MILLIE'S FLING

by Jill Mansell

  ‘How about you?’

  Hugh's voice wrenched her back to reality.

  ‘Hmm? Me?’

  For a moment there, she’d quite lost track of the conversation.

  ‘Career? Job? Do you have one?’

  Hang on, was he speaking extra-slowly? Being the teeniest bit patronizing… again? The little hairs rose along Millie's spine and she said stiffly, ‘Of course. I’m a travel agent.’

  ‘Really? That's great. Which agency?’

  ‘Um. Fleetwood's, in Baron Street.’

  ‘I know it.’ Hugh looked delighted. ‘I was in there yesterday— you must have been on your lunch break.’

  Bugger.

  Why, thought Millie, do I always have to get caught out?

  ‘Actually, I don’t work there any more.’ She pulled an it's-delicate face. ‘Spot of bother with the Fleetwoods—not my fault, of course, but I chose to leave. It seemed best.’

  All she’d been trying to do was impress Hugh, convince him that actually she wasn’t as dippy and hopeless as he clearly thought she was.

  For a second it crossed Millie's mind that she could tell him she was the heroine of Orla Hart's next novel. That sounded a little bit impressive, didn’t it? A touch more glamorous and Liz Hurleyish and intriguing?

  Then again, it could cause problems. Hugh Emerson, Millie sensed, probably wouldn’t be impressed. In fact, he was likely to find the idea that this very meeting could end up in Orla's next million-seller deeply off-putting. If not downright insulting, both to him and the memory of his wife.

  Best not to mention it, Millie decided with relief. She didn’t want to scare him off.

  Or get sued.

  ‘So what are you doing now?’ said Hugh.

  Oh. Oh dear, throat-clearing time. He definitely wasn’t going to be impressed when he heard about her new job.

  Not that it should matter at all, Millie reminded herself, but somehow it just did, it really did.

  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, like a beauty queen asked to recite the periodic table.

  ‘I’m… well, it's only temporary, just until something else in the travel industry comes up, because of course that's my real thing…’

  ‘So in the meantime,’ Hugh prompted, ‘your unreal thing is…?’

  ‘Um—WHAAA!’

  Millie shot out of her chair as a warm hand caressed the back of her neck, then—like lightning—slid south. Pirouetting round practically in mid-air, she saw Lucas Kemp laughing down at her.

  ‘Lucas!’

  ‘Hi, Millie. A little jumpy this evening, aren’t we?’

  ‘You snuck up on me! Gave me the fright of my life.’

  That wasn’t all he’d given her, Millie realized moments later. She was experiencing a whole new sense of freedom… oh, for heaven's sake, he’d only gone and unfastened her bra.

  ‘Lucas.’ She gave him a look. ‘It's what boys do when they’re fourteen years old.’

  His grin broadened. ‘Ah, but you have to admit I’m good at it.’

  With a sinking heart Millie realized it was introduction time. She was going to have to explain to Hugh Emerson that this grinning, bra-unclipping, leather-trouser-wearing example of the male species was, in fact, her new boss.

  Wasn’t it absolutely typical, though, that while Hester was dolling herself up and racing around town doing her damnedest to bump into him, Millie was managing it even when she didn’t want to.

  Opening her mouth to make the embarrassing introduction— oh, Hugh was going to be so impressed—Millie was beaten to it once again by Lucas.

  ‘By the way, I need you in the office by ten o’clock tomorrow to try on the monkey suit. We’ve had the head dry-cleaned but the zip needs fixing, and if you want any seams taken in we need to get it done before Friday.’

  ‘Friday?’

  ‘Your first booking,’ Lucas announced. ‘One of the surgeons at Newquay General. The theater staff booked it for his fortieth birthday—they loved the gorilla angle because apparently this guy used to work with the VSO in Uganda. Come to think of it, these surgeon-types are pretty nifty with a needle—maybe you could get him to alter your suit.’

  Thanks, Lucas.

  Thanks a lot.

  Chapter 13

  ‘HUGH, THIS IS LUCAS, my new boss,’ Millie said flatly. ‘He runs Kemp's, the kissogram agency. On Friday I’m going to be a gorilla—’

  ‘A roller-skating gorilla,’ Lucas put in. ‘They were mad about the idea of doing it on roller skates.’

