Fast Friends

by Jill Mansell

  “Don’t cry,” he said, looking alarmed. “You never cry.”

  “Well, I am now,” Roz almost shouted as the tears slid down her face. Hating herself for being so weak, she glared up at him, desperate for the confrontation to be over. It was humiliating, Sebastian of all people seeing her disintegrate like this. “So now you know. I’m a cheat and a liar and I’m not the person you thought I was. I’ve never been that person, so there’s no need to waste any more time talking to me because I’m only an imposter. Now go,” she said fiercely, closing her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see him do so. “Just leave me alone. If you go now you won’t even have to miss your precious bloody board meeting tomorrow morning.”

  Sebastian ignored her. Calmly, his tone mildly curious, he said, “Have you honestly spent all these years trying to match up to the high expectations you thought I demanded?”

  “Oh, shut up!” yelled Roz, burying her wet face in a yellow silk cushion. Leaning across, Sebastian pulled the cushion away and tossed it into a corner of the room. Now he was in control again, the ultra-efficient male who stood no nonsense from hysterical women.

  “Tell me,” he insisted, his gray eyes boring into her like lasers. Roz felt fifteen again, immature and cornered.

  “I don’t even understand the question,” she countered truculently, avoiding his chilling gaze.

  “Did you want me to think you were…perfect?” probed Sebastian with maddening patience.

  Oh, why didn’t he just go, she thought wildly, and realized that he wouldn’t move until she admitted it. No one flew this far for a mere ounce of flesh, after all. And Sebastian, it seemed, wanted the lot.

  “Of course I did,” she said, sniffing loudly. “Of course I wanted you to think I was perfect. But I’m not. I wreck every relationship I’ve ever had. I’m selfish, I’m a bitch, I use bad language, I smoke, and I have a foul temper. Jealous? Damn right I’m jealous…it always tore me to pieces when you used to tell me about your other women, and now I’ve even got to the stage where I’m jealous of my friends because they’re happy and I’m not. So there you go,” she concluded with heaving, breathless defiance. “That’s the real Roz Vallender. Aren’t you glad I told you about her? Now you can push off with a clear conscience because nobody in their right mind would dream of having anything to do with a selfish cow like me.”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Sebastian, moving toward her and pulling her unwillingly to her feet. “It truly can’t be that bad. Our daughter thinks you’re wonderful. ‘Cool’ I think was the adjective she used.” He paused for a second, deep in thought. “Or maybe it was ‘mega.’ Anyway, if there’s one thing I’ve learned recently it’s that our daughter is an exceptional judge of character.”

  “T-truly?” Roz hiccuped, wondering why on earth Sebastian should be running his fingers slowly up and down her inner arms and regarding her with an expression of such tender warmth. “I’ve been awful to her, really. Not motherly at all. I could have murdered her when I found out she’d gone to look for you.”

  “Oh, she thinks you’re ‘ace,’” Sebastian assured her with a smile that sent tremors down her spine. Surely, thought Roz in bewilderment, he wasn’t going to kiss her?

  “So you aren’t perfect, after all,” he murmured, his mouth now only inches from her own. “And you’re right—it is almost a relief to know that. Perfection can be somewhat wearing after a while. But in the meantime, what’s ‘mega’ and ‘cool’ and ‘ace’ enough for Natalie is quite good enough for me, and although I never thought I’d say this, would you consider marrying me, Roz?”

  “Wha—” gasped Roz, and at that moment, Sebastian sealed her mouth with a kiss.

  When it ended, he held a finger firmly to her lips, his eyes forbidding her to utter another word. “Wha—” he echoed consideringly. “Very good, Roz. Very concise indeed. It sounds like a definite yes to me. Nod your head if you agree.”

  Struck dumb, enthralled, still scarcely daring to believe this was really happening, Roz gazed up at him with red, swollen eyes.

  And slowly nodded.

  “Brill,” said Sebastian cheerfully, kissing her again. “Now I suppose we’d better call Natalie in from the car and tell her that her entirely ace parents are finally going to make her legal. That is, of course, if she doesn’t know already.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  “How on earth,” said Caroline, sipping disconsolately at her drink, “can anyone be this bored with the Caribbean?”

