The Socialite's Secret

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Fair enough,’ Luke said. ‘We’ll try again when you’re ready.’

  She looked from his chest to the floor and saw the lovely second dinner he had made dressing the carpet.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Luke said.

  Scarlet lay back on the pillow when he left quietly and then looked over at the massive wine stain on the carpet and thought about how she’d thrown the tray and shouted. She tried to work out how on earth she could face him tomorrow when there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Third time lucky,’ Luke said, and he came in with a tray.

  It was completely unexpected and the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her because she really was starving.

  No wine this time. Instead, there was a lovely mug of milk and cinnamon and lots of slices of buttery toast smothered in jam.

  ‘Where are the mushrooms?’ Scarlet asked.

  She’d never ended a row on a smile.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SOMETHING WAS WRONG.

  Scarlet woke and opened the curtain and she looked out at the streetlight and then lay back on the pillow.

  The house was cold, even with the heating on. She hadn’t felt warm since she’d arrived in England.

  She thought of her mother and their row, and whatever had gone on between them, Scarlet wanted to see her.

  It wouldn’t be fair to ask Luke. He’d had a couple of glasses of wine and was exhausted, she knew that.

  She recalled his words—visiting her mother didn’t have to be a big deal.

  What if she did what he said, went in through the maternity entrance?

  The clothes he had bought her really were awful but she put them on and wrote a note and left it on the hall table.

  ‘Gone to see Mom.’

  It was an easy drive. There were some roadworks but in less than an hour the hospital came into view. She bypassed the main entrance, indicated for Maternity and parked the car. As she got out Scarlet saw a couple walking towards the door, where they buzzed at the entrance. She walked over quickly.

  ‘Here,’ Scarlet said, and held the door open for them as the woman doubled over.

  ‘Thanks.’

  She was in.

  Her heart was pounding but Scarlet told herself she was doing nothing wrong but then she saw a security guard walking towards her.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m here to see my mother.’

  ‘You can’t wander around the hospital at night.’

  ‘The emergency consultant told me if I used the maternity entrance...’

  ‘Scarlet?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Geoff.’ He gave her a smile. ‘Remember?’

  Now she did.

  ‘Just wait there,’ Geoff said.

  He made a phone call and then came back. ‘This way.’ They chatted as they walked. ‘You’ve saved me a right old drama,’ Geoff told her. ‘The press have been awful. I’ve told the ICU staff and they said to bring you up in the theatre lift, which will take you straight onto the unit.’

  He went with her but when Scarlet arrived on ICU it was like stepping into a spaceship, but then a woman came over and gave her a smile.

  ‘I’m Lorna.’

  ‘I just wanted some time with her.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Lorna said. ‘Did you want to speak with a doctor first?’

  ‘No.’ Scarlet shook her head. ‘I just want to see her. Is anyone with her?’

  ‘They’re all outside,’ Lorna said.

  It was all very low-key. There were a few other relatives sitting with their loved ones. The curtains weren’t drawn as it was break time and the staff were thinner on the ground, Lorna explained.

  ‘I can close them if you need me to. I’ll call Ellie back from her break.’

  There was no need.

  Scarlet sat there and held her mother’s hand and was brought a plastic cup of hot chocolate and a packet with two biscuits in.

  ‘Your mum?’ a man sitting nearby asked, and Scarlet nodded.

  ‘Who are you here with?’

  ‘My son. He’s been in Theatre all day. I’ve just got in to see him now. I’m Evan.’

  ‘Scarlet.’ She smiled.

  ‘I know!’ Evan rolled his eyes. ‘They’re all out there, trying to work out where you are. Good for you!’ he said. ‘Ashleigh, my son, likes you. He was very fed up that he never got to see you!’

  Scarlet laughed.

  They chatted.

  Not a lot but about how nice the hot chocolate was, how good the staff were.

  How scary it was to be here.

