Women of a Dangerous Age by Fanny Blake

Author:Fanny Blake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

17

Ten o’clock in the morning and Don and Ali were still in bed. After a long, leisurely and extremely pleasurable period of coming to, during which they’d confirmed and then reconfirmed the utter rightness of their being together, he swung his legs out of the bed, grabbed his dressing gown and left her up to her neck in duvet, cocooned in the warmth, with no plans to relinquish this state of affairs until she absolutely had to. Ali was revelling in the sensation of being in a new bed in a room that didn’t belong to her. Despite the passing thought that she’d have changed the bed linen days ago had it been hers, she felt quite happy where she was, secure even. Then she felt panic. Should she have put on the brakes a bit? Normally, she would have held herself in reserve until she was sure of what she was letting herself in for. But this time had been different. She had held nothing back with the result that they’d spent almost the whole weekend in bed, first hers and now his. What would he be thinking of her? After all, despite everything, she hardly knew him at all.

Before Don left the room, he dropped a kiss on her cheek, producing another of those pinch-me moments when she had to double-take on what had happened to her, to them. And happened with such speed.

After her supper with Lou, she had eventually persuaded herself to phone him. She spent the whole of the following day taking out her mobile, beginning to dial, then thinking better of it. Finally, she overcame her nerves. She could hear the pleasure in his voice when he realised who was calling. Immediately, he’d suggested dinner on the following Friday evening. She accepted.

They met in an unpretentious yet fashionable Italian restaurant on Ali’s side of town. Ali arrived first wearing a blue jersey dress: understated but elegant. After five minutes, her anxiety translated into certainty that he wasn’t coming. By the time he rushed towards her, blurting apologies about public transport, she was looking at her watch wondering whether she should leave. He gave his coat and scarf to the waiter and sat opposite her, looking amused by the bread sticks that she had crumbled over the tabletop. She tried to brush the crumbs into her hand, but the ones that didn’t stick to the cloth, flew onto her dress. After an awkward few minutes during which the conversation stopped and started, both of them being careful not to say the wrong thing, they began to relax. Within an hour of being together again, it was as if they had never been apart. Ali stopped noticing the silent couple on the next table, barely tasted the five-star food, was oblivious to the time passing as they filled in the details of what had happened in their lives since they last wrote to each another. Don talked readily about his first wife but passed over his

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