The Unexpected Consequences of Love

by Jill Mansell

  “Cheers.” Josh clinked their mugs together, the side of his hand brushing against hers. Zinggg.

  “Cheers.” She took a sip and said, “It’s nice. You were right.” Had he felt the zing too?

  “I’m always right.” His eyes crinkled with amusement. “So, what happened to make you walk out on your job today?”

  Sophie told him. The outrage bubbled up; recalling Jemini and Jezebel’s reactions made her furious all over again on Elizabeth’s behalf. When she’d finished ranting, she said heatedly, “It just makes me so mad. Elizabeth’s worth fifty of them!”

  “I agree.” Josh was nodding.

  “Life’s so unfair. Why does bad stuff have to happen to people who don’t deserve it?” It would be poor form to suggest that people who did deserve it should be the ones to get cancer, but the thought was there in her brain. She took a bigger glug of wine and said, “Some people swan through life without realizing how lucky they are.”

  “Also true.”

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” He definitely had a particular expression on his face.

  “I like how you get indignant on other people’s behalf.” He smiled. “You’re so…principled.”

  “So principled that I lost out on the best-paid job I’ve had in months.” She grimaced. “Ah, well, never mind. It’s only money.”

  He paused, gazing steadily into her eyes. “There’s something I’d really like to know. What happened to put you off men?”

  Her stomach clenched; they weren’t here to discuss her.

  “You’ve asked me that question before.”

  “I know I have. Still waiting for the answer.”

  “You’ll have a long wait, then. I told you, it’s private.”

  “I’m a good listener. And pretty unshockable.”

  “That’s irrelevant.”

  “Is it?” Josh shook his head fractionally. “You’re a beautiful girl. I like everything about you, apart from the fact that I asked you out and you turned me down. I didn’t like that bit at all.”

  “Poor you. Heartbreaking.” In order to keep her own emotions in check, Sophie resorted to flippancy. “You could always ask Tula out. I’m sure she’d say yes. She likes you.”

  “And you don’t?”

  It was her turn to give him a long look. “You shouldn’t ask questions like that. The answer may offend.”

  “Did he hit you?”

  “Who?”

  “The one who caused all of this.”

  He was watching her intently. Sophie said, “No, never. And that’s as much as you get. I’m not saying any more.”

  “But—”

  “Wait.” She held up her hand to stop him in his tracks. “It’s private, okay? I’m not going to talk about it. Ever. Apart from anything else, it isn’t my story to tell.”

  Josh was still watching her, looking as if there was something else he wanted to say. In return, Sophie silently signaled that it would be a pointless exercise. Okay, time to change the subject, to the reason she’d agreed to come down to the beach with him in the first place…

  ***

  What a situation to find yourself in. Josh glanced at the bottle stuck at an angle in the sand and saw that it was almost empty. They’d been sitting out here for an hour now. And all he’d wanted to do the whole time was pull Sophie into his arms and kiss her senseless.

  Meanwhile, what had she been doing? The answer to that was: her level best to find out as much information as possible about Riley.

  Which was pretty frustrating, to say the least. Every time he’d attempted to steer the conversation to other subjects, Sophie had deftly steered it right back again. She wanted to know whether they had been good friends all those years ago when Riley had first come to live in St. Carys and Josh himself had been returning here during breaks between university terms. Had Riley always been as lazy and hedonistic as he was now? What had he taken his degree in? Did he genuinely have no ambition at all, or did Josh think there could possibly be more to him than met the eye?

  It was a virtual interrogation.

  “Why are you so interested?” He didn’t want to sound like a bad loser, but if she was asking all these questions because she was attracted to Riley Bryant… Well, he wasn’t at all sure he could keep his feelings about it to himself.

  Sophie shrugged easily. “Just curious.”

  “He wouldn’t be your type.”

  She glanced sideways at him, amused by his tone. “You don’t know that. He might be.”

  “I do know. Riley’s just…Riley. He’s good fun, great to spend time with, but what you see is what you get. It doesn’t go further than that.”

  Sophie still wasn’t looking convinced. “You don’t think he might have hidden depths?”

  Josh poured the last of the wine into their mugs. “No,” he said flatly, “I don’t. And relationships aren’t his thing. Nothing ever lasts longer than a week. More often it’s a matter of hours.”

  Her choppy blond hair was being blown across her face. Sophie tipped her head back, shaking the strands out of her eyes. “Maybe that suits some girls.”

  Okay, did she mean her? Was she hinting that she wouldn’t be averse to a night with Riley? Experiencing a tightening inside his chest, Josh said, “When I asked you a while back, you told me you weren’t interested in him.”

  “Did I?” Sophie smiled, checked her watch, and finished her wine. “Wow, it’s later than I thought. I need to get home.”

  Josh rose to his feet, brushed the sand off his jeans, and reached out a hand to haul her upright. For a moment they were facing each other, their bodies almost but not quite touching; he could see his own face reflected in her clear, gray eyes. The urge to draw her closer was stronger than ever. He longed to trace the dimple in her left cheek, to breathe in the scent of her, to push his fingers through that tousled blond hair and feel the warmth of her skin at the base of her throat.

