Lovers and Liars: An addictive sexy beach read

by Nigel May

  ‘But it is nobody’s business, so we keep it quiet.’ Hatton’s words were clear and direct.

  ‘If we don’t want to risk losing lucrative sponsorship deals then yes. I hate the fact that us being honest could lose you deals in places where homosexuality isn’t as accepted as it should be. Do you really believe that your posters in the shops of the Dubai malls would still be there if people knew you were gay?’

  ‘I know they wouldn’t, which is why we have to keep everything a secret.’

  ‘It’s a pity though, isn’t it?’ stated Fidge.

  Hatton didn’t answer and gazed out of the window for a few minutes, contemplating the world.

  It was Fidge who continued. ‘This magazine I’ve been reading has a feature in it about how gay man and women are not yet accepted in Barbados. It’s why I bought it from the hotel shop. We’re heading there now, yet it’s a place where we could never really be open. Not right now anyway. It says that a coalition of religious groups organised an anti-equality march there to spout hatred but a group called All Out were able to raise money to run a pro-equality advert in a newspaper on the same day as the march. It gave a voice of support to the gay, lesbian, bi and trans people there. They seem to live in a country that doesn’t even acknowledge that they exist. How cruel is that? Things like this happen in so many countries around the world. Sometimes I really hate the fact that we have to hide who we are. It’s seems such a betrayal to other, more openly gay people.’

  ‘But the truth must never be told. Never!’ snapped Hatton. His words seemed a little cold and uncaring, a fact he registered and was keen to rectify straight away. ‘Not while there is so much ignorance out there. I wish it were different too.’

  For a few more moments the men sat in silence, as if weighing up the hypocrisy of their own situation. Both proud of their sexuality and their love for each other, but knowing that, for now, it would have to remain a taboo of which they could never speak in public. Despite the sunniness of the LA weather outside, there was a distinct air of coldness within the car. Not between Hatton and Fidge, but about the injustices of life.

  It was another ten minutes before either of them talked. Then it was Fidge who broke the ice. ‘Imagine if there was a gay James Bond. That could put a whole new spin on the films, couldn’t it?’

  Hatton smiled, happy to think about something a little lighter. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, there could be Thunderballs, or Guyfall…’

  Hatton smirked at the thought and joined in. ‘Instead of Die Another Day, you could have Try Another Gay?’

  ‘Or For Your Guys Only…’

  ‘Dr No-Girls-Allowed…’

  The two men were still laughing when they pulled up at LAX Airport. As the chauffeur exited his driving seat to come round and open the door for them both, Fidge let out a loud laugh as if something had really tickled him.

  ‘What is it?’ smirked Hatton.

  ‘I was just wondering how a gay James Bond would cope with Octopussy, that’s all…’

  The two men were still laughing as they boarded their private plane to Barbados.

  42

  The bond between mother and child is like the strongest of chains that can never be broken. No matter what life throws between the two it’s a bond that will always remain solid, built on the purest of love. Tougher than the deepest of diamonds and more beautiful than any gemstone.

  Pasinetta Cottrell was a fine-looking woman for her advancing years. Though her ninetieth birthday was only a couple of weeks away she looked maybe ten to fifteen years younger. She still possessed a good head of hair, a shiny shade of whitish grey piled high upon her head, its sheen contrasting with the rich ebony tones of her face. Her skin was merely etched with lines and wrinkles as opposed to many of her equally aged friends whose faces seemed to house lines that ran deeper than the 191st Street subway station in New York’s Washington Heights. And for a woman on the brink of entering her tenth decade on earth, Pasinetta’s brain was razor-sharp. Sharper than the manicured nails she used to specialise in for the working girls who frequented her tiny hair and beauty salon back in the day.

  Pasinetta still sorted out all of her own bills, making sure payments were sent off on time. She would still check her weekly shopping bill, careful that every last cent was accounted for and she still made her own clothes, buying fabrics to create flamboyant, bespoke creations, ones that many people of her age would not feel confident or vibrant enough to carry off.

  Not that she needed to do any of this. She certainly didn’t need to watch the cents or indeed try to scrimp on making her own garments, but eighty-nine-year-old Pasinetta chose to do so as it kept her brain active and her intelligence agile. She didn’t even need to pay her bills as her granddaughter, Sutton, had suggested that she should arrange for everything to be paid by direct debit from her account. But Pasinetta had always worked hard and she had no intention of slowing down or sinking into the comfort and potentially stupefying ways of old age by becoming redundant to her own life. So she refused. Her family could supply the money for her Brooklyn Heights luxury abode but the sprightly Pasinetta was determined to organise everything from the utilities through to the paying of her faithful maids herself. Sutton might have been married to one of the richest hotel tycoons on the planet but Pasinetta was still the strong-minded woman who had grown up on the hard streets of Harlem. She had been determined to do her best for her only daughter, Tilisha, and knew that life was not always a bowl of delicious chocolate-dipped cherries. She’d fought to survive and no amount of family riches would ever make her forget that.

