He stopped. Took stock. Rushed out through the doors to see whether she was in the queue for taxis, but she was not there.
‘Jay, come on,’ said Molly, hopping from foot to foot beside an illegally parked limousine in front of the terminal building. The engine was running and a policeman was already approaching. ‘The Sonnet press conference starts in forty minutes. We’ll have to go like the clappers to get there anyway.’
He knew she was right.
He went.
It took hours. Every chance he could, he called Zoe on his mobile. He left message after message but he never made contact.
Eventually he got a faraway female voice which said, ‘Zoe? Oh, no, she’s not here. She’s gone to Venice.’
‘She’s back,’ he said curtly. ‘That’s why—’
The phone was clearly taken out of the vague woman’s hand. ‘I’m Artemis,’ said a voice very like Zoe’s. It sounded brisk.
The sister.
He said rapidly, ‘I took her to Venice but we—got parted at the airport. I really, really need to speak to her.’
‘If she went with you to Venice you’ve probably had your ration,’ said Artemis cheerfully. ‘No idea where she is. You could try Suze Manoir.’
‘Right.’ Why hadn’t he thought of that? ‘Thank you.’
‘If you see her, tell her I’m sorry.’
‘What?’
‘None us had realised how bad Mother is. Zo’s been doing all the work and hiding it from us. Now we’ve realised we’re having a family conference. My father, Aunt Liz, Harry and me. The doctor’s in with Dad and Aunt Liz now. Tell Zo she’s off the hook.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jay, with real gratitude.
He rang off and called Suze’s mobile.
‘Yes, she’s here,’ said Suze, before he had even mentioned Zoe’s name. ‘And I don’t know what you’ve done to her, you jerk, but I’ve never seen her look like that. Don’t come near us.’
He did not accept it, of course. He went straight to the Edwardian block. He did not get past the front door.
‘Go away,’ snapped Suze down the entryphone. ‘She’s sleeping. She looks as if she hasn’t slept for a week. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I hope you’re proud of yourself you—you—you Bluebeard.’
No, he was not proud of himself. But for all sorts of reasons that Suze Manoir could not guess at. He walked through the summer night, trying to wrestle his thoughts into some sort of order.
Women said that they loved men so easily, and most of the time it was just baiting the trap for long-term partnership.
But Zoe was not angling for companionship. She had her family. She had all those damned boyfriends. Now she could go out with any of them and do whatever she wanted in the full knowledge that she started off with a clean slate.
At the thought of Zoe doing whatever she wanted with another man Jay stopped dead and looked round for something to hit.
But then he reminded himself—before they went into that damned conference hall she had said she was glad that it was him. And that she would never regret it.
Well, she was regretting it now, all right. All because of that stupid Lessiter woman—
He caught himself. No, that wasn’t true. It was his own fault. If he had sacked Barbara as soon as she’d developed her crazy crush on him, if he had never given his luke-warm affection to Carla, this would never have happened.
Zoe waited. Why couldn’t I?
Hormones, thought Jay grimly, had a lot to answer for.
But hormones were only part of what he felt for Zoe Brown. Though God knows how he was ever going to convince her.
‘My love,’ he said experimentally to the warm night air.
And realised he had said it before. Holding her. Thinking only of her and her heart racing beneath him.
It had not felt like an experiment. It had felt like truth.
Slowly the tension went out of him. He’d got a hard task ahead, sure. But he’d had things too easy for too long. This was going to be a challenge—and worth it. This was the most important challenge of his life.
‘My love,’ Jay said again. With certainty.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘I CAN’T go to work,’ Zoe said, panicking. ‘I can’t face him.’