by Jill Mansell
“But nothing happened. It can’t have been much fun for you.”
When most women faked it, they pretended they had when they hadn’t, she thought with a faint twitch of her lips. How many did it the other way around?
“At least I didn’t pretend, like lots of women,” she argued reasonably. “You wouldn’t have wanted that, would you?”
“No. Are you disappointed with me, Cami?”
“I’m only disappointed with me,” she said in a low voice. “You mustn’t blame yourself, Nico. It wasn’t your fault, after all. I’m sorry,” she continued wearily. “Maybe I should have pretended, like other women do. So many women fake it, Nico, but I just couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been fair, to either of us.”
“Better luck next time, maybe,” he said, brightening and kissing her fingers.
I’m a bitch, such a bitch, thought Camilla, but I’ve got to do it.
Slowly, she drew her hand away. “There won’t be a next time, Nico,” she told him calmly, while inside her soul wept for what she was doing. “I really don’t think that would be a very good idea.”
* * *
The tears that she had earlier concealed from Nico now rolled unheeded down Camilla’s face and neck as she lay alone and lonely in the center of her too-large double bed.
So she had done it and where had it gotten her? Her easy, friendly relationship with Nico was lost forever and she had carried out the cruelest of deceptions, all because she no longer wanted to be the odd one out. She had yearned to be in there, with all the rest of them, doing the things they did and playing the same sexual games.
And she had learned too late that playing these games was just as likely to bring unhappiness as pleasure. She had abused and hurt Nico, and shamed herself.
Wiping her face with the edge of the duvet, she stared up at the ceiling and recalled the final moments of his own joyful climax. She had breathed in the soft, honeyed scent of his chest as his body had stiffened, and exalted in her power over him while his breathing had deepened and he had called her name in wonder.
Sex with Jack had been silent, almost mechanical, and quite without the melting tenderness that Nico had shown toward her. Once, during a furious argument, Jack had told her that she was hopeless in bed, and from then on, Camilla had concentrated grimly on trying to improve, but the harder she worked, the more elusive her own climaxes had become, obstinately refusing to happen.
It had never occurred to her for an instant, she realized now, that maybe it was Jack who was the rotten lover.
* * *
“Are you asleep?”
“Yes,” replied Nico, and his subdued tones brought a fresh lump to her throat. Hesitantly, she approached the bed, grateful for the fact that he hadn’t switched on a light. Apologizing for and explaining her awful behavior was going to be difficult enough, even with the darkness to shield her shame.
“I’m so sorry, about…earlier.”
“I told you, you aren’t the one who should be sorry. It was entirely my fault.”
As she had known it would, his male pride wouldn’t allow him to forgive himself, because in his eyes he had badly failed her. Her heart clamoring in her chest, Camilla took another step forward and reached out toward the dark shadowy figure in the bed.
“But it wasn’t your fault,” she spoke abruptly into the darkness, “because I was lying earlier. I did enjoy it, every second of it. You were amazing. And when it…happened…I just didn’t let you know, because for some stupid reason I didn’t want you to know how much you affected me. So I am sorry…”
“Don’t,” commanded Nico sharply. “Please don’t say that. I don’t want you to have to make excuses to me, for me. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I can stand your disappointment, Camilla,” he continued, his voice bitter. “I can just about cope with that. But the one thing I certainly cannot stand is your pity.”
As the extent of the damage she had done sank ax-like into Camilla’s mind, she felt something within her die. Nothing she could say now would succeed in convincing Nico that he was blameless. He was Italian, extremely well known, and famously irresistible to women. Having never known rejection before, he was now quite unable to cope with it.
Realizing that he really hadn’t deserved this, Camilla hadn’t any choice other than to say what she did, after that.
“Don’t worry. I realize that I can’t stay here. I’ll leave tomorrow.”
And when he hadn’t replied, she felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. So this was what it was like to hurt people.
No fun at all.
Chapter Nineteen
Nico was out and Camilla was packing, hating herself, when the doorbell rang. Probably someone from the domestic agency she had phoned earlier, requesting a housekeeper who could take over immediately. Someone safe and middle-aged, who wouldn’t cause Nico any problems.
But it wasn’t, quite.
Camilla drew back, feeling sick, as for the first time since that night she came face-to-face with Roz.
Even more astounded, Roz said, “Good Lord! What on earth are you doing here?” And when Camilla didn’t reply, she continued, “Maybe we should talk.”
Once inside the kitchen, Camilla prepared coffee and avoided looking at Roz, while Roz found her gaze almost irresistibly drawn toward Camilla, unable to believe how amazing she looked. Loulou had very casually mentioned that Camilla had “gotten her act together,” but she hadn’t hinted to what extent. Shaken as she obviously was by this unexpected confrontation, the difference in the woman was astounding. Previously mousy and plump, Camilla now generated color, from her artfully styled tawny-blond hair to her fuchsia-pink Charles Jourdan high heels.
Roz experienced that momentary uncomfortable sensation of insecurity that only ever made itself felt when she was in the company of a woman attractive enough to present a threat.
