‘Was that okay for you? That’s your favourite position, isn’t it?’ she said, stroking the few fine greying hairs on his chest.
‘Oh, boy, yes,’ he replied with breathy pleasure. ‘And you’re so good at it.’
‘Have . . . have all your exes done that for you?’
‘Erm,’ he said, thinking. ‘Yes, at one time or another. Some enjoyed it more than others.’
‘Like who?’
‘What do you want to know for?’
‘It’s interesting,’ she replied, still stroking, still trying to sound light.
‘Well, if you must know, Rachel didn’t like it – said it made her feel fat. Chloe liked it, but then she had a great figure.’
Too much info, thought Lara. On top was bound to be okay if you had no wobbly bits and also the cocky confidence of the very pretty Chloe, who stripped off to her bra and very tiny pants to model for catalogues.
‘Not that you haven’t got a nice figure,’ added James quickly. ‘Chloe was actually a bit too skinny for my liking. And I don’t like fake breasts. Plus, she was the most boring woman I’ve ever met. She had a brain the size of an undergrown pea.’
That cheered Lara a little. Even if she wasn’t exactly thrilled about such a grey word as ‘nice’ to describe her attributes.
‘What about . . . Tianne?’ pressed Lara. The name was like a sour sweet in her mouth and came out almost in a spit.
‘Oh, well, her, she . . . she loved it. Then again, the sex we had was always on the spicy side.’
Spicy? What did that mean? Did he rub cayenne pepper over his willy? Did she shove a chilli up his arse at the crucial moment? She felt a green-eyed monster rear inside her at a sudden vision of Tianne and her long, flowing dark hair bouncing wantonly on top of James, both of them screaming in joint ecstasy. She swallowed hard.
‘Do you ever see her?’
‘Who?’
‘Tianne?’
‘No,’ said James. ‘Can’t remember the last time I saw her. Why all the questions?’ He pulled himself away from Lara and propped himself up on the pillow. ‘What’s the matter, darling?’
It would be very bad form to quote his daughter, thought Lara. But then again – bugger it.
‘It was just something Keely said.’ She tried to make it sound as if she hadn’t been chewing it over in her mind for hours. ‘That you found Tianne irresistible.’
She felt James tighten for a second, then his muscles suddenly relaxed and he laughed.
‘She’s winding you up,’ he said. ‘Tianne was a little tart. I was the older man with a wallet. That was my attraction to her. She even—’ He snapped his mouth shut.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Go on.’
‘No, it’s nothing – really.’
But Lara knew that was a big fat lie. He had been about to tell her something intimate, and she had to know what it was now. ‘You have to tell me. What? What did she do?’
James groaned with equal measures of resignation and impatience. ‘Okay, okay, she used to pretend to be a prostitute in bed. She wanted me to tuck money into her knickers before we had sex. She was a mercenary little cow. I had to fight with her to get the notes back. Satisfied?’ His head fell back forcibly onto the pillow.
Did that turn you on? Did you love her doing it? Do you want me to do that? Do I need to spice myself up? Rub my nipples with Tabasco sauce? Lara’s brain filled up with ludicrous questions. They were queuing at her mouth to jump out.
‘Did you like her doing that?’ Please say no.
‘I can’t remember,’ James replied, the impatience rising in his voice now. ‘I suppose at the time, in the moment, it was . . . exciting.’
Lara felt him shrug. He was obviously lying and did remember. How could you forget that? She wished she could rip what she had just heard out of her head because now, in the dark, she saw an XXX-certificate sex scene that even Ron Jeremy would blush at. Not only was there the right amount of sweat and groaning, a couple lost in the throes of erotic sex resulting in a mutual orgasm of tsunamic proportions, but now there was the added element of a pair of knickers stuffed with twenty-pound notes.
‘Did you ever sleep with her again after you’d finished?’
‘Oh God.’ She heard James slap his head but she carried on relentlessly. She had to know.