  The ice rattled in her glass as she gestured toward the virgin-smooth beach stretching before them. The hills behind their sprawling white bungalow were a shimmering collage of greens. The sunshine was miraculous and endless, the supply of drink and weed inexhaustible.

  “God,” she groaned, shielding her eyes from the relentless perfection of it all. “This should be enough to keep anyone happy, and all I can do is hate it.”

  Susie, who was the longtime live-in girlfriend of Jake, the bass guitarist, chewed a piece of pineapple that she had fished from her own glass and gazed thoughtfully at her pinkish-brown stomach, barely swollen by four months of pregnancy. Until this week, Caroline had spoken scarcely more than a few words to her, but now, by virtue of being the only other woman in Nico’s entourage, Caroline had been virtually forced to make overtures of friendship. Susie at least understood the situation, being what she cheerfully termed a “lesser half” herself. And although she was perfectly well aware that Caroline’s sudden “friendship” was nothing more than an antidote to loneliness, it didn’t bother her. Susie was that sort of person; she couldn’t be bothered to be bothered. Living with darling Jake, carrying his baby, and making the most of their life of unexpected luxury was all that mattered. But Caroline was still moaning, and she clearly needed an audience. With a barely audible sigh, Susie wriggled down on her sun lounger into a more comfortable position and transferred her blue gaze to Caroline. Although she had eyes as innocent as a baby doll’s, they were far shrewder than most people gave her credit for. It was this combination of naïveté and shrewdness that had carried her from a crowded council house in Bristol to the imposing Georgian residence in Surrey that she and Jake now shared.

  “It’s not the island,” she said now, her voice hypnotically soft. “It’s because Nico isn’t paying you enough attention. Even I can see that.”

  “I thought we’d be having a proper vacation,” said Caroline, her inhibitions loosened by her third glass of rum punch. “Well, maybe not a proper one, but I didn’t think that Nico would be working in the studios for more than a few hours each day. The rest of the time we’d be together, having fun…I thought,” she concluded with heavy sarcasm. “Do you know, he didn’t even speak to me on the flight over? He spent the entire bloody trip gassing with Monty instead, leaving me stuck next to some greasy businessman from Birmingham named Hubert, for Chrissake.”

  “Jakey and I thought about calling our baby Hubert,” said Susie calmly, and Caroline shot her a sideways look. The trouble with Susie was that one could never be entirely sure whether she was joking.

  “But the point is that Nico ignored me,” she went on, twisting her almost-empty glass in her hand. “And that was only the start. Since we’ve been here, he’s done nothing but work and sleep. Eighteen hours a day in that goddamn studio and the other six sleeping. Needless to say,” she concluded with alcohol-induced indiscretion, “I am not included in either activity. So much for the weeks of sun, sand, sea, and sex that I’d imagined.”

  Susie tilted her straw hat over her nose. “Three out of four isn’t bad,” she said with a slight smile, glad that Jake hadn’t been similarly affected. After last night’s marathon, she had wondered if she’d be capable of walking today.

  “Only someone with a truly great sex life could say something as ridiculous as that,” retorted Caroline bitterly.

  * * *

  “Nico’s wife’s pissed
off,” said Susie much later that night, when she and Jake were the only two still awake. Shaun, lying out on the verandah surrounded by empty beer cans, was snoring gently. Paddy, the band’s keyboard player, slept peacefully on the settee opposite them. It was well past midnight, and George Benson was providing suitably laid-back music on the stereo.

  “Serves her right for tagging along when she knew she wasn’t wanted,” said Jake easily, draping his arm around Susie’s plump shoulders and drawing her against him. “I bet he’s still over at the studios now, going over the stuff we did today and keeping out of the old dragon’s way.”

  “She isn’t a dragon,” protested Susie, pinching the back of his hand. “You can’t say she doesn’t have the looks or the body. She isn’t fat like me.” With ill-concealed pride, she gazed down at her slightly swollen stomach, and Jake gave the mound an affectionate pat.