  And more than anything else, he wanted to kiss her, hold her and kiss her…

  Okay, more than almost anything else, but let’s not get carried away. One step at a time.

  “Well, I’d better get back. Lots of work to do.” Breaking contact and shaking dry sand from her own clothes, Sophie handed him her empty mug and said cheerfully, “Here, you take it; it’s yours. Thanks for the chat. It’s been nice.”

  She stepped back, moving away, the empty wine bottle swinging between her fingers as she carried it over to the trash can. Once it had been disposed of, she turned, waved, and called out, “Bye!”

  And now, with the setting sun behind her, she was heading for the steps, making her way home, presumably to assimilate all the newly gathered information she’d inveigled from him about Riley Bryant.

  Josh exhaled, marveling at his own misguided plans. So much for not getting carried away and taking things one step at a time.

  If Riley took advantage of Sophie and then ditched her, he would want to kill him.

  Then again, if Riley took advantage of Sophie and didn’t ditch her… Well, that would just make him want to kill him more.

  Chapter 37

  It was eight thirty the following morning when Sophie returned to Moor Court. She parked the car where she’d left it yesterday, retraced her footsteps around the side of the house, and emerged through the trees in the same place as before.

  Was this how it felt to be a spy? She had the camera, her reason for being here, clutched in her hands. The odds were slim, surely, but some sixth sense had brought her back here this morning…

  And ha, she’d been right. There he was. Sitting in the same chair, wearing the same T-shirt, as engrossed in his task as before. Unbelievable.

  Sophie’s heart raced as she raised the camera and focused the lens again. Riley certainly looked as if he’d been up all night; his sun-streaked surfer’s hair was
sticking out all over his head. There were four opened Coca-Cola cans and three empty coffee cups on the desk to the left of the computer. As she watched, he sat back and yawned, flexing his back and briefly stretching his arms above his head before getting back to work.

  And yes, it was work. Zooming in on the computer screen, Sophie watched the words appear as Riley typed them. Yesterday afternoon he’d been on page 273. This morning he’d reached page 282. She was able to read what he was writing. She could see him pause to consider the next line of dialogue. He clearly wasn’t just copying out someone else’s words; he was choosing them himself.

  She didn’t take any shots of what she was seeing. Apart from anything else, standing in the garden photographing someone inside their own home without their knowledge breached all kinds of privacy laws. Instead, she retreated through the trees, then made her way back to the driveway and up the front steps to the main entrance of the house. She rang the doorbell and waited.

  It took a while, but eventually there was the sound of the door being unlocked. It opened to reveal Riley blinking in surprise at the sight of her.

  “Sophie! Fancy seeing you here.” He yawned, looked at his watch, and said sleepily, “What time is it?”

  “Almost nine o’clock.”

  “What?” He looked horrified. “That’s practically the middle of the night.”

  “Sorry, did I wake you? I thought you’d be in your cottage. Where’s Marguerite?”

  “She had dinner with her publisher last night. Stayed up in London. When she’s away, I sleep here,” Riley explained. “Rather than leave the place empty.”

  “You’re dressed.” Sophie indicated his T-shirt and jeans.

  “Never got undressed.” His smile was crooked. “Fell asleep on the sofa watching the new Bond DVD.” Another yawn. “Bloody good film, actually.”

  God, he was good. So completely natural, such an easy liar. Marveling at his skills, Sophie said, “Can I come in for a minute? Would that be okay?”

  “Sweetheart, of course. Where are my manners? Come through. I’ll put the machine on. We’ll have some coffee.” He ushered her inside, through the hall, and into the kitchen. “But I’m not expecting Marguerite back before noon. Did she book you for another photo shoot?”

  “No, don’t panic. She just asked me to pop over and see if I could get some pictures of a mystery bird she’s seen in the garden.”

  “Oh, the bird… Right, she mentioned it a couple days ago.” Riley was nodding. “She and Lawrence had an argument about what it could be.”

  “That’s the one. I’m guessing she spotted it from her office window,” said Sophie. “So I thought I might get a good view of the nest from there. Okay if I take a quick look?”

  There was a millisecond’s hesitation before Riley shrugged and said, “Of course you can, no problem. Let me just go and clean it up before you—”

  “Hey, no need. It’s only me.” Sophie smiled at him. “I’ve been in there loads of times before.” As she said it, she headed for the office.

  Riley came with her, murmuring, “But she’s not always very tidy when she’s in full flow.”

  He opened the door to the office. The screen saver had kicked in on the computer. Riley tut-tutted and collected the empty Coke cans, lobbing them into the trash beneath the desk. He piled up the coffee cups and said, “See what I mean? You only ever see this room when it’s been tidied up. Sorry, I should have cleared this lot away after she finished work yesterday.”

  “Relax, I’m not a hotel inspector. I haven’t come in here checking for dust.” Amused, Sophie held up her camera and made her way over to the window. “Now, let’s see if I can find it… Ah, there’s the ash tree…and that must be the nest!” Delighted by her own brilliance, she fired off a few shots and said, “Okay, no sign of any birds at the moment, but at least I know where it is now. I can lie in wait outside.” Turning back, she knocked her hip against the edge of Marguerite’s desk and saw—bingo!—the computer screen shimmer into life.

