by Jill Mansell
And why should she mind? Loulou asked herself with a naughty smile. She adored 501s. Those tantalizingly slow-to-undo button flies only served to heighten the anticipation…
“Lou, my angel!” roared Terry Howard, spotting her from his position at the bar, where a great deal of money was changing hands at a frenzied rate. “Come over here and let me give you a massive birthday kiss.”
“It’s your birthday,” Loulou yelled back above the considerable noise of the bar crowd. “I’m supposed to give you one!”
Terry rolled his eyes. “Promises, promises.”
“I’m not at all sure I want to kiss you, anyway,” she complained when she finally reached him. “You’re far too old, ugly, and lecherous.”
“Ah,” he replied affectionately, enfolding her in his burly arms, “but I shall spend enough money here this afternoon to keep you in younger men for the next year, and that can’t be bad, can it?”
“You might have to pay your young men, Terry,” countered Loulou as he gave her a slobbery, whisky-sodden kiss on the cheek, “but I certainly don’t have to pay mine. Mac, come over here,” she shouted, twisting around to catch his eye. It was stupid, she knew, but Mac had never fully understood how necessary to a successful business these hugs and kisses were. That slight degree of mistrust that he had never been able to overcome had caused countless arguments during their marriage.
This time, she vowed to herself, she was going to make him see how needless such jealousy was.
She was going to make damn sure that nothing went wrong. He wasn’t going to get away from her again.
“Mac, you must meet Terry Howard,” she said, praying that Terry wouldn’t choose this moment to make one of his bad-taste jokes about her love life. “Terry, this is Mac, my ex-husband.”
“I’ve heard of you. You do excellent work,” said Terry, shaking Mac’s hand. “And you have one hell of an ex-wife, if I may say so. As for you, Lou,” he went on, turning to her, “I had no idea that you were ever hitched to the Mac. Whatever went wrong between the two of you? Doesn’t anyone ever bother to work at staying married these days?”
Terry’s outspoken manner and journalistic style was legendary. Loulou, her toes curling up in embarrassment, glanced at Mac from beneath her lashes and couldn’t make up her mind whether she should knee Terry in the balls or give him another kiss. Talk about coming straight to the point, she thought faintly.
But when Mac’s arm slipped around her waist, her insides contracted with love. His warm hand found hers and she felt his fingers interlace with her own, then gently squeeze them. How, she marveled, could such a simple gesture make her melt like that? And what did Mac mean by it?
Having apparently considered Terry’s words—the whole world knew that Terry was devoted to his wife of twenty-six years—Mac took a sip of his drink and nodded thoughtfully.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said, and Loulou held her breath. “We were pretty young then, and perhaps we didn’t try as hard as we might have done. But sometimes people can learn by their mistakes. I think I have, and I hope Lou has too. Who knows, we might have better luck if we try again.”
Unable to stop herself, and with tears of happiness glistening in her eyes, Loulou launched herself into Mac’s arms, scarcely daring to believe that he had really said those words, but at the same time not giving him a moment to reconsider. Showering him with tiny, frenzied kisses and clinging to him as tightly as was humanly possible, she murmured “Oh, Mac, oh, darling, I love you” in between kisses, and was only dimly aware of the raucous roar of approval from the rest of the party.
“I have to warn you that anything you might say or do,” said Terry, placing his arms around both of them like a boxing referee, “will definitely be taken down and used in tomorrow’s gossip column.”
“Oh yes, please,” cried Loulou effusively, so grateful to him for saying the words that had prompted Mac’s reply that she simply had to give him another kiss. “You’re one hell of an ugly fairy godmother, Terry, but you’re an absolute darling, anyway.”
“Drinks on the house?” yelled one of the younger journalists hopefully, and drunk with love and sheer ecstasy, Loulou raised her hand at Christo behind the bar.
“Why not? Drinks on the house for everyone!”
