The Greek and the Single Mum. Julia James

ever come here she would never have chanced it!

      But he had. He had walked in and seen her, and crashed the past right into the present in a single catastrophic moment.

       I’ve got to get out of here!

      The need to run overwhelmed her. She had to get out, get home, get away…

      Forcibly, she stopped herself shuddering and made herself stand up, walk out into the cloakroom. Her bag and coat were hanging on a peg. The bag held her ordinary clothes, but she didn’t waste time changing, only yanking off her high-heeled shoes and slipping her feet into her worn loafers. She could walk faster in them.

      Memory sliced through her.

      That night, walking out of the St John, walking along the pavements, walking without thought, without direction, without anything in her mind except that terrifying absolute blankness. She did not know how long she had walked. People had bumped her from time to time, or woven past her, and still she had gone on, stopping only at crossings, like a robot, then plunging across when the coast was clear. She had walked and walked.

      Eventually, God knew how long later, she’d realised she could not go on, that she was slowing down—as if the last of the battery energy inside her was finally running out. She had looked with blank eyes. She’d been on the far side of Oxford Street, heading towards Marylebone Road, on a street parallel to Baker Street, but much quieter. There had been small hotels there, converted out of the Victorian terraces. There had been one opposite her. It had looked decent enough, anonymous. She’d crossed over the road and gone in.

      She had spent the night there, lying in her clothes on the bed, staring blindly up at the ceiling. Very slowly, her mind had started to work. It had been like anaesthesia wearing off.

      The agony had been unbearable. Tearing like claws through her flesh. The agony of disbelief, of shock.

      Of shame. Shame that she could have been such an incredible fool.

      To have been so stupid…

       I thought he had started to feel something for me! I thought I meant something to him—had come to be more to him than a mistress… someone who mattered to him. Someone who…

      Her hand had slid across her abdomen, and the agony had come again, even more piercing.

       What am I going to do?

      The words had fallen like stones into her head.

      They had gone on falling, heavier and heavier, crushing her, hard and unbearable.

      It had taken so long to accept the answer that she had known, with so heavy and broken a heart, was the only one possible.

      I did the right thing. I did the only thing.

      The words came to her now, as she yanked on her coat.

      Nothing else was possible. Nothing