The coffee-making ritual over, Camilla seated herself at the opposite end of the kitchen table and forced herself to return the gaze of the woman who had changed her life. For several moments, no one spoke. Camilla concentrated upon examining Roz’s white Ellesse tracksuit. She would have bet money that beneath it Roz was naked. Hadn’t she come to see Nico, after all?
“You’ve lost a lot of weight,” said Roz eventually, and Camilla threw her an icy stare.
“It’s been known to happen when a marriage breaks up,” she replied tonelessly. What did Roz really want to talk about? The Cambridge diet?
“You’re looking well, anyway,” said Roz defensively, and for a split second, Camilla almost felt sorry for her. She looked small, and hunted, like a wild animal. Her famous poise was slipping, it seemed. At last.
“I’m feeling well, considering. What else would you like to say, now that you’re here?”
Roz considered the woman sitting opposite her, appreciating that it wasn’t only her appearance that had undergone a drastic change. Until today, she would have doubted that Camilla even fully understood the word cool, yet here she was, playing the Snow Queen to the hilt.
Since it wasn’t in her own nature to apologize, the words didn’t come easily.
“I suppose…I’m sorry about what happened. To you…and Jack.”
Again the disconcertingly direct gaze. Despite the heat, Roz shivered.
“You suppose,” Camilla said slowly, as if they were a new and foreign language to her. “Shouldn’t you be sorry about what happened between you and Jack?”
“All right. That too. I’m sorry for all of it.” Roz shifted uncomfortably in her seat, pushing away her untouched coffee cup and wishing now that she had simply turned and left when Camilla had answered the door. “I presume that Nico isn’t here?”
“No, he isn’t. You weren’t really expecting me to forgive you, were you?” Dismissing the subject of Nico, Camilla leaned forward, her turquoise eyes glittering with
intent.
“I suppose not. It just seemed the right thing to say, under the circumstances. I wasn’t expecting you to be here, for Christ’s sake.” Roz shook her dark hair away from her face in an unconsciously defiant gesture. Throughout their time together at school, she had controlled Camilla quite effortlessly. Watching her now, in perfect control, was far less entertaining. It was like Laurel slapping Hardy—until it happened, unthinkable.
“It was me, of course, whom you spoke to on the phone yesterday,” said Camilla, glancing out of the window as if the weather were more important than their conversation.
“I realize that now.” Roz began to lose her temper. “And it was you, of course, who didn’t pass on my message to Nico.”
Camilla’s smile was triumphant. “I disconnected the telephone too.”
“And you really thought you had the right to do all that?”
“Why not? I can do anything I want. You certainly do.”
Itching to slap Camilla, and realizing that this was something she most definitely must not do, no matter how gratifying it would be, Roz rose from her chair. She had to get out of here. “I have a letter here for Nico,” she said evenly, placing the sealed envelope on the table between them. “This time, I think you should make sure he receives it.”
Camilla didn’t even glance at the envelope. Picking up the coffee cups and crossing to the sink, she emptied their untouched contents down the drain.
“What a waste,” she said briskly. “Don’t worry; I’ll see that he gets it. You can find your own way out, I presume?”
Knowing that she was being ridiculous, she sprayed air freshener around the kitchen as soon as Roz had left so that no trace remained of the heady, sensual perfume she had been wearing.
It was a shame, she thought idly, that she couldn’t obliterate Roz herself at the touch of a button.
Then, as she snatched up the envelope, the tears began to flow unbidden down her cheeks once more. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, and now she was compounding her own wickedness by reading another person’s private correspondence. This was what Roz had reduced her to. But, at the same time, she felt entirely justified in doing so. It would make her feel better for a start, as if in some small way she was getting back at Roz. And what could it be after all, besides an “I’d like to see you” note? Camilla ripped the envelope open.
Darling,
Wonderful news—I’m pregnant.
You’re going to be a genuine Italian papa. And with our looks and our brains, how can our baby fail? Phone me.
All love. Roz.
Dropping the letter onto the table, Camilla wondered whether Roz had left it in her care knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would read it.
Chapter Twenty
When Loulou opened the door wearing an enormous violet T-shirt and nothing else, Camilla stepped back, embarrassed.
“Lou, I should have called first. Am I interrupting something?”
“Only a CIA meeting,” replied Loulou, reaching out and deftly removing Camilla’s dark glasses before she could protest. “What’s with the shades, sweetie? Ah…say no more.”
The eyes were red, but not too red, and Camilla sounded cheerful enough, which was a relief.
“I cried, but not for long,” Camilla explained matter-of-factly. “But look, if you’ve got company, I can come back later.”
“No need.” Loulou stepped aside and waved her past. “I was just being a lazy toad. Come in and tell me all the gossip. How’s Nico?”
When Camilla had removed her coat and curled up in the overstuffed armchair with a glass of Sauvignon and Loulou had resumed her sprawling position on the sofa opposite, Loulou repeated her question.
“Nico’s fine, but I’m afraid we’ve had a bust-up,” she said lightly, although her fingers were tightening their grip around her glass.
Loulou almost bounced off the settee in dismay. “But why!” she wailed. “I thought you two got along brilliantly. Whatever happened?”
