Summer Madness by Susan Lewis

Author:Susan Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409008170
Publisher: Random House

16

OVER THE NEXT few days, following the storm, the temperature dropped to a more bearable eighty-five degrees, before shooting back into the mid-nineties and seeming hotter and more stifling than ever. During the relatively cooler spell, though the atmosphere between Louisa and Danny was still at times fractious, the animosity was on the whole kept to a minimum. But now that the mercury was rising towards an all-time high it was not only shortening tempers, it was making the smugness of Danny’s pleasure in Erik’s recent proposal seem all the more galling. There was such a de-energizing sluggishness to the humidity that Danny’s excitement was as exhausting to watch as it was to contend with. She hadn’t given Erik an answer yet, and secretly she was intrigued to know what Jake’s reaction was going to be, but she didn’t mention that to either Sarah or Louisa. She simply swanned around the house and garden, naked but for her G-string, admiring herself in passing mirrors or lovingly massaging herself with suntan oil while flicking through magazines, filing her nails or talking to Erik on the phone.

Occasionally Danny took herself off on long, solitary drives never saying where she was going or when she would be back and, as difficult as the situation was between them, seeing her go off alone touched Louisa’s heart with sadness and regret that the rift between them was widening and there was nothing, it seemed, that either of them could do about it. Were it not for the capricious delight Danny appeared to take in never saying where she was going Louisa might have tried a bit harder to repair things, but as it was Jake stood between them like an immovable mountain and any sympathy Louisa might have felt for Danny’s isolation was swallowed by the sickening suspicion that it was him Danny was going to see when she disappeared for hours on end. It clearly wasn’t Erik, because he often rang when she was out, and the fact that Jake had neither called nor sent Marianne to pick her up as he had on a few occasions the previous week only served to convince Louisa further that now Danny was back his attention was elsewhere.

Sarah hadn’t heard from Morandi either, though she’d tried several times to call him both at the office and at home, but all she got was the answer phone. The frustration they were both feeling very nearly erupted in an argument between them when, one afternoon while Danny was out, Sarah angrily referred to Jake as the bastard who was fucking up all their lives. Louisa, without thinking, leapt to his defence, but then realizing that there really was nothing she could say to dispute that she reluctantly backed down. Sarah apologized and went off to her darkroom while Louisa settled down beside the pool to try for the umpteenth time to tie a subplot to the main plot without its seeming too contrived.

The trouble was, she realized irritably as

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