by Heidi Swain
‘Kate,’ he swallowed, ‘how very lovely to see you again.’
‘Luke,’ I nodded, unable to raise a smile. ‘Hello.’
‘Oh my god,’ Lisa started. She was tugging at my coat sleeve and whispering urgently in my ear the very second he moved on to ask Carole if her ankle was feeling any better. ‘You never said it was him.’
She pinched my arm so hard I almost cried out.
‘Who?’ I hissed under my breath while discreetly trying to shake her off. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘I knew I recognised him,’ said Mark’s voice on my other side. He sounded every bit as excited and out of puff as Lisa. ‘Didn’t I say that day we met him in the grocers, Kate, that I thought I recognised him, but what on earth is he doing here?’
‘So,’ said Luke looking at me again before Mark had a chance to hazard a guess. ‘Here you are then.’
Now that we were there he didn’t seem at all sure what to do with us. I looked around the hall and up the stairs, but there was no one else around to help him out.
‘The invitation did say seven thirty,’ Rob reminded him as the seconds ticked awkwardly by.
He sounded a little tetchy, but that was hardly surprising. He had confirmed earlier in hushed tones that he was indeed missing a romantic evening with Sarah in order to bolster our united front.
‘Of course.’
‘Sorry mate, but I’ve got to ask,’ said John, pointing at the frilly pink number Luke was wearing and that we were all aware of, but had been too polite to mention. ‘What’s with the apron?’
Luke looked down at it in dismay and opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the sound of a loud buzzer.
‘Oh, crikey, that’ll be dinner,’ he said, looking slightly panicked. ‘Come on everyone. Follow me.’
He rushed off into the room on our right with the apron still in place and, having exchanged what can only be described as looks of incredulity, we followed on behind him.
The dining room was another wood-panelled beauty, but there were no polished candelabras or sparkling cutlery. In place of a shining mahogany table there were three mismatched pine ones which had been pushed together end to end and were all slightly different heights. Not one of the motley collection of chairs was a pair and there was a strong whiff of something on the wrong side of cooked coming from what I guessed was the kitchen area. Heather caught my eye and pointed to where the classical music was emanating from what looked like a wind-up radio.
A frustrated roar met our ears and we all huddled a little closer to the thankfully blazing fire to work out what on earth was going on and how best we could plan our immediate escape.
‘Does anyone happen to know the number for the takeaway pizza place down the road?’ Luke asked sheepishly as he reappeared in the doorway, still wearing the apron which was now singed around the edges and holding a large pan with something very burned welded to the bottom of it. ‘I’m afraid it’s looking like that dinner I invited you to is off.’
Chapter 16
Thanks to Lisa’s ability to feed the five thousand on a tight budget with few ingredients, combined with Mark’s professional skills at keeping calm in a kitchen crisis, everything was soon back under control and we all formed an orderly line, helped ourselves to ladles of fragrant vegetable curry and chunks of the fresh bread Mark fortunately had at home, before taking our places around the rather unconventional dining tables.
The rest of the development crew were still conspicuous by their absence, but the whole evening already felt so surreal that no one thought to ask if and when they would be joining us, or noticed that there were no extra places set at the tables. So much for Carole’s carefully planned-out strategy and list of questions.
‘I’m sorry about the lack of cocktails,’ Luke apologised, before taking his seat, ‘and the lack of ambience, heat and illumination. It wasn’t my intention for us to eat solely by candlelight, but the electricity still hasn’t been reconnected, in spite of the promises from the power company, and the furniture which was due for delivery this morning hasn’t turned up yet either.’
We all looked at him and smiled sympathetically.
‘This was the best I could muster at such short notice I’m afraid. The acrid smell of burnt risotto is all my own doing of course. I hadn’t realised just how tricky it would be to cater for so many guests on a two-ring gas camping stove.’
He stopped to take a breath and Neil jumped in to console him.
