by Jill Mansell
So that was his big claim to fame. Since Sean must have been out with half the girls in England in his time, as a boast, it lacked novelty value. Cleo only prayed he wasn’t about to start regaling her with Sean-style jokes.
Warily, because this was what Sean’s fans had a boring tendency to do, she said, “I see.”
But all Joel Grant did was move closer and lower his voice further still.
“Look, I know we don’t know each other, and it probably isn’t my place to say this, but I’m not sure getting involved with Damien is such a wise move. Take it from me,” he went on, “you could do a hell of a lot better.”
Like you, you mean, Cleo thought. It was obvious what he was trying to do. She’d been right: Damien’s friends were every bit as charmless as she had imagined.
Disgusted by this one’s ability to bad-mouth someone who was at this very moment buying him a drink, she gave him her coldest stare. “Are you always this loyal to your friends?”
He sighed. “Look, I’m not—”
“Please don’t,” drawled Cleo. She stood up. “You were right the first time; what I do with Damien is none of your business. And I’d far rather make my own decisions than be told what to do by someone like you.”
“Hey up, what’s going on here then?” Smirking and trailing rugby players in his wake, Damien returned to the table. “Hands off, if you don’t mind! I saw her first.”
“Don’t worry. She’s all yours.” With a derisive smile, the blond giant vacated his chair. “If you ask me, you make a perfect match.”
Damien preened. “I think so too. Sweetheart?” Observing the expression on Cleo’s face, he touched her arm. “Hey, babe, you OK?”
He had called her babe. Ugh, ugh. “Just hungry. My fault. I missed lunch.”
Cleo knew she was breaking one of her own rules, but if she didn’t get out of here soon, she would explode.
“Hungry? No sweat. We’ll finish this drink and leave. I know a terrific little Mexican—”
Cleo gritted her teeth. “I’m hungry now.”
Terrified of losing her, Damien pushed his untouched drink to one side.
“Hey, no problem. We’ll eat now. Sorry, chaps, gotta love you and leave you! Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go.”
* * *
The man was supposed to ask the woman to dinner. That was the whole point of the exercise; he was meant to make all the moves. Cleo, unable to even summon up much of an appetite, realized she’d blown the whole thing. She was haunted, too, by the memory of the look on the blond giant’s face as he had watched her go, a look of unremitting disdain. Furious with herself for not being able to put it out of her mind, Cleo gave up on the meal and heaved a sigh.
“I know what you need.” Not realizing he had spilled guacamole down his already hideous pink-and-yellow patterned tie, Damien crinkled his eyes at her and decided to take the plunge. “You need cheering up. Look, a great mate of mine has a villa in Portugal. I can use the place whenever I like. How about getting away from it all for a few days?”
Cleo looked up, her pulse quickening.
“Getting away? Who with?”
“Me, of course!” He roared with laughter. “Sweetheart, I mean it. You look as if you could do with the break. How about next week? Seriously, this chap wouldn’t mind. I know he’s busy here for the next fortnight,” Damien added in confiding tones, “so it’d just be the two of us. How does that sound to you, hmm?”
Almost too good to be true, thought Cleo joyfully. Aloud, she said, “Whereabouts in Portugal?”
“The Algarve. A pretty little place near Albufeira.” Eagerly, Damien leaned across the table. “Private gardens, own pool, maid service… Hang on. What are you doing?”
“It’s called money.” Cleo was pulling tenners out of her purse. “My very own.”
“You don’t have to pay!” Smiling but confused, Damien tried to push the notes back in. “I told you, the villa belongs to a pal. It won’t cost us a penny.”
“This is to pay for my dinner,” said Cleo, relieved that at last she could go home. “And the villa doesn’t belong to any pal. It belongs to a very nice lady called Harriet Coburn who deserves an awful lot better than a two-faced, lying little turd like you.”
Chapter 20
God, men really were the pits. Finding herself the following lunchtime with an afternoon free, Cleo planned a cheering-up session of serious spending in South Molton Street. Then Sean had the nerve to disrupt even that, phoning her midmorning and practically begging her to meet him for lunch.
