Chapter Twenty-Six
Three weeks later
‘Finally fast asleep, both of them,’ Frank said, walking into the kitchen. ‘London’s kicked the duvet off as usual and he’s snoring like a little pig, and Laylah’s got her nose buried in Dolly’s hair. God knows why she does that, but she’s never happier than when she’s sniffing that doll’s hair.’
‘Ugh, it’s getting really manky now,’ Caroline said. ‘I tried to wash it the other day but Laylah screamed like a dolphin and wouldn’t let me near Dolly.’
She had been sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling through gossip sites on her tablet, but she laid it down on seeing Frank.
‘She likes the dreads!’ Frank said, grinning. ‘Gets that from my side! Mind you, those are the rattiest dreads I’ve ever seen. Pongy, too.’
Laylah’s doll – to which she had given the very creative name Dolly years ago – was her fetish object. Dolly’s blonde hair was by now completely clumped into dreadlocks and, as Frank had said, smelt very musty.
‘She and Carmen have that in common,’ Caroline said. ‘They’re both obsessed with hair. Did you know that Carmen’s mother knits stuff out of her and Carmen’s hair? Carmen has a kind of head wrap she wears in the winter. Laylah was actually trying it on the other day.’
Frank shuddered.
‘There’s something very wrong with that kid,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Hey, did you just say she screamed like a dolphin? That’s bang on. You should be a writer or something.’
Caroline smiled up at him.
‘Funny you should say that,’ she said, standing up and going over to the built-in drinks fridge. ‘Because the book’s officially finished! I got an email from Gareth this afternoon. He loves the edits and he says he’s telling accounts to pay me my bonus!’
‘Fantastic news!’ Frank said, as Caroline bent over and pulled out a bottle of Veuve Cliquot from the fridge. ‘I still feel crap that you won’t take a penny for everything you’re doing for the kids. Honestly, you spend more time with them than Gabriela does.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t take money for that!’ Caroline said, sounding horrified. ‘I love spending time with them! It’s silly, but I’ve come to think of them as family just a little bit . . .’
She set the bottle on the table.
‘I bought this today when I went with Gabriela to pick the kids up from school,’ she said, getting two flutes out of the glass-fronted cupboard. ‘I wanted to get something to celebrate delivering the book. That’s what it’s called – funny, isn’t it? As if you just gave birth.’
‘Caroline,’ Frank said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You went out and bought your own champagne? What were you thinking? We’ve got cases of it here!’
‘Well, I’m living in your house for free, not paying bills, eating and drinking,’ she said humbly. ‘I didn’t want you to think I was taking advantage—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Frank objected, ‘stop sounding like Cinderella! You barely eat anything anyway!’
Frank strode around the table, took the bottle from her masterfully and started to peel off the foil.
‘I’m so excited! I couldn’t wait to tell you,’ Caroline gushed. ‘This means so much to me – actually finishing my first ever book! I know it’s not under my name, but still, Gareth thinks it’s great, and so does Miranda. It’s always been my dream.’
‘You’ll get your own name on a book soon,’ Frank assured her as he started to untwist the wire. ‘It’ll happen. You’re really good at what you do.’
Caroline giggled.
‘You don’t know that,’ she said with a flirtatious edge now. ‘You haven’t read a word of what I’ve written.’
‘Hey, I can’t!’ Frank said. ‘You know that! It’s all about Lexy – it would be much too weird.’
Caroline had known that Lexy would come up sooner or later; it was inevitable, with the book under discussion. Her strategy, on hearing her rival’s name, was to smile her way past it, make as light of it as possible. She had been monitoring Frank’s phone over the last few weeks, which was easy enough, as he regularly left it around the house. It had only taken a few attempts to find out that his password, annoyingly enough, was lexy. The block on Lexy’s calls and texts was still in place, as was the one on her emails.
A few days after Lexy had been turned away from Sandbanks, a letter had arrived from her for Frank: it had been very easy to spot, as the address was handwritten. A week and a half later, another hand-addressed letter had come, this one doubly easy to identify, as it bore a Swiss postmark; it was followed by another, about a week after that.
Naturally, they knew that Lexy was in Switzerland. Jason had rung Frank the day after the meltdown, saying that he understood that Frank was currently so angry with his wife that he did not want to speak to her, but assuring him that Lexy was heading to a very reputable and serious detox centre high in the Swiss Alps, and that, since Frank wasn’t taking her calls, she had asked Jason to tell Frank that she was going there to deal with her issue with alcohol.