‘It’s all fine, honestly,’ he said kindly, looking straight down the table to beam at our host and in the process making his husband huff. Evidently it was acceptable for Mark to gush over Luke’s handsome good looks, but not for Neil to try and make him feel better about his disastrous culinary efforts. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘I should have cancelled,’ Luke continued. He was sounding more disconsolate by the second. ‘But at such short notice it just didn’t feel like the right thing to do.’
I looked first at Luke and then around the table. This was not what any of us had been expecting, but given the way Lisa was batting her lengthy lash extensions at our fine host, I knew the evening had already surpassed her hopes even if not in quite the way she had imagined. She was clearly taken with Luke, and Heather, fanning her flushed face, was also looking a little smitten.
‘Perhaps you should have opted to wine and dine us elsewhere?’ Rob suggested.
‘On Valentine’s Day?’ Luke laughed. ‘I don’t think so and anyway, it had to be here.’
‘Did it?’ Mark muttered, clearly nettled as he dunked his bread in his curry.
‘Yes,’ said Luke. ‘It did. Now please, I promised you all dinner, so let’s just finish eating and then I’ll explain everything.’
I don’t think any of us had ever eaten so fast in our lives and no sooner had the last mouthful been swallowed than Luke was back on his feet.
When he excused himself to check on a fire in one of the other rooms, Lisa began automatically piling everyone’s plates together as if she was at home rather than a guest at a dinner party. If that indeed was what the evening could still be categorised as.
‘Well, this is a turn-up for the books,’ she began. ‘Carole gets carried home by one of the world’s top male models, Kate has him warming his toes at her fireside and the pair of them don’t even have the sense between them to recognise him!’
I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.
‘Perhaps they don’t spend as long perusing the aftershave ads as you do, my love,’ said John, giving his wife a squeeze and making her giggle.
Clearly, he was happy to allow his wife a mild flirtation, but with whom exactly?
‘Hang on a minute.’ I frowned. ‘Lisa, what on earth are you talking about?’
‘And what about you?’ demanded Mark of Neil. ‘I can’t remember the last time you smiled at me like that. Am I going to have to jump to my own conclusions about how you feel about him?’
‘No one’s going to have to jump to any conclusions about anything,’ said Luke, walking back in, only now without the apron. ‘Let’s leave this mess and go and sit in the staff quarters. It’s warmer in there.’
‘Warm enough to perhaps take off our coats?’ Carole asked.
‘Hopefully,’ Luke smiled.
It was a squeeze for us all to fit into the little sitting room at the back of the house, but it was definitely warmer and with mugs of steaming coffee and packets of biscuits tipped out on to plates in lieu of dessert, we were all ready to thaw out and listen to whatever it was that Luke had gone to so much trouble to gather us all together to say.
‘I have a feeling,’ Lisa said to him before he had a chance to finish his first chocolate digestive, ‘that I might know who you are.’
‘Not that it matters,’ he sighed, ‘but if you’re thinking I’m the chap who was trying to sell you the champagne lifestyle last Christmas courtesy of a spritz from the right bottle of aftershave then yes, I am who you
think I am.’
He didn’t look particularly pleased about the admission, but Lisa was agog.
‘See,’ she said to me, her eyes sparkling. ‘I told you he was a model. His photos from the Man! Christmas campaign last year were to die for. If you’re into that toned torso sort of look of course,’ she hastily added with a nonchalant shrug to save what little was left of her dignity.
Luke looked from her to me and I added a shrug of my own. I didn’t know if he expected me to be impressed, but I wasn’t. If anything, I felt let down. A man I had thought was nice had made money out of his looks and was now ruthlessly developing his property portfolio. As far as I was concerned, he was turning into the ultimate cliché before my very eyes.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m not much interested in aftershave ads so I’m still none the wiser.’
Lisa rolled her eyes in annoyance and I wondered whether Luke, if he was as famous as she and Mark suggested, was frustrated to discover that his face was as unfamiliar to me as the next man’s in the street, even if it was rather more impressively chiselled.