  And there it was again, the work in progress: chapter nineteen of Marguerite’s next novel.

  “You know, she really should save and log out when she finishes work for the day,” said Sophie.

  “Tell me about it.” Riley rolled his eyes in good-natured despair. “I’m always reminding her. She just gets carried away and forgets.”

  “Well, you need to remind her again, before she manages to lose a whole lot of work. Oh, look, I’m sorry I woke you up. Don’t worry about that coffee… I’ll head on outside and wait for the bird to turn up. You still look shattered.” Sophie patted him on the arm. “Why don’t you go back to sleep?”

  ***

  Well, she’d been right about one thing. As soon as Sophie was out of the house, Riley saved the work and emailed it to himself for extra security.

  Then he checked his inbox and saw that an email had just come in from Marguerite:

  Hi darling, just a quick note to let you know that Sophie will be dropping by in the next couple days to try to photograph that bird in the garden. So be aware. See you later—home around 3.

  M x

  Oh well, better late than never. Riley glanced out of the window at Sophie, who was now leaning against the trunk of the tree, aiming her camera up at the nest. Then he closed down the computer and left the office, rubbing his hand over his gritty, overtired eyes as he made his way through to the kitchen. A cup of tea and a slice of toast was what he needed right now, followed by some long overdue sleep.

  It had all started quite suddenly, six years ago. Up until then Marguerite had never faltered. The words had flowed from her; she’d been a magnificent one-woman book-producing machine. In the three years he’d been living down here with her, he’d seen for himself how hard she worked. In almost two decades she’d produced thirty novels, putting in the hours, creating unputdownable reads that would satisfy her millions of fans around the world. Intellectual literary fiction it wasn’t; Marguerite’s aim was to entertain and enthrall, and that was what had always been her forte.

  Until the day the tap had been abruptly switched off. Riley remembered it with crystal clarity. He’d come back from surfing and had cheerily asked Marguerite what her word count had been for the day. It was a routine exchange; she always liked to try to outdo herself.

  But Marguerite, mystified rather than alarmed, had said, “Zero. Well, a few words, but I deleted them. Just couldn’t seem to get into it today.”

  And he’d made a joke about it, distracting her with stories of his own afternoon at the beach. They’d each assumed that tomorrow all would be well again, back to normal, back in the old routine…

  Except it hadn’t happened. Marguerite had sat and gazed at her computer screen for ten hours straight without writing anything.

  The next day she tried pacing around the house with a pen and notebook. That hadn’t worked either.

  By the end of the seventh day, she was in a state of full-blown panic, unable to understand what was going on and petrified of what it meant—of what it could mean. Riley had taken charge, ordering her to stop worrying and packing her off on a luxury cruise around the Med. For two weeks, he told her, she mustn’t even think about writing, and when she came back she’d be raring to go again, guaranteed.

  It hadn’t happened. Marguerite returned as blocked as ever. Fear of not being able to write then morphed into fear of writing, of trying to do it and getting it wrong, of making the sickening discovery that the talent she’d taken for granted for so long had fizzled up and died…

  And coupled with the overwhelming fear had come shame, because losing the ability to write meant losing her sense of pride in herself. Years of supreme self-confidence threatened to be swept away by her own abject failure.

  And the more she panicked, the more entrenched the mental paralysis became.

  Riley was at as much of a loss
as Marguerite. He wanted to be able to help her, but how? She flatly refused to speak to anyone else about it, convinced that admitting the problem would have disastrous consequences; her agents and publishers around the world would lose confidence in her, other writers might pretend to be sympathetic but would be secretly celebrating the downfall of a rival, her friends would gossip endlessly, and word would spread…

  The weeks went by, the writer’s block settled like cement around Marguerite, and her agitation escalated. Finally, out of desperation, Riley sat down and read his way through the half-written manuscript she’d abandoned midsentence. Her heartbreaking refrain was “I just don’t know where it’s going.” All these years she’d written without plotting ahead, simply immersing herself in the story and experiencing the twists and turns along with her characters.

  Riley wrote her a detailed chapter-by-chapter synopsis of the story so far and made up his own mind as to what might happen next. He worked through the night, describing everything that needed to take place in order to keep the characters on track. The next morning he showed Marguerite what he’d written and said, “See if this does the trick.”

  Marguerite was grateful, but it didn’t drag her out of her numbed state. Despite liking the ideas he’d come up with, she was still stuck.

  “All the characters are there. I can see them waiting for me…” She shook her head in despair. “But I just can’t make them speak. I don’t know them anymore… It’s like they hate me and they’re refusing to do or say what I want them to.”

  It hadn’t been the answer he’d hoped for. Riley looked down at the pages and pages of notes he’d so painstakingly compiled. Marguerite might not feel as if she knew her characters anymore, but in his own mind they were completely fresh and full of life, bursting to carry on where she had left off, abandoning them like puppets frustratingly frozen in time.