She abandoned herself to the familiar intoxication of the music. There was nothing else to do. Jay was evidently quite determined not to talk. So she danced and laughed and waved her arms as if she were having the time of her life. And in the small hours of Monday morning, when her eyes were gritty with tiredness, he took her back to the hotel suite.
He did not put the light on. Instead, as he closed the door behind them, he said quietly, ‘Zoe—’
She did not mind him not putting the light on. As long as he put his arms round her and took her to bed. Tonight she wanted to take the same care of him that he had taken of her.
Hell, be honest, Zoe. You want a lot more than that.
Yes, but I want that, too.
Jay said in a strained voice, ‘Zoe, this virginity thing. I didn’t understand. I should have thought harder.’
Why didn’t he put his arms round her?
‘What do you mean?’ she said, her voice slurring with tiredness. And lust. Well, more lust than tiredness. Probably.
‘I don’t think it was an accident that you were a virgin.’
‘What?’ Her head reared up. Suddenly she was not tired at all.
‘You gave me a line about how it was just chance—boyfriends in different places, friends getting the wrong idea. I don’t think it was anything to do with that. I think you were exactly what you should have been.’
She was so hurt she could not speak. Could hardly move. Everybody in the world thought she was a hot babe. Everybody but one. Jay Christopher thought she was meant to be alone.
‘I should never have interfered.’ His voice rasped.
‘Well, you should know,’ said Zoe, equally harsh.
She heard him swallow in the dark. ‘I know. I’m sorry. Not much point in saying that now. But I am. I wish—oh, hell!’
And he left her to sleep alone.
Long after she had gone to bed Zoe heard him moving around in the sitting room. He was ultra-quiet. But her ears were strained for sounds that would tell her what he was doing. And they did.
He sat for a long while. By the window, she thought. In the dark, certainly, because there was no light under the connecting door. Then he got up and she heard him move a large piece of furniture, gently, carefully. Arranging the sofa, she realised.
So he wasn’t intending to come back to bed. He must really have hated last night, then. She had made him break his every rule. Even making him hold her through the night. No, he was not going to forgive that.
He was going to take her back to England, employ her for one more week at Culp and Christopher—and then she was never going to see him again. It was inevitable. Zoe knew it now, though she had been pretending to herself all day. Trying to pretend, anyway.
She closed her eyes. Sleep was a long time coming.
Jay came into the bedroom very quietly the next morning. He was barefooted and walked cautiously. But Zoe was already awake. She struggled up on one elbow.
She was not going to let him see how he had hurt her last night. She was not. Fortunately there was good old Performance Zoe to call on in times of need.
‘Time to go and lecture the masses?’ she asked brightly.
His smooth dark hair was tousled, and he had a red line on his cheek where his night on the sofa’s piped cushion had marked him. Zoe felt an almost irresistible urge to stroke it away. She was shocked, and pulled the sheet up to her chin.
Jay sent her an inscrutable look. ‘There’s no need to cower,’ he said coldly. ‘I didn’t jump on you last night. I’m not going to do it this morning. I’ve got work to do.’
He disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Zoe shaken. She had never seen the cold come off him in waves like that before. Was that what the people at Culp and Christopher meant when they called him the Ice Volcano?
By the time she had dressed in her smart trousers and jacket Jay had packed. His bags stood by the door: overnight bag, laptop computer, briefcase. He was wearing one of his dark suits. The shirt this morning was silver-grey. Beautiful, of course, but much more sombre than usual. Maybe that was what made his eyes look lifeless. No green, no hazel. Just dark pools of emptiness.
There was no sunshine this morning. The canal was wreathed in fog and the doors to the hotel terrace were closed. So they breakfasted rapidly in the suffocating formality of the restaurant.