Amanda was relieved that the train journey was over, comfortable as it had been and that a first-class ticket had made it possible for her not to become irritated by the clutter and fuss of holidaymakers. That was not to be endured for the hours it had taken to reach the station that she needed. She would be away from the hustle of work and be in the company of a close friend and those she and her husband had invited down to a large, ΓΌber-stylish, house perched on the rugged Cornish coastline and with nothing to block the view of the Atlantic Ocean, nor to break the sea breeze that would rise from the beach below the property's wild garden.
She had heard Beth Tucker talk of the open-plan place that she and Brian had chosen for their time away and she had looked it up on the web. A two-storey structure was constructed in roughly hewn local stone and its walls penetrated by large windows to the rooms that would offer everyone magnificent views of the bay, the rugged cliffs, and the sea beyond.
She had met some of their friends and would know most who had been invited. But they were all couples and would be given the biggest rooms and, when there had been a pause in their telephone chat, Beth had gone on to say that she would be in a separate wing of the house that looked onto a sheltered patio with its wooden deck. That small suite was one of two and was separated by a cosy living room from another single bedroom.
'You won't be alone out there as my Rory is coming down to stay as well,' she had volunteered, 'but you may know that already.'
'No, I didn't!' she had replied, rather too loudly, and suddenly overwhelmed by relief. Rory had only hinted at being able to get away for as long as had been suggested. 'I'll feel like the wallflower at the dance if I am there on my own.'
'No, you're never that. I'll be with you and we will find time just for ourselves.'
And now there he was standing at the exit gate, handsome as ever to her ways of seeing him, and she knew that she would become lost all over again and that this time there would be no risk. She was a free woman again, not trapped in a loveless and destructive marriage that had gone on for far too long and she was too busy to take in just what it was all doing to her, emotionally, until Rory had come into her life as never before. She had become the mature woman enslaved by the attention that a younger man paid to her and that a moment's touch, over-familiar in the eyes of Beth, had alerted her to what might have been playing out between them.
'I'm with the wonderful lady from a few long months ago,' he kisses modestly to her cheeks, but Amanda clings to him and soon presses her mouth to his lips.
'I've wanted to do that for so long!' She does not object as he grabs her case and she threads one arm through his, their shared steps quick and in time as if they have been doing this out of habit. 'I can leave my work and past life behind me for a while and be with you.' She is surprised to see him open the door of a BMW convertible, its deep blue metallic paint gleaming. 'What's this?'
He laughs. 'I decided to spoil myself as the business is going better than just well...it's flying! It's second-hand, of course, as I don't throw money around on a car.'
She knows that about him. He devotes much of his money to his apartment's refurbishment and that she fell into helping him achieve. She spent a few hours there, one afternoon, and had shared in tempestuous loving that had decided it for her. She had to end their trysts until different order could be brought to her life. His enthusiasm's infectious and she feels her spirits lift and the tiredness of her train journey fall away. 'You helped me in my business too.'
'I remember every moment we talked through your hopes for the business. They brought us together...'
'And I hope we will have time for that, and no one else, while I'm here,' she suggests, her hand brushing his as he drives away from the station and they take the twisting roads that will bring them to the holiday retreat she has seen and heard so much about. 'I've earned some time away after...after all I've been through.'
'I know, but try and forget all of that now. Do that for both our sakes.'
She smiles fondly at Rory and tries not to distract him as he drives assuredly. 'I worried about how it would be between us when I saw you again, like this.'
'Me too, but it was for the best, what you decided on. I wouldn't have let you just go otherwise. You were in my blood by then.'
'I felt the same, but I knew that life would get so much more difficult until one way was finally ended.'
'It has now.'
'Yes, it has.'
She had begun to cherish the expectation of resuming her relationship with him and had been surprised by his continuing interest and calls when he could do so, discreetly. Rory's interest in her had continued to burn and now it could be fanned into a white-hot heat, once more, if she chose to live it out again with him.
He had pursued a career in marketing and had done that ever since he had left university, a prestigious place that set him up for his career and work that has helped her business grow in ways that she could never have imagined. Rory hasn't just helped her pursue the traditional ways of promoting her business but has also opened her eyes to virtual reality, to cinematic drive-throughs, that will show her existing clients, and new ones, what she and her business can achieve for them in transforming their homes.
She had fallen into pursuing an affair with him that was short and lustful; an unexpected pleasure that the difficulties in her marriage had aroused. It had ended amicably and regretfully, her voluptuous body made love to in ways that she missed beyond enduring, she thought at the time, but reason had overcome passion and the frequency of their meetings, ostensibly for work, had become too risky for both of them to continue arranging. She had never been the promiscuous sort and had found in him the perfect antidote to what her life with her 'ex' had become, but the secrecy and the furtive nature of their times together had taken the edge of what she had purposefully succumbed to with him. Passion had become deepening affection that she had not wished to spoil. They had shared interests in many things and she had been pursued by a lover only ten years her junior. Beth Tucker was some years older but their friendship had grown out of work that she had done for her and husband Brian. So, it had all become a process of give and take.
'There's no quick way to get to the villa,' he said on a moment's approving glance her way as she took a hairgrip from a handbag and tied back her beautiful hair. Bangled bracelets slid down her lightly tanned arms, the dusting of freckles a delight, the fabric of her dress shaping her breasts. He sighed in appreciation of what he saw of her. 'So, we have some time to ourselves.'
'That's what I was hoping for,' she smiled and reached across to brush her fingers over his cheek. Neither could see the approving glance of the other; sunglasses concealed their eyes. She takes him in with her approving glance and touches Rory's strong arm as he shifts gear before stroking the back of his hand. He responds, presses his hand to her thigh and she feels its warmth through the fabric of her skirt as it slowly trails and caresses upwards until she stops its progress. 'We could park somewhere and take in the view, Rory darling.'
She has soon fallen into using her once familiar ways of talking to him.
'I'm doing that, just as you are, I think,' he teased with a laugh.
Just to see her again had him believing that he could become besotted with Amanda all over again, just as he had been when their affair had burst into unquenchable heat. He now saw a different woman, not one dressed for her work, but a woman in a white tunic dress with its random blue smudge prints; a dress that went so captivatingly well with her auburn, tawny-red hair and the light tan of her skin, white flats with their blue toecaps a finishing touch to what he knew were long, fleshy, legs. She was a broad-hipped, mature and sexy woman to his ways of seeing her and he had to stop the car. Amanda's touches were too much to bear, the brush of her fingertips so brazen as they swept over the front of his chinos. She would feel how aroused he had become at the prospect of being with her again. Restraint and convention could well be forsaken as they pursued each other once more.