by Jill Mansell
Sophie was gazing around, desperate for support. Imogen, who had never been afraid to disagree with Jack and who was still smarting from Cass’s quite uncalled-for put-down earlier, began to applaud.
“Hear, hear,” she told Sophie. “Good for you.”
Nobody else joined in. Imogen realized she was on her own. Even Sophie didn’t seem to appreciate the gesture.
“Well, excuse me. But I’m entitled to an opinion,” Imogen mocked. “Aren’t I?”
“Leave it.” Jack’s voice was low. “You aren’t helping.”
Someone behind Imogen—a voice she couldn’t identify—murmured, “You can tell she doesn’t have children of her own.”
“OK. This is a party.” Cass put her arm around Sophie. Determined the evening shouldn’t be spoiled, she said, “And we are proud of you, sweetheart. We’re just saying sixteen is awfully young for such an adventure. Some of these African countries aren’t safe. You’ve told us yourself AIDS is everywhere—”
“You don’t catch it by talking to orphans,” Sophie shot back. With a glimmer of sarcasm, she added, “And I promise not to sleep with anyone.”
“That isn’t the only danger, and you know it,” said Jack. “Civil war could break out at any time… Sophie, you know what we’re trying to say. At least leave it another two years. Take your A levels and then go.”
“I want to go now.”
Cass frowned. What was it Julian and Natasha had said earlier?
“I thought VSO didn’t accept people under the age of eighteen.”
“They don’t.” Sophie remained cool. “I’d pay my own way.”
“Oh yes?” Seizing this straw, Jack said, “What with?”
Sophie had no money; he knew that. Every penny of her allowance was spent on books, educational trips, and more books.
Realizing she’d been rumbled, the spark of battle died in Sophie’s eyes.
“Don’t tell me,” said Jack. “You were going to ask us to lend you the money. Am I right?”
Sophie said nothing. Finally and with reluctance, she nodded.
“Well,” said Jack, “I’d be happy to do that.” He glanced at Cass, then back to Sophie. “In two years’ time. I’d be more than happy to.”
* * *
Jenny Duran, coming downstairs, bumped into Sean.
“Oh good, you’re here.” She pointed over her shoulder at the first of the bedroom doors along the landing. “I think I heard Rose crying a moment ago. Sounds as if she’s waking up.”
“OK.” He nodded. “I’ll let Pandora know.”
Jenny paused on the last stair but one. “Can’t you deal with it?”
“When she’s just woken up,” Sean replied evenly, “she’s happier with her mother.”
“Hmm.” Jenny had encountered this type of attitude before. Her eyes narrowed. “I’m glad you aren’t my husband.”
Sean, who knew exactly what she was thinking, wondered what the hell business it was of bossy Jenny Duran’s anyway.
“Not nearly as glad as I am,” he drawled, “that you aren’t my wife.”
* * *
It was no good. Joel, watching from a discreet distance as Cleo chatted animatedly with a group of Sophie’s friends, realized it had been a mistake to come here. Stupidly, he had imagined they would be able to put the past behind them. For the last few days, all he had been able to think about was how Cleo, finally seeing him again after so long, might react.
The trouble was, his imagination had gotten carried away. All it had managed to conjure up had been a variety of happy endings. The one reaction that had never occurred to Joel was the one he had gotten.
Cleo, so desperate not to speak to him that she hadn’t even been able to bring herself to say a simple hello, had seen him coming and scuttled away like a panicky sand crab. It was so un-Cleo, it had to be seriously bad news.
She can’t bear to look at me, thought Joel. He felt sick with disappointment and furious with himself for having been gullible enough to think things could have been different.
This was hopeless. With one last glance across at Cleo, stunning in black and more strikingly beautiful in the flesh than even he remembered, Joel reached into his back pocket for his car keys. Not having the heart to search out either Sophie or Pandora to say goodbye, he left.
