EX Files

by Jane Moore

  Before, she’d always compartmentalized him as a fun friend, but not necessarily someone deep or discreet enough to confide in. Equally, she had never really been the confessional type, preferring instead to bottle things up and work “stuff” out for herself.

  But after the events in France, Faye had learned the valuable lesson that, if you admit you occasionally have problems in life, the world doesn’t suddenly end. It took her a while, but gradually, she had begun to talk to Adam about her childhood, her relationship with Alice, and how she felt it affected the way she responded to the men in her life.

  He had proved a fantastic listener, offering surprisingly insightful pieces of advice here and there, and being incredibly supportive. He still loved going to parties and he would end up staying at Faye’s more central flat, creeping in at all hours and using the spare key she’d given him weeks ago. She liked having him there to talk to.

  Down the hall, she heard the bathroom door open. Seconds later, Adam emerged pink-faced. “Forty minutes!” he said triumphantly. “That’s a bathtime record for me.”

  Faye smiled. “Yes, but you still have to get dressed, and we all know how long that takes.”

  By 7.30 p.m., Faye felt like she’d shaken the hand of every Visage sales rep this side of the Atlantic. Her face was rigid from smiling, and she had to keep it up for several more hours at the anniversary party.

  The event was held at London’s Natural History Museum in the vast room dominated by the skeleton of a dinosaur. The empty walls had been decorated with drapes in the distinctive Visage orange, and strategically placed colored lighting gave the room a vibrancy.

  It was packed with representatives of the fashion industry and the media, as well as dozens of celebrities and influential business types from other fields. A networker’s dream but, to Faye, it was something she could have done without.

  Judging by the clamor of photographers as she stepped out of the limo, the dress was an unmitigated success. Adam, standing to one side while she posed this way and that, had done her proud. Slit to the thigh, it showed off her long legs, and the tight bodice emphasized her ample chest. Unlike most couture models, Faye actually had one.

  Her hair had been straightened to form a sleek curtain that framed her face, and her all-over St. Tropez bottle tan gave her a healthy glow.

  “God, how much longer?” she muttered to Adam, taking care to keep her smile in place as they walked into the main throng.

  “Remember, darling, if the world didn’t suck, we’d all fall off.” He looked at his watch. “Another three hours, then you can make your excuses and leave. You OK?” he asked, knowing how much she hated these things.

  “Yes, kind of.”

  “Come on, lovey, just think of the money.”

  Indeed, the three-year deal Faye had secured with Visage meant that, invested wisely, she would never again have money worries. The first thing she planned to do was pay off her mother’s mortgage, then buy herself the Mercedes sports car she’d always dreamed of. But the remaining money would be put in a high-interest account for the rainy day when she was inevitably usurped by the next new young thing.

  Two hours later, she had been dragged around the room by the Visage chairman and introduced to everyone except the waiters. She was utterly exhausted from small talk. Yes, I’m thrilled to be the new Visage girl. Yes, it was totally unexpected. Yes, I do have to watch what I eat. Yes, I do a little bit of yoga. The questions were all the same; only the faces changed.

  “Do you mind if I head off now? It’s been a frightfully long day,” she said, briefly resorting to her old flirting ways and using a little-girl voice. She followed it up by giving the Visage chairman a coquettish smile.

  Five minutes later, she was queuing at the cloakroom for her coat, having politely brushed off all offers of help from various Visage flunkys. She was PR’d out, and desperately wanted to be left alone.

  “Darling, I’m off. Call me tomorrow.” She kissed Adam on both cheeks and left him engrossed in conversation with someone she recognized as a fashion columnist on one of the Sunday supplements. It was full of people like that, who greeted you effusively while looking over your shoulder to see if anyone more important was in view. Adam reveled in the shallowness, but Faye found it horribly wearing.

  She was weaving her way back through the crowded room towards the exit, when she saw him. Her breath caught in her throat. Ducking behind a large woman she prayed he hadn’t spotted her and, keeping her head low, she set off the long way round the room so she wouldn’t have to walk through the danger zone he occupied.

  As she reached the edge of the crowd, the heady scent of a nearby exit in her nostrils, she felt a hand pulling her back. “Your pathetically obvious bid to avoid me has failed,” said Tony, mockingly. “Nice try, though.”

  He was looking incredibly smart in a gray pinstriped suit, white shirt, and bright-blue tie. His chin was starting to show the signs of a five o’clock shadow and small beads of sweat peppered his forehead.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t even see you,” she lied.

  “Whatever.” He smiled. “Anyway, congratulations.”

  “What for?” She looked at him blankly.

  “Becoming the new Visage girl.” He looked around the overcrowded, hot room. “Unless all this is an elaborate hoax . . .”

  “No, no . . .” She closed her eyes for an instant. “Sorry, it’s been a long couple of days. I just want to get home.”

  “I’ll take you.” He took her arm and started walking her towards the exit.

  Stopping dead in her tracks, Faye pulled away from him. “No, really, I’d rather just get a cab on my own.”

  “A black cab round here at this time of night? You’ll be lucky. Come on, I’ve got a nice warm Jag just outside.”