  Pasinetta settled down into her favourite armchair and picked up the silver-framed photo of Tilisha from the table beside her. She had been such a bright and bubbly individual, and the photo, taken no more than a few months before her life was tragically cut short, reflected that. Tilisha wore neon brights, both in her clothing and her jewellery, and her eyes were meteor-big and just as blazing. Pasinetta felt a warm glow spread through her core as she looked at her daughter’s photo. The warmth was as vivid now as it had been the day she was born. Tilisha may no longer be in her life but she would always be in her heart.

  There wasn’t a day that passed that she didn’t think about her daughter and the cruelty of her passing; about the man who had taken her life. Some of the working girls who trod the Harlem sidewalks with Tilisha still came to see Pasinetta and they would discuss days gone by. Pasinetta had often joined the girls on the streets, not to sell her own body but to make sure that they were all looking after themselves. Even though money was tight back then, she was like a fairy godmother to them and would make sure that they all had good hair, great nails and enough food in their stomachs before they sold what God had given them under the hemlines of their skirts. As far as she was concerned there was nothing sordid about the way that her daughter and her friends earned their living and she would dispute with venom at anyone who said otherwise.

  There were times when she thought about how had she persuaded Tilisha to stop working as a prostitute then maybe her daughter would still have been alive today, but the thought had to pass. Pasinetta knew that her daughter had been happy and that was all a mother could ask for.

  The two-way dialogue between them may have died the day that a weeping Pasinetta was called upon to identify her daughter’s corpse, but as a mother she would continue to talk to her until her own dying day. That bond would never be broken.

  She placed two fingers to her lips, kissed them and then brushed them across the photo of Tilisha, her image a snapshot of time that would forever dazzle. Her murderer had never been found and Pasinetta would never forgive him. She had seen him on the streets as she had many of the lust-fuelled punters. But she never judged their need for sex. Who knew what their story was behind the closed doors of their own homes? There were always two sides to every tale. But murder was different and that she did judge. She prayed God had served him justice and given him just what he deserv
ed.

  ‘I love you, baby girl,’ she said, gazing at the photo. A film of tears formed across her eyes. ‘I love you so much, and I miss you. You will always be my baby. Always.’

  Heather Stoneham felt that her baby would always be with her too. She imagined it would have been a girl. Even though she never had the chance to touch her or to hold her in her arms, she knew that her baby, the only physical link she could have had to her dear departed Max, would live on within her heart.

  She could picture the child in her mind: she would have possessed a mass of blonde, loopy swirls on her head, soft and free, just like the ones Heather had seen in photographs of Max when he was an infant. Her eyes would have been blue too, just like her father’s, staring out inquisitively at a whole new world from underneath the comforting splendour of her specially built crib.

  Her lips would have been full and pouting, something she would have inherited from her mother, with a beautiful cupid’s bow dipping into their divine ruby redness. Her smile would be joyous and omnipresent, testament to the happiness she was experiencing with every new moment at the wonders of life. Walks along the beach in her stroller would see her face light up as she heard the waves crashing on the soft sands and found her gurgling with glee at the sight of a flitting hummingbird or the scurrying of a tree lizard.

  Heather could picture the festive joy of their baby’s first Christmas. They would spend it at their New York home. Baby’s cheeks would become rosy little smudges of colour as Heather pushed her child in her buggy through the snow-covered pathways of Central Park, watching families building snowmen and making angels on the white, powdery ground. The sound of Christmas carols would hang in the air and the trot of horse-drawn carriages would appear at every turn, baby’s eyes widening to take it all in as she marvelled at the icy spiral of her breath in the winter air. It was pure Christmas card, a pure slice of family heaven, but for Heather it was nothing more than pure fantasy.

  She had even named the baby girl that she and Max would have had. Coral. Small and precious.

  The days after her miscarriage were endless and without form. One hour spiralling into the next, one day crashing into another. Her head was full of dashed hopes and dreams, yet at the same time all she could feel within her was a mass of nothingness. The St Lucia skies may have been blue, the intense heat of the sun overhead warming her skin as she wandered the countryside around her home, but she was unaware. The outside world seemed a blur, an alien place she no longer belonged to, no longer had a connection with. Heather’s world had become the one inside her head, the one that, when she allowed herself to think and drown out the emptiness, was alive with images of Max and baby Coral.

  She could still feel Max’s touch against her skin if she closed her eyes, still smell the sweet scent of his body close to hers. She knew that he wasn’t really there but if she allowed herself to dream, to believe, then he was: the childhood sweetheart who had kept his promise to never leave her side.

  She was finding the line between what was real and what was not increasingly difficult to distinguish. Patches of darkness, where she would contemplate how her father had ruined her life and killed not just the man she loved but the baby growing inside her, would hang over her and then in a heartbeat a thought of baby Coral would erase all of the tenebrous midnight shades within her soul and fill her world with light. To Heather images of her newborn were genuine even if in actuality it was no more than a work of imagination. As the days merged into each other she would pendulum between what was real and what was purely a land of make-believe.