* * *
Cleo had been battling one interruption after another. First, she had been distracted by Sophie’s impassioned speech about running off to save the poor starving babies of Africa. Then, before she could hunt down Joel, she was stopped in her tracks by a bunch of Sophie’s friends from school. None of them was an inch above five foot three. They were all desperate to become supermodels. Only the fact that they were friends of Sophie’s had prevented Cleo telling them that what they really needed if they planned a career in modeling was a damn good seeing-to with a steamroller.
Finally managing to make her excuses and escape, Cleo resumed her search. She still hadn’t formulated an exact plan, but the gist of it was there.
Find Joel.
Make him realize—in no uncertain terms—how she felt about him.
Absolutely refuse to take no for an answer.
Ten minutes later, with a sinking heart, Cleo began to acknowledge the possibility of a flaw in her three-point plan. Making Joel realize how she felt about him and refusing to take no for an answer were only going to work if she could find him first.
And Joel was nowhere to be found.
So much, thought Cleo, for thinking he might have been looking forward to seeing her again.
He hadn’t been able to get away fast enough.
* * *
“I thought Rory Cameron was supposed to be here tonight.” Imogen’s green eyes glittered. “Or has he found someone nearer half his own age and given Cass the boot?”
That the relationship had lasted this long had, frankly, surprised Jack too.
“They’re still seeing each other,” he said. “According to Cass anyway.”
Imogen gave him a knowing look. “Ah well. Cass would say that, wouldn’t she? Just to look good.”
But when Rory Cameron did finally arrive at almost ten o’clock, there appeared to be nothing stage-managed about the way he and Cass greeted each other. Jack looked away.
“Sorry, sorry.” Rory excused his lateness with an apologetic grin. “Bit of a dustup at the club between rival paparazzi. I don’t know if these royals are worth the trouble they cause. I really don’t.”
To show Cass and Imogen there was no need to be bitchy and ill at ease with each other, Jack made a point of being extra friendly toward Rory Cameron. It wasn’t too difficult so long as he didn’t imagine him in bed with Cass.
“Actually, I was wanting us to have a quiet word.” With a King Edward cigar in one hand and a tumbler of Scotch in the other, Rory led him out into the garden. He was looking well, Jack had to concede: fit and tanned and several kilos lighter than when they had last met. No doubt, Jack thought darkly, as a result of all that sex…
“Daft really, I suppose,” said Rory when they were out of general earshot. “I mean, it isn’t as if you’re Cassie’s father.” He drew carefully on his cigar and smiled. “It just kind of feels that way.”
Since he was the best part of a decade younger than Rory Cameron, Jack felt he had a damn cheek. His own smile cooled by several degrees. “Really.”
“OK, maybe not,” Rory conceded. Opaque smoke rings drifted up into the night sky, mingling with the expensive scent of his aftershave. “Dear me, this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.”
Jack had by this time formed his own suspicions on the subject. A chill seemed to settle around his heart. He said briefly, “If I were you, I’d just say it.”
* * *
Imogen was half listening to a dull conversation about public schools and
mentally triple-checking the dates of her next fertile period when she saw Jack emerging from the garden. Without so much as a glance in her direction, he shot through the drawing room into the kitchen, where Imogen knew Cass was. No doubt he had rushed inside to discuss some new and vital family catastrophe, she thought jealously. Maybe Cleo had broken her best fingernail. Or Sean had run out of cigarettes. Imogen, who had been only too glad to leave home at sixteen and make her own way in the world, found all this constant concern for the family hard to bear.
Jack was beginning to wish he’d stayed at home.
“I’ve just been speaking to Rory Cameron,” he announced. Cass, the sleeves of her pale-green shirt rolled up in case they melted in the heat, was taking the last tray of baked potatoes out of the oven. “Or rather, been spoken to by him.” Jack paused, watching the way she maneuvered the tray onto the worktop and swung the oven door shut with a practiced nudge of the hip. “You didn’t tell me you were planning to marry him.”