To Caroline’s great irritation, Frank had been impressed and elated by this news. She had countered it, however, by saying, wide-eyed: ‘Oh! Not actual rehab? I thought detox was more about losing weight,’ and watched his face fall.
Frank had never realized that Caroline had blocked Lexy’s number on his mobile, and until Caroline knew that Lexy was in Switzerland she had been monitoring the home phone very carefully. She had checked with Jason after his phone call to ask whether Lexy was able to make calls from the clinic; on hearing that she couldn’t, Caroline had removed the block and relaxed her vigilance on the landline.
So all she needed to do was monitor incoming letters, and that was easy enough. The post was brought in by Carmen every morning and stacked on the front hall table. Frank, who was very uninterested in paperwork, often left it there for days before going through the accumulated pile; it hadn’t occurred to him that Lexy might write to him. It could not have been simpler for Caroline to check through the stack every morning as soon as the coast was clear. She could have shredded Lexy’s letters, but she had preferred to burn them in the bathroom sink, fan on, window open. There was a drama in that gesture which she thoroughly enjoyed.
That’ll teach you to call me Ghost Mouse, she had thought, looking into her own eyes in the mirror as the acrid black smoke rose around her as if she were casting a spell. You treated me as if I was invisible most of the time. You never saw me as a rival, or important in any way. Even now that I’m stealing your life, you don’t even realize what’s happening. Even if you knew I was living in your house, you wouldn’t think for a moment that I might be after your husband, or that he might look at me with interest . . .
And you would be very, very wrong.
Frank was popping the champagne cork, starting to fill the glasses. Caroline exclaimed, as if an idea had just occurred to her:
‘Oh! This is probably going to sound mad, but – no, forget I said anything . . .’
Of course, Frank responded by telling her to keep going, as anyone would.
‘I want to toast to finishing my first book in the Jacuzzi!’ she admitted shyly. ‘Drinking bubbles in bubbles! Is that stupid? It’d make me feel really glamorous – like I was Jackie Collins for an hour, you know?’
Frank, holding the bottle, paused momentarily as he was about to fill the second glass.
‘Never mind!’ Caroline said quickly. ‘It was silly of me – we can toast here and then I’ll go to bed—’
‘Nah, you were right the first time,’ Frank said. ‘Why not? It’ll be a laugh. We don’t use that Jacuzzi enough. And we could both do with some R&R, couldn’t we? I’ve been non-stop today, and you did your run, finished your editing, picked up the kids and gave them dinner . . .’
‘Oh yay!’
Caroline clapped her hands girlishly, then decided that this was a gesture too far and dropped them to her side.
‘I’ll go and change,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long. See you down there? Will you take the drinks – do you mind?’
Frank, she knew, kept his swim gear in the pool changing room; he could simply head down in the lift. Whereas she needed to run upstairs, strip her clothes off and don the very expensive bikini that she had bought two weeks ago in anticipation of this evening.
She had planned this meticulously, even to the extent of wearing loose clothes today that wouldn’t leave any red marks on her skin, a trick she had picked up from Lexy’s stylists. Her bra was a soft sports one with wide straps, her leggings had an equally wide elasticated band at the waist so it didn’t dig in. She had been into Poole that morning for a spray tan at a beauty salon, the fourth in a package for which she had signed up the day after Lexy was locked out. The salon had also applied discreet fake eyelashes, which they swore would be waterproof, and dyed her lashes and eyebrows several shades darker. Her nails were newly varnished, of course: a shellacked French manicure on her hands, a light shade of rose on her toenails, pretty and elegant.
That afternoon she had straightened her hair, and after stripping off her clothes, she piled it on top of her head in a style she had practised several times, a seemingly careless knot that gave her extra height and made her cheekbones seem more prominent. She fastened it with plenty of pins, fixed it with hairspray, and applied a coat of long-lasting rose lipgloss. There was no point applying perfume or body lotion, as the water of the pool was chlorinated. The last thing was the bikini, and her hands were shaking as she pulled it out of the drawer.
