LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      JOANNA WAS EXHAUSTED by the time she let herself into her small apartment the following morning. The flight from New York had landed soon after six-thirty. And, although she’d been hoping to get a few hours’ sleep on the flight, a crying baby and the man beside her snoring for most of the journey had put paid to that.

      She’d flown home via New York because the flight from Miami to London hadn’t been due to leave until the evening and the last thing she’d wanted to do was hang around Miami airport, looking as though she was waiting for Matt to come and find her.

      There’d been a flight to New York almost immediately, and she’d been lucky enough to snag a seat in business class. She’d excused the extravagance on the grounds that it was an emergency. Some things were worth the price you had to pay.

      She wasn’t looking forward to seeing David again. Naturally she wouldn’t tell him she’d slept with Matt. But she was very much afraid he would suspect what had been going on. And in her present fragile state, she might well reveal more than she intended.

      He was bound to say ‘I told you so’ if she admitted that the visit hadn’t gone as she’d anticipated. He’d warned her not to go and she half wished she’d taken his advice.

      Half wished?

      Shaking her head, she stripped off her clothes and headed for the shower. Standing under the hot spray, she felt as if she was sluicing every trace of Matt’s lovemaking from her body. A vain hope, she acknowledged, and when she heard the phone ringing as she turned off the water, she found herself hoping that it was Matt.

      Crazily, her heart skipped a beat at the thought, but then she quickly came down to earth again. It was her mobile phone that was ringing and Matt didn’t have her mobile number. Wrapping a bath towel around her, she went with rather less enthusiasm to answer it, which even she knew was foolish. She felt a sense of resignation when she saw David Bellamy’s number on the small screen.

      She really didn’t want to talk to him right now. Yet she had no choice. ‘Hi, David,’ she said, trying to adopt an upbeat tone. Crossing her fingers to protect herself against the lie, she added, ‘I was going to ring you later.’

      ‘How much later?’ He didn’t sound appeased. ‘You must have arrived home hours ago.’

      ‘Not hours,’ she protested. ‘It was early morning when I landed. You might not have been awake if I’d phoned you then.’

      ‘Even so…’

      ‘David, I needed a shower and a change of clothes. You know what it’s like when you’ve been away.’

      ‘You were only away a couple of days, Joanna. It was hardly a holiday.’ He sighed. ‘Do I take it you saw the great man?’

      ‘I saw Matt, yes.’ Joanna hesitated before continuing. ‘Actually, he’s been ill. That’s why he didn’t answer any of my emails.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Yes, really,’ she said, half annoyed at feeling the need to defend herself. ‘He’d picked up a bug in South America while he was there.’

      ‘Oh, well…’ David evidently decided not to push his luck. ‘So you’ll be coming in—what? Later today?’

      ‘Make it tomorrow,’ she said, although the idea of going into work at all wasn’t appealing right now. ‘This place is a mess and I need to do some grocery shopping.’ She paused. ‘Is that all right?’

      ‘I guess so,’ replied David ruefully. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to assure myself that you got home safely.’

      ‘Well, thanks.’ Joanna realised she’d been in danger of taking her frustrations out on him. ‘I’ll tell you all about my trip tomorrow.’ Or as much as was sensible anyway. ‘Okay?’

      It was the hotel phone that awakened Matt.

      His own mobile phone was in the pocket of the trousers he’d taken off—well, kicked off in the other room, actually—the night before. If it had rung earlier, he certainly hadn’t heard it.

      Groaning, he blinked, taking stock of his surroundings. Then, realising that Joanna wasn’t beside him—was she in the shower? —he rolled over to snag the phone at her side of the bed.

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘Matt? Oh, thank goodness, I’ve reached you at last. I’ve been ringing your phone for ages but you didn’t answer.’

      Matt recognised his sister’s voice at once. ‘What’s the urgency?’

      Sophie clicked her tongue. ‘Well, when you didn’t come home last night, we were all concerned. But then, this business with Dad—’

      ‘What business with Dad?’ Matt dragged himself up against the pillows and forced himself to focus on what she was saying. ‘What’s happened?’

      Sophie sighed. ‘Oh, Matt, we had a call from Andy Reichert in the early hours.’ Andy Reichert was his—now his father’s—second-in-command. ‘He’d phoned Dad last night, and he’d been concerned when he couldn’t reach him. Apparently, Dad hadn’t been too well during the afternoon, so, as a last resort, Andy went to the office.

      ‘He found Dad slumped over his desk. He called 911, naturally, and Dad was rushed to hospital. It’s another stroke, Matt. A more serious one this time. No one knows what the eventual outcome will be, but right now it’s touch and go.’

      Three weeks later, Joanna had accepted that Matt wasn’t going to contact her. Whatever had happened in Miami, he’d evidently decided there was no point in pursuing her to England.

      She’d found it hard to accept at first. She’d been so sure he’d want to see her again. Foolish, perhaps, but after the night they’d spent together, she’d actually been tempted to give him a second chance.

      Still, maybe that was just her hormones talking. Whatever, she’d finally convinced herself that maintaining the status quo was in her best interests and his. She’d been in danger of losing sight of her reasons for going to Miami in the first place. Was she so easy to deceive?

      Evidently so.

      She hadn’t heard from Matt’s solicitors either, though in the last week, and with David’s encouragement, she’d consulted a firm of divorce lawyers here in London. She’d given them Matt’s address and had assumed they’d contact him on her behalf, and she’d waited on tenterhooks for his response. But nothing had come of it. Yet.

      A second interview was planned for the beginning of the following week, and she’d decide then what she was going to do. There didn’t seem much point in delaying the inevitable. Which meant she had to tell her mother what was going on.

      Glenys Carlyle—or Glenys Avery, as she was now—lived in Cornwall with her second husband. Lionel Avery was a wine merchant she’d met at a night club in London fifteen years ago, just after she and Joanna’s father had separated.

      Although he was almost eight

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