by Jill Mansell
“No joy.”
“You should have snapped me up,” Dino said modestly, “while you had the chance. Oh wow—”
“What?” demanded Cleo, realizing he was peering over her shoulder. “Wow what?”
“Sorry. Thought I just saw someone.” He sounded miles away. “There’s a TV ad running in the States, a commercial for some new shampoo. This is going to sound stupid, but I’ve really had the weirdest kind of feeling for the girl in this ad. It almost seems as if I know her. I don’t, of course.” The look he gave Cleo was unusually self-deprecating. “But I sure would like to.”
“And?”
“I don’t know for certain, but I think I just saw her. She’s thin, with long dark hair,” Dino elaborated. “Amazing eyes. Black dress.”
“Sounds like Cruella de Vil.” Turning, Cleo searched the crowds. The next moment, Dino’s hand tightened convulsively around her wrist. Glancing back, startled, she saw him blushing like a teenager, muttering, “My God, it is—”
“Hi,” said a shy voice behind her.
Cleo grinned as, in an instant, everything fell into place. “I don’t know if you’ll remember this,” she told Dino, “but I once said to you, if you really wanted to meet someone miserable, I’d introduce you to my friend Linda.”
Linda, who was beaming like an idiot and evidently incapable of tearing her eyes away from Dino, said, “I’m not miserable anymore.”
* * *
Several miles away, alone in the Islington mews flat she had returned to following the breakup with Jack, Imogen was taking a long, slow bath. She listened to the latest Coldplay release and let the tears roll helplessly down her face. Not that any of the tracks had been “their” song—the album had only come out last week—but the lyrics, always so horribly easy to relate to, got to Imogen every time.
After her bath, she microwaved a frozen dinner and poured herself a glass of white wine. Switching on the television, she flicked through the channels and tried to find something remotely watchable. Then she put Coldplay on again and spent a good ten minutes curled up on the sofa gazing at the blank wall, realizing that either way, she had to face up to the truth. She couldn’t put it off any longer. The deed had to be done.
It was weird, going through the exact motions she had gone through so many times before, only this time experiencing such mixed feelings about the possible end result. Sitting on the edge of the bath with her yellow terry robe pulled around her like a security blanket, Imogen hugged her knees and counted slowly to sixty. Then she counted to sixty again, twice.
And this time when she looked, it was there. The unmistakable pink line she had so often in the past willed to appear had appeared. Plain as day. Not light pink but bright pink. She wasn’t just pregnant, it seemed. She was very pregnant indeed.
As Imogen wandered trancelike back through to the sitting room, Jack’s face reappeared in close-up on the television. She had taken to recording and endlessly replaying his programs to feel closer to him. Not that it was working now.
She closed her eyes in despair. There wasn’t a way in the world it could be Jack’s baby. During their last few weeks together, as his interest in her had dwindled, so too had their sex life. It was partly why she had made such a desperate play for Sean, except he had rejected her too.
Imogen stood up and studied her ghostly reflection in the mirror. She supposed she should be glad she wasn’t infertile, having agonized for so long that she might be.
Oh, but dammit, she would have been so much gladder if only she hadn’t been fertile with Damien Maxwell-Horne.
Chapter 62
Cleo had never seen anything like it before in her life. The chemistry between Dino and Linda was so powerful, it was almost embarrassing. She appeared to be witnessing love at first sight.
It really was extraordinary; Linda had lit up like a Christmas tree and couldn’t take her eyes off Dino. Dino, in turn barely able to keep his hands off Linda, looked as if he wanted nothing more than to bundle her out of the ballroom, back to his hotel suite, and—without further ado—into bed.
Cleo wished she didn’t feel quite so jealous. She tried hard to be pleased for them both. It wasn’t even as if she harbored a secret hankering for Dino herself, because she’d already tried that, and it simply hadn’t…well, happened.
But it was certainly happening to Linda and Dino right now. There was nothing secretive about it either. Cleo wondered if there was any danger they might spontaneously combust and if such overwhelming mutual lust could ever happen to her like that. Above all, she wished she didn’t have to feel, by extremely poor comparison, so dried up and spinsterish and alone.