“I’m doing a charity thing at midday at the club. Meet me there,” he said, sounding more subdued than Cleo had heard him sound for years. “Please.”
If he was saying please, it had to be serious. Consoling herself with the thought that at least she would be saving thousands of pounds, Cleo arrived at Comedy Inc. at one o’clock, just as Sean was winding up his act.
“And for everyone who is thinking of giving up cigarettes,” he told the audience, there to raise money for a new hospital body scanner, “I’d just like to say, it’s fucking hell with Nicotinell. But try anyway. It’s worth it. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. You’ve been great.”
“What’s this?” Cleo mocked when he joined her at the bar five minutes later. “Moral lectures on smoking from sinful Sean Mandeville? We don’t have to leave yet. I’ve just ordered drinks.”
“Never mind the drinks. Let’s just get out of here.” Sean, who had her by the arm, was dragging her toward the door. “I need a cigarette.”
He took her to the Blue Goose, because Cleo had already warned him that giving up South Molton Street for the sake of lunch with a lousy brother meant making it seriously worth her while. By the time their first course arrived, Sean was stubbing out his fourth Marlboro.
“Let’s hope you manage to raise the money for that scanner,” Cleo observed. Then, glimpsing the troubled look in his dark eyes, she softened. “OK, so something’s wrong. What is it?”
“I’ve been seeing this girl…well, kind of.” Finding himself unable to eat, Sean buried the quail breasts beneath a mound of glistening arugula. “The thing is, I was really crazy about her to begin with. I thought she was amazing. Couldn’t stop thinking about her. Dammit,” he admitted crossly, “I used to drive past her house in the middle of the night just because it made me feel better.”
“Bloody hell, sounds like love.” Cleo was genuinely amazed. “So you are human after all. Why haven’t we met her? Oh…” Her eyebrows rose another inch as the unthinkable occurred to her. “Don’t say she’s dumped you!”
If it was sympathy he’d been after, Sean realized he’d picked the wrong person to tell. Cleo was about as sympathetic as Jaws.
“No,” he snapped back, irritated by her obvious amusement. “If anything, the other way around. She’s dumped on me.”
“She, she. Does she have a name, or do we just know her as mystery woman?” Cleo, her own appetite undimmed, tucked greedily into her langoustines. She licked garlic mayonnaise from her fingers. “And what’s the big problem anyway? I suppose she’s married.”
“No. Pregnant.”
Cleo stopped licking her fingers. “Oops.”
“And her name’s Pandora,” said Sean. “No box jokes.”
“So what’s going to…happen?” To illustrate her meaning, Cleo nodded in the general direction of Sean’s stomach.
“Bit late for a vasectomy, if that’s what you’re hinting at.” But he managed a wan smile. “She wants to have the baby.”
Cleo thought things through while Sean lit up another cigarette.
“So you’re absolutely crazy about this amazing girl, maybe even in love with her, and now she’s pregnant. Is that really so terrible? If she was some hideous old dog, maybe you should be worried, but—”
“But she isn’t, so why d
on’t I do something drastic like marry her?” Sean had thought of nothing else for the last two weeks. “Cleo, I’m twenty years old. I’m too young to settle down and play happy families. OK, so I was crazy about her at first, but you know what I’m like. By next week, I could have met someone else. I mean, can you seriously see me doing the goo-goo bit and pushing a stroller?”
Cleo’s eyes glittered. As if she needed it, here she was being faced with yet another shining example of how completely and utterly shitty the male sex could be.
“Don’t be so bloody selfish. And I’m still eating.” Reaching across the table, she tweaked the smoldering cigarette from his fingers and brutally stubbed it out. “Has it even occurred to you that Pandora might not be able to see herself pushing a stroller either? The thing is, Sean, when you sleep with someone, you take a risk, and if you get caught out, you face the consequences. And don’t make out she dumped on you,” Cleo went on bitterly. “Why do men always blame the women when things go wrong? You should have used a condom.”
