Shirley Valentine Goes to Vegas

by Michelle Betham

  Shirley Valentine Goes to Vegas

  MICHELLE BETHAM

  A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  HarperImpulse an imprint of

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2015

  Copyright © Michelle Betham 2015

  Cover images © Shutterstock.com

  Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015

  Cover design by HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd

  Michelle Betham asserts the moral right

  to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

  The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

  the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

  entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International

  and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

  the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

  and read the text of this e-book on screen.

  No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

  downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

  stored in or introduced into any information storage and

  retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

  whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

  hereinafter invented, without the express

  written permission of HarperCollins.

  Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

  Ebook Edition © August 2015 ISBN: 9780008119430

  Version 2015-08-24

  For everyone who believes in a little bit of fate…

  And to Helen at Indigo Rose, thank you, for giving me the tattoo of my dreams.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Also by Michelle Betham …

  About the Author

  About HarperImpulse

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Dragging the suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe I threw it onto the bed, standing back as it hit the mattress with a resounding thud. For a couple of seconds I just looked at it as if, all of a sudden, I’d temporarily forgotten just what the hell it was I was doing. Was that deliberate? Was that actually my own subconscious giving me a little bit more time to think about everything? To make sure this really was the right thing to do?

  Leaning back against the wall, I closed my eyes, breathing in deeply. My heart was still beatingfast, pounding away inside my chest as I tried to shut out the noise drifting up from the party going on downstairs: a party I should be getting back to. But I couldn’t. Not now.

  ‘… this is just something she needs to get out of her system…’

  His words were playing over and over in my head like some never-ending record I couldn’t switch off.

  ‘She loves me, and she knows I need her to do certain things if this is going to work a second time…’

  Yeah. I loved him. But did I love him enough? Enough to strip myself of everything I’d fought so hard to become?

  I slowly opened my eyes, taking another deep breath, my gaze falling back on the empty suitcase.

  ‘Lana?’

  I swung around so quickly I almost lost my balance, my breath catching in my throat as I saw him standing there.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m leaving, Adam.’ I’d thought my resolve would weaken the second I saw him, but I was obviously stronger than I thought I was. ‘And this time, I’m not coming back.’

  1

  My brother, Finn, slid something a rather startling shade of orange towards me.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked, eyeing the drink warily.

  ‘A cocktail.’

  I threw him a withering look. ‘Yeah. I can see that. It’s what’s in it that’s bothering me. What is in it?’

  He shrugged. ‘No idea. Just thought you might like one, you know, you being a woman and all that.’

  My withering look turned into a wide-eyed stare. ‘Seriously?’

  He shrugged, a look of mock innocence on his face.

  ‘When have you ever known me to drink cocktails, Finn? When?’

  ‘Just get it down you. Might help you loosen up a bit.’

  I loved Finn. I loved him a lot, despite his knack of being able to wind me up at a moment’s notice. But he’d always been able to do that, right from when we’d been kids and he’d realised how easily I could be sucked in.

  At thirty-five years old Finn was four years younger than me. And with his short, dark, messed-up hair, a multitude of tattoos that adorned his entire body, and a black and red Ducati Multistrada that I was extremely jealous of, he was handsome in that rough, edgy, rock-star kind of way – a bit of a cross between a younger version of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and The Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl – which meant he was never short of female attention. And the fact he was also one of the most reputable tattoo artists in the north-east of England didn’t do him any harm, either. His studio – Black Ink – sawpeople travel to Newcastle-upon-Tyne from as far afield as Cumbria, north Yorkshire, and even Scotland,to be ‘inked’ by my brother. I was incredibly proud of him. Even more so after everything he’d done for me over the past twelve months. He’d been my rock. The best friend I could have asked for. Because the past twelve months had seen my life change in a way I could never have anticipated. A year ago I’d walked out on my husband, and left behind the only life I’d known for almost two decades; a decision that hadn’t been an easy one to make, because Adam was a good man. We’d been together almost twenty years, and been married for eighteen of those. I’d thought I’d found my soul mate. But sometimes, even when – or should that be especially when – you’ve been together for as long as we had, people can grow apart. They lose each other. And when neither of them really make that effort to find their way back, well, it stops working. There’s no point any more if the fight has gone.