“I should be getting back to my table.” The least Cleo felt she could do was put on a brave front. Gaily prodding Dino’s chest, she added, “And you’d better get that wallet out. Don’t forget, you promised to bid.”
“Six pounds fifty.” Dino grinned. “See? I haven’t forgotten.”
Linda clapped her hand over her mouth. “Goodness, I’ve just remembered.” She turned to Cleo. “I did a Paris show for Anton Visa last week. He was asking questions about you.”
“He still hates me for messing up last year’s Venice shoot.” Cleo pulled a face. “And I hate him back. He gives me the creeps. Has he had those chins fixed yet, or does he still look like a bullfrog?”
“Well, he’s still pretty slimy.” Linda nodded, biting her lip. “And he mentioned the fact that you were up for auction tonight. He said if he could get over, he might even put in a bid for you himself. Then he laughed.” With a shudder, Linda added, “I know he’s a genius, but he certainly has a weird sense of humor.”
“Terrific.” Cleo began scanning the ballroom once more. “At least I can’t see him anywhere. If you spot a bullfrog in a dinner jacket, give me a shout.”
“OK, OK,” Dino said wearily. “I get the big hint. I’ll go up to a tenner.”
Back at their table, Cleo found Cass and Jack being interviewed by someone from the Daily Mail.
“So you are remarrying.” The journalist, delighted with her scoop, was busy scribbling down notes. “That’s great.”
“I finally managed to talk her around.” Jack wasn’t joking. Cass had been worryingly keen for them to try living in sin. “No firm date yet, but it’ll be sometime in January,” he added with feeling. Having won Cass back after so nearly losing her for good, he wasn’t about to take any chances. “The sooner the better for me.”
“Bridesmaids?” Glancing across at the expression on Cleo’s face, the journalist said hastily, “Sophie, maybe…”
Cass grinned. “Sophie, in a frilly bridesmaid’s dress?”
“You might be brave enough to ask her,” said Jack. “We wouldn’t dare.”
* * *
The auction began straight after dinner to catch people at their most replete and generous. Cleo, so nervous she had barely been able to eat anything at all, watched the auctioneer—a famously charming politician—heckle his audience into a frenzy of generosity.
An ITV talk-show host outbid his BBC rival for a trip on the Orient Express. One of Shirley Bassey’s dripping-with-sequins evening gowns was knocked down to a raucous transvestite who would never squeeze into it. The third item up for auction, a cameo appearance in one of the nation’s most popular soaps, finally went after much fierce bidding to the charming politician’s bimbo wife.
“Now, lot number four.” As the politician announced it, he extended his hand to Cleo, who had to join him up on the stage. “An evening in the company of Cleo Mandeville. What a prize. If my wife hadn’t just cleaned us out financially, I’d be going for this one myself. Here she is, ladies and gentlemen. Take a good look at what could be yours for an entire evening and dig deep into your pockets,” he added with a wink, “because I can assure you she’s worth it. Now, who’ll start the bidding? Do I hear five hundred pounds?�
�
Cleo felt sick. There was much good-natured laughter, but nobody was making a bid. Now that she was up there on the stage, it was hard to make out faces in the crowd. As the seconds ticked by, each one stretching longer than the last, Cleo felt perspiration break out on the nape of her neck. Not helped by the heat of the stage lights, it began trickling down her spine. Bloody mothers, she thought, frantically trying to keep her smile intact. Bloody charity balls and their stupid, embarrassing fundraising schemes. Bloody, bloody Dino Carlisle, evidently too enthralled with Linda to remember that it was his job to save her from exactly this kind of shame.
Except shame wasn’t the word for it. This was truly mortifying.
“Come along now, gentlemen,” the politician chided with a sorrowful shake of his perfectly groomed head. “We’re talking about the opportunity of a lifetime here! OK, just to get the ball rolling…do I have three hundred pounds?”
