‘He’s very easy to be with. I like that about him. And he’s very interested in culture and art and so much of what I like. And he’s a photographer! He’s going to show me how to take photos.’
‘Nude ones, I hope.’ Hilary grinned at him. Jonathan laughed.
‘You durty gurl! You’re a bad influence on me. Was that your phone ringing?’ He cocked his ear to the hall where she had left her bag on the ornate wrought-iron coat stand. She slid off the stool wondering who would be calling her on New Year’s Day morning. Her immediate thought was that it must be her mother, as it always was when she got an unexpected phone call late or early. She remembered the times Margaret would ring her to say she wasn’t well and invariably an ambulance would have to be called and they’d end up in A&E.
‘I missed a call from Colette.’ She made a face and sat back down and took another sip of coffee and a bite of her sausage roll. ‘She was sound asleep when I left.’
Her phone rang again and she saw it was from her messaging service. ‘What’s up with her, I wonder,’ she remarked, dialling 171.
‘A lot, if you ask me,’ retorted Jonathan. ‘You’d think I’d offered her cyanide when I asked her if she’d like me to freshen her drink last night. I was merely being kind.’
‘As you always are.’ Hilary patted his arm as she listened to the voice telling her the time and date of her message. ‘Oh get on with it!’ She could hear sounds, like someone moving around, and then she heard Niall say, ‘Oh you’re up, did you sleep well?’
‘On and off,’ she heard Colette say. ‘I just feel so sad.’
‘Ah you poor thing,’ Niall said, and there was more movement.
‘I think Colette rang my number by accident and it’s gone straight into message but she’s not turned off her phone,’ Hilary said. ‘I do that all the time with these friggin’ touch phones. Remember the day I recorded us talking and I didn’t even know I was doing it? Oh yikes, she’s bawling now and poor Niall’s trying to comfort her.’
‘Better him than me!’ Jonathan made a face.
‘Oh my God! Oh my God! Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Hilary exclaimed at what she was hearing.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jonathan came round the island and stood beside her, concerned, as she switched on the phone to speaker and Colette’s voice echoed tinnily around the kitchen.
‘You’re one of the sexiest men I’ve ever met, Niall. You know that, don’t you? You’ve always known I fancied you. I just adore men with hairy chests. Des’s was smooth, not like yours. Just between you and me, on all your travels, have you ever been a bad boy on Hilary? Because I don’t think there’s a man alive who could ever be faithful.’
‘The evil little hoor!’ Jonathan exclaimed, eyes wide with dismay as he saw the look of total pained shock on Hilary’s face. He held her hand tight as they listened in mounting horror to the events unfolding in Hilary’s kitchen.
Colette stared at her reflection in the cheval mirror of Hilary’s guest bedroom. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair tousled, her black silk négligée was open to reveal a lacy wisp of black translucent chiffon nightdress that revealed the curve of her rounded breasts and deep décolletage. So sexy still, she thought admiringly. She had worn it deliberately knowing that Niall would see her in it. She had just gone down the road of no return, Colette acknowledged. Her relationship with Niall was irrevocably changed, as was her relationship with Hilary, unless Niall kept his mouth shut and didn’t go blurting things out. She hoped he would for all their sakes. If Hilary ever found out that she had set out to seduce her husband, there’d be hell to pay. She picked up her overnight bag and began to pack. She wanted to be gone before Hilary got back.
Niall gunned the engine and drove out of his drive leaving tyre marks. He needed to think. Colette’s full-on invitation to have sex with her was still astonishing to him. Women came on to him . . . a lot . . . especially when he was playing a gig, but Colette was something else. The way she used her body, the slanting seductive glances. And when she’d told him she hadn’t had sex in months and she ached for him.
Niall groaned, thinking of what had gone on between them. What was he to do? What was he to say when Hilary came home, full of anticipation for the family dinner they were going to at her sister’s this evening? She would be so hurt. So desperately hurt if she knew. She gave everything in a relationship. She was the kindest, most giving, most caring person he knew, and none of that had meant diddly-squat. Should he tell her? What was the kindest thing to do? Tell her or say nothing and let her go on in blissful ignorance of the complete and heinous betrayal that had gone on behind her back?
Niall parked the car on the seafront, and head down, hands jammed in his pockets, he strode along the promenade, his jaw tense, his eyes bleak, as he replayed the scenario with Colette over and over in his head.
‘What are you going to do?’ Jonathan asked hesitantly when Hilary’s sobs had subsided.
‘Can you believe that, Jonathan? I was her best friend, her oldest friend. After all my kindness to her over the years. Can you believe that she would stab me in the back like that, without a thought?’ Hilary hiccuped.
‘Even I didn’t think she’d sink that