  ‘My wife’s just gone for a sleep. I had to get some sleeping tablets,’ Evan admitted. ‘Never taken anything in my life but they did the trick. I thought I was dreaming when I woke up and heard he had a liver.’

  ‘How long has Ashleigh been sick?’ Scarlet asked.

  ‘Since he was born,’ Evan told her. ‘We had a few good years when he turned eleven, but the last year has been the toughest. What about your mum?’

  And she was about to make her usual small talk, or smile and say just how wonderful everything was.

  Here wasn’t the place to, though.

  Lies made no difference in the ICU, Scarlet guessed.

  It wasn’t just the patients who were exposed to serious diagnoses.

  ‘She’s been sick for a very long time too,’ Scarlet admitted.

  ‘It takes its toll, doesn’t it?’ Evan said, and she nodded.

  ‘Hot chocolate helps,’ Scarlet said. She just sipped on her warm drink and held her mum’s hand and then, when the clock nudged three, guessing Luke might need the car early, she stood and gave her mum a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘I love you.’

  Scarlet did.

  I love you not.

  Sometimes.

  She just had to love herself more.

  ‘I hope he’s improved in the morning,’ Scarlet said to Evan.

  ‘Thanks, love.’

  And then she offered something stupid, something silly and fun for when Ashleigh woke up, but it made Evan smile.

  God knew, he needed it.

  The charge nurse called for Geoff to walk her back down and she nodded in the direction of Luke’s car.

  ‘I’m fine now,’ Scarlet said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Next time, page the head of security. It’s usually me at night,’ Geoff said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Scarlet drove home, or rather to Luke’s home, feeling better.

  Not brilliant but better.

  A part of her wanted to turn off the motorway. To simply drive to the cottage that was supposed to have been her haven while she sorted out her head with the luxury of time that had been denied to her now.

  How did she tell her mother now that she was still leaving her?

  How could she face the impossible conversations that were to come with Luke? And then there were his parents coming later today. Maybe he’d welcome her disappearing?

  Scarlet wanted to curl up into a ball and for the world to sort itself out before she came back.

  It wasn’t going to, though.

  The garage door opened as she approached and, hell, England was cold, Scarlet thought. Even the garage was freezing.

  The house felt only marginally warmer.

  Her note was still there on the table and her midnight adventure had paid off.

  She went up to her room and stripped off her clothes then looked at the bed and simply couldn’t face getting in. She wanted Luke, not for anything other than who he was and because of where she’d just been.

  Scarlet padded down the hall and pushed open the door and there was Luke, deeply asleep. He hadn’t even noticed she’d gone, Scarlet knew.

  She slipped into the bed and moved straight over to him.

  ‘You’re frozen,’ Luke said, and pulled her in closer.

  Just that.

  He stroked her arm as he had once before, and it was as if it was normal that she lie in his arms.


  It was.

  Luke pulled the covers over her shoulders and went straight back to sleep.

  A sleep so deep that Luke even struggled to wake to his alarm. Instead, it blurred into the sound of ambulances or IVs alarming, and then he prised his eyes open and felt Scarlet wrapped around him.

  Where it felt she belonged.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  HE TURNED OFF the alarm but didn’t have the energy to tell her to get back to her own bed, and neither did he want her to get out.

  He knew she was awake, he could feel her lashes blinking on his chest.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Luke asked.

  ‘No,’ Scarlet admitted, and then she said what she’d wanted to when they’d been in the kitchen, as if hours hadn’t passed since then. ‘I didn’t know what to do, Luke.’

  Hours might have passed but he knew what was on her mind. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You have to go to work.’

  ‘No.’ He did but some things were more important.

  ‘And we can’t storm off to bed,’ Luke pointed out, ‘given we’re in it, so maybe we can try and talk.’ There were so many details missing, ones he had thought he’d prefer not to know. But that had been when he had thought her callous. ‘What was your mother like when you told her?’

