The White House - Book 6, The Porth Kerensa Series

Chapter Eighteen

James knew he should apologise to Elise and he woke up with every intention of doing so. However, when he got downstairs and saw the aloof look on his wife’s face his enmity flared again, instantly. He poured himself a coffee and went out to the decking for a cigarette. As he rounded the corner of the house he was sure he saw a little boy, standing at the top of the wooden steps that led down into the garden…then he blinked and the child was gone.

Puzzled, he stopped and stared at the place where the boy had been; the spot where now there was nothing. James shook his head and glanced around, but he knew there was no one else in the garden with him; after all why would there be a strange child lurking on his decking?

“Bloody Elise,” he growled to himself.

Her nonsensical ramblings about a little boy in the house had obviously burrowed into his subconscious and triggered his own imagination. He smoked his cigarette, sipped his coffee and allowed his thoughts to tumble over each other. He recalled all that happened since they’d moved to Porth Kerensa and the anger that burned inside him whenever he was around Elise.

He had thought they could move away and it would make things better. He had hoped they would create a new start. Now he was afraid that all they’d made was a different ending for their marriage.

Elise wasn’t downstairs when he finished his coffee and cigarette. He debated calling out a farewell but what was the point? She wouldn’t answer and he didn’t care anyway. He slammed the front door on his way out.

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Elise moved her things over into James’ room. She wondered whether to hang her clothes in his wardrobe, but she feared it might ignite his temper if he came home and saw her blouses hanging next to his shirts. In the end she packed her stuff into a plastic box and put it in the bottom of his closet underneath a blanket.

She wandered around the house, cleaning and tidying; aware the whole time that Oliver was shadowing her every move. Several times Oliver’s ball rolled across her path and she smiled and kicked it gently to somewhere else in the room. Every now and then, from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a shadow flitting around the room, but there was no sense of the malevolent presence and she was grateful.

      ******

James watched the gentle swing of Amy Collins’ hips as she strolled out of his office and he sighed, quietly, to himself. Was it his imagination or were her skirts getting slightly shorter? Not that he minded - she had a lovely pair of legs that he couldn’t help imagining wrapped around his waist. He shifted in his seat, trying to ignore the erection that was straining against his trousers, and shook his head to clear his brain of the images swirling around it.

He was a stupid middle-aged man entertaining fantasies about the comely Amy Collins. Even if her skirts were shorter it was probably for the benefit of the handsome PE teacher. She would never be interested in someone like James and he shouldn’t care anyway. He was a married man and he loved his wife. He had no right to allow his imagination to run away from him; not when he couldn’t even bring himself to touch Elise.

He remembered the night she had seduced him and his erection deflated, instantly. He thought of all the months he had wished she wanted him and now the memory of her touching him made him feel physically sick. He could barely look at her and his rage flared, immediately, when he did. James wanted to punish her for all the hurt she had inflicted on them and sometimes, at night, it was all he could think about.

He knew his anger scared her. Hell, when he was away from her, sitting at his desk in the cold light of day, it frightened him too.

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