  She knew that he was right, but her pride raised its ugly head and she considered rebuffing his offer. In the end, the combination of his persuasion and her exhaustion made her fall into step with him. “OK, thanks.”

  “My car is just outside, but I’ll go and get in first, then you come out on your own. That way, we won’t get photographed together.”

  She shook her head in amazement. “You really do think of everything, don’t you?”

  “You need to start thinking that way now you’re well known.”

  Sure enough, when she stepped outside a few minutes after him, the flashbulbs exploded and she dredged up one last smile. His sleek black Jaguar was waiting at the bottom of the steps, and she hopped in gratefully.

  “Home, James.” She kicked off her shoes. “Head for Clerkenwell and I’ll direct you from there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He doffed an imaginary cap.

  “So what were you doing there?” she asked, jerking her head back towards the museum. “I wouldn’t imagine it was your scene.”

  “It isn’t, really, but Visage is one of my clients at Jam. They do a sporty makeup line, so we occasionally merge on ad campaigns targeted at young women,” he said, edging slowly into the traffic. “I also hoped I might see you.”

  “Oh.” She’d thought she’d have been the last person he’d want to see, but she didn’t say so.

  “So, how are you?”

  “How am I?” She pondered the question. “Better than the last time you saw me, I suppose. But, then, I couldn’t have been worse . . .”

  The car stopped at traffic lights and they sat in silence, watching a young couple cross the road in front of them. His arm was slung casually round her shoulders, and she was laughing. They seemed completely at ease with each other.

  “Are you over for long?” asked Faye, unsure what else to say.

  “I live here now.”

  “Oh.” More silence.

  The lights changed and Tony drove on slowly, ignoring a boy racer revving up next to him.

  “Mark and I have opened a restaurant together,” he said.

  “Oh. I knew Mark had, I read a story about it. I just didn’
t realize you were involved.” She paused for a couple of seconds. “Is it going well?”

  “Very. He’s doing a great job.”

  “Good, I’m pleased for him. It’s what he always wanted to do.” She stared out of the side window. “How is he?”

  “On very good form. He seems really happy.” Tony glanced at her. “By the way, did you know he’s engaged to Kate?”

  She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “No, I didn’t.” She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “So, you finally got what you wanted. You always liked her.”

  He continued to stare at the road. “Yes, I did. She and Mark suit each other very well.” Indicating, he turned left. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  “None of your damned business.”

  “Nice to see you’ve lost none of your feminine charm,” he said. “And I’ll take that as a no.”

  “It’s quicker if you go straight on here,” she said, changing the subject and pointing ahead.

  They were about two miles away from her apartment, and she couldn’t wait to get there. Her head was pounding from small talk and the shock of bumping into the man who had destroyed her wedding day.

  “Faye . . .”

  Oh, God, she thought. That sounds loaded. “Yes?”

  “I know this is going to seem out of left field,” he reached forward and turned down the radio, “but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since France.”

  “Guilt is a terrible thing,” she said sarcastically.

  “It’s not guilt. I’ve never regretted what I did, and seeing Mark as happy as he is now just confirms that I was right.”

  “I’m thrilled for you all,” she said, in a monotone.

  Suddenly, he took his foot off the accelerator and let the car grind to a halt at the side of the road.

  “What the . . . ?”

  He turned to face her, his right arm curled round the steering wheel. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for the simple reason that I find you incredibly attractive.” He delivered the sentence with a gravitas that suggested he’d just announced the latest initiative in the war on global terrorism.

  Faye sat stock still, just blinking in the half-darkness. It was clear from the way he was looking at her that he expected an answer. And, looking at him now, just inches away in the half-light, he looked every bit as sexy as he had when she’d spotted him in the wine bar all those months ago.

  She yawned. “Tony, I’m flattered, really I am, but I’m horribly tired and, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get home.”

  He ignored that and remained facing her, the car engine idling. “Have you thought about me at all since then?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  His face dropped.

  “Actually, I tell a lie,” she said enthusiastically, and his face lit up with expectation. “I was watching a wildlife program about snakes the other day and your face popped into my head.”

  He curled his lip. “Ha bloody ha.” He straightened in his seat, but showed no signs of driving off.

  It was now ten-thirty and a shopkeeper opposite was starting to pack up the magazine racks outside his premises. A slight drizzle had started to fall.

  “Tony . . .” she leaned forward, trying to make eye contact with him. “I don’t know how you expected me to react to what you’ve just said, but I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you.” She rummaged in her handbag for her door keys. “I behaved out of character and picked you up in a wine bar. Then you used that to force me to call off my marriage to your brother. Did you seriously think, in your wildest imagination, that I’d be pleased to see you?”

  He paused a moment before replying. “Even someone as pig-headed as you must now admit that it was for the best.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I do, but that’s not the point, is it? For all you knew when you interfered, Mark was the love of my life.”

  “If he was, I would never have seen the inside of your flat,” he retorted. “You’d have given me the brush-off, plain and simple.”

  “True, but again not the point. What I’m trying to say is that . . . forgive me, but after all that I don’t feel you’re my kind of person.”

