FRANCESCA CAME TO see how the painting was getting on just a couple of days after Clare started to paint it. Clare was alone in the flat, Daniel having driven back to London for a couple of days to try and persuade some galleries to display his work there. Francesca explained that her husband was in the area on family business, turning some houses into flats for the tourists. She could only come down to see him occasionally because she had a business of her own these days, a boutique in Chelsea. Bought to keep her out of the way, Clare thought unkindly. She could imagine what it was like. Full of the kind of peachy pale clothes Francesca was wearing now, populated by bored housewives who giggled like schoolgirls and snatched up sequinned numbers for parties while their husbands were seduced by girls who wore jeans. Francesca stood behind Clare for a while as she painted. The blonde girl had one arm wrapped protectively around her body so that her hand caressed her hip, while the othe

STEVE WAS DISAPPOINTED when Clare told him she couldn’t make it to Barcelona after all. When she said that she was going to Paris, on a ticket won in a raffle, with a friend from school that she couldn’t let down, he remarked, ‘That's a real coincidence, my . . . friend is going there as well this weekend.’ He told Clare that he could cancel the tickets anyway and that he could always use some golf practice. Daniel was far less happy. Francesca, as promised, had telephoned the flat pretending to be an old girlfriend from school. Daniel was confused as to why Clare should want to spend a weekend away from him with a girl that she hadn’t spoken to for four years. Clare assured him that they had actually kept in touch. But to Paris? he moaned. He asked why this schoolfriend couldn’t drag up some willing man to see some of the most romantic sights in the world with. He begged Clare not to go. Promised to take her there himself one day and when she refused to give in he went into a sulk w

BACK AT THE hotel, Clare headed straight for the mini-bar to calm her frazzled nerves. Francesca and Clare had waited for two hours at the club before the waiters finally showed up but now Jean and Bertrand were comfortably ensconced on the green leather sofa, with Francesca between them. She had her leg crossed towards Bertrand, her shoeless foot twitching predatorily, brushing from time to time against his trousered calf. Clare opened another bottle of champagne and filled four glasses. She sat down opposite the other three but wasn’t on her own for long. ‘See you later,’ called Francesca as Bertrand swept her up off her feet and carried her giggling into the darkness of her room. Jean had made his way over to Clare and was now perching on the edge of her chair. His arm snaked around her shoulder and he fixed her with his chocolatebrown gaze. She told him that she didn’t normally do this kind of thing but to no avail, since his English seemed to be as bad as her French. ‘Let’s jus

‘Oh ...’ Jean’s first eager thrust made Clare suck her breath in sharply. She tightened her thighs against his body and held him still for a moment while she relaxed and let him further inside. But he couldn’t hold off for long and soon he thrust into her again. His face hovered above hers. She looked up at the eyes, now tightly shut. He was biting his lower lip as he pushed himself into her again, feeling the divine resistance of her vaginal walls. ‘Ah,’ he thrust again. Clare clasped his buttocks. Clenched her fingers into his hard, firm flesh. He responded with a deeper thrust, a longer moan. She raised her body again and again to meet him. But still it didn’t feel deep enough. Jean stopped his frantic pounding for a moment and pulled her legs so that they were wrapped around his middle. He curled his knees beneath him and rocked backwards so that he was sitting up with her astride him. Clare released her legs and used her own knees to help her move up and down on his glorious c

SHE MUST HAVE been very tired, because she didn’t wake up until midday. The weak winter sun was streaming through the window, but it was freezing and her breath made smoky patterns in the air. And Daniel still wasn’t beside her. Why hadn’t he sorted out the thermostat so that the heating came on? They weren't that skint. Clare pulled on her jeans again without getting out from beneath the duvet and it was as she was doing this that she noticed that the room didn’t look quite the same as usual. For a start, it was tidy. There was not a solitary sock to be seen on Daniel’s side of the room, which usually looked like an explosion in a Chinese laundry. Something else was odd too ... The walls, usually graced with three paintings Daniel had done when they first arrived in Cornwall, were bare. ‘My God, we've been burgled,’ was Clare’s first thought as she leapt out of bed and ran through into the lounge. But nothing had changed there. And Daniel’s painting rucksack was still lying on the