by Jill Mansell
Tessa relished the ensuing silence. She had never in her entire life seen Holly so completely stuck for words.
“You met, you…what!” shrieked Holly, visibly paling beneath her heavy makeup. “Come on, stop kidding around. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Would I lie to you?” asked Tessa with an innocent shrug. Examining her reflection in one of the gilded mirrors lining the walls, she licked her index finger and smoothed her eyebrows. “Let me just say,” she added casually, “that your boss has a definite talent for persuasion.”
Holly was aware of the expression “gob-smacked.” Now, for the first time in her life, she understood exactly what it meant.
“Jesus Christ,” she exploded. “You really did go to bed with him. Tessa, you can tell me. Are you drunk?”
“Me?” With wounded eyes, Tessa gazed at her friend’s reflection in the mirror. “Of course I’m not drunk.”
“But you’re pregnant! You know you’re pregnant, and Ross knows you’re pregnant. I knew he was a bastard, but I can’t believe that even Ross would do something so unbelievably shitty.”
Seizing Holly’s wrist and enjoying herself more than she had in years, Tessa peered at the slim gold watch and shook her head. “Your thirty seconds are up, Holl. And because I wouldn’t want you to think bad things about your boss, I’ll let you in on a secret. It wasn’t shitty; it was great.”
Frustrated beyond belief, Holly did what Ross had so longed to do earlier. Grabbing Tessa’s shoulders, she shook her. Hard.
“Stop it!” she shrieked. “What are you doing? Tell me what’s going on before I go out of my mind!”
Tessa grinned. She couldn’t help it. And Holly was right; if she didn’t let her in on the secret, her friend was in danger of going seriously nuts.
“Relax. If it makes you any happier, Ross was only going where no man other than him had gone before. For the last year, anyway.”
The shock was too much for Holly. Plonking herself down on a rose-pink velvet upholstered chair, she breathed, “You mean…?”
“He’s the father,” supplied Tessa with an audible sigh of relief. After all, if you couldn’t tell your best friend, who could you tell? “But it really isn’t common knowledge, so hold the phone calls if you can.”
“Ross? You and Ross? Oh, Tessa, what have I done?”
Much as she had patted Ross’s arm earlier, Tessa now did the same to Holly. “I know, I know. It’s all your fault. It’s practically your baby. But don’t worry, I promise I won’t sue you for child support.”
• • •
When she returned to the restaurant she found Max sitting at the table. Ross had disappeared.
“He had to go and sort out some problem about double-booking,” said Max, lighting a cigarette and casting Tessa a look that wasn’t exactly favorable. “Our receptionist has disappeared. My name is Max, by the way.”
“I know.” Tessa sat down. “And I’m Tessa Duvall.”
“So I’ve heard.” Watching her as she relaxed in her chair, seemingly unconcerned by his taciturn expression, he knew that he had been right. During a highly uncharacteristic brother-to-brother discussion earlier that evening, he had listened with mounting disbelief to Ross’s story. Finally, he had told his brother that he was off his head. Ross wasn’t in love; he had fallen prey to a smart, manipulative girl who recognized a five-star meal ticket when she saw one. And this girl was playing a particularly clever game. Ross might have been crazy enough to offer to marry her, but if she’d accepted him right away he would have begun to doubt her soon enough to bring him to his senses. As it was, Tessa was playing it cool, appearing to reject him in order to pique his interest and only make him that much more determined to succeed.
This was what Ross refused to accept, but in this case Max was in the advantageous position of not being besotted by an innocent smile, a mane of tumbling golden hair, a pair of beguiling emerald-green eyes, and presumably a startling talent for seduction.
Tessa, in turn, studying the volatile man sitting across the table from her, decided that although only two years separated Ross and Max, no one would even think to question it if they were told it was a decade. Max’s hair, black and straight, was streaked with silver; the dark Monahan eyes—so very like his brother’s in shape and color—were fanned with more than their share of creases and lines, and at this moment entirely lacking in humor; and the wide, nicely defined mouth was turned down at the corners.