It had cost nearly two hundred and fifty pounds, and she had spent one whole agonizing afternoon on Oxford Street tracking it down. Caroline would never feel comfortable in those tiny triangles, more strap than fabric, which naturally slender women could wear; this was much more structured, but cleverly cut not to show how hard it was working. The cups were underlined, lifting and separating her breasts, a halter neckline that was very flattering to the full-bosomed. The bottoms were high-cut, with plenty of coverage, but trimmed on each side with sexy large gold rings that were echoed on the halter straps.
And the colour was the bravest thing of all. White, clear pure white. Hence the regular spray tans. Caroline would have liked to have gone even darker, but if she stripped down to reveal a tan that looked as if she’d come back from a week in Ibiza, it would have looked as if she were trying much too hard.
She couldn’t look at herself in the mirror. The contrast between her still imperfect figure and her memory of Lexy’s high, artificially symmetrical boobs and flat stomach would have scared her too much. Pulling on a towelling robe and slippers, Caroline took a deep breath.
Asking herself the question ‘what would Lexy do?’ in these circumstances might be the height of irony, but it definitely gave the right answer. If Lexy were about to try to seduce a married man in his own spa, she would sashay to the lift with total confidence.
Frank was ensconced in the bubbling Jacuzzi, which was set in a raised aquamarine and emerald tiled cylinder at the far side of the swimming pool, positioned to give a view out over the lawns that sloped down to the sea. He had placed the bottle of Veuve on the tiled surround, which had cobalt tempered glass panels sunk into it for holding drinks, and was sipping from his flute, gazing out through the huge glass doors at the distant view of tiny twinkling lights of the boats moored in the Poole Harbour marina, the nightlife of Poole town curving away behind it.
As Caroline came in, he turned to look at her. This was the ultimate what would Lexy do? moment, the defining point of transformation, everything for which she had been working out and starving herself over the past few months. If she behaved like herself, like Caroline, she would shuffle across the pool surround like a granny in her robe and slippers, slip them off at the last second and then duck into the warm bubbling water with the furtiveness of someone profoundly ashamed of her own body.
But no one would be attracted to a woman who behaved like that, especially not a man who had chosen to marry a sexpot like Lexy O’Brien . . .
Taking that robe off by the door was like shedding the old Caroline, a snake transforming itself by sloughing off its skin. She knew what she needed to do, had rehearsed it many times over the last few days: as Frank smiled at her, raising his glass in a friendly greeting, she kicked off the slippers, met his eyes and, holding his gaze, dropped her hands to the belt of the robe and unfastened the loose knot, pulling the robe open.
She saw the exact split-second that Frank’s expression changed, his eyes widening, his jaw sagging open, his entire body rigid as he took in the sight of Caroline in her bikini. Ideally, she would have dropped the robe behind her to the floor, but that would have looked suspiciously seductive. So, sucking in her stomach with everything she had, she swivelled to hang the robe on one of the pegs by the door; she was delighted, on turning back, to see Frank still gawping at her, struck dumb by the curves on display.
Now came the worst part. Walking towards him in the bikini, feeling like a contestant in a low-grade seaside beauty competition; sure that her stomach was wobbling, feeling her thighs slide against each other with every step, her bare feet slapping like flatfish on a fishmonger’s slab as they landed on the tiles, her breasts bouncing; hoping that, as a boob man, he would be so mesmerized by those that he wouldn’t notice all her other flaws . . .
As she got closer, however, she could no longer hear the sound of her feet over the rumble of the Jacuzzi. It was the longest walk of her life, and climbing up the steps to the side of the Jacuzzi, her hand slipping on the rail, her thighs and stomach briefly at eye level with Frank, plopping her bottom awkwardly down to the edge and then sliding in, water displacing with her entrance, she felt as big as a manatee, acutely conscious of absolutely everything that was unattractive and heavy about her.
Thank God for champagne! Frank was shifting on his side of the built-in seat, turning to face her, but clearly still in shock. His mouth was open, his eyes dropping to her cleavage, then up to look at her face again; he hadn’t made a move to hand her the glass that was waiting for her. She reached out to take it herself, feeling much more confident now. The parts of her body she didn’t like were hidden underwater, and on display was the face that was so carefully adorned with fake lashes and subtle make-up, her firm arms, round shoulders and large plump breasts. Below the bubbling water, she squished her breasts together with her elbows, deepening her cleavage as she raised the flute.