‘Behind Rachel’s or Chloe’s back?’
There was a telling pause before he answered, ‘No, of course not.’ And he must have known that she noticed because he amended that to: ‘I slept with her once. Behind Rachel’s back, okay?’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. We bumped into each other in a pub one night after work and, well, things weren’t going that well with Rachel. They were bloody awful, actually. I ended up going back to hers for a chat and a coffee . . .’
He tailed off but he didn’t need to say any more, Lara could guess the rest. She was like a drug. Heroin. Once he’d had her, he was hooked.
‘Oh,’ she said again.
‘The evil cow went straight round to Rachel’s to tell her what I’d done. That’s what sort of person she was. I hope I never see her again,’ James went on, with such venom that Lara’s shoulders were instantly unburdened of half their tension and she felt the air escape from her lungs. Tianne Lee might have been a drug, but it appeared that James had managed to wean himself off her after realizing what destruction she left in her wake.
‘Did—’ she began to ask, but James patted her arm.
‘No more. Go to sleep, darling,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to talk about her. Suffice to say that I wouldn’t touch anyone like her ever again, not even with a ten-foot barge pole.’
Lara bit down on the stream of questions lined up waiting to be asked, but she knew they wouldn’t go away. They’d infiltrate her dreams and torture her through the night – if she ever managed to get to sleep.
James had no such problem. Within minutes he was snoring gently. He had the ability to drop off immediately after an orgasm. His tensions were relieved; Lara only wished hers were.
She nestled close to James’s trim body and tried to force herself into sleep whilst wrestling dark-haired demons with money falling out of their pants. She wondered why women felt the need to know details about a man’s other lovers when all it did was torture them.
Chapter 8
Clare braced herself before ringing the number. It was ridiculous how nervous she became when phoning her own father. She was thirty-three, not three, for God’s sake.
It rang four times before a woman’s firm voice recited her number down the phone and asked who was speaking please.
‘It’s me, Mum. How are you?’
‘Alice. How lovely to hear from you, darling. How’s Martin?’
‘No, Mum, it’s me – Clare.’
‘Oh, Clare, how are you?’ Was it Clare’s imagination or had the temperature dropped a degree in her mother’s voice?
‘Fine, Mum. Are you okay?’ Damn. Her parents hated the word ‘okay’. How could she forget? ‘Good, I mean. Both of you?’
‘Daddy’s in the garden. I presume you’re ringing to say “Happy Birthday” to him. Your card hasn’t arrived.’ Dorothy Salter’s voice had the merest nip of annoyance in it.
‘Oh, no.’ Clare’s heart sank. She had posted it days ago. ‘Has the postman been today?’
‘Not yet,’ said her mother. ‘Alice and Martin’s card arrived on Tuesday. Toby and Polly’s card arrived last weekend.’
Great. She bet her clever-clogs IT genius sister Alice had had the card biked over at enormous expense. And perfect bloody Polly would have posted Toby’s card for him. Her brother was useless but her sister-in-law was an obsessive diary keeper. Mind you, she didn’t have much else to do except clean their eight-bedroomed mini manor in Harrogate and do a Zumba class when she got super bored waiting for her QC husband to come home in his swanky suit from an exhausting day counting his fees. Well, today was the day whe
n Clare would make her parents’ eyebrows rise to the ceiling and beyond. She had wanted to tell them as soon as she found out, but had sat on this secret until now – an extra birthday present for Daddy.
‘I do hope the card comes today,’ said Clare. ‘I posted it ages ago so he would get it in time. Can I speak to Dad?’
‘Of course.’ She heard Dorothy turn away from the phone to call her husband. ‘Lionel.’ A rap on the window. ‘It’s Ali— Clare for you.’