  ‘They want me to roller-skate into the theater? Won’t the patient mind his operation being interrupted?’ Millie began to look alarmed. ‘And will I be expected to wear a mask and juggle surgical instruments?’

  ‘You need to practice the juggling a bit more,’ Lucas said kindly. ‘And you wouldn’t be allowed into the theater. They want you to do it in the staff coffee room.’

  ‘Right. And this is Hugh,’ Millie concluded. ‘A friend of mine.’ Ha, highly likely after this little episode. ‘Well, kind of a friend.’

  She’d done her best to pretend her bra wasn’t undone but now both straps were sliding down her arms. Heaving a sigh—honestly, how juvenile a trick had that been?—Millie flicked the straps over each elbow, whisked the scarlet bra out through her left sleeve-hole like a conjuror and dropped it into her bag, lying open on the floor.

  Lucas and Hugh Emerson, who had just finished shaking hands, gave her a brief round of applause.

  God, thought Millie, they’re going to become friends, I just know it.

  ‘Let me get you a drink,’ Lucas offered, eyeing their empty glasses. ‘What are you two having?’

  Millie hesitated. So did Hugh. To her horror she realized that he wanted to leave; he’d bought her a gin and tonic, done his duty, and now he’d had enough. The prospect of spending another thirty minutes in the company of an off-duty roller-skating gorillagram was more than he could stand.

  ‘Thanks, but we can’t.’ Millie jumped to her feet, sending beer coasters frisbeeing in all directions. ‘We have to be somewhere— gosh, actually we’re late already! Okay?’ Tapping her watch at Hugh, she jerked her head in the direction of the door. ‘Come on, we’d better get a move on, the others’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.’

  As soon as they were outside on the pavement, Millie stuck out her hand and shook Hugh's surprised one.

  ‘Thanks for the drink. It was nice to meet you. Right, well, I’ll be off.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Hugh looked puzzled. ‘What about the others— won’t they be wondering where we are?’

  Millie experienced a flicker of disappointment; somehow she’d expected better of him.

  ‘It was just an excuse. To get us out of there.’ As she spoke, Millie realized the joke was on her. Hugh Emerson had been on the ball all along.

  ‘You mean the others aren’t waiting for us?’ His dark eyes glittered with triumph at having caught her out. ‘Damn, that's a real shame. And I was so looking forward to meeting them.’

  ‘Ha ha.’ Dutifully, Millie smiled. ‘Well, early start tomorrow, I’d really better be off. Bye.’

  She was moving away from him now, walking backwards up the hill…

  ‘Millie, stop—’

  ‘Ow!’ Having ignored his plea, Millie promptly cannoned into the lamppost behind her. Clutching her left shoulder and trying to pretend it hardly hurt at all—ow, ouch—she wondered why her life had to so closely resemble Mr. Bean's. What she wouldn’t give to be sleek and chic and in control at all times.

  ‘All right?’ Reaching her, Hugh looked concerned.

  ‘Oh, marvelous. The bone's shattered, of course, but apart from that everything's fine.’ The words came out through gritted teeth as waves of pain whooshed up and down her arm.

  ‘Look,’ said Hugh, ‘have I said something to upset you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So why the sudden rush to get home? Couldn’t we go for something to eat?’

  Millie ga
zed up at him, so surprised she almost forgot about her shoulder.

  ‘I thought you wanted to get away. You looked as if you were desperate to escape. The way you hesitated when Lucas offered us a drink.’

  ‘You hesitated too. I was waiting for you to say something,’ said Hugh. ‘I thought, as he's your boss, you should be the one to decide.’

  They gazed at each other. Millie smiled first.

  ‘How stupid is this? Go on then, you’ve twisted my arm.’

  ‘Your arm? You mean this one here, with the multiple fractures and bits of bone sticking out? I wouldn’t dream of twisting it.’ He raised a teasing eyebrow at her, then indicated the restaurant behind her, its red, green, and white awning lazily flapping in the breeze. ‘Okay, food. This place is supposed to be pretty good, isn’t it? Italian okay for you?’

  Millie had a sudden yearning for fresh air. The last time she’d eaten at Bella Spaghetti she’d been with Neil and half a dozen of his rowdily drunk friends.

  ‘Actually, what I’d really love,’ she told Hugh, ‘is a bag of chips.’

