Page 45 of The Affair
‘Hey, how’s it going?’ he said, with a cheerful grin.
‘Yeah, good. Sorry, in a bit of a rush, Stacy.’ She shot past him and ran to her door, not daring to look back and see if Jared had followed her. It felt as if she’d been gone ten years, but the house was quiet, Devan still in the shower – she could hear the growl of the pump. Plonking the bread and the paper on the table, she sank into a chair, trying to control the trembling in her limbs.
A moment later, she realized the shower had stopped. She quickly got to her feet and opened the fridge for the eggs, milk and grapefruit juice. It was Saturday: they would have their usual scrambled eggs. She laid the table mechanically, unaware of her actions. Riley bounded into the kitchen and came snuffling around her, but she gently pushed him away.Devan mustn’t suspect anything’s wrong, she told herself, as she boiled the kettle and broke eggs into the Pyrex mixing bowl. Attempting to rearrange her agitated face, she stretched hermouth and squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head from side to side as if to dislodge her panic.
She heard her husband’s tread on the stairs and held her breath, not turning as he came in and walked straight across to where she stood, putting his arms around her and nuzzling her neck.
‘That was superb,’ he said, chuckling to himself as he let her go and stretched up his linked hands to the ceiling, loudly cracking his knuckles. ‘Great start to the day.’
‘Hmm …’ She smiled but went on whisking the already thoroughly beaten eggs. When she swung round to the stove the butter was nearly burned, and she snatched it off the heat with a curse.
‘Think I’ll do the supermarket after breakfast,’ Connie said, as she spread her toast and ground pepper over her eggs, although her appetite had deserted her.
‘I’ll come too,’ Devan replied. ‘I want to get a chamois for the car. That cloth we’ve got is useless – it just makes the windscreen worse.’
‘I’ll get it,’ she said quickly. Devan didn’t particularly enjoy supermarkets, and she thought her plan was safe.
He shrugged. ‘OK. We need fruit and loo paper.’
She let out a careful breath. ‘We could do something this afternoon … Pub lunch, maybe?’
Devan nodded, but was absorbed in an incoming text. Watching his bent head, she felt a sudden fear for him, for the hurt she might inflict on him, if he were ever faced with how she had betrayed him.Jared’s justdoing what he always does, she consoled herself. And, to be fair to him, she’d never complained before when he’d made a random appearance. In fact, she’d been waiting eagerly for him every time, to her shame. Not any longer. Definitely not any longer.
Connie was certain she just needed to impress upon Jared that she would not be succumbing to his charms this time … or ever again.Not ever.She’d had no indication that he was a vengeful, vindictive person – although she was aware she knew little about him.Surely there’d be no mileage in compromising me, she thought, months after their affair had ended. With these soothing thoughts, she readied herself for the rendezvous at the windmill.
Dashing round the supermarket as if she were a contestant onSupermarket Sweep, she bought the weekend’s provisions in record time, settling for staples like shepherd’s pie and pasta, the ingredients for which were stamped on her brain, like the words of a school hymn, and needed no concentration. Her mind was all over the place.He’ll be gone by lunchtime. She prayed no one she knew would be up at the windmill today. It was more of a tourist stop, and she very much doubted that on a chilly late-October Saturday anyone would be there at all.
When Connie arrived, she was relieved to see no other cars in the lay-by near the gate to the tall whitewashed stone tower. She sat there for a moment, listening to the silence.Will he come?She tried to remember what she’d told him, but her brain wouldn’t focus on theearlier conversation. All she could remember was blind, gut-churning panic.
She got out of the car. There was quite a wind up there, the air damp, more rain on the way. Pushing open the gate, she walked towards the mill, glancing nervously around. No one. She shivered.Maybe he got the message, she thought, clinging to a slim thread of hope.
Ten minutes later, she was still alone, gazing across towards the Cheddar Gorge. It began to rain, and she decided to wait in the car. As she turned away from the windmill she saw him on the other side of the gate, Barbour buttoned to his neck, hair dusted with drizzle. He must have walked, because there was no sign of a car. She hurried over to him.
‘Let’s sit inside,’ she said, pressing the fob and pulling open her door. Jared, who had said nothing so far, gave a brief raise of his eyebrows in greeting, but made no attempt to reach for the door handle. There was none of the characteristic amusement in his face today as he stared at her over the roof of the car. ‘Get in,’ she urged. He gave her a half-smile, which didn’t convince her, finally opening the passenger door and sliding into the seat.
Skewing herself sideways so she could face him, she spoke softly. ‘What are you doing, Jared?’ Seeing him there, on her home turf, the absolute manifestation of her worst nightmare, made her body feel leaden, cold as the stone of the windmill tower. The unrestrained lust that in the past had ignited at the sight of him was now like the ashes of a dead fire in the morning.
Jared bowed his head, hands clasped in his lap. When he raised his eyes to hers, he appeared defiant. ‘I was worried about you, Connie. You were in such a terrible state when I left you. How was I to know that you hadn’t died right there in that grim hotel room?’
She saw his point. But she had to make hers. ‘We agreed this thing between us was over,’ she said evenly. ‘In Inverness, I said it had to stop, that I couldn’t see you any more … and you agreed, Jared.’
‘To be fair, I didn’t agree,’ he replied, his tone also reasonable. ‘I said I understood what you were saying.’
Alarmed and frustrated by his semantics, she responded more sharply: ‘Can’t you see what you’re doing to me by being here? You must go. Please, Jared,please… Just leave me alone.’ Connie could hear the anguish in her voice, and clearly he could too, because his outstretched hand was prising hers from where it was clamped, white-knuckled, to the steering wheel. He folded her icy fingers gently into his warm palm. ‘Don’t,’ she said weakly, wrenching free.
Another car pulled up beside them. Heart hammering, she peered through the rain-spattered window at the occupants, then let out a small moan of relief: it was no one she knew. ‘Jared?’ she prompted, as he still didn’t acknowledge her entreaty.
‘I would never do you any harm, Connie, you know that,’ he said eventually. Then he fixed her with his turquoise eyes. ‘I love you,’ he said simply.
His words stunned her. ‘Love?’ she croaked, her throat closed with fear.
He nodded, suddenly at ease with himself again, now he had played his trump card. ‘That night when you needed me … in the hotel room … you looked so vulnerable, Connie. I realized then, as I watched you sleep, that it went far deeper.’ He smiled. ‘Although sex like that? Wouldn’t you say it’s a powerful touchstone? One that indicates the absolute strength of our connection?’
Connie tried to control her pounding heart. ‘For God’s sake, Jared, what part of “I’m married” don’t you understand? You talk as if Devan doesn’t exist.’How can I make him see?she asked herself desperately.How can I make him go away?
He shrugged. ‘He obviously doesn’t make you happy. If he did, you’d never have let me do all those things to your gorgeous body.’ His voice had dropped to an intimate purr.
A sharp, unconscious frisson of desire stirred through her loins at the familiarity of his tone, the reminder of ‘those things’. It shocked her that he still had that power over her. Now, when she feared him, almost hated him for being there. She looked away, tried with all her might to tamp it down.
