Joanna slipped off her strappy heels and padded across the entrance halls thick carpet toward the lounge in her stockings.
She rubbed the back of her neck as her lilac Laura Ashley, custom made sofa cushions engulfed her welcomingly.
Her head swam slightly from the wine and as she propped a throw cushion behind her head, images of Louisa from the evening and things she said replayed in her memory.
Joanna closed her eyes, what was it that Louisa had kept calling her? 'Mrs Derby' how strange, even after she had insisted Louisa call her Joanna, Louisa had intermittently forgotten and continued to call her 'Mrs Derby.'
Well, it was almost as if she preferred that salutation. At first, Joanna was convinced the young lady sitting across her was being rude but as the evening went on it became most apparent she was, if anything, rather taken with Joanna. To be honest it didnt take long at all for Joannas defenses to come down entirely, it was clear that Louisa has no ulterior motive, she was hurting and seeking something... closure? comfort? Joanna wasnt sure, but she found herself trusting her, relaxing.
The other thing that stuck in her mind was how young Louisa was, so fresh faced and everything where it ought to be. Joanna knew from doing a little digging that Louisa was twenty five.
Goodness, had she known at the time when her husband was indulging himself in that particular aspect of what she was absolutely certain was a mid life crisis, she'd have been very insecure indeed.
Joanna ran her fingers over her face and sighed, it was most depressing as a woman to age. Time was cruel, being on the right side of forty even made her feel incredibly non desirable. Her husbands betrayal added the ultimate insult to injury on an area that was already a source of insecurity for the once 'beauty queen of the isles six years in a row.'
Joanna remembered Louisa's gaze flickering over her chest and shook her head in confusion, the only reason she could think Louisa had been so fixated on her bust was that she had been checking out what she'd been up against out of nothing more than sheer curiousness.
Not that it mattered. Not anymore. Joanna couldn't help but scan over Louisa's body for what she thought was the exact same reason and found her heart sinking all over again.
Tom had made so many hints to her over the years that he'd like her to have a breast augmentation but Joanna had never listened to her husbands desires... she was too preoccupied wasn't she?
Fundraisers and coffee mornings, pageants and shopping, the gym, girls holidays, the list went on and on and she'd paid him less and less attention.
