18
Paris, early May 1950
Jasmine’s assumption that everything would be different when she and Lachlan made love proved to be a delusion.
She had expected a romantic and intimate experience, but their lovemaking was a bitter disappointment. Not for Lachlan – he was the cat who’d got the cream. But for Jasmine it was a curiously unemotional experience. She’d been detached, as if watching herself from a distance. It was painful – but she’d expected it would be. What she hadn’t anticipated was that she would be almost incidental to the process as far as her lover was concerned. He went about deflowering her with an efficiency and enthusiasm that appeared to centre entirely on his own pleasure rather than hers.
She’d made a special effort for his visit, wearing a new dress, teamed with the
