Page 28 of The Affair
She hesitated for a second longer, swallowing hard, then slowly pressed down on the handle and pulled the door open a crack.
Jared stood in the corridor, looking uncertain. When he saw her, his face broke into a broad grin. ‘Phew!’ He spoke quietly. ‘I thought maybe you’d swapped rooms with one of your people and I’d be frightening some poor eighty-year-old to death.’
‘You nearly frightenedmeto death,’ she retorted. Although the sight of him made her stomach lurch, she said, with as much firmness as she could muster, still through the crack in the door, ‘Jared, go away. You can’t come in. It’s the middle of the night.’
Jared looked surprised. ‘Don’t be angry, Connie. Please.’ And, when she didn’t move, he went on, ‘Can I come in … only for a minute? I just had to see you again.’
His voice trailed off as a young man in the grey uniform of the hotel walked swiftly along the corridor, staring at them both as he passed.
Connie panicked, terrified that some of the group might still be up and spot a strange man outside herroom. She pulled the door wider and ushered Jared quickly inside before anyone could see him.
Finding herself face to face with him in the dimly lit hotel room, she didn’t know what to do or say, very conscious that all she had on was a T-shirt that barely reached her knees. She crossed her arms, didn’t ask him to sit down and he made no move to do so, just stood close to the door.
‘So, itwasyou … last night, in the square?’
Jared looked puzzled. ‘Me? I’ve only just arrived.’
‘Really? I could have sworn I saw you, around eleven, walking across the Rynek.’
‘Not me, Connie. My plane got in at eight this evening.’
She went and sat down on the bed, her whole body trembling with surprise, and finally indicated the only chair in the room, a wooden armchair with padded, patterned cushions. ‘You really can’t be here, Jared.’
He sat forward, forearms on his thighs, hands clasped, seemingly intent on making his case to her. ‘I’m on my way to Warsaw to meet this new design group.’ She must have looked puzzled, because he quickly explained, ‘I’ve just sold my kitchen design business, and I’m looking for partners in a new venture.’
Connie waited.So that’s what he does, she thought. It made him slightly less mysterious, but he had questions to answer. ‘Are you telling me you just happened to arrive in Kraków at the exact same time as me? And that you just happened to stumble across the informationthat I was staying in this hotel?’ Her voice was low but fierce. She wished she could stop trembling, but the combination of his presence in her bedroom and her naked lower half was not exactly helping.
Jared smiled sheepishly. ‘I won’t lie to you, Connie. I checked out your tour website and timed my meeting to coincide because I wanted to see you again.’
‘Jared!You can’t just follow me around Europe when the fancy takes you.’
His look was hard to read. ‘I had to see you, Connie. That night at the lake …’
Now he stood and came over to her. She felt quite incapable of stopping him as he sat on the bed, put his arm round her shoulders and drew her close. His jacket was cool and smelt of the outside – it reminded her of the night at the lake too. She wanted to bury her face in it, to inhale the scent of him.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she repeated weakly, closing her eyes as she tried to resist the surge of desire his touch engendered.
He didn’t reply. His hand was lightly stroking the skin of her upper arm, his thigh lay tight to her own bare one.
Connie managed to pull away but did not stand up. She wasn’t sure she could. ‘You have no idea what a day I’ve had,’ she said desperately, not looking at him, not daring to.
‘I have. I went last year.’
She gave a shaky sigh. Without thinking, she allowed him to take her in his arms again, feeling the agonizingpleasure of his hair brushing her forehead, the pressure of his arm, holding her close.
‘It was so unbelievably awful,’ she whispered, trying to distract herself from the arousal she couldn’t suppress. ‘Incomprehensible. We all know about it. Know every grim detail. But seeing it close up … imagining those families …’
‘That’s the thing. People just like us,’ Jared said. ‘Hell.’
Then she felt his fingers under her chin, raising her face to his. For the longest second, they gazed at each other before he kissed her. It was slow and soft and exquisite – but not demanding. It turned her body to water, nonetheless.
‘We can’t,’ she whispered, although every inch of her told her they must.
He didn’t reply, just pulled her up from where they sat and lifted her in his arms, laying her gently on the bed, pulling the duvet over her. She watched as he peeled off his jacket and shoes, his jeans, until he was in his cotton shirt and boxers. Then he slipped into bed beside her.
Turning her gently on her side and bringing his body close, he wrapped his arm loosely across her body. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said quietly.
But Connie couldn’t and, judging by Jared’s quick breath on her neck and the tension fizzing off him, it was clear he couldn’t either. She longed so much to make love to him right now, she could scarcely bear it.Is it wrong?she asked herself, as she lay, hardly daring tobreathe, trying to control her desire. The cold, the anguish and hate that had stalked her day, the smell of terror that still haunted the place, seemed to reproach her. She felt ashamed that she was alive and free, able to enjoy the sensuous warmth of Jared’s body against her back. But the life surging through her veins right now was irresistible, impossible to deny. She took a shaky breath, then turned to him.
