Despite being flattered by her attention, at first, he really had only genuinely wanted to help her escape Adam MacLean before the big Scot went too far one day and killed her. He had told Stevie all about her at the beginning, when it had been innocent, and, horrified that someone could be treated so badly, that she had offered herself as a friend to Jo too. Stevie just couldn't bear to see anyone being unhappy, especially when she was so happy herself, planning her wedding to the man of her dreams.
It hadn't felt right to keep bringing Jo into his home when he knew he was falling in love with her, but Matt couldn't help himself – he just had to see her whenever he could. Then, when Jo admitted she felt the same about him, he had almost exploded with Pools-winning pleasure. Jo and Stevie got on so well, which made it both harder and easier, but either way messier. The longer it went on, the more hurt people were going to get, but he couldn't give Jo up – it was not an option. Jo was a drug and he was hooked.
They hot-footed it to the sun to plan how he would finally leave Stevie and little Danny, and orchestrate how Jo could escape the Incredible McHulk. Matthew would have to make sure that he watched his back there. There was no telling what MacLean would do to Matthew, if he had no reservations about hitting a woman as fragile as Jo.
Propping himself up to look at the vision on the sun-bed next to his, Matthew knew it was all going to be worth it though. He couldn't feel any guilt because there was no room for it in his heart, which was just too full of desire for this gorgeous being. She was perfect – well, except for the scar on the top of her leg where Adam's kicking boot went in once. He had always hit her where the bruises didn't show, she said, although she looked pretty undamaged now, and in fantastic shape. And all the sex with that fantastic shape had almost succeeded in blowing his head clean off his shoulders. Sex that was long and languorous in bed, like this week. Sex that was fast and furious as it had had to be back home, like the time in the back of Stevie's car, which he'd felt a bit bad about, but it still hadn't stopped him. Obviously, Stevie hadn't been there to witness it; he had merely borrowed the car to take Jo home the night when she had come up to see the wedding dress. It had been quick, steamy, and very erotic. Sex that was dangerous and exciting, like when they did it up against a wall of an unfinished house on Jo's estate, her long slim legs around his back, pulling him further and deeper into her. She had been very noisy but he wouldn't have cared if the whole British Army and the Pope had come around the corner at that moment; it would just have given it all an extra edge and he would have carried on even more enthusiastically. As he came, he remembered that Stevie would be washing up the pans and dishes in which she had just cooked them all supper. He realized then how much his feelings for Stevie paled in the face of this beautiful, long-limbed, washboard-stomached woman who needed his love and protection so much. She made him feel like he'd never felt before: a giant, a hero, a prince, Robin Hood crossed with Shrek – after the latter had taken the magic potion, obviously.
At first it crossed Matt's mind that Jo was so desperate to get away from Adam that she might be using him as a stepping stone, until she had suggested the two of them fly away abroad in order to plan the final logistics of partner-leaving, wedding-cancelling and moving in together. Then she had gone down on him in a staff toilet to seal her intentions. By the time his breathing had got back to normal, he had booked the flights and the five-star hotel on his already overloaded Visa card.
Now he was here and it was heaven. He kicked away a stray spore of remorse, imagining Stevie, ironing his shirts and looking forward to him coming home. She would be worrying about him driving all the way from Aberdeen and not having a clue that he was 1,500 miles in the other direction sponging up the Spanish sun, blood running like sangria through his veins making him permanently half-drunk with lust.
Stevie would be okay, he had convinced himself of that. Well, heartbreak didn't kill you, did it, and she had come through far worse. She would have to move out (thank God the house was still solely in his name!) so that Jo could move in. Little Danny would forget him soon enough. It wasn't as if he had got used to calling him ‘Daddy' or anything, and kids adjusted. He tried not to let the thoughts in about Danny's Euro-Disney trip because that really would make him feel bad. Especially as the savings for it were financing his Majorcan expenses. He would put the money back in the account, obviously. He wasn't a thief.
If asked, he would say he got the tan in the leisure facilities at the Aberdeen hotel, while Jo would say she had been under the sun-bed at the Welsh health farm. At least Stevie would never know he'd jetted off with another woman to the sun. That detail really would be too cruel.
Chapter 6
Lindsay flicked at Stevie's long, honey-coloured hair and together they studied the difference it made to her reflection. First she pulled it back, then she swooped it forwards until she looked like Cousin Itt from the Addams Family.
‘Know what? I think you should have it all lopped off. To here,' said Lindsay, making a chopping motion on her client's shoulders.
Stevie's eyes registered horror. ‘A bob?' She wasn't convinced.
‘Not quite,' said Lindsay, shaking her head vehemently. ‘I don't think that would suit your face shape. You could end up looking like a child of royal first cousins. Something funkier, I think. Nice and choppy and really easy to do yourself at home.'
Stevie gulped. She was just about to change her mind and ask for a trim when she heard Catherine's voice in her head nagging her: ‘What's the point of booking in with the top stylist at Anthony Fawkes and then not taking her advice?'
‘And a few really pale highlights running through it as well,' Lindsay went on. ‘I think it will make you look a hell of a lot younger.'
Younger.
There. She had spoken the magic word. At thirty-six, Stevie was five years older than Jo, who had just recently had her thirty-first birthday. Stevie had bought her the (size ten) bikini they had both spotted on display in a shop window and wowed at. It was glistening white with a glittery rhinestone clasp at the front. Wouldn't that be ironic if Jo had it on now – modelling it for Matthew on a Balearic beach whilst she was oiled up to buggery with Piz Buin. Stevie smacked that thought away before she showed herself up by crying in public, supplanting it with one of Matthew's delighted face when he saw her new image.
‘Okay, let's do it,' said Stevie, taking a deep breath as the scissors went in for the kill.
Two hours later and she was staring at herself in the mirror, from varied angles, admiring the shorter, chopped style, brighter in colour at the front and the sides and infinitely lighter in weight. She was astounded how much thinner her face seemed. If only it could have done the same to her bum.
‘I'm stunned!' said Stevie, who was. Whatever the damage on her Switch card was, it would be worth it. It cost a lot, but she didn't care. The plan had started to work. Now there was just the rest of her body to sort out.
Adam smoothed the plaster over the wall with the trowel. Apart from the colour, there was no evidence that his temper had given way and that he'd cannoned a fury-loaded fist into the wall. He knew that losing it was not the way forward, not this time. He had tried that one with Diane – and where had that got him? Shouting and screaming and breaking things and being totally out of control had done nothing but drive her right out of his life. And scare the neighbours. And lose his cat for him.
He thought back to that fateful day. The scene of devastation was burned onto his brain like a top quality colour photograph: Diane screaming and running out towards her car with a hastily packed suitcase and Humbug the striped tabby in his basket whilst Adam stood there holding a roaring chainsaw. The neighbours' curtains had twitched, but no one dared to ring the police. Diane had given him that look he had seen in his mum's eyes too many times when his da' came in from the pub. Some folks turned jolly with spirit, not big Andy MacLean. The whisky went straight into his fists, and then the fists went straight into his mammy and his sisters and little Adam. Blood will out – that's what they said, wasn't it?