Revenge of the Black Virgin Read Online Free PDF

of the day she wondered if he
felt the same way. Even after what she’d done to him.
     
    Over the weekend James gave Jo the space she
said she needed but called a half dozen times. Each time she
answered with a consistently firm but detached voice. “Yes, I’m
fine. Thank you for calling. No, I don’t need anything. No, I don’t
want to talk right now.”
    On Monday he sent an enormous bouquet of
flowers, with a terse little note apologizing for his behavior. She
emailed him a polite thank you, but didn’t open any of the emails
he sent her in return.
    She was absolutely sure she wasn’t going to
change her mind about him.

Chapter Five
     
     
    The first week passed—then the next, then
three more—and still Luc’s pain at being thrown over was as
debilitating as it was on the night it happened. The night he came
back to the hotel room in Martel to find that Joanna had broken her
promise to run off with him to Nice. Instead, he soon learned,
she’d gone back to Seattle with her fiancé. Without a word of
explanation.
    His first response was a terrible fury. After
he worked through the anger it was replaced by an acute heartache
like nothing he’d ever imagined. His chest actually hurt him, as if someone had taken a shotgun to it. He ached and ached
and ached until he thought he’d go mad.
    Of course he had to finish the tour. He’d
offered to lead a ten-day Dordogne Valley walk to help his friend
Oscar, who owned a tour company, French Escapes. If he
hadn’t been such a good sport, he would never have met Joanna, and
his life wouldn’t be in shambles, he caught himself thinking a
hundred times.
    After Joanna fled he still had to deal with
the nine Brits and two Ozzies who were waiting for him to walk them
back to Souillac and send them off with a festive farewell dinner.
It turned out to be a grim two days for everybody. Luc squirmed
whenever he remembered them.
    But there was no help for it.
    Afterwards, he went home to Cahors. He still
had a month’s holiday from his civil service job, but he no longer
wanted to lead any mountain treks or river walks or anything that
would force him to be with other people. He told Oscar he was ill
and would no longer be able to help him out over the summer. Luc
hated telling the lie, but then he rationalized it wasn’t far off
the truth.
    Then, like a wounded animal, he retreated
into his house, alone.
    He lost his appetite, so he stopped cooking.
He kept his taste for wine, but he was careful to control it. And,
trying to tire himself, he exercised obsessively. As a result, his
muscular frame didn’t soften, but grew leaner, stronger.
    His house was in serious need of maintenance,
and he’d drafted a long list of repairs and chores he’d hoped to
complete over the summer. But after Joanna he couldn’t be bothered.
Windows stayed stuck, doorknobs continued to wobble, paint went on
peeling and the drains kept clogging. The latch on the property
gate finally broke altogether and one night a pack of wild boars
charged in and uprooted an entire section of garden beside the
lake.
    But he didn’t even notice.
    Someone noticed, though. One look at his
ex-wife’s face and Luc knew how concerned she was about his
uncharacteristic behavior. It wasn’t just the house—she drew his
attention to the fact he was neglecting his prized vineyard, the
young vines he’d so patiently nurtured through to maturity. They
hadn’t been pruned, and the crop would be a disaster.
    He was neglecting himself, too, she pointed
out. He knew he looked a wreck. Sloppy, unshaven, no longer caring
what he wore. Despite the change in his appearance, women still
sought him out on his brief forays into town. But after a few
minutes of strained flirtation he made it clear to each one that
she was wasting her time. He just wasn’t interested.
    Worst of all, he was avoiding his family and
friends, taking no pleasure in things he once loved. In more than
one of their brief conversations, Anna told him