But Guy, who appeared to have other matters on his mind, wasn’t interested. ‘Of course she won’t.’ His tone brusque, he glanced at his watch and stood up. ‘Damn, I’m going to be late. I’ll be back this evening at around nine.’
‘Make her promise not to say anything to Tanya,’ Josh begged, still mortified by the prospect of hideous humiliation.
‘Make him promise to eat his Weetabix,’ said Maxine, imitating his nine-year-old whine.
Guy merely looked exasperated. ‘For heaven’s sake!’
‘Thanks for your support,’ muttered Maxine, seizing the bowl of beige mush and clattering it into the sink. ‘You’re a great help.’
Ella, who detested having her hair washed, tugged at her sleeve. Her eyes shining, she said hopefully, ‘Maxine? If I’m naughty, will you shave my head?’
Since attempting to instil discipline and show Guy what a treasure she was had been such a dismal failure, Maxine left the children to their own devices for the rest of the morning. If non-stop TV cartoons were all they wanted to watch, why should she care?
Having washed up the breakfast things and gazed morosely out at the rain sweeping in from the sea, she sat down at eleven o’clock with a big gin and tonic and the portable phone. To cheer herself up and get her own back on Guy for being so stroppy, she was going to phone all her London friends for a good gossip. The fact that it was peak time and would cost him an absolute fortune only made the prospect more enjoyable.
‘You make him sound like an ogre,’ exclaimed Cindy, from the opulent comfort of her four-poster bed in Chelsea. Recently married to a rich-but-ugly industrialist, some twenty-five years older than herself, whose vast stomach, thankfully, was a serious impediment to their sex life, she couldn’t imagine what Maxine had to moan about. ‘I met Guy Cassidy at a party last year and he was absolutely charming. All the women were drooling like dogs! Maxi, you have to admit he’s sensationally attractive...’
‘Looks aren’t everything,’ Maxine drawled, jiggling the ice cubes in her glass and tucking her bare feet beneath her on the sofa. Then, relenting slightly, she added casually, ‘Well, he’s not bad I suppose.’
‘Don’t give me that,’ crowed Cindy, who knew her too well. ‘What are you trying to tell me, that you’ve had your hormones surgically removed? You must fancy him rotten!’
Maxine grinned. Cindy, in London, was a safe enough confidante.
‘OK,’ she admitted, taking a slug of gin. ‘So maybe I do, a bit. But I’d fancy him a lot more if only he’d show a smidgeon of interest in return. You have no idea how demoralizing it is, slapping on the old make-up and making myself generally irresistible when he takes about as much interest in me as he does in the bloody milkman.’
‘Sometimes make-up isn’t enough,’ replied Cindy, ever practical. ‘Sometimes you just have to rip off your pinny and get naked.’
‘You mean I should seduce him?’ At such an awesome prospect, even Maxine blanched.
‘Works every time,’ Cindy said happily. Maxine doubted whether Cindy would even recognise a pinafore if it leapt up and strangled her. She’d certainly never worn one in her life.
‘It wouldn’t work with Guy.’ Gloomily contemplating her almost empty glass, she imagined the scenario. She had a horrid feeling he would laugh his handsome head off. Before firing her, naturally.
‘Why?’ countered Cindy. ‘Have you got fat?’
‘I’ve got Guy Cassidy as a boss,’ Maxine sighed. ‘So far, he’s seen through everything I’ve tried, and all he does is sneer. He’s too smart to fall for an old trick like that.’
‘You’re losing your nerve, girl. Living out in the sticks is doing something to your brain.
Isn’t he worth taking a chance on?’
‘It’s all right for you.’ As Maxine spoke, the doorbell rang. ‘All you did was meet him at a party. You want to try living with him.’
‘Darling, I’d be there like a shot!’ Cindy, her interest aroused, sounded excited. ‘Now there’s an idea. You could invite me down for a weekend. If you’re too chicken, I’ll have a crack at him myself!’
‘I’ll have to go.’ Maxine, uncurling herself, realized that her left leg had been seized by pins and needles and was now completely numb. ‘There’s someone at the door.’
‘Oh pleeease,’ Cindy urged. ‘I’m your friend, aren’t I? Go on, invite me!’
‘No,’ said Maxine bluntly. ‘You’re married.’
‘Don’t be so boring,’ protested Cindy. ‘At least I’m not chicken!’
Cindy didn’t understand, thought Maxine as she made her way awkwardly to the front door, clinging to furniture as she went. She wasn’t chicken either, she just wasn’t prepared to make a complete prat of herself and lose both home and job into the bargain. And she would have her wicked way with Guy Cassidy eventually, she was quite determined on that score. It was simply a matter of timing and technique. And pouncing on him buck-naked, Maxine decided with a small, wry smile, didn’t exactly rate highly in terms of finesse.
She needn’t have bothered to stop en route and grab a handful of fivers from the tin in the kitchen, because it wasn’t the milkman after all.
‘Yes?’ said Maxine, staring at the woman on the doorstep and mentally noting the style and quality of the clothes she wore. She’d bet her last Jaffa cake it wasn’t the Avon lady either.
‘Is Guy here?’ The visitor eyed Maxine in turn, instantly homing in on the blackcurrant jam stain which, courtesy of Ella, adorned her yellow tee-shirt.
The rain was still bucketing down, driven in from the sea by a ferocious wind and hammering against the windows like gravel. Anyone else, caught out in such a storm, would have looked like a scarecrow.
But this woman, wrapped in a long, lean leather coat the colour of toffee apples, worn over a cream and toffee-apple striped silk shirt and cream trousers, seemed impervious to the weather.
Screamingly elegant from her short, sleek black hair to her beige Ferragamo shoes, she simply wasn’t the kind