“I did,” Sean hissed back. He prayed the couple at the next table weren’t able to hear every word. “I bloody did, OK? So this isn’t my fault.”
Cleo trawled the last langoustine through a sea of mayonnaise.
“Should have worn two.”
* * *
It was hard to tell who was the more surprised when Pandora opened the front door. The last person in the world she had expected to see there was Cleo Mandeville, more glamorous in the flesh than in any of her photos and sick-makingly thin in an off-the-shoulder black top and pink flares.
Cleo in turn gazed down in amazement at the girl who had answered the doorbell, plump and bare-legged in an oversized yellow T-shirt.
“You’re Pandora?”
Pandora took a steadying breath. “Yes. And I know who you are.”
“Good Lord,” said Cleo, frank as ever. “Sean’s told me about you, but he didn’t mention you were—”
“Black?” Pandora smiled. “It’s OK. You can say it. I already know.” Then, warily, she added, “Does it…um…make a huge difference?”
“Don’t be daft.” Cleo followed her through to the living room, heaved her shoulder bag onto the floor, and flopped down. “It’s just typical of Sean, not saying it. Like forgetting to mention someone’s bald or only has one leg. He’s useless like that. He doesn’t know I’m here, either. We had lunch earlier, and he told me about the baby.” She beamed. “I said I wanted your address to send a congratulations card.”
Cleo had made herself quite comfortable on the green-and-white-striped sofa. Stupidly, Pandora hoped she wouldn’t dislodge the cushions piled up at each corner and catch sight of the frayed bits underneath.
“I don’t think Sean feels congratulations are much in order.” Pandora tried to sound matter-of-fact about it, to disguise the pain she couldn’t help feeling. “He isn’t thrilled about this. As I suppose you’ve already heard,” she added ruefully. “A baby doesn’t quite fit in with his image. Neither, of course, do I.”
“Oh, but…”
Smiling at the appalled expression on Cleo’s exquisite face, Pandora said, “It’s OK. I don’t mean black. If I were Halle Berry, I dare say I’d be fine. But I’m not. I’m four years older than Sean and a waitress to boot. Hardly glamorous.”
“If I loved somebody,” Cleo declared with passion, “I wouldn’t care what they did for a living. Look, when Sean started telling me about you, he said you were amazing. He was so besotted, he used to drive past this house just to feel close to you…”
“And now he’s scared silly.” Pandora nodded to show she understood and accepted the situation. “I wasn’t part of his plan. Girlfriend and screaming baby not included.”
“He is scared, dammit,” Cleo admitted with a gusty sigh. “At least you know. I’m sorry. He’s my brother, but he can be hopeless. That’s why I had to come here today, to warn you in case you didn’t realize it already. Just don’t get your hopes up too much.”
“I won’t.”
“Honestly, men are such weasels.” Shaking her head in despair, Cleo absentmindedly helped herself to an apricot from the fruit bowl. “Even the ones you think are all right to begin with.”
“You seem to know how to deal with them anyway.”
Pandora was smiling. For a second, Cleo thought she’d somehow heard about her recent adventures, checking out the unfaithfulness of men. Wondering how she could possibly know—and praying Pandora wasn’t about to request trying it out on Sean, who would undoubtedly fail—she looked blank.
“Your father,” Pandora prompted. “Stringing all that stuff up outside Imogen Trent’s flat. I thought it was completely brilliant.”
“Didn’t help though.” Gloomily, Cleo started popping seedless grapes into her mouth. “He still moved in with her. Poor Mum’s trying to put on such a brave face, but she’s crumbling inside.”
Pandora nodded. “Sean told me. That’s why he hasn’t mentioned the baby to her. He felt she had enough to cope with just now.”
“Still, he can’t expect to keep you hidden away forever.” Cleo looked cross. She was sure Sean’s motives weren’t that pure; he just didn’t have the guts to go public. “Oh hell, now I’ve eaten all your fruit. Look, you’re really nice. I’ve only known you this long, and already I can tell how nice you are. Just as I know you sure as hell deserve better than my useless brother.”