“Six pounds fifty,” drawled Dino from his table close to the back of the room. More laughter erupted. Cleo, who could have punched him, forced herself to keep smiling and remain on the stage.
“Sixty-five pounds” came a voice from a different direction. Terry Brannigan, Cleo realized. Oh well, she supposed she ought to be grateful for small mercies.
Dino, at the back of the ballroom, squeezed Linda’s hand and whispered, “She’ll kill me if I don’t.” Aloud, he said, “Six hundred pounds. And fifty pence.”
Cleo stopped wanting to punch him. She blew a kiss in Dino’s direction. That was it; surely now the torture was over.
“Ah, and a telephone bidder enters the fray.” The politician turned his attention to one of the young waiters hovering beside the stage with a phone pressed to his ear. Cleo turned and stared at the waiter, who was murmuring into the phone. Then he nodded at the politician and mouthed, “One thousand pounds.”
“We have a bid of one thousand pounds.” The politician, milking the situation for all it was worth, gave Cleo an encouraging wink before returning his attention to Dino’s table. “Come along now, gentleman at the back, do I hear two thousand?”
Dino nodded.
After briefly consulting the bidder on the other end of the line, so did the waiter at the side of the stage.
“Three thousand pounds. I have three thousand pounds,” the politician declared.
“Who is it?” hissed Cleo, her eyebrows disappearing into her spiky, blond bangs. “If it’s Anton Visa,” she went on agitatedly, “refuse the bid. Because I won’t go. I won’t—”
At the back of the room, grinning broadly, Dino raised four fingers.
“Four thousand,” gabbled the politician, beginning to sound like a cattle trader. “We have four thousand at the back. Do I hear five, five, five…?”
The waiter nodded. Cleo’s stomach lurched.
Dino called out, “Six.”
“Seven,” said the waiter, nodding at the politician to confirm the bid.
Cleo considered leaping down from the stage and wrenching the phone from him. She wondered wildly how much further Dino, in the name of friendship, would be prepared to go to rescue her. She hoped he wouldn’t expect her to go halves.
But…horrors…the undivided attention of everyone in the room was now back on Dino, and he was shaking his head. Cleo’s flesh began to prickle with alarm.
“No, that’s my lot,” Dino declared. Still grinning broadly, he kissed Linda’s hand and pulled her closer to him. “I’ve already found the girl for me anyway. Let Mr. Bullfrog or whatever his name is have Cleo.”
At least no one else in the room knew who he was talking about. Not that anyone cared, thought Cleo numbly. They were all too busy whistling and applauding the successful mystery bidder.
As the politician led Cleo off the stage, directing her toward the young waiter with the phone still pressed to his ear, she experienced a gut-wrenching spasm of sheer panic.
“If it’s bloody Anton Visa,” she repeated, “I’m not going.”
It occurred to her that if it was, she would now have to come up with the seven grand herself.
“Come on. This is unfair.” She pleaded with the waiter to put her out of her misery, but he was busy filling in the necessary amount on a blank check. Only when he had handed it over to the politician, who in turn bounced back up onto the stage to continue with the auction, did Cleo have any attention paid to her at all.
“Sorry.” The waiter had a disarming grin. “Payment in advance. You understand how it is. Now if you’d be kind enough to follow me, my client is waiting for you outside.”
“Outside?” Cleo wondered if the mystery bidder was actually anyone she’d ever met before in her life. Or was it some crank lying in wait for her out there, his imagination fired up by all the press coverage of Sophie’s kidnapping?
As the waiter led her through the lobby toward the smoked-glass sliding doors, Cleo said, “Look, this isn’t funny. I’m certainly not going anywhere now. I still don’t even know who’s behind this whole thing. What’s more, if you think for one moment I’m going to waltz out of this hotel and climb of my own free will into a blacked-out limo—”
As she dug in her heels, the waiter moved forward and pulled open the door of the limousine.
“For God’s sake, woman” came an exasperated male voice from inside. “I could hear you whingeing all the way down the lobby. Will you shut up, do as you’re told for once in your bossy life, and just get in the damn car?”
