The Silent Touch of Shadows by Christina Courtenay Read Free Book Online Page A

towards the kitchen and wished that she could start the day all over again. She barely made it as far as the hall before the doorbell rang once more, however. As she reached for the handle, she realised she’d forgotten to tell Jolie to turn the sound down. This made her even more cross and she yanked the door open.
    ‘Yes, I was just about to tell her,’ she started to say in a belligerent voice, only to stop mid-sentence. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
    Steve was the last person she’d expected to see and the impact was therefore doubly devastating. Although her brain had accepted the fact that he’d left her for someone else, her body had not. It was always a struggle not to show him that a part of her still wanted him back. Normally, when she knew a meeting was inevitable, she had time to steel herself beforehand and retreat behind a carefully constructed shell of indifference. Not so this morning. His rugged good looks had the sort of effect they’d always had on her and she fought hard to regain her composure. Clenching her fist inside the pocket of her bathrobe, she felt the nails digging into the palm of her hand. She concentrated on the pain it caused rather than the wave of longing that swept through her.
    ‘Nice to see you, too.’ Steve looked almost as irritated as she herself had been only a moment before. ‘Is she ready?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Jolie, of course. Who d’you think?’
    ‘Ready?’
    ‘What’s the matter with you? Had a heavy night last night or something? I said I was coming to pick her up at ten and you said that was fine.’
    ‘Oh, for your mother’s birthday lunch.’ Melissa’s brain, which had temporarily stopped working, crunched into gear. She frowned. ‘But you said Sunday. Surely, her birthday is tomorrow?’
    ‘Yes, yes, but I said we were having lunch today, Saturday, because I’ve got something else on tomorrow. Don’t tell me she isn’t ready? We’re going to be late as it is.’ He groaned and ran a hand through the silky dark hair Melissa remembered so well. It brought back memories she didn’t want to dwell on and she shivered with the effort to keep them suppressed.
    ‘I’m sorry, I must have misunderstood. Just give me ten minutes and she’ll be ready, okay?’
    ‘Ten minutes, not a second more.’ Without so much as a ‘goodbye’, he stomped off down the stairs and slammed the door to the street, making Melissa wince. She expected Mr Donne to come charging out to complain yet again, and shut her own door hurriedly.
    ‘Jolie, come on, quickly, you’ve got to get dressed,’ she shouted, springing into action.
    They managed it, but only just. Melissa thanked her lucky stars she had at least bought and wrapped her former mother-in-law’s present, a silk scarf in the exact shade of green that was Beatrice’s favourite colour. She shoved the parcel into Jolie’s hands, gave her a quick hug and waved her off. ‘Behave yourself now, you know what your gran is like.’
    She wasn’t really worried, however. Beatrice was strict, but Melissa also knew that Steve’s mother had a soft spot for Jolie and the two of them had always enjoyed each other’s company. Once you got to know her, Beatrice wasn’t half as scary as she seemed on first acquaintance and Melissa still had a good relationship with her, despite the divorce.
    She stood for a moment by the window, watching as the car sped away down the street with an angry roar. Apart from Jolie and her father, it also contained Daisy, the woman who had lured Steve away, and a toddler who was apparently Jolie’s half-sister. The thought of that child, conceived while Melissa and Steve were still married, was like a knife-edge of pain slicing through her and Melissa quickly pulled away from the window.
    She stood in the silent flat, battling the feelings of resentment, depression and heartache that always followed a meeting with Steve.
    ‘… to have and to hold, till death do us part   …’
    The words from her dream