Clare bit down on her lip to offset the twinge of pain she felt at hearing her mother almost get her name wrong. In a moment she was going to deliver the line that might have her mother calling Alice by Clare’s name for once, the next time they spoke. It was her Shirley Valentine moment, the moment after golden-knickers Marjorie Majors gets the answer wrong and Shirley, who knows what man’s greatest invention was, is waiting to say the words that will revolutionize the way she is thought of: ‘The wheel, miss.’
‘Hello, Clare,’ came the brisk voice of her father, taking the phone from his wife’s hand.
‘Happy Birthday, Dad. I can’t believe my card hasn’t arrived.’
‘Yes, well, we haven’t had today’s post . . . Ah, apparently we just have . . . I think your card is here. Is it in a blue envelope?’
‘Yes,’ said Clare, with relief, because tucked inside the card was a voucher for them to go to Rockley Hall, a beautiful restaurant not far from where they lived and which they frequented at least once a month.
‘How’s work?’ asked Lionel Salter. He always asked that early in a conversation.
This is it, Clare, your Shirley Valentine moment.
‘Well . . .’ Oh God, it was just too delicious to keep in her mouth any longer. She wanted to lead up to it slowly but her gob had other ideas. ‘I’ve been made a partner.’ In her head she raised two fingers to her supremely snobby cow of a sister and arrogant arse of a brother. Sit on that and swivel, Alice Salter-Frampton, and you as well, Toby.
‘A partner?’ said her father, gruffly. As if she had just told him a joke that wasn’t very funny.
‘Yes, Dad, I’ve been made a partner.’ Oh, those words felt like the best flavour in her mouth. Better even than her speciality peanut-butter cheesecake on an Oreo base.
There was a momentary silence then Lionel Salter relayed the information to his wife in a voice that didn’t quite believe the words it was saying. ‘Dorothy, Clare has been made a partner.’
There was some twittering in the background, probably her mother fainting and her dad banging his hearing aid against the wall in fear that it was broken.
‘Dad, Dad, are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m still here.’ Her dad actually sounded as if he were smiling now. ‘That’s very well done, Clare. Very well done. We’re delighted. I suppose your chap must be thrilled too?’
Clare raised her eyebrows in surprise. Her father rarely referred to Ludwig. Ironic, then, that he did so now when Lud would be going to Dubai in two days to possibly start the ball rolling on a new life without her.
‘Yes, he’s thrilled.’ It wasn’t a lie. Ludwig was thrilled for her. The chance of a lifetime that she couldn’t possibly pass up.
Ludwig ticked all the boxes on her parents’ list of essential qualities for prospective partners: successful, grand job title, drove a top-of-the-range Audi. It was just a shame he ‘wasn’t British’, as her dad put it. Clare opened her mouth to tell her dad that they weren’t together any more and then shut it again. Today was not the day for any news that would take away the shine.
‘Wonderful news.’ She could hear the elation in her father’s voice and it made her spirits soar so high they needed oxygen to breathe. ‘We’ll tell Toby and Alice straightaway.’
As Clare put the phone down after the conversation her eyes flooded with happy tears. Despite the fact that a hard weekend of working in the office loomed, she was ecstatic. She couldn’t remember the last time she had heard her father say he was going to brag about her to her siblings, instead of the other way round. Then she realized she couldn’t remember, because he never had before.
Chapter 9
Lara had a rotten weekend. James was in the office all day Saturday and ‘popped in’ on Sunday too, for an hour that turned out to be four. At least Keely was out shopping with her one and only friend Paris for most of Saturday and stayed over at hers that night. Garth was on his Xbox playing some game that involved a lot of shooting and shouting to his friends down his headphone mike. Lara felt more lonely rattling around in the house than she ever had when she was living alone in her cosy Islington flat.
