Solo

by Jill Mansell

  The Leigh Woods service station on the M4 might be OK for Adam Perry, looking just like a truck driver himself in ancient denims and a blue-and-gold-hooped rugby shirt, but it was all too much for Holly.

  “Now look…” she began, as he returned to their table—Formica, orange, and smeared with ketchup—with two plates of sausage, eggs, and french fries, and a pot of tea.

  “Oh God,” said Adam, swiftly intercepting her diatribe. “She’s had a sense of humor failure. Holly, I know what you’re going to say, and I’m disappointed. I really thought, when I first laid eyes on you, that you were a girl with a sense of humor. And now you’re spoiling it all by turning all highfalutin on me. Sweetheart, this is supposed to be fun—”

  “But I’m not having fun,” she retaliated, unable even to look at him. “We were supposed to be going to Zizi’s, and I got all dressed up, and now all those horrible men are leering at me…”

  “And you’d rather be leered at by men in smart suits,” Adam remarked dryly.

  To her horror, he opened his wallet. “You think I’m pulling a fast one, bringing you here instead of taking you to a restaurant that charges for rice by the grain. Well, I am very disappointed indeed. But if you’re that concerned about it, put this in your purse and take a friend to bloody Zizi’s.” He tossed two fifty-pound notes across the table, one of which landed on Holly’s plate. “That should cover the cost of a couple of omelets.”

  Holly had never been so humiliated in her life. Her eyes filled with tears as she pushed back her chair and stood up.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have come out with you. I didn’t even want to come out with you in the first place, but you forced me into it. You’re nothing but a pig.”

  • • •

  The Land Rover caught up with her just where the entrance ramp met the highway. Holly, shivering so violently that she could barely stand up in her high heels, attempted at first to ignore it.

  “For Christ’s sake, will you give up the debutante act and get in?” demanded Adam, leaning at a perilous angle across the passenger seat in order to let her know that he meant it. “And there’s really no need to panic, you know. We can never marry. Who would ever take seriously a woman with a name like Holly Perry?”

  Holly was furious. She was frozen by the biting northerly wind. She was humiliated and hungry, and her shoes were absolutely killing her.

  But at those words she collapsed with laughter and was forced, with the utmost reluctance, to give in.

  Zizi’s was packed, but the maître d’, who appeared to know Adam well, found them a table. Her diamonds resumed their opulent glitter, and her good mood—entirely against her will—was gradually restored.

  “I don’t know why you’re looking so cheerful,” remarked Adam, halfway through their meal. “You’re paying.”

  “I didn’t take that money you threw at me,” she protested, forking up the last morsel of lobster from her plate.

  “In that case, the service station will have one happy waitress tonight.”

  “Do you really own a Rolls-Royce?”

  “Does it matter? Isn’t my personality enough?”

  Holly smiled. “I’m not used to people like you. I don’t even know what you do…or where you went to school.”

  “Is that really important?”

  She shook her head at his stupidity. “Of course it’s important!”

  He shrugged. “Is it important if I tell you that I grew up in Yorkshire, attended a local high school, and was expelled at fifteen for gambling?”

  “Did you?”

  “Oh, it was no big deal. The mathematics master only split on me because he couldn’t afford to pay his debts.”

  Holly swallowed hard. This was not what she was used to. “And now?”

  “Now?” Adam grinned, resting his chin on one hand and mocking her incredulity. “Now I have a chain of betting shops, and all over the country there are teachers making me money. I get a huge kick out of it. I didn’t even pass math, and I make more in a week than they do in a year. Isn’t that great?”

  “Great,” replied Holly, on automatic pilot. It all sounded incredibly seedy to her. Adam Perry was like no man she had ever met before, but like some weird insect one might find floating in one’s drink, he held a peculiar fascination. She found that she couldn’t stop staring at him. And she still couldn’t get over the fact that the fastidious maître d’ had allowed him into Zizi’s in those terrible, faded, practically disintegrating jeans.

  • • •

  When he’d first clapped eyes on her, Adam had decided at once that Holly King was an absolute looker. She had class, which he liked, but it was gaudy class, which appealed to him even more. He couldn’t be bothering with the well-brought-up twinset-and-pearls type at all; he wanted a woman who looked like a woman and who wasn’t afraid to flaunt her attractions, and she certainly knew how to flaunt them to the limit. All he had to do now was figure out a way to break down her reservations, to really get through to her.

  “When you finish eating we’ll go back to my place,” he said, emptying the last of the Cristal champagne into his own glass and draining it as if it were Guinness. “I’ve got a water bed; you’ll love it.”

