Free Deception and Desire by Janet Tanner Page B

won’t stay out late with Melina again and tell me that however it might look I am more important to you than your mother and the rest of the family. But she knew it would only sound childish.
    Aloud she said: ‘I have to go. I thought I’d explained.’
    â€˜Yes. Well, if that’s your decision I suppose I must abide by it.’ His voice was cold; the closeness of the previous night’s lovemaking might never have been. ‘How long will you be gone?’
    â€˜I don’t know … it depends. However long it takes to find Ros, I suppose.’
    â€˜Don’t hurry back on my account. I’m going to be very busy the next few weeks. I have a big job on – a new hotel complex down in Kavos. If you’re not going to be here I might decide to stay in the apartment in Kerkira. That would save me quite a bit of travelling time.’
    And be very convenient for Melina, too, she had thought involuntarily, but she had not said anything. She did not want to raise the subject again now, just as she was leaving, did not want him to realise that she still did not know whether to believe him when he protested that theirs was nothing more than a friendship between employer and secretary. But it had been there in her mind as she kissed him goodbye and it was still there now, worrying at her as the plane approached Bristol Airport.
    Even if it wasn’t a full-blown affair yet she’d given them every opportunity to make it one by flying home to England and leaving Ari alone. If she had stayed in Corfu now that he knew she was suspicious he might have had second thoughts about what – if anything – he was doing, if he cared for her and their marriage at all, that was. With her out of the way it would be easy, so easy, for him to turn to beautiful Melina with her dark eyes and olive skin, clever Melina, who spoke perfect English and had more than a smattering of German as well, suitable Melina, whose father would no doubt present her future husband with a prika of a grove of olive trees, and who understood Ari perfectly because she was native-born Corfiote.
    The plane descended a few hundred feet rather swiftly and Maggie’s stomach went with it.
    I had to come, she thought. I had to make my stand and I had to make sure Ros is all right. And if I can’t trust my husband for a couple of weeks, then what point is there in any of it?
    Wheels touched tarmac, the engines went into reverse and the jet slowed on the runway.
    I am home, Maggie thought, and it never even occurred to her that the sentiment had betrayed her deepest feelings, nor that, after living there for almost three years, it was Corfu she should think of as home.
    Mike Thompson stood in the waiting area beyond the customs hall. Maggie had telephoned him this morning asking if he could meet her at the airport, and naturally he had agreed.
    â€˜My plane is due in at eighteen-thirty your time,’ she had said. ‘I know it’s an imposition to ask you to meet me and if you can’t I’ll quite understand. But I thought I could stay at Ros’s cottage and I imagine you have a key.’
    â€˜Yes, of course,’ he had said. ‘ But look – I didn’t mean to worry you to this extent. I wouldn’t like you to think I was implying you should come.’
    â€˜I want to,’ she had said. ‘You still haven’t any news of her, I imagine?’
    â€˜No, nothing.’ As usual the line had begun breaking up. ‘I’ll be at the airport,’ he said hastily.
    â€˜Are you sure it’s not inconvenient?’
    â€˜Not a bit. I’ll see you.’
    And so here he was, watching the passengers from the Corfu plane emerge. Most were obviously holidaymakers, sunburned, dressed in leisure suits and anoraks, pushing trolleys laden with suitcases and plastic carrier bags of duty-frees, and Maggie did not appear to be among them. Would he recognize her? he wondered