Second Chance - Jane Green [76]
Holly clears up the dishes, then excuses herself to go to the loo. She feels like crying. From the heights of exhilaration to the depths of depression in the space of an hour. Grow up, she hisses at her reflection in the mirror. You are a married woman, she tells herself. Stop behaving like a teenager.
But that is exactly how she feels. Like a teenager who has no control over her emotions. Whose emotions and mood can be changed in a heartbeat by external influences.
She still has no idea where this is leading, still thinks of herself as someone who would never have an affair; and the truth is she hasn’t contemplated anything happening between her and Will, hasn’t thought about what the end result of all this… friendship… might be.
She knows she is attracted to him, but he’s gorgeous, how could anyone not be attracted to him? She is still waiting, wishing, hoping that at some point in the fore seeable future, the attraction will wane and they will have a true friendship.
That doesn’t mean she’s going to act upon the attraction, doesn’t mean anything’s going to happen. And yes, so there have been a couple of times when she has closed her eyes while having sex with Marcus and has pictured Will there, but only out of curiosity, only to spice up their sex life a bit, and God knows it worked.
What is clear to her is how much she has missed having a man in her life who is a friend. Marcus has never been her friend, she realizes now. Has never been her partner. She would tell people in the beginning that Marcus was her best friend, but she knows now that was to make up for never feeling physically attracted to him, as if somehow being her best friend would be enough.
Where Marcus puts her down – subtly, always so subtly – Will will listen. Their emails are still fun, still funny, but now Holly finds she is revealing more about herself, letting him in to how she really feels.
The one subject they haven’t discussed, not in any great depth, is her marriage, and why she feels the need to seek out a male confidant, someone to offer her a man’s point of view, someone to make her feel beautiful again, when she has a perfectly good husband sitting at home.
Or not. As the case may be.
The front door slams shut and Holly tenses as she hears the familiar jangling of keys. She can picture exactly what Marcus is doing. He is fishing his BlackBerry out of his pocket, scrolling down quickly to see if any emails have come in during the last ten seconds that absolutely must be taken care of now. He’s putting his keys in the ashtray and emptying the coins from his pocket into the same ashtray before taking his briefcase into his office on the ground floor and unpacking it quickly.
While unpacking his briefcase, he will pick up the post that arrived yesterday and skim through just to check there’s nothing that cannot wait, and at the same time he will listen to the messages on his office answer-phone. Inevitably there will be issues that cannot wait, and he will spend the next hour tapping out emails, making calls, and hissing at any family members who appear in the doorway desperate to see their dad because they’ve missed him.
As usual, Holly gets a perfunctory kiss on the way to his office, and the kids get a perfunctory ruffle of the hair.
‘Off Daddy now,’ he says sternly to Daisy, who has entwined herself around his legs. ‘Daddy needs to work.’ He looks up at Holly, gesturing impatiently at his daughter, and Holly gets up and attempts to disentangle Daisy, who immediately starts crying. ‘Will you keep them away from the office while I just check messages?’ he says. ‘I’ll be out in a sec.’
‘Fine,’ Holly says, carrying a now – screaming Daisy into the kitchen and shutting the door behind her, slightly harder than she had planned. She sits down at the kitchen counter and sinks her head in her hands. ‘Jesus Christ,’ she whispers, ‘is this all there is?’
*
An hour later Marcus is still locked in his