  We’d started wanting different things – or, in my case, things I’d always dreamed of, but thought I could never have. Those things I’d put to the back of my mind whilst I’d concentrated on doing what everybody else wanted me to do, ins
tead of doing things that actually made me happy. I guess I’d just wanted an easy life. But now I considered ‘easy’ to be dull. Now I wanted a bit more excitement. Was that selfish of me? Maybe. But when you know you’re not the person you really want to be, there comes a point when you either accept that this is the way things are always going to be or you realise the stone-cold reality that you only get one life, and you’ve got to go out and live it.That’s exactly what I’d done. I’d moved in with Finn, got to know my brother again, and gradually started putting my life back together. By changing it completely.

  ‘Can I just have a beer?’ I asked, still warily eyeing the cocktail. ‘I mean, do I look like the kind of woman who’d drink something that colour?’

  ‘Lana, there were nights when you’d drink anything of any colour, remember? As long as it got the end result you were looking for.’

  I couldn’t argue with that. There’d been times when I could have quite easily reached for the mouthwash, but I was past all of that now.

  As kids, I’d always been slightly jealous of Finn, of the way he just seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do. His fascination with tattoos had started as a teenager, and after he’d got his first one on his eighteenth birthday that had sealed the deal for him – he knew where his life was going. I’d always been less decisive, finally letting my love of the theatre guide me in the direction of a BTEC in performing arts and an eventual job as a deputy stage manager in a theatre in Newcastle. A job I’d walked out on the same day I’d walked out on Adam. I didn’t do things by halves, that was for sure. But I’d had to cut those ties, leave behind the old so I could start the new. Any remnants of the past would have only held me back.

  I’d started hanging out at Black Ink, watching Finn and the guys work, soaking up the atmosphere that I’d never really paid that much attention to before, because I’d never really seen all that much of Finn after I’d married Adam. We’d moved out of Newcastle and settled in north Northumberland, but it wasn’t just distance that had seen me lose touch with my brother. Our worlds became very different, and we’d inevitably drifted apart, coming together only for the obligatory family weddings, birthdays and Christmases.But the more I hung out at Black Ink, the more I began to realise that Finn’s world was where I really felt comfortable. It was the kind of world I wanted to be a part of – a world where people didn’t judge. A world where it was okay to be different. It was the world I’d always dreamt of. I just hadn’t realised it, until now.

  So, just a few days after walking out on my marriage, I began putting the wheels of my brand-new life in motion by doing something the old Lana would never have done – I got “inked”. By Finn. Twice. A beautiful tribal design in deep black that covered the underside of my left forearm, and a deep-red rose emerging from a mass of tangled thorns on my upper right arm. Finn had been a little unsure, at first, about being the one to permanently tattoo his once rather straight-laced and conservative sister, but he understood I’d needed to do something drastic to kick-start my new journey. To give my life the complete turnaround it needed. But, looking back, I suppose it had been a bit of a shock for him to see the speed at which I’d turned from wife of one of the region’s top businessmen to tattooed biker chick. It had unnerved me for a day or two, but just two weeks after getting those new tattoos, changing my hair, acquiring a whole new set of friends and an attitude I hadn’t even known I’d had, I’d made another decision. I was truly fascinated by the work my brother and the guys at Black Ink did, but I wanted to play a bigger part than just observing. I needed a new career, something to aim for, and, after talking to Finn and going over the options, the decision was made – Finn was going to take me on as his apprentice. I was going to train to become a tattoo artist. It meant I could stay close to my brother and stay inside that world I’d fallen in love with.

  I’d spend hours at the studio watching, in complete awe, as Finn created intricate and beautiful designs on a wide variety of clients, each tattoo different and personal. From deep blacks to colours so vivid they almost jumped off the skin, there was so much beauty in body art, which was why that tattoo Finn had given me on my upper right arm had now turned into a sleeve, covering the skin from the wrist, stretching all the way up over my shoulder. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen – from the multitude of colours that ranged from bright oranges and aqua blues and the rich, dark red of bloodied roses, to the way it snaked across my skin, the designs merging, fading in and out of one another; intertwining, blending. In my eyes, every single inch of it signalled a move forward from a life that had once stifled me, into one that was slowly setting me free. As I’d watched it take shape, felt that needle dig into my skin, it really had felt as though that tattoo was wiping away the past and ushering in my new future. It had taken weeks to complete, but just watching Finn work on it had been an almost cathartic experience.