‘To finishing my book!’ she said, flashing a sweet smile, and Frank gathered himself with a visible effort, shook his head as if he were trying to get rid of a fly buzzing round him and reached out to chink his glass with hers. Caroline, pretending that she couldn’t quite reach, moved closer to him along the tiled seat, tilting her breasts enticingly towards him.
She saw him look down at them and keep looking this time, and the sight of him unable to tear his glance away from her bosom made her whole body fizz.
‘Cheers!’ she said, and watched him almost miss his mouth with the glass before he dragged his gaze up again.
‘Men are incredibly basic,’ Lexy, via Caroline, had written in her upcoming book.
‘If they like you, trust me, you’ll know. And if they don’t like you, who gives a fuck? Move on to someone who does! The trick is to like men who like you back. You can’t get all huffy if you’re into a man who likes tall black girls and you’re short and white, you know what I mean?
I’m always seeing covers of women’s mags that tell you ten or twenty or fifty ways to snag a man, and most of it’s bollocks. I mean, if you’re reading this, you know what I’m like, right? I’m hardcore. I go in for full-on teasing when I’m flirting. I like to mess with their heads and get them going so they don’t know which end’s up.
But if I were going to write one of those articles, here’s what I’d say: men are basic, so keep it simple. If he’s a boob guy, get your tits out. Boob guys are the easiest, by the way. It’s like they literally get hypnotized by them. If he’s a leg guy, wear a short skirt. If he fancies you, he’ll come after you and all you need to do is laugh at his jokes and play with your hair and tell him he’s being naughty, even if he isn’t. Guys really love it when you say the word ‘naughty’. Pathetic, I know, but it works.
Basically, you’ll know if he likes you, and not just by spotting his stiffie. He’ll ask you questions and actually sound interested in the answers – which, honestly, you should enjoy while you get it, because it never bloody lasts! And he’ll give you really clumsy compliments, which’ll probably sound cheesy. But don’t be sarky about it, just say ‘Thank you!’ really sweetly, like he quoted Shakespeare or something.
So just keep staring into his eyes and smiling at him and playing with your hair and every so often touch your tongue to your lips, if you can manage that without looking like a complete fuckwit. And when you want him to kiss you, lean in, make your eyes go really big and take a deep breath so your boobs look great. That always works, and believe me, I’ve probably snogged more men than you’ve had hot dinners . . .’
Caroline drank half of the champagne in one go, and noticed that, very unusually for the mostly abstemious Frank, he had followed suit.
‘Can I get a top-up?’ she said, holding out the glass. Anything to keep leaning forward, showing off her boobs. Besides, if he filled her glass up, he would probably refill his, and it would be very beneficial if Frank had several glasses of champagne.
‘You look in really good shape,’ he said as he picked up the bottle. ‘I didn’t realize you’d been working out so much. Uh, of course I did, because you’ve been going running! I just meant . . . you’re in really good shape . . . I didn’t realize . . .’
‘Thank you!’ Caroline cooed.
It was extraordinary how accurate Lexy had been in her guide to flirting with a man, or rather letting a man flirt with you. There was the awkward compliment, just as Lexy had predicted, and clearly ‘Thank you’ was all Frank needed to hear to feel acknowledged.
‘I’ve been watching my diet too, of course,’ she said, drinking the champagne and blocking out her new knowledge of how many calories it contained. ‘That’s really helped.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Frank agreed automatically. ‘Diet’s just as important as exercise.’
Since Caroline had her hair up, she couldn’t play with it; she compromised by putting one hand up to pat it as if concerned that it might be coming down. This worked perfectly; Frank’s gaze followed her as if he had been hypnotized.
‘You look so different,’ he blurted out. ‘Did you change your hair or something?’
Caroline smiled sweetly.
‘I’ve put it up because I didn’t want to get it wet,’ she said.
‘It suits you,’ Frank said, drinking some more champagne. ‘It really does suit you like that.’
‘Maybe I’ll wear it like this more,’ she said, feeling as if the words they spoke were becoming increasingly less important. She was daring, now, to look at him for increasing lengths of time, having kept her gaze away from him at first because the sight of his bare torso was so overwhelming.
