Book Trailer & Challenge No. 8 - "Lies!"

Even though I dreamed up the theme "Lies" I found it quite hard to come up with a piece that had any romantic elements. "Lies" is a tough one, because there might be hurt along the way even if romance the end result, and this is the opening to a romance novella. 

When would life again be simple?

       Damn it, he just couldn’t erase the image of her leaning on the top rail of the paddock; her attention solely transfixed on the horses and ponies, a swathe of poppies dancing in gentle breeze beside her. 

       She hadn’t come to kiss him goodbye, and she’d never missed doing that before. Had she known, known then that he’d lied?  Why hadn’t he got off his damned Ducatti and strode across to her, swept her of her feet and hugged her?  But no, he’d glanced at his watch and running late had set off with nothing more than wave of hand.

       O.K., so he’d sort of said his goodbye at breakfast: her cornflower blue eyes following his every movement. Something in her expression throughout had implied distrust at every word uttered from his mouth, her raven hair tumbling over her shoulders and petulant air about her. And, when she’d left the house she’d looked remarkably unconcerned about his going. But to just stand and not even watch him leave, as though he merely motoring into the village for the morning paper when in fact he would be away for months It all made him feel a worse rat than usual. 

       Damn and blast it, he couldn’t let her coolness get to him. He had an important business meeting. He needed to be focused on matters at hand not have his mind wandering to Anna Marie, not when he had Caroline to pick up on the way. But then again, Anna Marie had every right to be mad at him. He’d promised so much one way and another and delivered little or nothing, bar for lavish gifts that always seemed to delight her.      

       What of Caroline, though, and how would Anna Marie react if she knew there was someone else?

       He knocked on Caroline’s door, sense of guilt weighing him down.

       The door opened in a flurry, Caroline’s ever provocative smile teasing the senses.           

       “Nick, lovely to see you back. You didn’t call.”

       “I had things on my mind.”

       Oh God. When would the lies end?  When would he finally be able to tell his daughter the truth about himself?  Anna Marie deserved so much more from him than that of absentee father, and of being left with his aged parents. 

386 words.

To see work by other participants go here. 

And please, take a look at this book trailer!  This is my meagre attempts at a book trailer for my novella "Her Favoured Captain". 
Be kind, please, I'm a novice at this game.  
"Her Favoured Captain" is now published and available on Kindle at Amazon.

The Amazon link can be seen top right side-bar.
If you look at the bottom left corner of cover image you'll see a motif: RFW. There's a reason for this and I'll explain more, later, on a RFW set-aside page.