Cass’s cheeks were flushed pink, whether from the heat of the oven or as a result of his statement, Jack didn’t know.
“It’s something we’ve talked about. You can’t be that astonished.” She spoke with a trace of defiance. “We’ve been seeing each other for over a year.”
“You still might have mentioned it.”
“Look, I’m a big girl now.” Cass turned her attention back to the potatoes, prodding them in haphazard fashion with a fork. “I can do whatever I like. I can marry Graham Norton if I want to. It really didn’t occur to me that you’d even be interested, to tell the truth. We’re divorced.” The color in her cheeks deepened. “I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your private life.”
* * *
“You were popular tonight.”
Pandora, who was driving, as usual, felt her fingers tighten around the steering wheel. Things had been so much better between them recently. Still, she had been semiprepared for this, guessing that Sean wouldn’t be able to resist making some such remark. For the first time since they had met, she had been paid more attention than he had.
But it was way past midnight, and Pandora wasn’t up to a fight. Keeping her voice low to remind Sean that Rose was asleep in the back, she said lightly, “I’m a novelty, that’s all. It won’t last.”
“Come on. I spoke to Betsy Tyler at the club last week.” Sean sounded resigned rather than angry. Betsy was one of the actresses costarring in Pandora’s sitcom, Wide-Eyed and Topless. “She said your scripts were the best she’d ever read. The show hasn’t even aired yet, and they want a second season. You’ve cracked it.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
Only the fact that she had to keep her eyes fixed on the road ahead gave Pandora the courage to say it.
“Proud.” Sean hesitated for a second. “And jealous.”
For someone like him, it was a huge admission to make. Awash with love and sympathy, Pandora reached tentatively across and rested her hand on his thigh.
“This new series.” It was a possibility she had already considered, a chance to maybe bolster Sean’s own flagging career. “I could write a part in it for you…if you think you might be interested.”
The last thing Sean needed was Pandora’s charity. He gave her a long, measured look.
“Thanks for being so subtle. And no,” he said quietly, “I fucking well would not.”
Chapter 52
“What are you doing? Going into the agency?” As she skidded into the kitchen on Monday morning, Sophie collided with Cleo on her way out. Her eyes lit up. “Brilliant, we’re both heading in the same direction. You can give me a lift.”
“OK,” said Cleo when they reached Camden High Street, “where do you want to be dropped?”
She negotiated a wobbling cyclist, pulling out and waving gratefully at the driver of the car behind.
Sophie, very casually, said, “Jefferson’s.”
Jefferson’s was Cleo’s modeling agency, situated off Regent Street.
Cleo frowned. “I meant where are you going?”
“Jefferson’s.”
“That’s where I’m going.”
Sophie beamed. “Told you we were heading in the same direction.”
Doing all but an emergency stop, Cleo earned herself a barrage of tooting car horns. The driver of the car behind, who had been quite smitten thirty seconds earlier, abruptly changed his mind. Bloody women drivers.
“What’s this?” Cleo demanded. “Some kind of setup?”
“You said I looked modelish.” Sophie remained calm. “The other night when you slapped that disgusting gunk on my face.”
“Yes, but—”
“And modeling’s a good way to earn heaps of easy money.”
“It is not,” Cleo howled, this time almost cannoning into the car in front. She glared at Sophie. “It isn’t easy money for a start. It’s bloody hard-earned. And you don’t waltz into an agency and get taken on just like that. Sophie, be realistic. Hundreds of thousands of girls dream of becoming models—”
“Come on. Don’t be so defeatist.” Sophie shrugged. “I need the money for Uganda. Mum and Dad won’t lend it to me, but they both admit that if I can earn enough on my own, they won’t be able to stop me spending it however I like. They’re only saying that, of course, because as far as they’re concerned, I haven’t a hope in hell of raising that much cash—”
Sophie was hopelessly deluded.