  They took the coastal path away from the center of Newquay, headed east, and bought takeaway chicken and chips before making their way down to Fistral Beach. It was a warm evening, the tide was out, and an apricot sun hung low over the violet-tinted sky. The surfers had given up for the day and the beach was almost deserted. Millie and Hugh ate their chicken and chips, walked for what felt like miles across the wet sand, and talked nonstop.

  In any other circumstances, it would have been romantic.

  ‘So what happened to you, then?’ Hugh picked up a flat pebble and skimmed it across the surface of the water. ‘On the phone, when I told you I didn’t date, you said that was fine, neither did you.’

  ‘Oh, nothing really.’ Millie was embarrassed; it was like breaking a fingernail and being consoled by some bloke with one arm and no legs. ‘I split up with someone a few weeks back and decided I could do without the hassle of men.’ A seagull, squawking as it wheeled overhead, sounded as if it were mocking her. ‘I’ve taken a vow of celibacy,’ Millie explained, picking up a stick and hurling it at the seagull, who dodged it with ease. ‘No sex for the rest of the summer. Actually, it's quite liberating.’

  Hugh said dryly, ‘I’m sure it is, when you have the choice.’

  ‘But everyone has that choice.’

  He looked at Millie.

  ‘You could meet someone tomorrow and fancy them like mad, but it's your decision whether or not you sleep with them.’

  Millie, who was confused, said carefully, ‘Ye-es.’

  Oh God, could he tell? Did he know she fancied him like mad?

  ‘I’m just saying you’re lucky, that's all.’ Hugh shrugged and kicked a tangle of seaweed out of his path. ‘To be able to feel that kind of attraction. And fall in love with them, if that's what you want to do. Because I can’t imagine it ever happening to me again.’ He paused, his dark eyes bleak. ‘And I wouldn’t even want it to.’

  Millie didn’t know how to react to this. Being at a loss for words wasn’t really her, but she was terrified of coming out with something irredeemably frivolous or hurtful or downright stupid.

  Finally she said, ‘It won’t always be like that. It's only been eight months. You’ll meet someone else one day.’

  Cliché cliché cliché.

  ‘Except I’d rather not meet someone else.’ A small crab scuttled sideways out from beneath a rock as Hugh bent down to pick up a fresh supply of flat pebbles. Rapidly, one by one, he spun them into the breaking waves.

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘No buts. I’ve decided. Because I know, I really and truly know, that I never want to go through that horror again. I loved my wife,’ he said simply, ‘and she died. What if I do meet someone else in a couple of years’ time? Who can guarantee she won’t die too? It could happen. At any minute of any day, with no warning at all, it could happen again.’ He shook his head. ‘And I’m just not interested. It's not worth the risk. I’d rather stay single and unattached.’

  Millie was finding this hard to accept.

  ‘But people are widowed and they marry again! Sometimes they’re widowed two or three times but they still don’t give up.’

  ‘Fine, if that's what they want to do,’ Hugh said flatly. ‘But I don’t.’

  A lone couple were making their way along the beach towards them. Millie, brushing her hair out of her eyes, watched them. The man's arm rested protectively across the girl's shoulders, while her own arm was curled around his waist. They were even walking in time, matching each other stride for stride. Laughing at something his girlfriend had said, the man planted a loving kiss on her forehead.

  ‘How does that make you feel?’ said Millie. ‘Seeing those two together like that. Don’t you envy them?’

  Hugh shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  ‘No. I feel sorry for them. Because by tomorrow one of them could be dead.’

  ‘You can’t go through life thinking like that!’

  ‘Can’t I? But you haven’t been through it. You have no idea how it feels.’ Pausing, narrowing his eyes as he gazed out to sea, Hugh said, ‘Let me tell you about something that happens three or four times a week. I’m asleep in bed when the phone rings, waking me up. I reach out, pick up the phone, say hello. And then I hear Louisa's voice, and she's calling my name, and I can’t believe it, because this means it's all been a terrible mistake—Louisa isn’t dead after all, she's alive, and I’m just so happy—’

  Abruptly, Hugh stopped. After a moment he said, ‘And then I really wake up.’

  Millie blinked and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes; how embarrassing, she was the one crying while Hugh was the one who’d lost his wife.

  She shook her head.

  ‘God, I’m sorry.’

