comfortable? I’ll have a quick drink with Guy Cassidy and the redhead, and follow you up five minutes later. If anyone spots you on the way, just tell them you feel faint.’

He’d got her as far as the dance floor but Janey wasn’t moving. Causing a major scene was the last thing she wanted.

‘I see,’ she said carefully. ‘But what should I do if the bed’s already occupied?’

Bruno laughed. ‘Sweetheart, the keys to the flat are right here in my pocket. I’m hardly going to rent out my own bedroom to whoever fancies a quickie!’

‘It’s your quickies I’m talking about.’ It was no good, she hated Bruno about as much as she despised herself for having been so weak-willed in the first place and she couldn’t contain herself a moment longer. With icy disdain she said, ‘I can’t seem to spot the blonde you were dancing with earlier. Are you sure she isn’t still up there, hunting for her knickers and hoping for a repeat performance?’

‘Oh dear.’ He gave her a mock-sorrowful look. ‘Are we jealous?’

Janey, who’d said it but hadn’t meant it, realized with a sickening jolt that she’d been right.

‘I’m not jealous.’ The urge to punch him was almost overwhelming. ‘I just can’t believe it’s taken me this long to find out what you’re really like. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. Believe it or not, I actually trusted you..’

Bruno, who liked Janey a lot and who found her innocence particularly appealing, decided that he could bluff his way out of this one. True, she was upset, but only because she didn’t realize the sacrifices he’d made since their relationship had begun.

‘Sweetheart, there’s no need for this.’ Still smiling, he tried to draw her towards him. It was like dragging a child into the dentist’s chair. ‘You can trust me. OK, so maybe I’ve played the field a bit in the past, but if you only knew how many women I haven’t slept with since we’ve been together ... I’m a reformed character, truly I am!’

‘Liar,’ hissed Janey. ‘I spoke to Nina. You don’t have any kind of understanding.’

Bruno, determined to chivvy her out of her mood, gave her a disarming look. ‘OK, call it an unspoken agreement. Whichever, she’s hardly likely to admit it to you.’

‘And what about all the others?’ Janey countered bitterly. ‘My God, ‘I don’t know when you find time to sleep! Let go of me ... !’

This was more than a mood, he realized. Janey meant business. Oh well, it had been good fun while it lasted.

‘So what are you saying?’ He released his grip on her arms so abruptly that she almost staggered backwards. ‘That you don’t want to meet me upstairs in ten minutes after all?’

‘You arrogant bastard.’ Without her even realizing it, Janey’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘I never want to meet you again anywhere. I never want to see you again!’

Bruno’s relationships ended when he wanted them to end. He had never been dumped in his life. And if Janey thought she could get away with doing it in public, with making a fool of him at his very own party, she could suffer the consequences in return.

At that moment, by chance, the dance music which had been blaring through the speakers came to a halt. The tape had finished.

‘Oh dear,’ Bruno drawled into the ensuing silence. ‘And there I was, doing my good Samaritan bit and thinking you’d be grateful for the attention. I’m beginning to realize now why your husband might have wanted to disappear. Is that what you yelled at him, Janey? Did you tell him you never wanted to see him again?’ He paused for a second, then added with a cruel smile, ‘If you ask me, the poor sod probably couldn’t believe his luck.’

Chapter 27

It was a nightmare. A nightmare with an audience. With tears streaming down her face, Janey turned and searched frantically for the way out. All she could see was a blur of faces.

Mascara stung her eyes and she didn’t know where the hell she’d left her handbag. Her face burned with shame as she pushed her way through the crowd of riveted partygoers in what she prayed was the direction of the door.

The next moment a pair of strong arms were guiding her. Behind her a voice murmured reassuringly, ‘It’s OK, I’ve got your bag. Just keep walking.’

Janey stumbled on the steps outside the restaurant and the arms tightened their grip on her shoulders, keeping her upright. When they reached the pavement she turned to face her rescuer.

‘I’m all right. Thanks ... I’ll be f-fine now ...’

Her voice wavered and began to break as a fresh wave of humiliation swept over her.

Fumbling blindly for her bag, she tried to hide her blotched face, cruelly exposed by the bright spotlighting outside the restaurant. She must look a complete wreck; this was almost more awful than having to endure Bruno’s sneering jibes.

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ said Guy, handing overher bag but keeping a firm hold on her arm. ‘You aren’t all right at all and you’re certainly in no state to drive home. Come on, give me your car keys.’