“You still can’t march into Jefferson’s,” Cleo wailed, “without so much as an appointment and expect someone to scream, ‘My God, it’s the face of the decade. Give this girl a haircut and put her on the cover of Vogue this minute.’ Sophie, I know what I said the other day, but that simply isn’t how it works!”
“Ah, but I have two things in my favor.” Sophie held up two fingers and waggled them.
“What? What?”
“I have an appointment with Janice Jefferson.” She beamed. “I called at nine o’clock this morning and made one.”
Startled, Cleo said, “And?”
“I’ve got you as a sister.”
“Oh no, you can’t use me! That’s nepotism.”
“So? I need the cash.” Unperturbed, Sophie added, “Watch where you’re going. You almost hit that car.”
“I’ll lend you the money,” Cleo promised wildly.
“I’ll earn it myself. If we ever get there in one piece.”
“It’s still nepotism.”
“So get nepotizing,” said Sophie. “It’s for a good cause.”
* * *
Cleo sat on the edge of Maisie’s desk, morosely swinging her legs.
“It’s all my fault for painting her stupid face in the first place. If this does come to anything, my parents are going to string me up. How can a sixteen-year-old be so hell-bent on going to Africa anyway? Why can’t she need the money for something normal like a fortnight in Ibiza?”
“Maybe Janice will turn her down.” Unable to stand it a moment longer, Maisie reached out and grabbed Cleo’s ankles, bringing the rhythmic clink of cowboy boots against wooden desk to a merciful halt. “Sorry, you have no idea how annoying that is.”
Cleo always drummed her heels. Puzzled, she said, “You’ve never told me that before.”
“I’m being assertive.” Maisie looked shamefaced. “I’ve started going to classes.”
“But you’re a booker. It’s your job to be assertive!”
“I know, I know.” Blushing, Maisie said, “And I can do it at work. I’ve just never been able to manage it in real life.”
“I wish Sophie was a bit less assertive,” Cleo said with feeling.
Maisie, who was full of admiration for Cleo, said, “She takes after you. Look at the way you dealt with that awful Damien Maxwell-Horne.”
Cleo’s thoughts flew back to the Checkamating th
at had ultimately proved her own undoing. Never mind the dreaded Damien, she reminded herself gloomily. Look at the way I messed up with Joel sodding Grant.
* * *
The heavy oak door leading into Janice Jefferson’s office—the hallowed inner sanctum—finally reopened twenty minutes later. Cleo’s heart sank into her obediently immobile boots when she realized Janice had a bony arm draped around Sophie’s shoulders. Sophie was looking unbelievably smug.
“Right, we’re giving her a go.”
Janice prided herself on her eye for future talent. The fact that Sophie was wearing not a scrap of makeup and still sported her Dennis the Menace haircut hadn’t fazed her in the least. “I’m sending her over to Tony this afternoon for test shots. He can make up a composite, get a portfolio underway. I’ve already spoken to Anna about hair and makeup. This girl has something. I feel it.” Janice’s multibraceleted arm tightened around Sophie’s shoulder as she gave her a reassuring squeeze. The famous Jefferson smile, veteran of several hundred magazine covers back in the sixties, zoomed triumphantly in on Cleo. “And she’s a Mandeville to boot, which can only be good publicity. I think we can safely say we’re onto a winner.”
Sophie’s expression grew smugger still, all but screaming I told you so.
Murmuring so only Maisie could hear, Cleo said, “Speaking of boots, who needs a desk to kick when they have a sister?”
* * *
“Take a look at this. Who is it?”
Outside, it was bucketing down. Imogen, still shaking the rain out of her hair, had barely set foot inside the front door before Jack was shoving a curly fax into her hands. Obediently, Imogen gazed at the photograph reproduced on the sheet.
“Um…old picture of Cleo?”
Jack was looking shell-shocked. “New picture of Sophie.”
This time, Imogen took notice.
“You are kidding!”
But upon closer examination, it was definitely Sophie, complete with new ultrashort, ultrableached hair, no glasses, and skillfully applied makeup. Impressed, Imogen started to laugh.
