At the sound of the silky voice at the other end of the line all the little hairs at the back of her neck shot up and Zoe went still, numerical anomalies instantly forgotten as memories of last night flooded into her head. Memories she actually thought she’d done a pretty good job of suppressing, since last night was not a night she’d be looking back on with fond nostalgia, but evidently hadn’t.
Determinedly ignoring the wave of emotion that reared up inside her and banking down the apprehension that instinctively skidded through her, Zoe took a deep steadying breath and reminded herself for what felt like the hundredth time that last night had been nothing more than a blip in her otherwise totally logical and rational existence; that she was thirty-two, not sixteen; and that she could handle whatever the morning had to throw at her.
Even Samantha Newark.
‘Samantha,’ she said with a pleasing degree of cool control. ‘Good morning. How are you?’
‘On tremendous form,’ said Samantha. ‘Wasn’t last night fun?’
Hmm. Fun wasn’t quite the word she’d have used to describe the maelstrom of madness that the evening had become, but small talk she could do. Heaven knew she’d been practising long enough. ‘Absolutely hilarious,’ she said dryly.
‘And so very dramatic, what with Dan’s proposal.’
As the memory of being in his arms and then locking lips with him broke free and slammed into her head, Zoe went warm and thanked heavens that this conversation wasn’t being conducted face to face. ‘Well, that’s Dan for you,’ she said, sounding mercifully normal. ‘He never does anything by half.’
‘He certainly doesn’t.’
At Samantha’s oddly knowing tone, Zoe tensed for a second and then forced herself to relax. ‘So what can I do for you?’ she asked, even though something told her that based on past experience it wouldn’t be anything good.
‘I was just calling to see how you were,’ said Samantha, her voice dripping with insincere concern.
‘Me?’ said Zoe, ignoring the ‘concern’ and concentrating on how she might feel were she really engaged to Dan and imagining she’d be rather pleased. ‘Oh, I’m deliriously happy.’
There was a pause. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Well, I must say I’m surprised.’
‘Why?’
‘I’d have thought under the circumstances you’d be devastated.’
Zoe frowned. ‘Under what circumstances?’ she asked, curiosity overriding her sense of self-preservation.
‘Your broken engagement naturally.’
Her heart skipped a beat and for some reason her stomach fell. ‘My broken engagement?’
‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know?’ said Samantha with what Zoe could only describe as morbid glee.
Of course she didn’t know, she would have announced if the person she was talking to was anyone other than Samantha. Why on earth would she? She hadn’t heard from Dan, and after her excruciatingly embarrassing overreaction to Pete’s arrival and the extraordinary way she’d run off like that she didn’t expect to. Plus she’d been so engrossed in work she’d deliberately ignored the phone all morning until in her confusion she’d made the mistake of answering her mobile. And she certainly wasn’t going to ask Samantha where she’d found out that piece of information and give her nemesis the satisfaction of telling her.
>
Besides the how, when and why of it didn’t matter. All that mattered right now was that Zoe had left the pub with something of the upper hand for the first time in her life, and Samantha had somehow managed to wrestle it back from her. The evil cow was once again in a position to hurt her, laugh at her and generally make her morning a misery, and there was no question that she was going to do it.
As Zoe’s heart sank all the old feelings of inadequacy surged up inside her and she automatically began to work out how to backtrack and extricate herself from this conversation with a modicum of dignity. She racked her brains for some sort of explanation and scrabbled around for an excuse and when that failed frantically sought the wherewithal to brush it all off as if she didn’t give a toss and then hang up.
As the seconds ticked by and she still didn’t have a clue how to deal with this Zoe felt the desperation and humiliation churning around inside her escalate. Her head swam and the desperation turned to panic and a wave of nausea clutched at her stomach.
And then, quite suddenly, mid-brainstorm, mid-panic, she stopped.
Hang on, she thought, sitting bolt upright and staring straight ahead. Why the hell was she doing this? Still? It had been fifteen years, for heaven’s sake. Fifteen years. Would she still be trying to twist herself into someone else in another fifteen? Would she still be apologising and cowering and fighting for her dignity?
At the uncomfortable awareness that all this was entirely possible unless she did something about it now, Zoe shuddered. No, she thought, setting her jaw and rallying her inner troops. She wasn’t going to let this continue. She couldn’t. She had to finish this once and for all. Dan had been right: if she stood any chance of moving on she really did.
And what was it he’d said on the pavement outside the pub last night? Samantha and her friends weren’t worth wasting any more energy on? Well, dammit, he was right about that too. She’d already wasted far too much energy and time in her youth trying to be something she wasn’t and apologising for the person she was.