Then a voice behind her said, with silky iciness, “Does that also include me?” and she froze. Shit, no. Please, please no, oh God, no…
“What the fuck did you think you were doing with me—playing some fancy game?” demanded Joshua loudly, and Loulou closed her eyes, dying inside, too stricken to even think of a reply. She had thought she was safe; the possibility that Joshua would decide to confront her in public hadn’t even crossed her mind.
But he had, and he was here. And so—oh shit, please no, no—was Mac.
“I asked you a question,” Joshua persisted, his Scottish-Caribbean voice horribly clear above the abruptly hushed conversation around the bar. Half of Fleet Street was listening, determined not to miss a single word, Loulou realized numbly. But they didn’t matter, and under any other circumstances, she could easily have handled Joshua.
If only Mac wasn’t here…
“What’s the problem?” said Mac, his own tone measured and deliberately calm, his arm remaining protectively around Loulou’s quivering shoulder.
“Ah, another Scot!” exclaimed Joshua, his words rife with sarcasm.
“Now look here…” began Terry, moving between Loulou and Joshua, but Mac interrupted him. Narrow-eyed, he stared at the towering figure of Joshua and repeated slowly, “What’s your problem?”
“The bitch is the problem,” said Joshua, and Loulou began to shake violently. “You’re welcome to her—I don’t need her kind of trouble—but maybe you should know what you’re taking on, because she’ll probably do the same to you, man. When you’re living with a woman, you don’t expect her to run off in the middle of the night leaving you in Gloucestershire at some fucking ball without a word of explanation. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Mac quietly. “And now that you’ve said what you came here to say, perhaps you’ll leave. This is a private party.”
“Yeah, but think about it,” said Joshua coldly. “She might be a good lay, but she’s a cheating bitch as well. Here’s your key, bitch,” he added, tossing the narrow brass key at her feet. The tiny, tinkling sound broke the stunned silence, and Loulou took a step backward, casting a stricken glance in Mac’s direction.
“Leave now,” he instructed Joshua evenly, and to Loulou’s relief, Joshua turned. Without uttering another word, he left.
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, clinging to Mac’s arm for support. “Darling, I’m so sorry about that… It was all the most horrible mistake…”
“It certainly was,” he said slowly, removing her hand from his arm with a finality that chilled her to the bone. “Let go of me, Loulou. I’m sorry too, but it was my fault for even thinking that you’d changed.”
“You don’t understand! Mac, you have to listen to me,” she babbled frantically. “It’s not what you think. I swear it isn’t.”
“But it is,” he contradicted her brutally, his dark eyes cold, reflecting his disgust. “It’s exactly what I think. I just should have thought of it earlier. Goodbye.”
“No!” she screamed as he turned and made his way through the enthralled crowd of journalists toward the door. “Mac, wait. Please! You can’t leave me now! You can’t!”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bloody typical, a decent British summer, thought Roz irritably, mopping a trickle of perspiration from the valley between her breasts. Just when she didn’t bloody need it.
Even in the shade, she was still uncomfortably hot, but it was equally stifling inside the house. Whatever she did, she felt perfectly vile, and it seemed there was nothing she could do to escape it.
With a sigh of irritation, she hauled herself in
to a better position on the sun lounger and crossed her ankles, then remembered that crossing your ankles caused thrombosis and almost certain death and threw down her book in disgust.
I look like a whale, she thought, and not for the first time, remembering feeling bloated and uncomfortable years previously. She hated the sight of her smooth, brown belly glistening with sunscreen and swollen beyond belief. It couldn’t be normal to look this abnormal, surely. It was God’s way, she presumed, of making sure that pregnant women didn’t get any sex. By transforming them into totally undesirable creatures, He ensured that no man in his right mind would want to go anywhere near them.
And no men, in their right minds or otherwise, had been near her for so long now that she probably wouldn’t be able to remember what to do anyway, she thought, wincing as the baby kicked out beneath her ribs. Bloody baby. Bloody men. Bloody, bloody weather.
The only thing that cheered her even slightly was the prospect of Loulou’s visit, partly because Lou had sounded even more fed up on the phone than Roz.
“We’ll be miserable together,” Roz had said consolingly.