It was odd, hearing one of the nation’s most lusted-after celebrities being dismissed as useless. As his sister, Pandora supposed, Cleo was immune to the charms that so effectively floored everyone else.
“I do love him you know.” Pandora spoke simply, from the heart. “I realize this isn’t going to be easy, but I love him anyway. I haven’t even told him that.”
A lump came to Cleo’s throat; she could so plainly foresee that Pandora and Sean were a disaster waiting to happen. And Pandora would be the one who ended up getting hurt.
“That’s why I had to come and see you.” Determined to help, Cleo leaned closer. “Look, I really hope everything works out. But if it doesn’t…well, you might not always have Sean’s support, but you’ll definitely have mine.”
Chapter 21
Pandora had been so dreading breaking the news of her predicament to Joel that she had found herself putting it off and off for ages. This was only possible because he had been away more often than he was home, thus missing out on the worst of the appalling morning sickness that, in the first few weeks, actually had her losing weight instead of putting it on.
But that, mercifully, was behind her now. Instead, Pandora found herself shoveling down mountains of buttery, peppery mashed potatoes and at least five packets of chips a day. The chips had to be dipped in Hellmann’s mayonnaise, which she kept in a jar in her handbag—the craving for them was so all-consuming, it would even wake her up in the night—and the bathroom scales were barely able to keep up. Horrified but helpless to prevent it happening—there simply wasn’t a moment in the day when she wasn’t ravenous—Pandora watched herself balloon and wondered how on earth Joel could have failed to notice what was going on practically under his nose.
That was men for you though. And the time, Pandora decided, had finally come. If Sean could confide in his sister, she could tell Joel. It was either that or go out, buy a crib, and let him guess.
They were sitting out in the tiny back garden, enjoying the early-evening sun. Pandora was trying to enjoy it anyway. Cleo had left two hours earlier, and Joel was just home from work. Pandora braced herself against the white wrought-iron chair, waiting for the inevitable storm of outrage. Joel might be only three years older than she was, but he could be as protective when he wanted as any father.
But this really wasn’t the end of the world. She hadn’t murdered anyone, hadn’t even run over next door’s cat. If she made light of the situation, maybe Joel would relax a bit to
o.
“Pregnant?” He stared at Pandora. “What the hell do you mean, pregnant?”
“You know, the kind of pregnant where you end up having a baby.” She had made a lamb casserole, Joel’s favorite, specially to help her through. With lots of mashed potatoes.
“But you don’t—”
“I do actually.” He looked so stunned, she had to smile. “Every now and again.”
“—have a boyfriend,” spluttered Joel. “You don’t have a boyfriend. What’s going on? Is this some kind of a joke? If it’s a joke, Pandora, please tell me now.”
“No joke.” Oddly, having finally said it, she felt quite calm. “And I have been seeing someone, just not very often. He’s been working a lot. So have you. And you have met him,” she added with a touch of pride, because not everyone, after all, could boast a relationship with one of the ten most desirable men in Britain. According to a poll in last Thursday’s Express anyway. “It’s—”
“Jesus,” shouted Joel, sitting bolt upright in his chair and going three shades redder. “You’re going to tell me it’s Sean Mandeville! Oh, Pandora, are you out of your mind? You can’t get mixed up with someone like him. You certainly can’t get pregnant by him!”
“Well, I have.” Pandora’s eyes flashed in defiance. “Too late. It’s already happened. So there.”
Joel closed his eyes. As far as he was aware, Pandora had done nothing more intimate than share a couple of meals with Sean Mandeville. Two brief outings, and that had been the end of it. She hadn’t so much as mentioned him since. And now this…
“Does he know?”
“Of course he knows.”
“And?” said Joel heavily.
“And he hasn’t run off screaming into the sunset,” Pandora snapped back. Well, he hadn’t. Not quite.
“Oh, so I’m invited to the wedding?”
“Don’t be so bloody patronizing,” shouted Pandora. When he wanted to, Joel could be infuriatingly old-fashioned. “Who says I want to get married?”
