Free Our Kind of Love by Victoria Purman

occupied that role since she was born. There had never been pressure from her family to be good; it was simply who she was. It was the role predetermined for her it seemed. And she’d revelled in it. She was responsible and sensible. She’d studied hard to please her family and established her career before she’d married Alex. Good girls like Anna were respectful of their family and their traditions. When she married, she knew exactly who her prospective husband was; his character and their compatibility, his personality and predilections and how they complemented her own.
    Good girls like Anna weren’t supposed to get divorced.
    Good girls like Anna certainly didn’t fuck around for fun.
    The damp towel around her was making her cold and she shivered. Her night with Joe had only ever been a diversion, about no-strings-attached fun. It couldn’t be anything else.
    It simply couldn’t.
    Merda .
    There were two heavy knocks on the door. ‘Anna?’
    She counted to ten before answering. Uno, due, tre … ‘What?’
    ‘Can I come in?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘C’mon Anna.’ She found the teasing and pleading in his voice almost impossible to ignore. It sounded half fun, half agony. She found St Christopher and gave him a good working over, twisting and turning the medallion around in her fingers. ‘What do you want, Joe?’
    ‘You hungry?’
    Hungry? Was that swirling feeling in the pit of her stomach hunger? No, it was confusion. Anna flopped backwards onto the bed and covered her eyes with her forearm, swearing softly in Italian. She wanted a real coffee more than anything. But to have it with Joe? She couldn’t. She’d have to live with her desperation until she got back to the city.
    ‘No, I can’t. I’ve got to go home.’
    Outside in the hallway, Joe rested one hand high on the doorframe, trying to resist the urge to barge right on in and whip that towel from Anna’s body. He couldn’t believe he was envious of a towel. He’d found it hard to keep from staring at the way it barely draped over her body, leaving no mystery about the curve of her breasts or her tanned thighs. Instead, he stilled and listened intently for any sign of movement. There was a ferocious kind of whispering, but he couldn’t make out any words.
    ‘Look, Anna. Why don’t you just open the door?’ It didn’t feel right to leave it like this.
    ‘Please go away.’
    ‘Not gonna happen,’ he said. ‘Why are you hiding in there?’
    ‘I’m not hiding.’
    ‘Yes you are. You’re acting like a politician with a secret.’
    ‘And you’re acting like a paparazzo. I’m not answering any more of your questions.’
    That one was like a kick up the arse and he pulled himself back. Joe knew Anna was right and the last thing he wanted to do was scare her away. He was so used to asking questions that he had to remind himself occasionally that people had a right not to answer them. He’d always defended this behaviour by saying that he was only out for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but.
    Those black and white lines had become murkier just lately and he’d had to learn that all the asking in the world didn’t automatically get you what you want.
    ‘Anna, listen …’ He stopped to think about what he really wanted to say. Hoped he’d get it right. ‘Look. The thing is …’
    He pressed an ear to the door. There was no sound. Either she was standing stock-still or she’d passed out.
    ‘I don’t want you to feel bad about what happened. It happened. But this is Middle Point. There’s not much chance of us avoiding each other down here, even if we were trying really hard. Surely we can have a coffee together as friends.’ Friends? He shook his head in disbelief. Where had that come from? Did he want to be friends with Anna? At this point they were two strangers who’d happened to have unbe-fucking-lievable, no-strings-attached sex. Wasn’t that what every man wanted? He knew that in years to come, he would chalk her up