Bound To Love by Sally Clements

were cleared away, Daniel and Skye moved into the sitting room, leaving Alison and her daughter alone at the kitchen table. Tempest pulled in a deep breath, and clenched her hands under the table. This had gone too far, she’d had enough.
    ‘Skye cares that you and I are estranged, so for her sake – ’
    Alison clasped her hands in her lap, lip curling in distaste. ‘I think estranged is an over- exaggeration. You’re just being difficult, that’s all.’
    ‘Estranged is exactly the right word. I’m sick of the insinuations that you’ve made to Skye and Daniel. You told them I’d probably found myself a man when I didn’t come home the other night.’
    Alison’s mouth was set in thin line and her eyes blazed. ‘Well, given the circumstances, it seemed reasonable.’
    ‘No, it didn’t.’ A host of butterflies fluttered in her stomach, but she wasn’t going to back down, not this time. ‘I’m different from you and Skye, you know that. I follow my instincts. Six months ago I made a bad decision, but that doesn’t make me a fool.’
    Alison crossed her arms over her ample chest and frowned. ‘Tempest, I never said you were a fool. I distinctly remember telling you that I understood.’
    ‘You told me that you understood why I seduced your employee, that I felt vulnerable and that’s why I threatened to tell his wife about our affair. You were very careful to sympathize with my motives, but you still believed Joe Delaney’s version of events, not your own daughter’s.’
    In her distress Tempest had let it go, had walked away and left her mother to believe whatever she wanted to. Now it was time to set the record straight. Skye was in the middle, and the knowledge that her mother and sister were at war was tearing Skye apart.
    ‘There’s no shame in it, he’s an attractive man,’ Alison said.
    ‘You wouldn’t listen then, but you’re going to listen now.’ Tempest threw back the last dribble of brandy from the glass that Skye had soundlessly placed before her before leaving the room. ‘I met Joe Delaney at your company’s Christmas Party. He was alone, and he spent the night chatting me up. He was very charming, and I agree with you, he’s a very attractive man. He was attentive, and kept my glass filled all evening. He drove me home and asked to see me again.’
    And I believed everything he told me, stupid me .
    ‘He called me the next day and took me out to dinner. Joe pursued me, not the other way around. I had no idea he was married. Or that he was a father. If I’d known, I would never have gone out with him.’
    An ache bloomed in her chest at the remembered shock of discovering the truth. Joe was a lying hound. So attractive he’d screwed up her internal radar somehow. Whatever it was, finding out was a body blow that had almost brought her down. But not as much as finding out that her mother thought she was to blame for the whole mess. She interlinked her fingers and clasped them tight.
    Her father would have known she wouldn’t chase a married man. But her father wasn’t there to fight her corner, this time she was on her own.
    Alison looked stunned, this wasn’t the story that Joe had spun at all.
    Tempest pulled in a breath, and kept on with her sordid story. ‘I found out the truth at Skye’s wedding, when he brought his wife along. He pushed me into a room and told me he was married. He begged me not to say anything, told me we could still see each other, and tried to kiss me. When I slapped him he got his first inkling that things weren’t going to go the way he wanted.’
    Realization dawned in Alison’s eyes. ‘That’s when Joe came to see me.’
    ‘Yes. He told you a pack of lies Mother, to save his job, and his marriage.’
    Alison’s face fell and she avoided Tempest’s eyes. She knew she was wrong, it was written all over her face, but she didn’t apologize.
    ‘He told me you were having an affair, you’d chased him since he took you home from the party,