Since when had his mother ever given him lectures on his lifestyle? In fact, since when had she ever told him how she felt about the life he led? Of course, he had always suspected, but that was because he was clever enough to read behind the lines.
Any slim hope of retracting his story about fictional meetings and non-existent lovesick nights of stolen passion had evaporated faster than dew in hot sun.
And Pierre blamed Georgie. For once in a situation in which he exercised no control, he had spent the week fulminating, cursing himself for not sending the woman on her way the minute he had spotted her in the foyer of the gym, for forgetting just how flaky she was.
He had no idea how he was supposed to feign a relationship with a woman who irritated him beyond belief and he was pretty sure that he would have to do a good job at the pretence because Didi would be watching—watching and looking out for all those little signals that demonstrated two people being in love. As Pierre had never been in love, he would just have to run with his imagination, although the minute he thought about Georgie, and he had thought about her too much over the past week for his liking, his teeth snapped together in frustration.
He switched off his radio and efficiently connected his ear piece so that he could use his mobile phone hands free, then he punched in Georgie’s home number, which she had kindly scribbled down for him and left by his telephone before leaving his house a week ago. It would have been a small technical hitch, he supposed, if he had been obliged to ask Didi for the telephone number of the woman he was supposedly head over heels in love with. One thing to smell a rat, another to see it hurtling at breakneck speed across the floor in front of your eyes.#p#分页标题#e##p#分页标题#e#
She answered on the third ring, sounding a little out of breath, as if she had dashed to get the phone.
‘Catch you in the middle of something, did I?’ he drawled. He pictured her screeching to a halt in mid-run in front of the phone, her curly fair hair every which way, her mouth slightly parted, her green eyes startled at the invasion of the phone ringing. Teachers should be the most organised people on the face of the earth and, having been subjected to a series of eulogies from his mother on what a brilliant teacher she was, he assumed that there was an organisational gene somewhere inside her, but he had yet to spot it. She had always given him a very passable impression of someone who preferred life to surprise them, having obviously never worked out that life’s surprises were generally best avoided.
‘I was just on the way out.’ Georgie had been half expecting his call, but even that wasn’t enough to diminish the sudden racing of her heart as she heard his low, lazy voice down the end of the line. ‘Where are you?’
‘In my car driving down. Were you hoping that I had managed to think of a convenient excuse to get out of this weekend?’
‘Your mother would never forgive you. She’s looking forward to this more than she’s looked forward to anything since your dad died.’
‘I know. She told me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Pierre ignored that. He couldn’t see the point of apologies, not now that the proverbial stable door was well and truly bolted and the runaway horse long since disappeared over the distant horizon.
‘What can I expect when I get to Didi’s house?’
Somehow it didn’t feel the sort of conversation to have standing up and Georgie sat down, cross-legged on the ground in her small hallway. She had been on the verge of sticking on her thick, waterproof jacket, and now she laid it on her lap because the hall was cold.
‘Oh, the usual.’
‘Come off it, Georgie. I’m suddenly being treated like The Prodigal Son, so the usual isn’t exactly appropriate, is it?’
Georgie cleared her throat nervously. ‘A nice meal,’ she said, thinking of the spread Didi had insisted on laying on, despite Georgie’s protests that she really shouldn’t, no, really, please don’t go to any bother, Pierre will hate it, ‘I think she just wants us to have a nice, relaxed time…’
‘A tall order, given the circumstances.’
‘It doesn’t help if you carry on being angry with me.’
‘I’m not angry, I’m resigned.’
‘You mean, the way someone with a sore throat’s resigned to the prospect of full-blown flu?’
‘Except in this case the virus might just be around for longer than two weeks.’ Although it was only a little after four, it was already dark, too dark to see the scenery slipping past. ‘Where were you going?’
‘I beg your pardon?’