“No, we won’t. I can be far more miserable than you,” Loulou had promised her.
“You can try, sweetie. But I warn you: I’m a hard act to follow at the moment.”
* * *
“Bloody hell,” exclaimed Loulou with characteristic frankness. “I see what you mean. No wonder you’re miserable. Are those tits real?”
“It’s all real,” said Roz, gazing dispiritedly down at her hugely swollen breasts and vast stomach, spilling over the sunflower-yellow bikini. Then she looked up and saw from the expression on Loulou’s face that she was joking.
“You ass, does getting knocked up take away your sense of humor? You look fine, Roz. Sort of…maternal.” Loulou burst out laughing and took off her dark glasses, stepping forward to give Roz a kiss. In a brilliant violet off-the-shoulder number, Loulou exuded wealth and health. She was even looking happy, thought Roz with a stab of envy.
Having weathered the shock of discovering that she was pregnant, she had planned on being happy herself, of course. She had daydreamed for hours, envisaging the surprise of her friends when they witnessed the transformation of bright, snappy, single-girl-about-town Roz Vallender into glowing, serene mother-to-be Roz Coletto. She had been convinced that Nico would be utterly captivated by the idea of becoming a father, and that he would insist they married. Maybe it was something to do with the hormones, but the idea of being married was no longer repellent to her; she wanted to be cosseted, spoiled, and loved. Nico’s flat refusal to even see her had been the biggest shock of all.
The amount of press interest hadn’t helped either. Nico hadn’t exactly denied that he was the father, but his brusque “No comments” had aroused much public speculation as to the reasons for his non-involvement. Roz, in turn, had been forced to adopt an aloof, “we-have-our-reasons” attitude in order to salvage the small amount of pride she had left. Her visions of herself and Nico as the next Ma and Pa Walton, idyllically happy with both their children and each other, were looking less likely to happen. Instead, she was faced with the far less exciting prospect of single parenthood and a rapidly nose-diving career.
“I don’t want to be maternal,” she said when Loulou had flopped down onto the thickly padded white sun lounger opposite and poured herself a tall glass of iced orange juice. “Nico clearly doesn’t want me to be maternal, and Eric Daniels doesn’t want me to be maternal so badly that he offered to pay for the abortion himself.”
Eric Daniels was Roz’s producer on Memories, the chat show that she had hosted for the last two and a half years. Nudging fifty and trendy to the extreme, he had thrown up his hands in horror upon hearing Roz’s news. He couldn’t have been more appalled if she had told him she was a mass murderer.
“But it’s none of his business!” declared Loulou indignantly. “Unless he was the father, of course.”
Roz pulled a face. “What a revolting thought. No, apparently chat show hosts mustn’t get pregnant unless they have husbands. The public doesn’t allow it. And, of course, the fact that Nico refuses to acknowledge the baby makes mine the worst crime of all. If I even dared to venture onto a TV screen, millions of outraged viewers would switch over to the other side. According to Eric, my viewing figures would be approximately twenty-seven. I’m a corrupt, depraved woman who makes Lucrezia Borgia look like a nun. The next series starts in October, and unless I get married before then, they’ll be using someone else.”
“Oh, Roz. I’m sorry. Christ, can you believe it? It’s supposed to be the age of equality, but women still get this hassle. You’ve made me feel quite guilty. I’m as miserable as sin, but at least I’m not going to lose my job.”
“Tell me about your sins,” urged Roz, wanting to change the subject. “What’s been happening? I feel like a recluse, stuck out here in the sticks. Tell me everything—you never know, I might be able to help.”
Loulou took another sip of her orange juice, stalling for time while she considered her choice of words. If it wasn’t all such a sad and sorry mess, it would almost be funny.
“You can help, actually,” she said slowly. “You can give me all those baby clothes when yours has grown out of them.”
“No!” Roz sat bolt upright, and the baby kicked protestingly beneath her ribs. “You’re not serious, Lou!”