  ‘Fine,’ Scarlet said from the depths of his chest. ‘At first. I had toothache once and she handled it in pretty much the same way—you’ll be fine, Vince can take care of that for you. That’s when I rang you. I knew we’d ended badly and that I shouldn’t have told Troy where I was but—’

  ‘Forget about that now.’

  ‘When you said to come here, that we’d talk and work things out...’ She felt stupid explaining it. ‘I don’t keep my own passport, Sonia does. I didn’t know how to get on a plane unless it was my mother’s jet. I wanted to, though. I told my mother that I wanted to keep the baby and that I was going to England to speak with you. She went crazy. I didn’t get it. I pointed out that she was a single parent and at least I knew who the father was.’

  ‘What did she say to that?’

  ‘She slapped me and told me how ungrateful I was, that, yet again, she had to sort me out. They had a crisis meeting about me. That’s when I called you again. She wanted you to come and work for her, alongside Vince.’

  ‘Scarlet, I could never do that.’ Luke was honest. ‘I wanted to be with you and I wanted us to work out how. I could have accepted some attention and a change to my life but I could never work for your mother.’

  ‘I understand that but when you just dismissed it out of hand...’

  ‘Scarlet, medicine is important to me. I take it very seriously and I could never be paid to prescribe, ever.’

  ‘It seemed like the only way.’

  ‘We’d have worked on finding other ways.’

  ‘And then you didn’t call back.’

  ‘I did,’ Luke said. ‘I was going crazy. I spoke to Angie, and to a friend whose girlfriend, well, his wife now, had got pregnant. I asked my boss if I could take a couple of weeks off. He didn’t want to give it to me, given that I’d only been working there for a few days. I told him he could have my notice if he wouldn’t give me time off. I was on my way to the airport when you called.’

  He’d never forget it.

  First there had been relief at hearing her voice when she’d finally called. ‘I’m on my way,’ he had said.

  ‘There’s no need, it’s been taken care of.’

  He’d driven straight into the back of someone.

  ‘I heard the other driver shouting,’ Scarlet admitted. ‘Then I listened while you moved the car and swapped details and then you came back to the phone.

  ‘Are you still there?’ he had asked.

  ‘Still here,’ Scarlet had replied, and then had come the agony of him ringing off.

  ‘I’d just got back from the clinic.’

  ‘Did anyone go with you?’

  ‘Mom,’ Scarlet said.

  So no one helpful, then, Luke thought.

  ‘She was all nice to me afterwards. I was a mess and she had Vince see me and he put me on antidepressants. I didn’t take them. I think I was right to be sad.’ Scarlet thought back to that very difficult year. ‘I knew things had to change and I also knew they were watching me. I picked up a bit when I found out she was going on tour again and that we’d be coming here.’

  ‘Were you going to call?’

  She didn’t answer straight away. How could she have landed on him not just herself but all her hopes and dreams? How could she have told him about the shiny, poised, together person she had hoped to be when next she saw him?

  ‘I don’t know,’ Scarlet said instead.

  It hurt to hear that. He’d spent the last few months wondering if she would get in touch and to now to hear that she hadn’t made up her mind cut deep.

  ‘What would you have done?’ Scarlet asked. ‘If I’d called?’

  ‘I guess it would have depended how the conversation went,’ Luke admitted. ‘But...’ He couldn’t.

  She hadn’t called.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘No.’ Luke shook his head.

  They were nowhere near ready for that. They might never be.

  ‘I hate it that you went through it on your own. I mean, I know you had your mum...’ He tried to be polite but Scarlet gave a low mirthless laugh at his effort.

  ‘She didn’t come in. Actually, there was a really nice nurse. I thought they’d be horrible,’ she admitted. ‘I was a bit of a wreck but she really was lovely to me.’

  ‘I would hope so.’

  ‘She was.’ Scarlet still sounded surprised. ‘I got very upset afterwards. I knew I’d made a mistake and she spoke to me for ages. She said that one day I’d be able to move on and that I didn’t have nothing, that I’d learn from it...’

  And it killed him to hear her say she’d thought she had nothing and he was very glad of that nurse who had taken the time with her on such a difficult day.