He might have come to her rescue but he wasn’t being wildly sympathetic. Still sobbing, Janey said, ‘I’m not drunk.’

He sighed. ‘I know you aren’t drunk, but you can’t see where you’re going, either. Why don’t you just give me the keys and let me drive?’

‘Because the van isn’t here.’ She sniffed loudly. ‘I walked.’

For some reason he seemed to find her reply amusing. Turning her around and leading her briskly across the road towards his own car, he said with a brief smile, ‘Fair enough.’

‘You can’t take me home.’

‘Why not?’

Janey wiped her wet face with the back of her sleeve. Sequins, like miniature knives, grazed her cheeks. ‘What about ... thingy? Charlotte?’

‘Oh, thingy will understand.’ This time he grinned. ‘Besides, you only live half a mile away. All I’m doing is giving you a lift home; we aren’t eloping to Gretna Green.’

It was dark inside the car, which was a relief, but Janey still flinched each time another vehicle passed them, beaming sadistic headlights over her face. She couldn’t seem to stop crying, either; the harder she tried not to think about Bruno and the degrading scene back in the restaurant, the more insistently the tears slid down her face. She hoped Guy Cassidy couldn’t see them plopping into her lap.

The journey took all of two minutes. Janey was free of her seat belt and reaching for the door handle before the car had even drawn to a halt outside the shop.

‘It’s customary to invite the man in for a coffee, you know,’ he observed, when she had mumbled her thanks and scrambled out on to the pavement.

Janey, who had been about to slam the passenger door shut, forgot to avert her swollen eyes. ‘Look, you’ve been very kind but I’d really rather be on my own. Don’t you think I’m embarrassed enough as it is?’

But Guy had switched off the ignition and was already stepping out of the car. ‘I think it wouldn’t be fair to leave you on your own bawling your eyes out.’ His tone of voice was more gentle now, and reassuringly matter of fact. ‘Come on, we can’t stand here arguing in the street.

People will think you’re Maxine.’

‘She said you were a bully,’ Janey grumbled, realizing that he wasn’t going to go away.

‘And what about Charlotte, anyway? You took her along to the party. She won’t be very pleased with you if you don’t go back.’

‘She’ll survive.’ Guy dismissed the protest with a careless gesture. Taking the keys from her trembling hand, he opened the front door and guided Janey into the hallway ahead of him.

‘Besides, rescuing damsels in distress is as good a reason as any for escaping. ‘I grew out of those kind of parties years ago, and I’ve already told you I don’t much care for Bruno Parry-Brent.’ With a brief sidelong glance at Janey, he added, ‘That’s something we appear to have in common, at least.’

So much for looking great, thought Janey, gloomily surveying her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Having scrubbed her face, soaping away every last vestige of makeup, it no longer looked like a ploughed field but it was certainly in a sorry state.The whites of her eyes were pink and her cheeks, normally pink, were white. Her eyelids remained hopelessly swollen too, despite her best efforts with a cold flannel. And somewhere along the line she had managed to lose one of the combs holding her hair back at the sides. All in all, she looked like a lop-eared rabbit.

But since she wasn’t about to run off to Gretna Green, as Guy had so caustically reminded her earlier, what did it matter? Pulling a face at herself in the mirror, chucking the other bronze comb on to the windowsill and running her fingers through her no longer perfect hair, Janey unlocked the bathroom door. Guy was in the kitchen making coffee. If he was so hellbent on hearing her side of the unflattering story behind Bruno’s contemptuous outbursts tonight, she would give it to him. She had no reason to want to impress him; he was only another rotten man anyway.

‘You’re looking better.’ Guy, having made the coffee and brought it through to the sitting room, handed her the pink mug with elephants round the side. Stretching out in the chair by the window, he added, Not wonderful, but better.’

‘Thanks.’ He certainly had a way with words, thought Janey. Flattery like that could turn a more susceptible girl’s head.

‘So what was it all about?’

She shrugged. There was no reason on earth why Guy Cassidy should be interested in hearing this, yet he was certainly giving a good impression of an agony aunt. One of those brisk, no-nonsense ones, Janey decided, who wouldn’t hesitate to tell you what a prat you’d been.

‘Well, Marje,’ she began with a rueful smile, ‘I suppose you could say I got myself involved with the wrong kind of man. I fell for the old chat-up lines, and even managed to convince myself that we weren’t doing anything wrong.’