung it for me. What I didn’t need was a whining wife to stir up his guilt and to make him think twice. That damn Ethan, I had misjudged badly there.
‘Please, don’t take him just because you can.’
Had she just quoted a Dolly Parton song at me? ‘My name’s not Jolene.’ She looked puzzled and I brushed it away. ‘Listen, go home. You’ll be okay. You’ll find some other more suitable sap to spend your boring days with. Mark has always been mine. I let him go twenty years ago and it was a mistake.’
‘You let him go. I don’t intend on doing the same.’
I looked her up and down, allowing my eyes to linger on the scruffy jacket, her rat-tail hair, the jeans that were all the wrong shape for her figure. My sniff was disparaging, dismissive. ‘Yes, well he’s not here, so why don’t you bugger off back to the suburbs where your type belongs.’ I suppose I didn’t really believe she was going to leave that easily. If she’d come all the way from Bristol in this bloody awful weather, she must have had a plan. Or something more interesting to say than leave my husband be. I waited expectantly, but when she did speak, when she came out with her great plan, my jaw dropped. ‘What?’
‘You heard me. I know you killed your husband.’