BREAKING VOWS - Scenes 1 and 2

BREAKING VOWS

by Rosalie Ash

A sequel to Melting Ice

Copyright © 2014 Rosalie Ash

All rights reserved.

Harbridge was basking in an early June heatwave as Jessica parked the Range Rover outside the cottage. She felt happy to be home. Andrew’s Jaguar was in the garage, so that was good. He wasn’t off playing golf, or worse still putting in endless Saturday hours at his rapidly failing estate agency. The children were with his mother, their nanny Mira had the weekend off, so a peaceful, adult evening stretched ahead.

   For the last half hour of her drive back from London, she’d been visualising her surprise reunion with her husband, fantasising herself into the mood for her carefully planned seduction. 

   Recent chats with her sister Megan, and her old friend Emma had convinced her that urgent action was needed. 

   ‘Is it really your tenth anniversary next Sunday?’ Megan had said, shaking her head in admiration, ‘How are you celebrating? I know, one of your candlelit gourmet meals followed by rampant sex!’

   ‘I wish.’ Jessica sighed, ‘We’re both too tired to have sex any more.’

   Megan bent her head over the row of sturdy tomato seedlings she was transferring to larger pots. As always, she looked effortlessly sexy, despite her tough, don’t touch me attitude. Jessica looked at the small red rose and thorn tattoo on Megan’s slender upper arm, and at the piercing in her eyebrow, and felt a stab of curiosity, as she sometimes did, wondering what Megan’s sex life comprised of. Her sister never gave much away, and because she still had a flat up in Northumberland and disappeared up there at regular intervals, she could keep that side of her life private much more easily than either she or Victoria could.

   Megan pushed her feathery blond fringe back, leaving a smear of compost on her forehead, then wiped her hands on the back of her tiny little denim shorts, below which stretched endless tanned, toned legs and desert boots. ‘Now you’ve disillusioned me,’ she said lightly, ‘I thought you and Andy were always at it!’

   ‘You do have a delicate way with words, Megs,’ Jessica had laughed, ‘Anyway, those days are long gone!’ 

   Megan grinned. ‘Do you think Matt and Victoria have taken over that role? Did you ever see a couple disappear to the bedroom as often as they do?’

   ‘I think Vic’s following the classic happy marriage formula,’ Jessica said,’Being a goddess in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom?’

   ‘Hmmm. Make that vomiting in the bathroom at the moment,’ Megan corrected. They’d exchanged sympathetic glances. Their younger sister was having a miserable second pregnancy so far.

   ‘But anyway, it’s finding the time!’ Jessica said, ‘You try being a whore in the bedroom when you’ve got two little boys under five, an internet business and a farm shop to run.’

    Megan’s violet-blue eyes were thoughtful. ‘Andy probably feels he’s coming way down the list, then. In my experience, men expect to be Number One.’

   They were taking a quick tea break in the sweltering heat of one of the polytunnels at the Roundwell plant nursery. Jessica felt a lurch of uncertainty at Megan’s words. Was that the reason her marriage had felt strained lately? Was Andy feeling sidelined while she filled her days with the children, the business, not to mention the endless phone calls and planning meetings with her sisters? 

   The last eighteen months had been more hectic than ever. The three of them were working longer and longer hours because the Roundwell business was growing. Growth was good, obviously, but with it came the need to employ staff, and employing staff brought a different kind of stress. Then there’d been Victoria and Matt’s huge, society style April wedding in Tuscany,  just over a year ago, followed by Vic’s absences as she spent time in London and Italy with Matt. More recently Vic’s pregnancy, and debilitating morning sickness had upped the pressure on everyone.