Page 16 of The House on Sunset Lake

How are you? I hear you’re in New York. How are you getting on with Casa D’Or? I know you’ll look after her. Jen

Jim felt his body jolt, as if his heart had been wired to a defibrillator and the voltage had just been switched on. He looked at the message knowing he had to respond. There was no way he couldn’t, not when he knew she was on the other end of this invisible cyberspace line.

Just looking at the plans now. I think you’d be impressed.

Return message: I’d love to see them.

He rubbed his mouth in hesitation, then tipped back the rest of his espresso to fortify himself.

You should swing by the office.

Where are you based?

57 and Lexington. The Commodore building.

You’re round the corner!

Where are you?

Bloomingdale’s.

Is that your registered address?

I try to split my time between here and Bergdorf’s.

He pushed his shirtsleeves up, sat back in his chair and felt a broad grin creep across his face, followed by a stab of panic.

They still hadn’t lost it. The connection, the crackle. He leaned forward and began to type the words that felt natural to write.

Are you free now?

But as his forefinger pressed the send button, it was as if a cold slap of air had sobered him up.

‘Shit,’ he muttered out loud as the email was fired off into cyberspace. What was he doing? He had opened his heart once before and had it crushed like a tin can under the wheels of a lorry.

There was a minute of excruciating silence before the reassuring ping of another incoming message.

I can be there in five minutes.

Jim gulped hard, then stared at the screen, seeing his own shadowy reflection in the bright desktop blue.

The office was empty and he felt alone and vulnerable. It was a sensation that gave him a considerable amount of disquiet. Until about two minutes earlier, Jim Johnson had thought he was doing OK. On the cusp of forty, he had all his own hair and could still fit into the same 32-inch jeans he wore in his twenties. He was popular with the opposite sex; even supermodels found him attractive, if New Year’s Eve was anything to go by.

A long-forgotten quote popped into his head, something he’d perhaps heard in a school assembly or a church service: When I became a man, I put away childish things. Over the past twenty years he had certainly succeeded in that aim. He’d put to bed any silly ideas of being a rock star – he was never going to be the new Thom Yorke or John Lennon – and instead got a proper job. One that was interesting and satisfying, one that paid him a good salary and had genuine prospects and a pension, or so he liked to remind himself in the dark moments when he wondered whether he had made the right life choices.

And he’d moved on from Jennifer Wyatt, although for the longest time that had been easier said than done.

His phone rang and shook him from his thoughts. It was Brad from security.

‘Mr Johnson. There’s a visitor downstairs for you. Says you’re expecting her. Should I send her up?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, his voice a low and anxious croak, as he braced himself to see her once again.

Chapter Six

‘Hello, Jim.’

The lift doors opened and Jennifer stepped out. She hadn’t changed a bit. Her hair still shone a glossy chestnut, but it was shorter, a long bob that sat on the shoulders of her expensively tailored coat. There were a few lines around her clear grey eyes and a tiny furrow between her brows, but she was still beautiful, the coltish good looks he remembered matured into something more elegant and spectacular. A distant, forgotten longing stirred, and instantly Jim knew it had been a bad idea emailing her.