Jay was not dismissed so easily. He leaned one arm against the lintel and looked down at her very seriously.
‘Only if you want to. Never forget, this is your idea. Any time you want to back out, you just say so.’
She wanted him to kiss her so much she almost pulled him into her arms. Almost. What stopped her was the thought that the kiss would probably be kind and brotherly. She did not think she could bear that.
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ she promised brightly. ‘Goodnight.’ She had the door closed on him before he was down the path to the gate.
One good thing about being in a flat panic about a man was that it put everything else into a new perspective, thought Zoe. Last week she would have prepared her mother so carefully, filled the fridge with food, alerted the neighbours. Now she just went into Deborah’s room, as soon as he had gone, and laid her cards on the table.
‘I’m going to Venice tomorrow,’ she said baldly. ‘I’ll be back Monday. You’re on your own for the weekend, Mother.’
Deborah was lying on her bed, staring unseeingly at American football on the television.
She said, ‘But you can’t.’
‘Yes, I can. People do it all the time.’
‘You can’t leave me here alone.’ Deborah’s voice rose in alarm.
Zoe looked at her with some sympathy. She was not so far off alarm herself, for all that Jay had said she could back out at any time. And she did not quite know what it was she was afraid of, either. But she did know that she had to face it.
‘Sorry, Mother. This is something I’ve got to do,’ she said quietly.
She was ready in the hall a good ten minutes before the limousine was due to collect her. She had packed and repacked her overnight case, to say nothing of trying on every outfit in her wardrobe. She had settled on slim navy trousers and a soft linen jacket she had shamelessly hijacked from her sister’s wardrobe. She’d twirled her hair on top of her head. Inserted big hoop earrings. Dug out some gold espadrilles from the back of her wardrobe.
She looked at herself in the hall mirror. Sophisticated, she thought. Careless, even. The full casual traveller who hopped countries at less than twelve hours’ notice.
Or—her sense of humour reasserted itself—she would look like that if it were not for the convulsive way she was clutching her passport. Or the way her legs trembled every time she thought of Jay.
A big black car slid smoothly to a halt outside the gate. Zoe let the curtain fall and smoothed her jacket. She felt sick.
The doorbell rang.
For a moment she almost did not answer it. The stairs were behind her. She could turn and bolt back up them.
Only—then what? Like Jay said, now she had made up her mind, the sooner she got it over with, the better. Except that it had all got a lot more complicated than she had ever imagined. Now that it included Jay, would she ever get it over with?
There was only one way to find out. Zoe’s chin lifted.
‘Forward into the future,’ she muttered. ‘Goodbye, Mother,’ she called out.
There was no reply. She was not really surprised. She was mildly sorry—but she had more important things to think about just at the moment.
She opened the front door.
‘I’m ready,’ she said quietly. And not just to the uniformed driver.
Jay, she found, travelled business class. And he worked while he did it. He was friendly enough, but as soon as they were belted into their seats he had his papers out, making notes on the work she had given him.
‘I’m going to break the back of this on the flight,’ he told her. ‘Then we can concentrate on showing you Venice when we get there.’
‘Thank you,’ said Zoe.
She was monumentally calm. So calm she even impressed herself. She certainly convinced Jay that last night’s emotionalism had been dispelled. She could almost hear his sigh of relief, though he was much too civilised to say anything.
Zoe was mildly surprised at herself. This did not feel like Performance Zoe. After all, she had nothing to hide from Jay. He knew all there was to know about her. Yet nothing felt quite real.
Oh, well, no doubt it would sort itself out.
She stayed calm all through the flight, though she refused the meal and even a glass of champagne.