Camilla forced an uncomfortable smile. “We got on a bit too brilliantly, I’m afraid.”
“Nico seduced you!”
“Actually, I suppose you could say I seduced Nico. It was a big mistake. I moved out this morning, as soon as I’d hired my replacement. It was all my fault,” she added with a shrug, knowing that Loulou would be relaying their conversation back to Nico, “but what’s done is done. C’est la vie, and all that. I’ve taken a room at the Arundel Hotel until I manage to find myself a flat.”
Loulou leaned across to refill Camilla’s glass that, to her surprise, was empty. “What a bloody shame,” she said sympathetically, then, with a wicked grin, added, “I’ve never been to bed with Nico. What’s he like?”
“Lovely,” said Camilla, her eyes sad. “The best. And I wish to God that I’d never done it.”
“You could always move back here with me,” Loulou suggested hesitantly, and Camilla burst out laughing.
“Of course I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Simply because, dear Lou,” she explained slowly, “I’m not blind. I can’t help noticing, for instance, that that crumpled little heap of material over there by the door to your bedroom is, in fact, a pair of boxer shorts.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions,” said Loulou, going pink. “They could be mine.”
“There’s a bottle of Armani aftershave on the top of the stereo,” suggested Camilla, and watched the shade of pink deepen from sugared almond to rose.
“I like Armani aftershave.”
“Particularly when it’s worn by a good-looking male,” teased Camilla. “So, who is he?”
“Oh, he’s gorgeous!” sighed Loulou, abandoning all pretense and collapsing back against the cushions with a look of ecstasy on her face. “I’m really, really in love this time.”
“Two reallys,” observed Camilla with admiration. “He must really be special.”
“He is, he is.” Loulou sighed gustily once more, raising her glass in a salute and managing to splash red wine into her shimmering silver hair. “And you’ll be able to meet him later; he’s coming over at four.”
“From the boxer shorts, I had the impression that he was living here.”
“He will be, before long.” The first shadow touched Loulou’s face. “It’s just that at the minute he’s sharing a flat with this girl, but as soon as he’s sorted that out he’ll move in with me.”
Camilla was silent for a moment. The last time Loulou had been this excited about a man it had been Mac, and her high hopes had been shattered. Now some inner instinct was telling her that events weren’t going to run their course quite as smoothly as Loulou was predicting.
“He’s living with this girl, then?” she said warily, and Loulou gestured with her free hand, dismissing the question.
“She’s nothing to worry about. They were on their last legs before I even met Josh. You don’t think I’m doing a Roz, do you?” she said suddenly, gazing at Camilla with a wounded expression in her eyes. “They aren’t married or anything, after all.”
“Of course you aren’t doing a Roz,” Camilla responded. “She’s in a class of her own, isn’t she? I just meant that I don’t want you to get hurt. I hope everything works out for you both. Really I do.”
“When you meet him, you’ll know that it will,” Loulou reassured her. “I promise.”
Thoughtfully skirting the subject of Nico, Loulou steered the conversation around to Camilla’s children. Camilla’s eyes promptly filled with tears.
“I feel so guilty. I love them so much and I miss them terribly, but I simply can’t cope with the idea of fighting with Jack to get them back. He says that I left them, so I can take a running jump. We’ve agreed on joint custody, but Jack’s using every excuse to stop me seeing them.”
“But Toby and Ch
arlotte are happy,” said Loulou gently. “It isn’t as if they’re suffering, is it? They’re away at school most of the time, and Jack has Jennifer to help him with them when they’re home. You told me yourself that you’re getting on better with both of them now than you did when you were there all the time.”
“I know.” Camilla nodded awkwardly. “But that only makes me feel more guilty. Maybe I wasn’t a good enough mother. If I’d been better, they might miss me more.”
“Bullshit. Just thank your lucky stars that they’re as well adjusted as they are and make use of the breathing space. You need some time on your own. In a year or two you’ll be on your feet again, running some wildly successful business, and then you’ll be able to buy a house big enough for the three of you and sort everything out with Jack.”
“Run a wildly successful business?” Camilla had to smile. “Me?”
“If you set your mind to it, you could. Look how far you’ve come in just a few months. But if you really don’t feel up to running one,” Loulou said with a naughty smile, “marry one instead. Who cares who earns the money, so long as you have the right to spend it.”
* * *
Camilla hadn’t any idea what to expect when she met the new love of Loulou’s life, but she definitely hadn’t expected him to be black.
Or that big. She could understand why Loulou leaped off the settee and slid her feet hastily into a pair of stilettos before running to fling her arms around Josh’s waist. The man had to be six foot five at least.
Camilla felt guilty all over again, this time for being so surprised.
Josh’s skin was the color of peanut butter, tawny against the whiteness of his baggy cotton shirt and loose-fitting beige trousers. And he was very handsome; his face looked as if it had been carved by a skillful craftsman. A small, gold ring pierced his left earlobe, and a gold Rolex gleamed upon his right wrist. When Loulou had finished hugging him, he came toward Camilla, Rolex arm outstretched. She caught the scent of Armani aftershave and smiled, taking his hand.