Chapter 63
Sean had driven out of London in icy drizzle. As he made his way down the M4, the rain had given way to sleet. By the time he reached the Bath exit, a flimsy covering of snow dusted the hills around him. Misreading the road signs, he promptly got lost.
Perseverance drove Sean on. It was weeks now since he had seen Pandora and Rose. There had been no word from them, no hint of when they might be coming back. Desperate to see them again—both of them—he had finally managed to prize the address out of Joel.
And now, at last, he was nearly there. As he reached the outskirts of Bath, took a steep downhill turn to the right, and saw the signpost he’d been looking for, Sean breathed a sigh of relief. A sharp left-hand turn a couple of hundred yards farther along brought him to a narrow, bumpy track with a farmhouse at the end of it.
The house was lit up, and there were cars parked ahead of him, which was good news. At least someone was at home. Stepping out of his own car, shivering as a gust of wind sent a flurry of half-melted snowflakes into his face, Sean followed the rough path around the side of the house. He’d forgotten to bring a coat, but that didn’t matter. Any minute now, he would be seeing Pandora and Rose again, holding them in his arms, and beginning to make up for far too much lost time.
“I love you. I want to marry you. Please come home with me tonight.” These were the words he was going to say to her, the very first words he would utter. He had been practicing them all the way down the motorway.
Sean knew he needed to make Pandora understand how much she meant to him, really meant to him. Being accused of having slept with Imogen Trent when he hadn’t had cut him to the quick. It had also made him realize how helpless and hurt Pandora must have felt all those times in the past when he had let her down.
Reaching the back of the house, Sean discovered a party in progress in the sitting room. Full-length french windows, boldly uncurtained, gave him an uninterrupted view of the proceedings. There were thirty or forty people in the room. Bill, the middle-aged guy with the glasses, was pouring out drinks. Wendy, his wife, in a yellow Laura Ashley frock, stood in front of an open fire, laughing at something one of her friends had just told her. There was no dress code to speak of. A motley crew of children, from toddlers up to teenagers, were in evidence. The atmosphere was overwhelmingly informal.
And there, among them, was Rose, sprawled across the arm of a faded green velvet sofa, playing happily with
a frayed knitted rabbit. Sean felt his heart contract with love and the need to hold her again. She was wearing a crimson sleepsuit he hadn’t seen before. She was growing up, becoming a person. He ached with love for her. Any minute now, thought Sean, she’ll spot me through the window and yell “Dad-dee…”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been out here all night,” said Pandora behind him.
Sean jumped. He hadn’t heard a sound; the snowfall had deadened her footsteps.
“I-I was watching Rose.” Feeling stupid, like a Peeping Tom, he forgot that his first words were supposed to have been, “I love you. I want to marry you.” When Pandora continued to gaze unswervingly at him, her expression giving nothing away, he said instead, “How did you know I was here?”
“I came to put some food out for the badgers. I saw your footsteps in the snow.”
“You mean you recognized them?” Sean tested her with a brief smile. Pandora’s denim dress clung to every slender curve. He had forgotten how beautiful she was, even in muddy green rubber boots. How could he ever have wanted anyone else?
But the test wasn’t working. Pandora didn’t smile back. Coolly, she said, “What are you doing here?”
Sean’s teeth began to chatter. It was bitterly cold, and all he was wearing was a dark-blue sweater and ancient jeans. He took a step toward Pandora, who wasn’t shivering at all.
“I’ve come to take you home. You and Rose. I love you—”
“Stop it. You don’t.”
“I do.”
“You only say these things,” Pandora told him, “because they’re what you think you feel. It never lasts, Sean. That’s what really hurts.”
He saw the look of resignation in her dark eyes.
“This time, it’s going to last,” said Sean. He knew he meant it. “You and Rose are all I want. It’s why I’ve come down here. And no,” he said again for good measure, “I didn’t sleep with Imogen Trent.”
“It doesn’t matter to me whether you did or not,” Pandora replied wearily. “I’m still not coming back.”