Altogether, she decided, he bore more than a passing resemblance to a large and dangerously incensed tiger. For some reason—and she suspected she knew what that might be—Max Monahan, tonight, was not in a party mood.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, regarding him over the rim of her water glass. “Or can I guess?”
The famous dark-brown eyes narrowed. “I’m sure you can.”
“Don’t worry, I’m really not going to marry him.”
“Bloody right,” said Max icily. “Particularly if I have anything to do with it. But just for the record, let me tell you that I understand exactly what you’re up to. Ross might be infatuated with you, carried away by the whole romantic idea of a whirlwind marriage and fatherhood, but I’m not. And I’m going to make damn sure that he realizes what you are before he makes a complete fool of himself.”
It was ironic, thought Tessa, that she and Max should be on the same side but that he refused to accept it. It could even almost be amusing, but amusing or not she still had her pride. And to be accused like this of deliberately laying a trap for Ross in order to inveigle him into marriage wasn’t nice.
“And what exactly am I?” she countered, challenging him. If Holly ever got her bizarre wish and married this cold, cynical inquisitor, she was damned if she’d be a bridesmaid.
“A gold digger,” he declared flatly.
“OK,” said Tessa, placing her elbows on the table and preparing for battle. “It doesn’t really matter to me what you think, since this hypothetical marriage isn’t going to take place anyway, and that means we’re never going to become in-laws. But it does piss me off to think that you automatically assume the very worst about me when you don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.” Max shot her a dismissive glance and stubbed out his cigarette.
“Then you should know that I never had the slightest intention of contacting your brother. It was only by the merest coincidence that he found out who I was.”
“Oh, of course!” he exclaimed, feigning wonder. “The very merest coincidence! Your oldest friend just happened to tell Ross all about you. Come on, Miss Duvall. Neither of us were born yesterday. And if you want my honest opinion, I doubt very much indeed whether this baby, if it exists, was ever anything to do with my brother in the first place.”
This was too much. Trembling with rage, Tessa sprang to her feet. She could take so much, but Max Monahan’s humiliating insults were way below the belt.
“Don’t judge everyone by your own revolting standards,” she said in a low voice, picking up the half-full bottle of claret that stood on the table between them. Their table was a corner one and she moved around it, blocking the view of the other diners in the busy, noisy restaurant and tipping the contents of the bottle into Max’s lap. “And don’t wet your pants worrying about your brother,” she added with a deliberately sweet smile. “You’re both grown men, after all.”
Chapter 6
It was easy enough to ignore whatever Max had to say on the subject of Tessa, but Ross was finding it a little more difficult maintaining a relationship with someone who flatly refused to see him. Furious with Max, she was quite unfairly venting her anger on Ross instead. When he phoned she would repeat the unflattering, almost slanderous, comments Max had showered upon her. When he drove to her cottage demanding to see her, she stated quite plainly that nothing would give her less pleasure—which was a damn lie—and refus
ed to let him in.
It was a ridiculous situation. He had done everything he could to bring both Tessa and Max to their senses but, for as long as they clung to their obstinate beliefs, he was stuck.
When Antonia rang him on Christmas Eve, he was at such a loose end that he accepted her invitation at once. Since he obviously wasn’t getting anywhere with Tessa, he might as well have a little fun where he could.
• • •
“Darling, will you stop worrying about me!” Antonia, sitting naked before the dressing-table mirror, fiddled with the awkward catch on the back of one of her earrings.
Richard Seymour-Smith regarded his wife from the doorway, jangling his car keys in the nervous manner she found so irritating. “I do worry. I don’t like to think of you being here on your own, particularly on Christmas Eve. Why don’t you change your mind and come with me? Father will be delighted to see you.”