  “She’s a stuck-up bitch, and she’s only bothering to talk to you now because she hasn’t got anyone else. Back home she knocks about with that bird who does the modeling, Cecilia. I bet she thinks she’s really slumming it, having to make do with people like us…”

  “Thanks!” exclaimed Susie, laughing.

  Jake shook his head. “You know what I mean. She thinks she’s better than us, but we know she isn’t. And we’re a lot happier than her and Nico, aren’t we?”

  “I’m happy. I’ve got the best fella in the world,” she murmured, resting her cheek against his chest and breathing in the salt-and-honey scent of his skin. “But I can’t help feeling kind of sorry for her. Their sex life’s nonexistent, she told me today. It’s really getting to her.”

  “She looks like she needs to get laid,” remarked Jake idly, stroking her hair.

  “Does Nico go with other women?”

  “Course he does. He keeps pretty quiet about it, but I’ve seen him sloping off with the occasional bird after a gig, and I shouldn’t think it was for a game of chess…”

  “Poor Caroline,” said Susie sleepily. “She ought to find someone to give her a good time, then. Sex is so lovely; it’s a shame to miss out, don’t you think?”

  “Now you’re talking,” said Jake, sliding his hand beneath her loose cotton top and skillfully caressing her breasts. “Come on, let’s leave those two here and go to bed.”

  * * *

  Paddy Laharne waited until they had left the room before opening his eyes. Now there was a challenge, he thought. Caroline Coletto was a damn good-looking girl; he’d always been attracted to that voluptuous body and those catlike dark-blue eyes, but she had seemed so distant, keeping herself glued to Nico’s side whenever he’d seen her, that he hadn’t made the effort to get to know her better.

  Ah, but now…he grinned to himself in the semidarkness, his fingers tapping out a three-four beat against the side of the settee. Now he knew the state of play, that presented a definite challenge.

  And Paddy Laharne, he reminded himself, could never resist a challenge.

  * * *

  Caroline woke up as Nico slid out of the bed. Other husbands, she thought with a renewed flash of irritation, tried to be quiet out of consideration for their sleeping wives. Nico, she knew, simply didn’t want to have to speak to her.

  It was six thirty.

  “What am I going to do today?” She heard the whine in her voice and despised herself for it.

  The look Nico gave her was one of disbelief.

  “You can’t think of anything to do?” he gestured toward the window. “Here?”

  She pouted. Once he had thought her pout adorable. Now he looked faintly disgusted.

  “I’m bored.”

  “You’re spoiled.”

  “I wish I’d never—”

  “So do I,” he flashed back at her before she even had a chance to regret her own ill-chosen words. Then, guilty because he’d meant it, he weakened. “I’m sorry. Cutting an album isn’t easy. Why don’t you drive up to Kingston and look around the stores? Spend some money…buy some clothes…” He was casting around in desperation for ideas. There was nothing so difficult to please as a woman hell-bent on discontent.

  “Yeah,” said Caroline, turning onto her side to look at him and trying to sound cheerful. She knew she had pushed her luck and was grateful for the reprieve. “I’ll do that. Find something to do, anyway. And I’m sorry too, OK?”

  His heart turned to stone as he bent to kiss her forehead. Feeling like an impostor, he touched her tousled tortoiseshell hair with the back of his hand. “OK. Have a good time. And I’ll see you tonight. Got enough money for the trip?”

  “Better leave me some more,” she said, half teasing, although it came out sounding almost like a threat. “A wife can never have enough money, after all. Can she?”

  * * *

  Paddy Laharne watched Caroline from a distance, his topaz-yellow eyes taking in every detail, missing nothing. Some people were happy with their own company; Caroline was definitely one of those who was not, he decided. She wore unhappy solitude like a cloak. The drink she poured herself was a large one, the cigarette a device with which to occupy herself, to pass lonely time. Several books lay scattered in the sand around her but remained untouched. Caroline was gazing moodily out to sea, lost in her own unhappy thoughts.

  But that body, he reminded himself with a quickening of interest, was still one of the most spectacular he had ever seen.

