An Autumn Affair. Alice Ross

on the clock clicked by, shards of guilt began piercing his bubble of euphoria. He was a married man. He had two kids. What the hell was he doing? By the time he hauled himself out of bed, he felt exhausted. And all day in the office he’d been a jittering wreck, jumping out of his skin every time the telephone rang, an email pinged in his inbox, or someone knocked on his office door.

      And now … now he’d have to spend the next hour alone with her on the bloody squash court. Just the two of them. Wearing not very much clothing. Working up a sweat.

      In fact, she was probably waiting for him right now.

      Sucking in a deep breath, he yanked open the door to find Natalia leaning against the wall opposite, wearing the tiniest pair of white shorts, and the tightest cropped pink T-shirt, Paul had ever seen.

      ‘Ready?’ she asked.

      Paul couldn’t reply.

       Chapter Four

      The dazzling Spanish sun was already high in the cloudless sky by the time Miranda pulled open the wispy bedroom curtains and stepped out onto the balcony. After the icy air conditioning of the room, the heat seemed stifling. Her head reeled and her stomach churned. Symptoms thankfully not attributed to morning sickness, but to the ridiculous amount of alcohol she’d consumed the previous evening: the only way she could endure yet another party. Her and Lydia’s third night in Marbella. Her and Lydia’s third night of partying. Not an unusual occurrence. Every trip to Marbella – and she and Lydia had made many – involved an incessant round of retail therapy, trips to the beauty parlour and social gatherings of the Costa del Sol’s rich and beautiful. Activities she normally enjoyed. This time, though, everything felt different. Surreal. Like she was looking at it all through someone else’s eyes.

      And none of it made any sense.

      ‘You coming down to breakfast, Randy?’

      Lydia’s voice hit her as sharply as the heat. Miranda looked over the balcony to find her friend peering up at her, surgically enhanced breasts straining against a miniscule pink sequinned bikini. With her overly highlighted hair woven into a mass of beaded plaits and her deep mahogany tan, she looked, thought Miranda for the first time ever, completely ridiculous.

      ‘I’m, er, not hungry,’ she called back, wishing, also for the first time ever, that Lydia wouldn’t insist on calling her Randy.

      ‘Well, at least come and talk to me,’ pleaded Lydia. ‘Darren’s taken the jet-ski down to the beach. I’m bored out of my tree here.’

      Miranda sighed. She really wasn’t in the mood for Lydia today. In fact, she wasn’t in the mood for anyone. All she wanted to do was crawl back into bed and drift into another deep sleep; a sleep which would allow her to forget all her problems.

      ‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ she heard herself saying. Returning to the room, she sucked in a few breaths of icy air, gasping as it sliced through her lungs. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. She looked terrible: dark shadows under her eyes, sallow skin, and lank hair. She dragged herself into the en-suite, splashed some water onto her face, then reached for her make-up bag and attempted damage limitation. Ten minutes later, wrapped in a lilac sarong, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail, she made her way downstairs, only to find her efforts had been in vain.

      ‘You look awful,’ Lydia pronounced.

      ‘Thanks. I feel it,’ muttered Miranda, the smell of coffee making her nauseous.

      ‘Getting too old for all this partying,’ cackled Lydia, shaking back her mane of plaits and causing all the beads to jangle.

      Miranda smiled weakly, and slipped into the wicker chair opposite her friend. If only you knew the real reason, she resisted saying. That I am carrying your toy-boy lover’s child. Not that Lydia and Eduardo represented any great love match. As testified to by the fact that she and Lydia were staying in Darren Pembleton’s – Lydia’s ex-husband’s – luxury villa. And Lydia was sharing Darren’s bed. The relationship between those two was nonsensical to say the least. ‘Numerous infidelities’ by Darren had been cited in their divorce, before Darren upped sticks and moved to Spain. But, whenever he tired of his latest bimbo, he immediately called Lydia, who dropped everything and flew out there on the next available flight. Of course Miranda knew Lydia was well aware of Darren’s game. He used her when it suited him. But Lydia had her own agenda. And Darren fulfilled it perfectly. Lydia thrived on attention, glamour and sex. And Darren’s crowd provided all of that – with knobs on. Eduardo, meanwhile, kept Lydia amused in England. A role he fulfilled perfectly, according to Lydia. While he lived in her huge house, didn’t spend a penny of his own money, and, unbeknown to her, exchanged more than a few volleys with several of Buttersley’s attractive female residents. The whole set-up resembled a complicated TV drama. But then wasn’t life sometimes stranger than fiction? Miranda’s included.