  Heather was strolling along the beach not far from her house. She wasn’t sure how she had arrived there and wasn’t really aware of where she was until she felt the soft grains of sand underneath her toes. The sun beat down heavily from above, its glow shimmering across the sky with a hazy pearlescence. She stared up at it, for a moment her head dizzying with the brightness, a weakness washing over her. When had she last eaten? She couldn’t remember. She must have had something at some point, fuelling her system, but as she swayed in the mid-afternoon sun, Heather had no idea how she had been functioning. Her existence of late had been purely that. Existing. Coping, or perhaps not, with the life inside her head.

  She placed her hands in the pockets of the shorts she was wearing and found some Caribbean dollars. She should eat – she would need to keep up her strength if she were to stay strong for her baby, it’s what Max would have wanted. It was what a good mother had to do. She walked along the beach searching for a shop or a small shack, where she could buy something to eat.

  The beach had always been one of her favourite places in St Lucia – a place of happiness where families would play and enjoy the nature around them. It was light years away from the corporate life that her family existed in; the world that Heather had never really felt part of and never cared to. How could the billion-dollar board meetings and the ever-turning cogs of cut-throat business compare with the serenity and beauty that belonged to the beach? They couldn’t.

  Heather looked at the world around her. Sunbathers lay on the sand, determined to make the most of the heat. The Caribbean beat of music dusted the air with its hypnotic dance. She didn’t know where it was coming from but she found herself swaying again, this time not just due to dizziness but also to the beat of the tune. A group of young women walked along the water’s edge, the waves lapping at their feet. They smiled and joked and epitomised the high-on-happiness vibe that Heather and Max had always associated with the island.

  Heather kicked off her flip-flops and wandered down to where the beach met the sea. The coolness of the water felt good as it slid over her feet. Children played in the small waves and their hollers of excitement and merriment filled the air.

  She must have walked for about ten minutes before she stopped. All thoughts of hunger suddenly left her head. No more than ten metres in front of her, a few yards back from the water’s edge, sat a small child, no more than two years of age and the dictionary definition of angelic. Blonde curls were piled upon her head and she had the sweetest round cheeks. Her arms waved up and down in frenzied excitement as she enjoyed the sights and sounds around her.

  Smiling to herself, her entire core more warmed by the sight of the young girl than any amount of St Lucia sunshine could ever do, Heather wandered over to the girl.

  ‘What are you doing here? Are you enjoying the sand and the sunshine? I knew you would be.’

  The little girl looked up at Heather’s voice and jiggled excitedly in the sand, rocking back and forth on her bottom.

  ‘You must be hungry. Come on, let’s find you some food.’

  In a second, Heather had picked up the girl in her arms, holding her tight against her as she walked across the beach.

  She was already out of sight by the time the first screams of horror and dread came from the beach, filling the air.

  ‘What is that loud hubbub, baby Coral?’ said Heather as she gazed down at the little girl in her arms. ‘Now, don’t you worry about that. Mummy will keep you nice and safe. Now let’s find you some food, shall we? I love you so much, baby girl.’

  43

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome the wonderful Nikki Rivers.’

  A round of applause came from the small crowd gathered in the lobby of Velvet Toronto as presenter Tash Dallin held out her hands to Nikki and air-kissed either side of her face. Nikki smiled graciously, for the benefit of the cameras banked in front of the two women, and sat herself down in position before a towering poster of Blair Lonergan. She smoothed down her Vivienne Westwood tiger-stripe shirt and black trousers and made sure that she looked every inch the heiress. This was work after all.

  Not that she had originally planned to be doing anything more strenuous this morning than perhaps another bout of bedroom gymnastics with the divine Blair Lonergan.

  But Julian Bailey had changed all that. He had been the last person she wanted to see after their recent encounter at The Cliff in Barb
ados but when there had been a knock at her suite door first thing that morning, she had opened it to find him standing there. He was lucky to find her there, considering she had only popped back to fetch her toothbrush before heading back into Blair’s arms.

  ‘Morning, Nikki. I trust you slept well and that you’re beautifully rested.’ Julian’s voice was heavily spiced with irony, as he knew full well she had spent the night in Blair’s suite. He had been eagerly waiting for her to return to her own room since the crack of dawn, having paid one of the hotel staff to literally patrol the corridor and inform him the moment that Nikki headed back to her suite. He needed to catch her on her own and he had no intention of having any kind of run-in with Blair. Not yet anyway.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  ‘I could say the same. I thought you had a meeting arranged with Daddy Dearest back in Barbados.’

  Nikki wanted to remain silent but couldn’t. ‘You prick. You’ve told him then…’ She left the sentence hanging with implication.

  ‘As I said I would. Your father trusts me to tell him the truth, which is more than I can say for his opinion of you right now.’

  ‘Well, he’ll have to wait. I needed to come here.’ Her excuse sounded flimsy at best. ‘And why the hell are you here? If you’ve come for my panties, you can fuck right off!’

  ‘Sweet!’ deadpanned Julian. ‘But I’ll pass, thanks. I’m here on business. Working on the finances for the new proposed annex. Not that your father’s financial dealings should interest you in the slightest, of course. What with you being so solvent yourself.’ Again the irony and nastiness was trowelled on inches thick.

  ‘And that involves me how?’ asked Nikki.