  It was going to take a couple of years before I became a fully qualified tattooist myself, but I woke up every day now just itching to get to work. And I hadn’t felt like that in a long time. The people who came into Black Ink, the heavy rock music that blasted out of speakers placed all around the two floors of the studio; the whole atmosphere of the place – it really did feel as though, somehow, I’d found my spiritual home. It was somewhere I’d always wanted to be but had never had the confidence to seek out before because I’d spent most of my life “settling”. Whilst Adam had been quite happy to let our lives “tick along”, the thought of that going on for years to come had, in the end, terrified me. I hadn’t wanted my life to “tick along” anymore – I wanted to live it and, with Finn’s help, I was getting there.

  Even though this weekend in Las Vegas – at one of the biggest tattoo conventions in the world – was something of a busman’s holiday for me, Finn and the rest of the guys from Black Ink, after the year I’d had I was hoping it was going to give me a chance to kick back, cut loose for a little while, even if it was only for a couple of days. The past few months had been exhausting, and though I barely recognised the woman I’d used to be, I still felt as though there was a tiny bit more shaking off to be done. And this weekend, I intended to do a lot of shaking. Right now, I wasn’t totally feeling the Vegas vibe, but I was probably just tired. We’d not long arrived at the hotel, it was late, and it had been a long day.

  ‘Here. Is this more your kind of thing?’ Finn handed me a bottle of Budweiser.

  I smiled at him. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Now drink your beer, beautiful.’

  He always called me beautiful, and I loved him for that, even if he was probably just saying it because I was his sister. I’d just never felt all that comfortable blowing my own trumpet, that was all, so I’d never really thought of myself as beautiful, though Adam had often told me I was. And I suppose I could scrub up pretty well when I put the effort in. I’d managed to keep my long blonde hair in pretty good condition, despite the amount of styling products it had seen over the years, and a good few inches of it, from the bottom up, had been dyed black now, which I loved. My eyes were a bit more grey than blue, but I’d never seen that as a negative. And my body wasn’t looking too bad for a woman hurtling towards middle-age, and by that I mean I could still rock a bikini on holiday as long as I laid off the doughnuts for a couple of weeks beforehand. Or have a complete mid-life meltdown, leave my husband and throw my old life away to head off into the unknown. Both had much the same effect as far as weight loss was concerned.

  ‘And start enjoying yourself,’ Finn went on. ‘We’re in Vegas, remember?’

  I picked up my beer and took a large, probably slightly unladylike, swig.

  ‘I am enjoying myself,’ I protested, throwing him a look.

  He threw one right back. ‘You might want to try telling your face that, then.’

  I ignored him, taking another swig of beer. ‘I might have an early night,’ I sighed, running my finger up and down the ice-cold bottle, watching as it left a trail of condensat
ion in its wake.

  Finn almost choked on hisown drink. ‘Early night? Do you know where we are?’

  I blinked a few times as I looked at him. ‘I’m well aware of where we are, thank you. You keep reminding me every five minutes.’

  Finn’s eyes widened as he stared at me. ‘And?’

  I frowned. ‘And what?’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘How many beers have you had?’

  ‘We’re in Las Vegas,’ Finn went on, completely ignoring my question.

  ‘Yes, I know we are. I was on that plane this morning, too.’

  ‘So, people come to Vegas to party.’

  ‘Do they? All of them?’

  ‘You’re giving me a headache now.’

  ‘That’s my job.’ I took another long drink of beer, looking around the busy bar. The music was loud, the atmosphere everything I loved. I just knew I’d love it a whole lot more when I didn’t feel so tired. I was such a lightweight sometimes. I turned back to face my brother. ‘I’m just a bit tired, okay? It’s been a really long day. I’m sure I’ll be much more my usual self after a good night’s sleep.’

  ‘You’re really having an early night?’ Finn asked, his expression verging on disbelief.

  I ran a hand along the back of my neck as I took another look around me. I’d noticed a small group of bikers come in earlier, and they were still there, hanging out in the corner of the bar, dressed in leather and denim with their messed-up hair and unkempt beards. Sexy as hell in my eyes.The fact I found that kind of man sexy now was weird, because my husband had been a clean-shaven businessman who loathed tattoos, hated facial hair and didn’t really trust bikers. Which was why he and Finn had never really been that close. Their two worlds were so far apart it had been hard for them to find any common ground. Another reason why my brother and I had drifted apart.