Page 32 of His Best Mistake

“What happened?”

“She went off the rails.”

“I don’t blame her,” said Stella. “However much I suffered, she must have suffered ten times more. Does she know I’ve moved in?”

Jack nodded. “She does.”

“How did she take it?”

“She’s staying in Spain for a while.”

Which presumably meant ‘not well’. Hmm. Disappointing. “Did she find Brad?”

“Yes. And the ring.”

“What happened?”

“He handed it over and then fled to South America.”

“Coward,” said Stella archly, and she wondered yet again how she could ever have thought she was in love with such a man. “Is she all right?”

“She should be. She’s with an old friend of mine.”

“How old?” she said, mildly intrigued since it hadn’t occurred to her that Jack might have friends, but of course he did because why wouldn’t he?

But she didn’t have time to ponder it for long because a second later the taxi came to a halt outside the shop. Jack muttered an abrupt, “We’re here,” and just like that, most disappointingly, the conversation came to an end.

*

Back at the apartment that evening, having left Stella to stow the many supplies she’d bought at the art shop, Jack sat at his laptop, staring blankly at the screen, his mind racing.

Today had not turned out the way he’d planned. When he’d asked Stella about her job, he’d assumed it would lead to the kind of small talk he’d anticipated, the kind of small talk he was comfortable with. He didn’t know why he’d expected it when she’d told him she wanted to talk. No doubt he was out of practice.

Regardless of that though, he hadn’t expected her to go into details of her childhood, or to hear that that childhood had been far from happy. He hadn’t liked the absurd way he wished he’d been able to shield her from it. And the savagery with which he wanted to hunt Brad down and string him up – not for what he’d done to Cora, but for what he’d done to Stella – had caught him completely off guard.

He liked even less the fact that he hadn’t seemed to be able to help wanting to find out more about her. What was that all about? He ought to have been relieved when they’d arrived at the shop, not put out about the fact that the conversation was over.

He was still trying to work it out as he’d watched her in the art store, the excitement fairly pulsating from her like a child in a sweetshop, and he’d found himself smiling. It was all highly strange and rather unsettling, but it was early days and he’d figure out how to handle it – and her – soon enough.

r /> In his peripheral vision, just then, Jack caught a blur of movement and glanced up to see Stella come out of her room and begin to head in his direction.

“Thank you for today,” she said with a smile that for some reason made his stomach clench.

“No problem. Did you get everything you needed?”

“And some,” she said, stopping in front of his desk, the smile turning rueful before disappearing altogether when her gaze shifted to his laptop and she frowned. “Am I disturbing you?”

Not in the way she probably thought. “Just working,” he muttered. Or, more accurately, trying to.

“I’d have thought the markets would be closed at the weekends.”

“They are.”

“So what are you doing?”

Since ‘staring into space and thinking about you’ was not the answer he was going to be giving, Jack glanced at his screen and focused. “Analysis,” he said as apparently that was the page currently open on his browser. “I’m looking at trends. Forecasts. News articles. Anything that will affect the currency markets over the next few days.”

“Can I see?”

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