  ‘There's nothing I can do to stop it happening,’ said Hugh. ‘Being that happy, then waking up, and crashing back to earth… I can’t begin to describe how it feels.’

  ‘Awful,’ Millie whispered, feeling hopelessly inadequate.

  ‘Certainly no picnic.’ Taking pity on her, Hugh nodded in agreement. His smile, brief and automatic, didn’t reach his eyes. ‘And the thing about recurring dreams is you can’t control them. I just want them to go away.’ He paused, then sent another pebble skittering into the waves. ‘And I don’t think they ever will.’

  ‘Phwoaaar, definitely dishy,’ drooled Hester, who had been lurking behind her bedroom curtain watching Millie get dropped off by Hugh. ‘Great car, too. But you didn’t kiss him! What's the matter with you, girl?’

  Since this was the twenty-first century, Millie found it hard to believe that Hester was still using words like ‘dishy.’ Honestly, next she’d be saying ‘far-out’ and ‘groovy’ and ‘cool dude.’

  ‘It wasn’t a date,’ Millie wearily reminded her. ‘And I definitely wasn’t going to kiss him.’ She shivered at the thought; Hugh Emerson had to be as off-limits as it was possible to get, ‘Remember? His wife just died.’

  Hester rolled her eyes.

  ‘I don’t mean a raunchy kiss—you don’t have to launch yourself at him and stick your tongue down his throat! A quick peck on the cheek, that's all I’m talking about. Something sedate. Surely it's only polite.’

  ‘We didn’t even shake hands. Just said goodbye and that was it.’ Millie pulled a face; to be honest, she hadn’t been quite sure how to go about leaving Hugh Emerson. After getting on so completely brilliantly together, the end bit of the evening had been a bit awkward. She’d wondered if he was already regretting telling her so much about himself.

  ‘So when are you seeing him again?’

  ‘It wasn’t a date, dipstick! We didn’t arrange to meet again. He just drove off.’

  Hester, who was draped across the sofa wearing her Ricky Martin T-shirt-cum-nightie, rolled on to her front and began flicking through the TV channels in search of hunky men.

  Or even… bleeugh… dishy ones.


  In the end, she was forced to settle for Gary Rhodes.

  ‘Sounds like you had a fun evening. You must have been bored out of your mind.’

  ‘It wasn’t boring.’ Instinctively, Millie leapt to Hugh Emerson's defense.

  ‘Get your hair cut,’ Hester shouted at Gary Rhodes on the TV, ‘and stop poncing around making out you’re so great.’ Over her shoulder to Millie she added, ‘Actually, that's a thought.’

  Millie was busy levering the lid off the biscuit tin.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘How do we really know his wife's dead?’

  ‘She is, I know she is,’ Millie sighed.

  ‘Yes, but you’re ultragullible. You always give everyone the benefit of the doubt. ‘You,’ Hester pointed out, ‘think Gary Rhodes can’t help looking like an overgrown back garden because his hair just naturally grows like that.’

  ‘She was killed in a horse-riding accident,’ Millie said defensively.

  Hester waggled her eyebrows in a meaningful manner.

  ‘Really? Or did he murder her?’

  ‘Okay, maybe he murdered her. And this is a mad conversation,’ Millie pointed out, ‘because I shouldn’t think I’ll ever see him again anyway.’

  ‘If he's an ice-cool con man who murdered his wife, he’ll be in touch.’ Hester nodded knowledgeably. ‘He’ll come up with some feeble excuse to see you again. You’re probably already earmarked as target number two.’

  ‘If he's an intelligent, ice-cool con man,’ said Millie, ‘he’ll find himself a target really worth murdering. Someone with a lot more money than me.’

  Chapter 14

  ‘BIT BIG,’ SAID MILLIE the next morning, ‘but quite comfy.’

  Having braced herself for the worst, she was glad it didn’t itch.

  Lucas was busy on the phone. Sasha, who had Olympic-sized breasts and platinum-blonde hair, was measuring how much the gorilla suit needed to be taken in. As well as being Lucas's strippogram, Millie gathered she was also his kind-of-girlfriend. Evidently she did a great Marilyn Monroe.

  ‘Rather you than me,’ Sasha said cheerily when the last pin was in place. ‘Stuck inside that great furry thing… I’d get claustrophobic in no time flat!’