‘Get lost!’
‘Or is it one of the other guys who were undressing you with his eyes tonight? Not that that would take much doing.’
‘Now you’re being offensive.’
‘No way. I like a woman who’s wise to herself. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. You’ve got it-and, boy, do you know how to flaunt it! That’s OK. You missed out a whole stage of life by marrying me, I know. I don’t begrudge you your fun.’
‘It wouldn’t make any difference if you did,’ she said pointedly.
‘Not since ten-thirty this morning.’
‘Further back than that. In fact, not since- Oh, don’t let’s go down that path again. We’d end up quarrelling and what’s the point?’
‘So you’re not going to answer my question?’
‘What question?’
‘Who are you sleeping with?’
She turned slightly, resting her arm on the back of the sofa, and smiled. ‘Mind your own business, Jake.’
He acknowledged this with a quirk of the mouth. ‘I’m still in the habit of thinking you are my business.’
‘You’ll get used to things being different,’ she told him, charming and implacable.
He allowed one finger to trail across the bare skin of her shoulder. ‘I’ll say things are different,’ he murmured, his eyes on her breasts, their shape emphasised by the shine of the black satin. ‘I could get jealous.’
The admiration in his eyes was frank, and for a moment the old Kelly, the one who jumped for joy at his slightest attention, lived again. But the new Kelly firmly sat on her. She knew every trick in Jake’s book, and once you could see the strings being pulled you were safe. Right?
With a face full of amusement she said, ‘Don’t waste your time, Jake.’
‘Sure I’m wasting my time?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘So it is one of them?’
‘You’re wasting your time again.’
He removed his hand. ‘I guess things really are different. You used to tell me everything.’
‘That was when I never had anything interesting to tell. I’d hunt around in my mind trying to find something about the house or my job that wouldn’t bore you rigid when you’d just come back from Egypt or Burundi, or wherever. Then you’d go on TV and talk about fascinating things in faraway places, and I’d think, Heavens, I told him about my argument with the dustman!’