Chapter Thirteen
SYLVIE THREW HERSELF into work and fortunately there was plenty of it to distract her from her feelings about Jack.
The numerous divorce cases she was handling should have helped convince her she had done the right thing in ending their fling.
Relationships failed so often, so bitterly and often vengefully and it didn’t seem to matter what time length they had endured.
One of her clients had been married fifty-one years, another only five months.
Sylvie should be grateful that at least she had ended her fling with Jack without too much collateral damage.
Or at least, not the sort you could see on the surface.
But inside she was aching like she had some sort of cancer eating away at her flesh, gnawing away at her hopes and dreams, leaving her raw and sore and empty.
Coming home in the evenings was fraught with the worry of running into Jack getting out of his car or seeing him moving about in his house next door.
She tried not to glance in his direction but her eyes veered that way no matter how hard she fought the urge.
For the first couple of weeks, she saw no lights come on at night, so she imagined he was off dating another lover and spending the nights in hotels or perhaps visiting his grandparents.
Sylvie had seen a photo of his family home Wildewood and was disappointed she hadn’t got to see it in person.
But then, how could she have done so while their fling had to remain a secret?
It hurt to think of him moving on so quickly with his playboy ways.
It pained her to imagine his hands stroking someone else’s body, his sensual mouth kissing someone else’s lips.
It was a form of torture to think about him at all, let alone being intimate with someone other than her.
She was furious with herself for allowing herself to fall in love with him. Why couldn’t she shut off her feelings?
Was she going to be like her mother, living years without moving on?
Stuck on loving and missing an emotionally unavailable man?
Jack was never going to be the I-love-you-forever type.
The loss of his parents had made him lock away his feelings so he couldn’t be hurt by them.
She had done much the same, but somehow Jack had stormed through her defences with his charm and playful nature.
From the first moment they danced together she knew she was in danger, so she had only herself to blame.
She knew about his reputation. She knew he would never fall in love, because he was having too much fun living life as a billionaire playboy.
Why had she thought for a nanosecond he might fall in love with her?
At least Sylvie had her mother’s wedding to look forward to this weekend.
Her mother and Patrick were getting married in Surrey in Patrick’s large garden.
Linda had invited Sylvie to come and stay for a few days before the wedding to help her prepare.
The irony of the situation didn’t escape Sylvie.
It was usually the other way around—the mother would be helping the adult daughter prepare for her wedding.
But that was yet another silly thought Sylvie had to shut down. There was no point in thinking about Jack waiting for her down the aisle or petal strewn garden path. That was wishful thinking and it was a complete and utter waste of time.
Jack managed to fill his time with an unusually heavy workload but he relished the distraction.
He wouldn’t allow himself to think about Sylvie, because every time he did, he sank into a deep pit of loneliness that tortured him into a restless lack of focus during the day and sleeplessness at night.
His usual defences were not operating at full capacity.
He thought of her way more than he should have but he figured it was because he was bitter and resentful about her ending their fling, not him.
Immature of him, sure, but a man had his pride and he was born and bred and bathed with it.
Jack hadn’t seen Sylvie for a couple of weeks but then he received a text message from her asking him to feed Shadow as she was going to be away in Surrey for a few days at her mother and Patrick’s wedding this coming weekend.
The wording was polite and brief and no one reading it would have thought that they had ever shared an intimate relationship, and certainly not one that made Jack feel so out of sorts now it had ended.
Jack came home after another long day at work and, shrugging off his jacket, flung it over the back of one of the kitchen stools.
He loosened his tie and tossed it in the same direction of his jacket.
He sent his splayed fingers through his hair, letting out a long, weary sigh.
He glanced at his phone but then in a fit of pique deleted every single dating app.
It was an act of defiance but directed at whom he wasn’t quite sure.
Himself? A self-punishment? A time out in the wilderness of loneliness to teach him a lesson about not being so off his guard that he could be blindsided again?
It was all of those things and more. He needed time and space to think.
He was so used to moving on to the next lover, the next exciting temptation that caught his eye.
But no one caught his eye. He only had eyes for Sylvie Rathbone and it was driving him crazy. He had to move past this disappointment, this bewildering emptiness that was consuming him.
Jack got a tin of cat food out of his pantry and pulled the tab to open it.
He unlocked his bifold doors and slid them open and went out to the still non-existent garden.
Compared to Sylvie’s lush and fragrant garden next door, his looked like a wasteland, which was kind of like his life right now.
Empty, a shell of his former self, a wreck that needed considerable work to get it into some sort of positive shape.
There was a movement at the back corner of his block and he braced himself for encountering a rat, but relief swept through him when he saw it was Sylvie’s little stray cat.
She gave him a wary look with her green eyes, then crept slowly towards him.
Jack bent down and put the cat food down in front of him, hoping the enticing smell of salmon would overcome her fear of contact.
‘Hey, Shadow,’ he said in a soft voice.
The little cat blinked at him and then gave a squeaky-sounding meow as if she was greeting him. Then to his surprise and considerable delight, Shadow came closer and began to eat the food he’d put in front of him.
Jack said, letting out a long sigh, ‘I hope you like the salmon. I was going to give you the chicken one but variety is the spice of life…or so I used to think.’
Shadow looked up at him between mouthfuls and blinked at him, then went back to eating her dinner.
‘I had a cat once, a long time ago,’ Jack said, thinking back to his early childhood.
‘But when she died a year or two after my parents, my grandfather refused to replace her. Her name was Miffy, like in the kids’ books.
I really missed her but I didn’t tell anyone, not even my brothers.
I guess I got used to keeping what I felt to myself. ’
Shadow had finished most of the food and looked up at him again but this time she came closer to him and meowed again, louder this time, her green eyes looking straight into his.
Jack blinked back a sudden build-up of moisture in his own eyes and swallowed against a walnut-sized lump in his throat.
He slowly reached out his hand and gently stroked the little cat’s coat, long slow strokes that she seemed to welcome for he heard her begin to purr.
He blinked a couple of times to clear his watery vision and kept stroking the cat, talking to her in a gentle tone.
‘Hey, you like that, huh? And here, behind the ears? Miffy used to love a scratch there too.’
Shadow continued to purr and then she turned and bumped her head against his hand as if to ask for more.
Jack smiled, a warm feeling spreading throughout his chest like a flow of melted treacle.
‘It looks like we’re going to be friends after all,’ he said, still stroking Shadow.
‘You trust me now, huh? Good to know I still have it with the ladies.’ He let out a long sigh.
What a waste of a skill when he only wanted one lady—Sylvie.
The little cat stopped and blinked at him again. Mee-oow. This time her meow was stretched out as if she were trying to communicate something to him.
‘You miss her too, huh?’ Jack said. ‘She’s only away for the weekend but it feels like months to me.’
Meow.
Jack stroked his hand over Shadow’s back and the little cat arched her spine in delight. ‘Listen, I want to make a deal with you. If you’re going to hang around you have to promise me something. No rats left on my doorstep, okay? I freaking hate the things.’
Shadow blinked innocently at him. Meow.
He straightened and, instead of shying away at his sudden movement, Shadow wove sinuously around his ankles, purring loudly.
He looked down at her and gave a rueful smile.
‘Oh, and there’s another thing we have to get straight right from the get-go.
If you want to come inside, fine. But under no circumstances do I want you on my bed. ’
Prrrhht, Shadow said.
The following morning Jack had a scheduled meeting with Hugo Winters. Before Hugo could get into one of his rants about his estranged wife, Edwina, Jack took control of the session.
‘Hugo, sit. I want to hear about what happened with Mimi a couple of weeks back.’