  Tony snorted. “Oh, come on, don’t start taking the moral high ground. I’m exactly your kind of person. And, anyway, you’ve been out with much bigger dickheads than me.”

  She stared at him. “Are you saying that you think we should go out together—attempt some kind of relationship?”

  “Um, yes.” He looked extremely uncomfortable. “Well, dinner at least.”

  She laughed long and hard. With amateur-dramatic flair, she took out a tissue and dabbed the corners of her eyes. “Oh, that’s priceless, it really is,” she gasped. “You truly are a scream.”

  His expression changed to that of an adult tolerating the behavior of a toddler. He turned off the radio now, and said absolutely nothing.

  Before long, the silence became too much for Faye to bear. “Tony, tell me you’re not serious,” she said.

  “I’m deadly serious.”

  She looked stunned at first, then annoyed. “You know, I thought you were quite bright, for all your shortcomings. In fact, a couple of the things you said in France even made me think you understood me a little . . .” She pressed the electric window and threw her tissue onto the pavement. “But clearly you don’t. Do you really think I’m so desperate that I’d start dating the man who ruined my wedding day?”

  “Oh, stop being so bloody dramatic,” he said. “It wasn’t personal, I didn’t really know you then.”

  “And you don’t know me now!”

  He sighed, but she couldn’t tell whether it was through irritation or melancholy.

  “Look, Faye, if you mean what you say, then after tonight we’ll probably never see each other again.” He waited for her to disagree, but she didn’t. “If so, then I have nothing to lose in telling you how I feel.”

  He took a deep breath. “As I said, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. At first I assumed it was guilt, as you say, but then I realized that had nothing to do with it. You had excited me, stimulated me, in a way no other woman ever has. Yes, you’re beautiful, and I fancied you from the moment I saw you in the wine bar. But it’s so much more than that. You’re feisty, funny, and you stand up to me when I show my control-freak tendencies . . .” He trailed off and looked at her.

  She held up her hands. “Hey, don’t let me to talk you out of the last one. You make Mussolini look like a nursery school teacher.”

  He ignored her poor attempt at humor. “It’s a failing of mine that I rarely consider women my equal. I love them, but I always want to play the macho role and look after them on every level,” he said. “I ate poor Melissa whole because she didn’t have the strength of character to stand up to me. But you do, and I’ve never encountered that before.”

  Faye stifled a genuine yawn as a wave of fatigue swept over her. “So why don’t you just chill out a bit, and then your girlfriends wouldn’t have to stand up to you? Then you’d all be happy.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that, as you well know. I’ve chilled out an awful lot lately, but it still doesn’t stop me from wanting a woman who can curb my excesses.”

  “I see.” She massaged her earlobe. “And you think I might be that woman?”

  He nodded.

  “Sorry,” she said irritably. “But I’m not interested in being your glorified therapist, the horse whisperer who blows up your nostrils and tames the wild stud. You need a woman with the rescue mentality and that’s not me.”

  Scowling, he tapped the steering wheel. “Don’t be facetious. That’s not what I’m saying at all and you bloody well know it. I just think we have a strong chemistry, and I think that’s important.”

  Faye started to play with the cigarette lighter. “Setting aside for a moment the ludicrousness of your suggestion, even if I were interested in having dinner with you, how on earth do you think Mark would re
act when he found out?”

  “He knows.”

  Her head jerked round to face him. “Knows what?”

  “He knows that I’m here tonight and suggesting it to you.”

  Faye spluttered. “Hang on—so you cleared it with Mark before you even knew what my response would be? Fuck, you’re arrogant.”

  “It’s not that. I just wanted to be honest with him from the outset.”

  “Yeah, right. Tell him about our previous liaison, did you?”

  “No, of course I didn’t. We agreed we’d never tell, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, we did,” she acquiesced. “But cut the crap about your honest relationship with Mark. I still think you should have waited until there was something to tell him about us, and there isn’t going to be.”

  “You’re adamant, then?”

  “Tony,” she said wearily, “as I said . . . you behaved appallingly towards me on the evening before my wedding, then insisted I call it off just a couple of hours before the ceremony—”

  “And now you admit it was just as well the wedding didn’t go ahead,” he interjected.

  “Yes, but there’s a world of difference between admitting that and actually dating the man who did all that to you.”

  He sniffed. “As I said, I was just protecting Mark. It wasn’t personal, and I certainly didn’t know how compatible you and I would turn out to be.”

  “You mean we’re both stubborn, opinionated, and always right?” she asked, with a small smile.

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  There was silence for a few more seconds, the only sound the metallic clink of Faye’s keys as she turned them over in her hand.

  “So what exactly did you say to Mark?” she asked.

  Tony took out his cigarettes and offered her one. “I told him the truth. I said that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about you since the wedding and asked if he had a problem with me asking you out for dinner.”

  “And did he?”

  “Didn’t seem to. He made some remark about your tentacles sucking me in like they had him.”

  Faye laughed. “Charming! Besides, the only way I’d use a tentacle with you is to bloody strangle you.” She took a drag of her cigarette. “What else did he say?”