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The only sound in the hotel
room was the whispering chill of the air conditioning.
Jason Thalassinos lay on his
back, staring at the ceiling, wondering what on earth had possessed him
to go to the Acapulco’s elegant bar in the afternoon. Letting this
woman – blonde, attractive, but not Lexi – talk him into going up to her
room with her. To have his libido vacuumed? Hardly. He hadn’t even
been in the mood for that, but the woman – what was her name again?
– had been soft-spoken and gently persuasive. That must’ve been
it. Her gentleness had reminded him of Lexi, whom he had loved so
desperately that summer, nine long years ago. Lexi, who had moved away
without telling him, and who remained lost to him, in spite of his best
efforts to find her.
Suddenly aware that the woman
was talking, he turned toward her. He noticed that her triangle of
curls was considerably darker than her hair. As if he cared. He tried
to concentrate on what she was saying.
“Jase, you seem miles away. I
thought, after such fabulous sex, your attention would stay here in the
room with me.”
Yes,
he thought. Sex. That’s all it was. That’s all it ever is, now.
Only with Lexi did I make love. Still, that isn’t the blonde’s fault.
He smiled at her. “I’m pleased
you were pleased.”
“Oh, Jase, I was more than
merely pleased… You’re a fabulous lover, but I’m sure you’ve heard that
many times before. Jase?”
He thought: If she calls me
‘Jase’ one more time… Dammit, I can’t stand this any longer.
“I have to get
going,” he said, rising from the bed in one fluid movement.
The woman gave him a long,
considering glance, taking in his dark, unusually handsome face, his
tall, rangy build, the deep chest with the sprinkling of black hair
outlining his muscular pecs, and forming a line to his navel and on,
losing itself in the raven curls surrounding his manhood, impressive
even now, dormant. She wondered if she could entice him back to bed,
because he really had been a quite exceptional lover, twice, with hardly
any recovery time.
“Jase, I thought we could…” she
began, but Jason interrupted.
“No, honey. I told you I
didn’t have a lot of time. I’ve got to get home.” He realized he
sounded unreasonably curt, which was unfair. His long-time unhappiness
wasn’t this woman’s doing.
“Well, yes, but since we’re so
fantastic together, I supposed…”
Then you supposed wrong,
Jason thought savagely.
He forced himself to smile, and
speak pleasantly. “No, honey. I warned you not to expect more,
remember?”
He picked up his clothes from
the floor, and disappeared into the bathroom. He came out after a
while, his raw silk suit surprisingly immaculate, bearing in mind that
it had been lying in a heap for the past hour. The Armani people had
sworn this fabric wouldn’t crease or wrinkle, and they’d just been
proved right.
He went over to the bed,
briefly touching the woman’s shoulder in a casual farewell. “Bye,
honey. Have a nice life,” he said, and walked out of the room.
Jason went to the Acapulco’s guest
parking and found his car. Or rather, he thought uneasily, Alicia’s
car. His dead wife’s car. Definitely not his sort of car at all. A
dark blue, four-door Lexus. Come to think of it, not her sort of car,
either. She had favoured what she called ‘young’ cars.
Tonight, at dinner with his
brother and sister-in-law, he should mention the Lexus, and ask if Lydia
wanted to keep her mother’s car.
He smiled wryly. What had he
been thinking of when he married his sister-in-law’s mother? Out of
compassion, he’d thought at the time. She had seemed so lost and
unhappy, but invariably he could make her laugh. Hardly a sound reason
for proposing. Still…
Jason shook his head ruefully.
Clearly he had no talent for marriage, although he admitted the deck had
been heavily stacked against him. Alicia… Great looking woman for her
age, but twenty years older than he. After three unhappy weeks of
marriage, she had given him back his freedom by killing herself. |