“Really, I’ll be fine,” she insisted. Richard’s father was a pompous old bore whose disapproval of her was silent but obvious. She reached out to her husband and tilted her head, proffering her powdered cheek for a kiss. “You two can spend a nice comfortable evening together talking about business and politics, all those things I don’t understand. I’m going to enjoy a lazy night in front of the television, stuffing myself with brandy and chocolates and watching myself get fat.”
“You have a perfect body,” Richard told her, as she had known he would. “OK, I’m going. I’ll be back by midnight at the latest. And be careful, sweetheart. Don’t let any strangers into the house.” There had been a spate of burglaries in the area recently and their isolated home would be a prime target.
“I won’t,” said Antonia with perfect truth. “’Bye, darling. And give my love to your father.”
Ross, as usual, was late. By the time his white Mercedes careered to a halt at the top of the snowy drive, Antonia was already halfway down a bottle of white wine. Since it was already dark outside, the porch lights were switched on, and as she went to greet him she smiled at the thought of his response when he saw her silhouetted against the open doorway wearing only a white satin camisole and high heels.
“Holy cow,” breathed Ross. This was what he most liked about Antonia: you always knew where you were with her. And it was usually in bed. “Get inside, quick. What if someone sees you?”
She stared mockingly past him at the tree-lined drive, the acres of unremitting darkness. “Oh, there can’t be more than a couple of hundred people hiding out there. Don’t be so boring, Ross. Ever made love in the snow?”
She trailed her hand down the front of his shirt, feeling the warmth of his body and the hard, sculpted muscles of his torso.
“Ever made love to a man with a dick the size of an acorn?” he countered. “It’s freezing out here.” And he pulled her with him into the hall, kicking the door shut behind them. Any halfhearted ideas he may have harbored about remaining faithful to Tessa were melting as fast as the snowflakes in his hair. Tessa appeared to want nothing further to do with him, and he was only human, after all. When someone like Antonia was wrapping herself around you, saying no wasn’t the response that sprang most naturally to mind.
They made love in the sitting room, in front of the fire, with the ease and expertise of two people who have known each other intimately for over a year and who understand how to give and receive maximum pleasure.
Afterward, as Antonia lay in his arms with one smooth, brown leg tucked between his and her head against his shoulder, Ross experienced a surge of disappointment so acute that it hit him like a punch in the stomach.
It wasn’t the sex; that had been fine. Technically perfect. But somehow sex alone was no longer enough.
Antonia, he realized, wasn’t the person he had most wanted to make love to. She wasn’t Tessa. And that part of him that had become emotionally involved with Tessa was now crying out in protest at having been abandoned.
Great, thought Ross with almost comic despair. Not content with dumping me, she has to wreck my sex life too.
• • •
Holly, not for the first time, despaired of Tessa. It was Christmas Day, and for the past week Ross had been sloping around the hotel like a funeral on legs, terrifying the younger waitresses and generally dispensing gloom and despondency. Today, it seemed, was no exception.
How Tessa could refuse to see him, Holly didn’t understand. She had every right, of course, to be furious with Max but, when all was said and done, it wasn’t his opinion of her that counted.
If Holly had been in Tessa’s position, she would have leaped at the opportunity and clung on to Ross with both hands.
And as it was, she had made no progress at all with Max. Convinced that she and Tessa had hatched Tessa’s grand plan between them, he was no longer even speaking to her.
The huge bunch of mistletoe she had bought and hung hopefully above her desk had been a complete waste of money.
Reminding herself what a bastard he’d been—and his general mood had been particularly surly ever since he’d returned from that smart ceremony in London without an award—Holly couldn’t understand why she was still so crazy about him. But then, she thought ruefully, it never did work like that anyway. In her experience, the bigger the bastard, the more irresistible she found them.