  Paddy Laharne had never been in love. Wild since childhood, adored by hundreds, possibly thousands of girls throughout his tearaway teenage years, he accepted what was offered to him and made a point of never promising anything in return. And the girls, sighing over his long mane of hair, yellow eyes, and proud, hawk-like profile, were thankful just to be noticed. He was one of those chosen few whose features were so unusual, and so miraculously fitted together, that he transcended the traditional description of good looks. Taken piece by piece, the result should have been plain ugly, yet Paddy had defied that, attaining instead an appearance so intriguing that mere good looks became irrelevant and uninteresting. And he had exactly the right kind of clever mind to make the most of it.

  “Doing your homework?” he asked, glancing at the cover of the book now resting against her thighs. Jackie Collins’s Lethal Seduction.

  Caroline looked up, her expression behind her dark glasses wary. Paddy had scarcely spoken more than a few words to her before, and his indifference hadn’t troubled her. Now, however, he squatted down on his heels beside her and was showing every sign of striking up a conversation.

  “The book makes it all seem far more exciting than it really is,” she said, glad of the chance to talk to someone, even if it was only Paddy Laharne. “Why aren’t you over at the studios with the rest of them?”

  “Day off.” Paddy grinned at her, his small white teeth startling against the deep tan of his face. “Jake and Susie have gone over to Ocho Rios. Shaun’s disappeared with one of the chalet maids. Nico’s running through some new ideas with the sound technicians, and Monty’s hovering over his shoulder getting on everyone’s nerves. I’m all alone,” he concluded, shaking his windswept dark-red hair away from his face.

  “Welcome to the club,” she replied, sounding disinterested.

  “Has Nico taken you to Falmouth yet?”

  “Nico,” said Caroline slowly, “hasn’t so much as bought me a drink yet.”

  Paddy gave her a naughty-boy wink and rose to his feet, holding a hand toward her. “In that case, why don’t I?”

  “Why don’t you what?” she parried, suspicion vying with reluctant interest.

  “Buy you a drink. In Falmouth. We can explore the town and have fun.”

  “Fun,” mused Caroline thoughtfully, a smile playing on her lips as she met his topaz eyes properly for the first time. “Fun. You’ll have to remind me how it goes. I don’t have all that much of it these days.”

  * * *
>
  Paddy had timed his act beautifully. Since helping Caroline to her feet on the beach that morning, he had taken care not to allow any physical contact between them whatsoever.

  When, finally, they sank together onto a wooden seat outside an old church, hot and dusty in the dappled sunlight and exhausted by the amount of walking they had done, he stretched his arm across the back of the bench behind her, then very lightly touched the curve of her neck, brushing away damp strands of her hair.

  He watched her shiver in response and pretended not to notice.

  “This is St. Peter’s Anglican church. It was built in 1795,” he remarked lazily, admiring the curve of her shoulder and the marvelous swell of her breasts beneath the fuchsia-pink T-shirt.

  He had read this in Caroline’s guidebook while she had disappeared to the loo after lunch but spoke the words as naturally as if they were etched into his mind.

  “You are amazing!” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “I had no idea you knew about things like churches.”

  “I know about lots of things,” confided Paddy, leaning fractionally closer. “And I know you and Nico aren’t as happy as you should be. He neglects you. It’s a bloody disgrace, if you ask me.”

  Caroline said, “Mmm,” tilting her head back and closing her eyes. Bathed in sunlight and new happiness, she had forgotten what it was like to have an attractive, attentive man around her. Having always thought of Paddy Laharne as a comic-book-reading, apelike macho man completely lacking in the social graces, she felt vaguely guilty and very pleased to discover that there was so much more to him than she had imagined. This morning he had driven her around the island, showing her all the sights. Then, despite the blistering heat, he had insisted they go shopping too. Nico’s eyes always glazed over within minutes of a shopping expedition and Caroline had proceeded with caution, terrified of frightening Paddy away. But he had been brilliant, bursting with knowledge and enthusiasm, persuading her to try on exotic cotton outfits in tropical colors and haggling expertly with the shopkeepers on her behalf when she decided to buy.