“It’s like when you buy a really expensive outfit and then your best friend goes out and gets one exactly like it,” prattled Loulou. “I hope you don’t think I’m copying you so that we can both look the same. God forbid.”
“Are you really pregnant?”
“Yeah. Only I call it in pig. A pig that’s been well and truly poked. You don’t seriously think I’d be drinking neat orange juice otherwise, do you?”
“Whose is it?” said Roz, curiosity vying with astonishment. She still couldn’t quite believe that Loulou had made the same catastrophic mistake as herself.
Loulou removed her dark glasses and swung them from her fingers as she surveyed Roz’s expression. “Let’s put it this way,” she said evenly. “There’s only one thing I’m absolutely sure about, and it’s that this baby is definitely going to be black. Or white.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” said Loulou, replacing her glasses so that her face became a mask once more. Idly, she surveyed the perfect Cotswold scene, all so damned pretty and normal-looking that the sight brought tears of exasperation to her eyes. For the last hundred years or so, families had lived here, normal families with parents who were married, children who were truly wanted, and maybe the odd puppy here and there just to complete the revoltingly picturesque scenario.
What would those families think if they could hear the conversation taking place in this sleepy, sunny garden today? Two women with supposedly successful lives in the tumultuous fast lane of central London, both caught in the same sad old trap because no matter how wealthy they were, they couldn’t buy themselves a settled, traditional existence.
“So who are they, and are they still around?” persisted Roz, realizing that she was feeling better, having learned of Loulou’s predicament. It was always comforting to hear other people’s bad news, after all.
“Well, they’re still alive, I suppose,” said Loulou gloomily, stirring the ice cubes in her drink with her finger, “but they certainly aren’t around me. It was the classic girl meets boy, girl meets another boy, girl gets found out situation. I haven’t seen either of them since. Oh, Roz,” she burst out, aching with the unfairness of it all. “I didn’t do it on purpose! The second one was Mac and we’d just gotten properly back together again when the other guy turned up and blew the whistle on me. I was truly, ecstatically happy for about fifteen seconds and then…bang! All over. Mac stormed out. And now here I am,” she concluded with a mournful look, “in the bloody pudding club.”
“Are you going to keep it?” asked Roz, eyeing Loulou’s flat stomach. It was likely that there was still time to choose.
“Oh, I’ve thought and thought, but I can’t get rid of it.” Loulou shook her silver-blond mane decisively. “I know I’m mad, but I can’t. You see, it still might be Mac’s.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nico surfaced from sleep and lay with his eyes closed, one arm above his head and the other outstretched as he tried to remember where he was. The texture of the sheets was unfamiliar, but then they always were these days. By stretching the fingers of one hand, he discovered that the headboard was wooden, varnished, and ornately carved. The bedside table, by contrast, was plain and sharp edged. The lamp resting upon it was…a lamp.
It was no good; he still couldn’t figure it out. Knowing that he was making a mistake, Nico opened his eyes. Oh, look at that—a hotel room. What a surprise.
He surveyed the Spanish-style room with boredom and loathing. The heavy black wood carving was everywhere, adorning the doorframes, the TV table, even the air vents. The rest of the huge room—walls, thick carpet, and bed linen—were all white. A single colossal picture on the far wall was also black and white.
Rolling over in the king-sized bed and realizing that he was the only thing in the whole damn room that wasn’t monochrome, Nico reached for the brochure lying next to the lamp. So this was where he was: the Hotel Balfour, Las Vegas.
He studied the Rolex on his wrist. Wednesday, July 3, 2:30 p.m. And just to make matters even worse he had the niggly remains of a hangover as well. Just what he needed. Fantastic.
Stepping into the shower—tiled in black-and-white marble, naturally—Nico considered his situation. Why, he wondered as the hot needles of water bombarded his body, was he here, doing something that was so little fun? It had been his record company’s idea that he should make this promotional tour in order that he might well and truly “break” in the States. More publicity equaled greater recognition, which in turn sold more records and so made more money. More money for both the record company and himself. But was it really worth all this monotony, boredom, and unutterable dullness?