  ‘And I have,’ Scarlet said. ‘Which is why I blew up the other day at my mother.’

  ‘Can you tell me about the row?’ Luke asked, and Scarlet nodded.

  ‘I told her that I was leaving and she laughed and said I wouldn’t last five minutes without her.’

  His hand was still stroking her hair.

  ‘I said that I had you,’ Scarlet admitted, and she started to cry. ‘I didn’t know if I did, I guessed not, but I was just trying to get away...’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘And she said you wouldn’t want me, given all I’d done, and then I got angry,’ Scarlet said. ‘Really angry.’

  Now his hand was on her arm, the way it had been that morning, stroking her arm gently and firmly, and there was nothing that she couldn’t tell him.

  ‘I said that she’d always been jealous of me and that the reason she didn’t want me to keep my baby was because she didn’t want the spotlight on me and the “Grandma Anya” headline.’ Scarlet looked up at him. ‘I’m just sorry it took me so long to work that out.’

  ‘I’m amazed that you could work it out,’ Luke said. ‘Sometimes I think my family is complicated but...’

  He stopped.

  She was used to it.

  Luke always held back.

  ‘It’s just as well that we’ll never make it.’ Scarlet smiled. ‘You could hardly have me meet them.’

  ‘They’re coming this afternoon.’ Luke sighed. ‘It’s their wedding anniversary so they’re stopping by on their way down to London for a long weekend.’

  ‘Do you want me hide in the bedroom?’

  ‘I don’t want to hide you, Scarlet,’ Luke said. ‘Don’t you get that?’

  She didn’t.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  LUKE WALKED INTO ICU and nodded to Evan and then he looked over to where Anya lay.

  On the morning she had come into Emergency it had taken almost everything that Luke had in him to treat her as just another patient. />
  He wondered if he could do that if she came in now. He hoped so but right now he was so angry that he truly didn’t know.

  ‘We’re going to try and rouse her later this afternoon.’

  It was a different anaesthetist on this morning.

  ‘Did David pass on my message?’

  ‘He did,’ Craig said. ‘I’ll call you with any changes.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Lorna spoke with daughter last night,’ Craig added. ‘She’s aware of what’s going on and—’

  ‘She spoke with the daughter?’ Luke was horrified at any leak in information and tried to sort it out. ‘How did Lorna know it was her?’

  ‘Because she came in.’ Craig gave him a wide-eyed look. ‘Lorna wouldn’t speak to just anyone.’

  ‘I know that.’

  A nurse came past and started laughing. ‘Go and ask Evan if you don’t believe him.’

  ‘Evan?’

  ‘Over there.’

  Luke looked over and there was Evan, doing his crossword. Luke made his way over to him. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘A lot better than I was the last time I spoke to you,’ Evan admitted, and he saw Luke go to open his mouth. ‘I’ll make an appointment with my GP about my blood pressure.’

  ‘Good man,’ Luke said. ‘I hear that you had a visitor last night.’

  ‘Don’t tell that lot.’ Evan winked and nodded towards the exit door behind which Anya’s entourage sat. He took out his phone. ‘Lovely lady...’ He glanced at his son, who was asleep. ‘Ashleigh laughed when I showed him this morning.’

  Luke looked at Evan’s phone and for all he hated this type of thing, now it made him smile.

  There was Scarlet, looking very unlike Scarlet. Not a scrap of make-up and her hair was wild and she was wearing a very baggy jumper and one of his shirts and smiling with Evan into the camera.

  ‘How long was she here?’ Luke asked.

  ‘A couple of hours.’ And then he looked over at Anya and he said exactly the same as Angie had. ‘Poor kid.’

  Luke worked for a couple of hours and then he called home in the familiar style and she answered the phone.

  ‘Sorry,’ Scarlet said, peeling her eyes open. ‘I was asleep.’

  He thought of her driving through the night and then coming back to his bed but he didn’t let on that he knew.