‘Well, that’s good,’ he shocked me by saying.
His reaction was the polar opposite of the one I had anticipated. I had assumed that models were shallow, self-centred creatures that lived frivolous, pointless lives, or perhaps that was just my own limited experience of them.
‘I’m pleased you don’t know,’ he continued, ‘because my days of posing in front of a camera in my undies are well and truly behind me now.’
‘But you managed to stick it out long enough to make lots of money and enjoy the benefits of living the so-called champagne lifestyle?’
The words were out before I could check them, but that didn’t stop Lisa giving me her best death-glare. I knew it was nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help feeling upset that he had used his looks, rather than his brains, to boost his bank balance. Suddenly he had completely lost his appeal.
‘Yes,’ he said, biting his lip and frowning. ‘I suppose I did for a while.’
‘Well,’ cut in Carole, steering the conversation back to where it was supposed to be, ‘as fascinating as this all is, none of it explains what you’re doing here, Luke, or for that matter, how you know so much about us. Those pretty invitations we received were all personally addressed. I’m guessing they were from you?’
There was a general murmur of agreement among the group.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they were from me. So, why do you think I’m here?’
He was still addressing me. Still staring and in the process making me feel scrutinised and more awkward than when he’d caught me trespassing. Perhaps given my scathing comment and assumptions about his former career I deserved to feel like that.
‘Kate?’
‘All right,’ I said bluntly, ready to dish out the truth, even if he wasn’t going to like it. ‘I think you’ve made a fortune from flashing your perfect pecs and now you’ve come here to make yourself some more money. You’re following the trend and establishing your property portfolio, along with the rest of the developers who were listed on that board, and in the process the lot of you are going to rip the heart out of Prosperous Place.’
I had no idea where the ferocity had sprung from. I would never normally express myself so aggressively, even if I had felt singled out, and the look of hurt which flashed across Luke’s face produced a stab of guilt which twisted itself into a knot in my gut. I took a deep breath to steady my heart rate and looked everywhere but back at him and the sea of shocked faces swimming before me.
‘Is that what you all think?’ he asked quietly, looking now around the group.
‘I think it’s a logical enough assumption to make when we don’t know any different,’ spoke up Glen. ‘I mean, you are one of the developers, aren’t you?’
Luke dropped his gaze to the floor and shook his head.
‘I thought we were supposed to be keeping the evening on an even keel,’ Carole reminded me in a low whisper as she tried to pass me a bourbon biscuit I didn’t want. ‘You haven’t forgotten about our plans to grow on the green, have you?’
My out of character loss of temper had ensured that I had completely forgotten about it. I had been so looking forward to finally getting to see inside Prosperous Place, the pinnacle of Charles Wentworth’s philanthropic empire, but now I was so disappointed about Luke and the sad state of the house and the inevitability of what was going to happen to it next, that our carefully choreographed plan had fallen by the wayside. The whole evening just felt like another nail in the fairy-tale coffin to me.
‘Luke knows a little about you all because he knows me,’ said Neil.
I watched Mark’s mouth fall open as Neil crossed the room to stand next to Luke and another piece of the jigsaw puzzle slowly slid into place. Neil worked for the firm of architects who had been responsible for the dreadful set of futuristic plans and Luke had the keys to the castle. It didn’t take a genius to add the two sides of the equation together.
They must have been in cahoots all along. I had obviously been wrong about Neil. He had just been spinning me a line at the New Year’s Eve party. He had told me that he hated the project and that it was poised to fail, but that wasn’t right at all. He just wanted me to think that seeing Prosperous Place demolished would be worse than seeing it modernised.
‘I gave Luke your names,’ said Neil. ‘He wanted to personally invite you here this evening because he was keen to get off on the right foot.’
‘I’ll bet he was,’ said Mark.