She had seen it before, of course, in the pool and on the boat, his strong, muscled body, diving from the deck, frolicking with London and Laylah, following them up the steps as they climbed out again, water dripping down his torso, both hands rising to shake water out of his tight dark curly hair, the declivities of his armpits, the blatant sexuality of the dark hair trailing down his belly to the low waistband of his swim trunks. She had never been so close, though.
His nipples were dark little bullets from which the water streamed constantly as it bubbled around them; pert and thrusting, set into the breastplate of his torso, which glowed light bronze, golden pecan. The silky dark body hair made him seem infinitely more sexual to Caroline than a waxed male model. You thought straight away of the hair at his crotch, the cock nestling in it, rising up so smooth and sculpted, such a contrast to the thick mass of black curls . . .
Poor Riz, back in London, had been completely sidelined in the last few weeks. From the day Frank had been convinced, subtly, imperceptibly, by Caroline to change the gate code on Lexy, sure that it had been his idea all along, Caroline had not had sex with Riz. It would have felt wrong, a distraction. Like a footballer told to abstain until the tournament was over, all her energy had been concentrated into the ultimate goal of bagging Frank.
Riz had been surprisingly upset when Caroline had told him that she just didn’t have time for a relationship while she was trying so hard to build her career as a writer. It was the best excuse she could think of. His reaction when she said she wanted to go back to just being housemates for the moment had been extensive and messy; certainly, moving temporarily back to Sandbanks had made that situation much less awkward. Yet another reason she was hoping to stay on now the book was delivered.
‘Ooh!’ she said, giggling girlishly as the bubbling water splashed her glass. ‘This is so much fun! I’ve barely been in the Jacuzzi, because I’m always down here hanging out with the kids, and they aren’t allowed to get in until they’re older.’
‘Yeah, it’s too hot for them,’ Frank said automatically, finishing his champagne, watching the bubbles wobble the upper curves of Caroline’s breasts up and down in continual motion.
Caroline, noticing his empty glass, climbed over to pull the bottle of Veuve Cliquot out of the cooler, kneeling up on the tiled seat close to Frank. Her heart was pounding. She felt it was time to take the biggest risk of all. If she left it too long, the sexual charge would fizzle; Frank might sober up and decide to go to bed, and if that happened, she sensed that the window of opportunity would be forever bolted shut. Having teetered on the edge of temptation, but pulled back, he would be extra careful not to put himself in the same position again.
No, it was now or never. And however much Frank was staring at her breasts, she knew that, as a married man, he would never make the first move. It had to be her who initiated it, and it had to happen in a way that seemed accidental, serendipitous. Lexy would be coming back to London in a few days, her month in Switzerland completed: Caroline was on a deadline even tighter than the one she had been given to write Lexy on the Loose.
‘Here you go!’ she said, turning to him, bending over him, filling up his glass, her knees pressed against his thighs now. ‘Oh, this is so much fun! If this were my house I’d be in here every night, winding down to get lovely and relaxed before bed.’
She knew, of course, how Frank complained about Lexy being out so much, partying in London instead of spending quality time with him. Sliding the now-empty bottle back into the cooler, she plopped herself down next to Frank, smiling at him, her thigh brushing his. She was sitting in the curve of his arm, which was stretched out along the Jacuzzi surround. It was time. Greatly daring, she did as Lexy had suggested and touched the tip of her tongue to her parted lips.
Frank’s pupils dilated. Even though his irises were dark, she was close to him, she could see it happen, the blackness spreading in his eyes as his body reacted to hers.
‘Lean in, make your eyes go really big and take a deep breath so your boobs look great . . .’
Trembling with fear of failure, of being rejected, Caroline did exactly that. Frank’s gaze dropped to her breasts, rose again to her mouth; feeling ridiculous, Caroline licked her lower lip, just fractionally.
He groaned. She leaned in still more, her heart now pounding so hard and fast that it was physically painful, as if it were bruising the inside of her ribcage. Lexy had given no further instructions, but it felt as if Frank needed just one more thing to tip him over the edge.
‘Frank . . .’ she breathed softly.
Saying his name, it turned out, was all it took. The arm behind her closed around her shoulders, pulling her towards him; his mouth came down on hers. Tears of relief budded up as she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back with everything she had.
