Page 20 of A Night with Damien Spur

‘I can’t believe it. You’re talking about Damien Spur.’ Anna’s cheeks burned. Her throat was dry.Her damn sister always got there first.

‘And funnily enough,’ Sophie said, ‘last week he popped up at a gallery opening of an amazing painter, Olga Krilova. Claudia was there, too.’

Anna tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Well, that’s uncanny, because I also met him! He came into the practice, said he would help me with my book. So, are you keen, Sophie?’ Anna tried to keep her voice light.

‘Not really. I told you, he’s not my usual sort of guy. You know I’m a bit of a masochist.’

Anna sighed. ‘Well, I have to say that makes me feel better. To be honest, Sophie, I really like him. And what’s this about Claudia?’

Anna’s paranoia had got the better of her. Claudia was hypnotic. She knew how to make men fall in love with her.

‘She didn’t tell me she’d met Damien,’ Anna said. ‘When I asked her to pull a card on a future relationship with him, she said she knew who he was, and that was all. So, you saw them together last week?’

‘Yes. I definitely saw them chatting.’

‘For a long time?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sophie said flippantly. ‘There were so many people there and, frankly, I was more interested in looking at the work… and, of course, the Russians. What a glamorous lot.’

‘Well,’ Anna persisted, ‘maybe they were talking about the art. They probably didn’t exchange names.’

‘Really, I can’t tell you any more. Besides, Claudia adores her husband. She wouldn’t jeopardise her marriage for another man.’

‘Okay, let’s leave it at that,’ Anna said. ‘Anyway, I’m gladthat we don’t share the same taste in guys. But you really need to find someone else. Nicholas isn’t good for you. Do you want to spend your best years being a well-kept secret?’

That’s exactly what Evelyn would say. But, although she paid lip service to their mother’s words, a tiny part of Anna was glad to see her sister wasting her life with a married man who would never leave his wife.

Perhaps this time Anna could be first to the finishing post.

Chapter 6

Despite having a “perfect” wife and two bright, attractive teenagers, Nicholas Morley found life in Bournemouth unimaginably dull. Thus, weekly business trips to London to buy and sell antiques, visits to auctions, valuations and occasional dealings with Philip Green, a reliable fence with an eclectic collection of booty, kept him occupied and well supplied to wheel and deal with a healthy profit margin.

But he wanted more. And more he got when he met the desirable widow, Sophie Fox, at Fortes Auction House.

Sophie selling, Nicholas bidding – for an exquisite nineteenth-century bronze horse. Bang – it was his and she gave him a grateful hug and he took her for tea.

But what of Nicholas’s wife, Kate, a special-needs teacher?

Nicholas professed to Sophie that she was stunning and perfect, also adding that he would never transgress the invisible line from chaste companionship to divine communion with another woman.

So Nicholas and Sophie continued their trysts, without sex being the currency of their relationship. The strength of their friendship – an easy compliance with each other, a breezyaffinity, mutual joy in the romance of life. Innocent meetings, greeting and parting with a kiss on the cheek and a friendly hug.

And yet… Sophie, this lovely woman, married at twenty-two and widowed at thirty, when he looked at her ravishing face, her languorous sea green eyes, her gentle Cupid smile, her generous breasts and slim hips, her English-filly coltish legs, his thoughts wandered into darker waters.

As time slid by, Nicholas struggled to keep his vow of chastity, but he held on, knowing that the complications of intimacy would make his life uncomfortable. And now that he had his easy parallel life, the boring gaps in his marriage were filled.

In truth, Sophie and he shared the same passions, whereas Kate and he had nothing in common. He loved books, music, art and Mediterranean luxury holidays. She liked TV – mostly cooking programmes – cleaning, gardening and big nighties.

Selfless with her vulnerable pupils, but when it came to her husband she would not surrender to his pleasures and nor would he to hers. Theirs was a sex-free marriage and, try as he might, she wasn’t interested in his conjugal rights anymore.

And so it was London life with his new frisson of excitement, the delightful and alluring Sophie, that kept his marriage ticking.

He waived his chaste relationship like a badge of honour to Kate, who was happy to let him have his fun.

‘She trusts me,’ Nicholas told Sophie. ‘She knows that I would never betray her… never have, never will, but,’ he added, just to keep things rolling in Sophie’s court, ‘if I were single, Iwould marry you tomorrow.’

Lovely to be spoilt without a price tag, Sophie was happy to be entertained. Visits to galleries, dinners in elegant restaurants, flowers and walks in the park and in turn she liked to play wifey at her pretty house in Holland Park, cooking and baking, making him comfy beside her on the sofa with cups of tea served with home-made feather-light biscuits. Silky Sophie, fragrant and sexy, touched his cheek in a motherly way, pleased to see him enjoying her little pleasures.

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