She also had too much time to think. What Keely said about Tianne played over and over again in her head. She knew she was being stupid and immature. Tianne was an ex for a reason and James was with Lara now. He couldn’t change the past any more than she could change the mistakes she had made with men. And, boy, had she picked some beauties. James had been honest with her and admitted to sleeping with Tianne behind Rachel’s back. What more did she want? Mrs de Winter was dead and gone, long live Mrs De Winter. Then came the counter argument: he’d kept it quiet about doing the dirty behind Rachel’s back until last night. She remembered him telling her in the past that he had never been unfaithful to anyone. However badly his relationship was going with Rachel, bonking Tianne behind her back was cheating – full stop.
James was too tired for sex on Saturday night, and it was never even mentioned on Sunday. He kissed her, wished her goodnight and then turned over. He was snoring within minutes. They’d had sex every time he visited her old flat; he’d been mad for her, even when he’d come over from working very late. He was going off her. That was the obvious conclusion.
Eventually Lara dropped off and the dream world continued to torture her. Tianne appeared as a tiny-waisted naked being with gravity-defying tits and an arse like two perfectly shaped apples. Sitting astride James, Tianne turned around to her without breaking her rhythm, her long curly hair bouncing. Lara didn’t sleep very well and awoke feeling drained and on edge. She got up and made a jug of coffee with the old-fashioned percolator she had brought with her. She loved its bad-tempered hissing and spitting and the homely aromas it produced that filled the kitchen. Even though it was a dark Monday morning, she perked up at the prospect of sharing breakfast alone with James. She longed for more of these wonderful early mornings with James and Colombian Roast and the comfortable quiet.
Miriam had rung the previous night to say that she was picking up the children on Tuesday afternoon and taking them over to France for a week. Miriam didn’t ask, she dictated. It was no wonder the children had been brought up to think the world revolved around their family. But wonderful timing it wasn’t, as Lara would have had a whole week alone with James if she wasn’t going on holiday with her friends. She watched him sipping from his World’s Greatest Dad mug and looking through his emails on his iPhone and her heart leapt in her chest as if it were trying to break out of her body and pounce on him. She wished this holiday were at any other time, because right now she needed to stay here with him and recover what they had when they first met.
James had a really powerful aura surrounding him, as men in high positions usually did, even the ones who had major belly paunches and jowls. But James was blessed by being sickeningly handsome with it. In fact, it was as if he had been created according to her own personal checklist: angel-fair hair, baby-blue eyes, soft kissable lips, strong jaw always showing just the right amount of designer stubble. Tall, but not too tall that she looked like a midget at the side of him when they walked anywhere together, because she was only five foot two. And he dressed exquisitely. His shirts were expensive, his suits handmade, his shoes shone. Sometimes she didn’t know what such a successful, handsome man as James Galsworthy saw in her. She wasn’t his usual type. She had sneaked a few looks on Facebook at his exes and they were very much from the same mould with their curtains of dark hair, dark soulful eyes, oval faces and long legs, whereas Lara ke
pt her blonde hair short and she was much curvier than his past girlfriends. She might not have their attributes, but she had some special ones of her own: her eyes were a beautiful shade of hazel, fringed with long thick black lashes; she also had a magnificent chest and James was definitely a boob man. She puffed up after reminding herself that she had at least that advantage over his exes.
‘I’m going to be really late home tonight,’ James announced as he carried on checking his messages. Lara’s heart sank. This was their last evening together before her holiday and she’d planned a romantic dinner. Plus, Keely was having Paris over to stay the night so there would be not one but two teenaged females making evil eyes at her.
‘Oh,’ she said, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. ‘Can’t you get out of it? Keely and Garth go away to France tomorrow and it’s our last—’
‘I only wish I could, darling,’ he interrupted her. ‘It’s going to be a very late, very boring meeting with bankers, who will probably drone on for hours because they love the sound of their own voices. Sorry.’
‘Oh, well, can’t be helped,’ said Lara. Unfortunately men working in lofty positions, men such as James, had to put in long unsociable hours. She thought about staying behind at the office herself but she remembered that she had promised Kristina an extra night off to go to the West End with her new boyfriend and someone needed to be at home with Keely and Garth, however uncomfortable they made her feel.
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