It was wonderful. It was everything. It was overwhelming. Caroline genuinely thought that she was going to pass out, collapsing in his arms like some fainting Victorian maiden. The heat, the alcohol, the sensation of Frank’s body against her, hot and wet, his lips tasting of champagne, were all so dizzying that she clung to him helplessly, going limp, her breasts pressing into his chest. It was the best thing she could possibly have done. Frank, so used to his tough, sexually aggressive wife, had his protective instincts stirred by Caroline clinging to him like ivy round an oak; he tightened his arms around her and drove his tongue possessively into her mouth, pulling her onto his lap.
Under the water, Caroline felt lighter, less insecure about Frank taking her full weight on his thighs. She curled herself around him, feeling his cock fully hard against her bottom, moaning as she rubbed against its length.
‘Caroline . . . bloody hell . . .’ Frank groaned, and she got up the courage to reach back for his hands, pull them to her breasts, her fingers over his, showing him that she wanted him to squeeze them, push them together, exaggerate her already bountiful cleavage.
His head ducked, dropping to her breasts, licking them, pulling away the bikini fabric, exposing her nipples; she pulled a leg free, clambering awkwardly, clumsily over his lap so that she could straddle him. She was terrified that this was going too far, but as she settled on his lap again, his cock pushed up right between her legs and they both groaned again in sheer delight as it almost stabbed into her, only the fabric of their swimming costumes stopping it from going further.
Frank’s hands were so tight on her breasts now that they were almost hurting her, and she loved it. She ran her hands over his chest, relishing in finally being able to do what she had wanted to do from the first moment she saw him: bending over him, kissing his shoulders, his upper arms, his neck, her face pressed into his neck, kissing him frantically, holding on to his shoulders for leverage so she could raise and lower her bottom again and again against his hard, bobbing cock, finding the tip and working it, feeling it butt into her just that little bit every single time, her entire body craving the rest of it, unable to hold back.
‘Please, please, please –’ she heard herself beg. ‘Please, Frank, I want it so badly, I need it . . . just once, just one time – please, Frank, please—’
‘God, Caroline,’ he moaned against her breasts, his fingers still clamped around them, his thumbs teasing her nipples. ‘This isn’t right – we shouldn’t—’
‘Please! Just once, please . . . I need it so badly, let me have it . . .’
Desperately, she reached down, found the waistband of his trunks, stretched them out and closed her hand around his cock. His body sagged against hers as if her touch had released something inside him, given him permission to let loose; before he could make any more objections, she squirmed her other hand between her legs, and, not caring if she ripped her very expensive bikini bottoms, dragged them aside and directed the tip of his cock up into her bared flesh.
It hurt, even though she managed to lower herself on him as slowly as she could. Sex in water takes away the lubrication, and she felt dry and rough inside, had to bite her lip to stop any sounds of pain coming out as his whole length entered her. But he was gasping, crying out in pleasure, and those sounds were all she needed to hear; even if his cock had felt like Brillo inside her, she would have kept pumping up and down on top of it.
And it got better. The sheer thrill of having Frank’s cock in her was stimulation in itself, even though it was mental rather than physical. She heard herself starting to wail: they were cries of sheer triumph, calling his name over and over again as his hands slid to her bottom, pulling her even closer, his cock going wild, thrusting up as his lips moved frantically from one nipple to the other, sucking, pulling, kissing.
She buried her hands into his tight curls for the first time ever; how often she had dreamed about doing that, feeling the short ringlets twist around her fingers, his head at her breast, her crotch pounding against his! His cock bounced inside her so deeply that she shrieked aloud, mainly in pain; but he didn’t realize that, and the sound of what he thought was her extreme enjoyment was his cue to lift her up, push her off him, his face agonized, his lips pulled back over his teeth as he dragged himself up, fisting his cock in his hand, trying frantically to direct the fountain of sperm out of the Jacuzzi water. There was a towel folded on the tiled surround, and he grabbed it, shoving it towards his cock, catching in it what he could, on his feet now, leaning against the edge of the Jacuzzi, panting as frenziedly as if he had just sprinted for a mile.
Caroline grabbed at the edge of the Jacuzzi just in time to avoid smashing her knees painfully against the seat. She too was breathing heavily, and swept with disappointment. She had wanted him to come inside her; how perfect it would be if she got pregnant! She wasn’t broody – in fact, spending time with Laylah and London had made it even less likely that she would want kids in the near future – but Frank’s baby . . . a kid to bind him to her forever, to help break up Lexy and Frank’s marriage – that would be a miracle.