In Bed With a Stranger by India Grey Page A

we both knew it was hopeless, and in the end we stopped feeling guilty. He was abroad a lot—places I read about in the newspapers, places that were synonymous with violence and terror—and the whole thing had an air of tempting fate about it. He’d survived another tour, another siege, another shoot-out and he came back to me to celebrate being alive.’
    Kit flinched.
    ‘But after the Falklands it was different. Leo changed. He couldn’t do it any more. He’d been posted in Gibraltar for a time, and that was when he’d bought this place, to come to
when he had time, to relax. He wanted to come and live here full time, and he wanted us to join him— both of us.’
    For a moment Kit said nothing. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.
    ‘So what happened?’
    Sophie heard Juliet take a breath, as if she was steadying herself. Or preparing herself for something.
    ‘He wasn’t well when he came back from the Falklands. He wasn’t sleeping, and he’d noticed things—things he assumed would get better when he got back here and had a chance to rest. When they didn’t he came back to London to get checked out.’
    Kit stood up abruptly, raising his hands to his temples. Stumbling to her feet, Sophie saw that they were clenched into fists.
    ‘Go on .’
    He spoke through gritted teeth, and when Sophie touched him he didn’t seem to notice her.
    ‘He got passed around a few specialists—different addresses on Harley Street who each subjected him to a battery of tests before referring him on to the next doctor.’ Juliet’s voice was eerily calm again now. ‘I wasn’t with him when he went to the last one. A neurologist. The one who told him he was suffering from a progressive illness affecting the central nervous system, and that he had a year to live.’
    Kit turned away, walking over to the edge of the terrace as Juliet continued. The ache in Sophie’s head had been joined by a burning feeling in her chest.
    ‘It’s a marvellous way of focusing your mind, hearing something like that. Suddenly everything seemed simple.’
    ‘Leaving your child seemed simple ?’ Kit asked hollowly. It was dark now, and the magnificent view was swallowed up by layers of shadow. Beyond the circle of light on the terrace there was nothing to see, but he stared out into the blackness anyway, until his eyes stung.
    ‘A year.’ From behind him Juliet sounded very tired. ‘I thought that was all. And I couldn’t take you halfway across the world to be with a man you barely knew, a man who was terminally ill and was going to need me twenty-four hours a day. You needed school, routine …’
    I needed parents , Kit thought bleakly. He’d needed her . But with a crushing sensation in his chest he could see that Leo had needed her too. His father. He had needed her more.
    ‘So why didn’t you come back?’ he said harshly.
    She sighed, a long, sad sigh. ‘Because the doctors were wrong. They told us what would happen, how his body would shut down, bit by bit, like lights being switched off, until he couldn’t move, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. They were right about that, but what they badly underestimated was how long it would take.’
    Slowly Kit turned round.
    ‘How long?’
    ‘Sixteen years. He lived for sixteen years. So you see, by then it was far too late to come back.’
    Looking back later, Sophie could remember very little of the evening after that. She wasn’t really aware of what they ate, only that it was delicious enough for her to find that her plate was empty, and she was hungry enough to accept a second helping. Her glass seemed to empty itself very quickly, and be filled again by invisible hands. The warm air caressed her and Juliet’s low, musical voice lulled her, distracting her from the dark shapes that moved in the back of her mind.
    She talked of safe things. Of the labour of love that had been the restoration of Villa Luana, the way Leo had gradually won the trust and respect of the