She would go mad if she knew what he’d done. He had to manage the situation carefully, extract himself from his knotty predicament and slip away before she found out about it. All he had to do was get through this afternoon – hopefully it wouldn’t even turn out to be a whole afternoon if everything went to plan. If he was found out now, he risked losing everything.
He knew his own weaknesses; if he saw her again, he might change his mind – she had that power over him, despite everything. Weakness was what had got him involved with her in the first place. He’d come to logical conclusions after a lot of soul searching; he’d even got as far as preparing a speech and getting the words clear in his head, exactly how he planned to say them. He was determined not to drink, to harden himself to her charms. He needed to – take that last time he’d been so determined to leave her, and all it had taken was a look from those eyes, a brush of her red lips against his cheek, a word whispered in his ear, and he’d been ripping her clothes off, his earlier resolve discarded on the floor along with her dress.
But he’d made the right decision about the will. She couldn’t take that away from him – nobody could.
He went over his resolve as he locked the car, his feet crunching gravel as he strode towards the house, steeling his determination with each step. Two steps up, the farmhouse not quite what he expected, the low female voice telling him to wait a moment, a sultry voice, the door opening and her perfume wafting out, a soft hand on his wrist. Maybe one last time, he thought as she reached for his tie, deftly ripping it from his neck along with the resolve from his mind.
As long as you don’t tell her what you’ve done.
One last time before you leave without saying goodbye.