By midafternoon, Ross began to show signs of cheering up. Two extremely pretty daughters of an Irish racehorse trainer dragged him without too much of a struggle into the ballroom, where a rumbustious game of charades was in progress and cheating was rife. The eighty-five guests, having enjoyed a six-course lunch and vast amounts of champagne, were showing no signs at all of wanting to sleep it off. Holly was due to finish her shift at three thirty, and she was looking forward to getting home. Her parents, who invariably spent the winter months in the Caribbean, had sent her an intriguingly large Christmas parcel—which by some miracle she had managed not to open too soon—and Tessa would be busy preparing a late lunch for the two of them. Since the death of Tessa’s mother five years earlier, they had always spent Christmas Day together.
She was less than amused therefore, when Sylvie Nash—the receptionist scheduled to take over from her and work the late shift—phoned in sick. She didn’t even have the decency to do the deed herself. Holly gritted her teeth as she listened to Sylvie’s boyfriend’s drunken excuses. Sylvie had a migraine attack; she was in agony, laid up in bed and so ill that she couldn’t even crawl to the phone. That Sylvie was in bed Holly didn’t doubt, but a headache was the last thing she was likely to be suffering from.
“I’m really sorry, darling.” Ross attempted to placate her when she relayed the message to him. Holly slapped his hand away.
“I can’t stay here,” she wailed. “I have other plans, dammit.”
“Please, you can’t let us down. And this isn’t such a terrible place to spend Christmas. Tonight’s party’s going to be wild…”
“Oh, shut up, Ross. Tessa’s waiting for me at my apartment. Apart from the fact that she’s spent hours preparing lunch for the two of us, I’m not bloody well going to let her spend Christmas on her own.”
Holly was unaware that Max, who had overheard her noisy protests, was standing behind her.
“Look,” said Ross suddenly, sounding more interested. “Couldn’t we get Tessa here? Would she come if you talked to her and explained the situation?”
“Of course she wouldn’t!” exploded Holly with derision. “Thanks to your pig of a brother she wouldn’t set foot in this place, and I don’t bloody well blame her.”
“I’m not that much of a pig,” remonstrated Max with a slight smile. Holly jumped at the sound of his voice but realized at once that it was too late to back down. Whirling around to face him, her gray eyes sparking with anger, she snapped, “Yes, you are. You behaved appallingly toward her, and she’d done nothing to deserve it.”
Luckily, Max was in a goo
d mood. He also recognized the fact that unless Tessa came to the hotel, Holly would walk out on them. And a hotel can’t function on all cylinders without a receptionist, even on Christmas Day.
“Give me your address,” he said. Holly had longed for months to hear him say those words, but for entirely different reasons. “And for Christ’s sake, cheer up. I’ll go and pick her up myself.”
• • •
Tessa was sitting cross-legged in the window seat of Holly’s sitting room, idly sketching the view of The Circus, that famous uninterrupted circle of slender Georgian houses whose perspective it was so difficult to get exactly right. Through the uncurtained illuminated windows of other houses, she could see parties in progress, Christmas trees glittering, and people having fun. Living alone, Tessa was used to solitude, but Christmas was somehow different. Holly’s elegant, high-ceilinged apartment smelled deliciously of roasting turkey, pine needles, and beeswax candles, and the latest Tom Cruise movie was being premiered on television, but Tessa felt unaccountably edgy. She wanted Holly to return, and her friend was already fifteen minutes late.
Because of her elevated position, she didn’t spot Max letting himself in through the front door three floors below. When she heard Holly’s key turning in the door to the apartment, she slid off the window seat and ran through to the hallway to greet her.
Coming face-to-face with Max Monahan wasn’t quite the Christmas surprise she’d been waiting for.
“Ho, ho, ho,” he said quietly, handing her an icy bottle of Veuve Clicquot. “I didn’t bring red wine, you notice. This seemed safer.”
“I can’t imagine what on earth you’re doing here,” said Tessa, realizing how rude she sounded, but too stunned to do anything about it. “And where’s Holly?”
Max popped the cork on the champagne and, ignoring Tessa’s protests that she had given up alcohol, half filled her glass. As he did so he explained Holly’s dilemma.