He sounded bolshie and bitter and I was pleased there hadn’t been any sign of the cocktails that the invitations had promised. Tipsy guests would have made for an uglier scene than the one I imagined was going to play out now.
‘For goodness sake, Mark,’ said Neil crossly. ‘Stop being such a diva—’
‘No,’ said Mark, putting up his hand. ‘I’m sorry, but this has gone on long enough. Everyone deserves to know the truth.’
‘I can’t argue with that,’ said Luke, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets.
‘My husband here,’ said Mark, ignoring Luke, ‘is a part of the team who has drawn up the plans to destroy this place. I’ve been sworn to secrecy about this, but I think you all have a right to know. He works for the firm which has formed an alliance with the developers.’
There was a collective intake of breath and Neil put his head in his hands.
‘Well I never,’ said John.
‘A traitor in our midst,’ tutted Graham.
This was going even worse than I had imagined and judging by the look of disbelief on Luke’s face, this wasn’t what he had envisaged when he had delivered his fancy cards. He had doubtless intended an elegant evening culminating with us all loving the plans, thanks to the soothing gin slings he would pour down our throats.
‘Is that true?’ asked Heather. ‘Did you really have a hand in the plans, Neil?’
‘Yes,’ he shrugged. ‘I did.’
Luke began to laugh and everyone’s attention swung back to him. Confusion was being edged out by annoyance and the fact that he found the situation amusing was endearing him to no one. If this was supposed to be an elaborate evening to smooth the way for when the diggers descended then it had turned into an unmitigated disaster.
Perhaps Luke should stick to what he knew best – posing on a deserted beach in his pants – because life as a property developer was not going well for him so far. But then, perhaps he was far cleverer than any of us gave him credit for. Perhaps showing the house in the worst possible light was how he was hoping to convince us that in its current state, it really was a lost cause.
‘Is that all you’re going to say?’ he asked, elbowing Neil who was still glued to his side. ‘Aren’t you going to tell them the rest?’
‘You’re the host,’ said Neil. ‘I think I’ll leave the party tricks up to you.’
‘Oh, I’ve had enough of this,’ said Harold, struggling to his feet. ‘Will you get my scoo
ter and take me home please, Kate? I’m too old for all this silly game-playing.’
‘Certainly,’ I said, offering him my arm.
‘No, please,’ said Luke, fixing me with those heavily lashed eyes again. ‘Just wait. Let me explain. This evening has obviously been a complete catastrophe, but let me at least try and salvage it by putting you all properly in the picture.’
‘Are you and your associates going to instruct the council to let us turn the green into a growing space or not?’ Carole piped up.
Clearly, she was as keen to leave as the rest of us and no longer willing to play along to get the result we had all gone there to secure.
‘No,’ said Luke, ‘I’m afraid not and who exactly are my associates, Carole?’
‘The rest of the development crew,’ said Lisa, stepping up. ‘I take it they wheel you out as the front man when the girls and the gays need something pretty to look at, do they?’
Luke burst out laughing again, but no one else joined in.
‘I only helped you in the kitchen,’ Lisa pressed on, turning redder by the second, ‘because I thought you’d be able to get us the green.’
I thought she was going to cry and it dawned on me that I wasn’t the only one to have had my fairy tale crushed in the last couple of hours.
‘Me too!’ piped up Mark.
‘And there was me thinking you were being helpful and kind,’ Luke sighed.
‘Yeah, right,’ sneered Mark. ‘Come on Neil, we’re leaving.’
‘No,’ bellowed Neil, shutting us all up, ‘we’re not going anywhere. What a bloody cock-up. Just sit down the lot of you and listen.’
I sat Harold back in the chair he had struggled to pull himself out of, and since we were clearly not leaving anytime soon, I took off my coat and sat back down in front of the fire.
‘Kate,’ Luke swallowed.
‘What?’
He didn’t say anything else and I looked up at him.