  Holly cast him a contemptuous look. “I wouldn’t share a water bed with you if we were stranded in the Gobi Desert,” she replied in withering tones.

  Chapter 18

  “You tell me to work,” protested Tessa, attempting to snatch back her palette. “You instruct me to paint until I drop…and now you’re dragging me away in midflow. I bet Michelangelo didn’t have to put up with hassle like this.”

  “After spending seven years flat on his back painting that bloody ceiling, he’d have welcomed a bit of hassle,” countered Ross briskly, handing Tessa her coat. “Besides, he wasn’t pregnant. Pregnant artists require the occasional break from their duties. Not to mention,” he added with an irresistible smile, “the odd meal.”

  • • •

  A trick. He had played a filthy rotten trick on her, thought Tessa darkly, twenty minutes later. She had only agreed to come out with him because she was hungry, and now she was trapped here in this god-awful green-and-beige room watching a repulsive film and attracting all sorts of unwanted attention.

  Prenatal classes in Bath were evidently glamorous affairs. Glancing surreptitiously around her in the semidarkness, Tessa noted the preponderance of sleek blonds wearing full makeup, the most exclusive, color-coordinated exercise clothes, and a great deal of scent. Even their matching nail polish was immaculate, she observed, glancing down at her own habitually paint-stained hands.

  She couldn’t imagine anything more hideous than being forced to watch a film—of decidedly poor quality—depicting the actual process of childbirth. There was nothing magical about it as far as she could comprehend; she was only thankful that when her own time came she wouldn’t be in a position to see it, particularly not in such gruesome, Technicolor detail.

  But Ross had her hand clamped rigidly in his own, and there was no escape.

  Furthermore, she thought with incredulity, he seemed to be paying genuine attention to the horror film and appeared to have no idea at all how much of a stir his presence at the class was causing.

  Ross Monahan, however, was not stupid. With a sinking heart Tessa realized that he was presenting her with a fait accompli. In her own vague way, she hadn’t given the matter a great deal of thought, but had somehow assumed that the identity of her baby’s father would remain pretty much of a mystery, known only to the small circle of people who were already aware of the circumstances.

  Clearly, however, Ross had other ideas. Scarcely anyone now was concentrating on the film as the on-screen drama approached its climax. Slanting glances, some moderately subtle and others downright farcical, were beaming in on them from all angles. Everyone knew about Ross Monahan, and no one could
quite believe that he was actually here. Tessa, who couldn’t believe that either of them was here, slid down low in her uncomfortable chair, slowly closed her eyes, and pretended to fall asleep.

  • • •

  “That was an unbelievably shitty trick to play,” she told Ross later, tearing into a chicken leg and fixing him with one of her sternest looks to show that she meant it.

  He grinned quite unrepentantly and helped himself to a mound of garlicky potato salad with the air of a man who knows he is in the right.

  “But necessary. And instructive,” he reminded her, gesturing toward the paintings that adorned her sitting room wall. “You wouldn’t start a new picture without preparing the canvas first, would you?”

  “It’s not the same,” retaliated Tessa.

  “It’s exactly the same! If you don’t make sure that your pelvic floor muscles are in trim, you could run into all sorts of problems later on.”

  “My pelvic floor muscles,” she informed him sweetly, “are no concern of yours.”

  Ross looked at her. With her customary blond topknot falling down, the sleeves of her baggy white lamb’s-wool sweater pushed up, and both elbows on the table as she stripped the last morsel of chicken from its bone, her angelic good looks were so at odds with her combative attitude that he wanted to laugh.

  “They could be,” he replied in a matter-of-fact manner. “If only you weren’t so damned stubborn.”

  “I’m not damned stubborn. I’m practical.”

  “Oh, right!” Sarcasm fueled his irritation. “That’s why you’ve spent the last five years struggling to get by as a part-time, small-time painter. Can you at least bring yourself to admit that my ideas for boosting your career have been better than your own, or is even that too much to ask?”

  “We’ll see about that when it happens,” Tessa shot back at him, annoyed by his attitude. She was grateful for his help so far, but she was damned if she was going to allow Ross to hold it over her, bringing it up at every opportunity and demanding groveling thanks for a debt that could never be fully repaid. “The only person I’ve sold to so far is you,” she reminded him, then added scathingly, “Don’t tell me I have to sleep with all your friends before they deign to buy my paintings.”

  Ross had been nursing his secret all day, waiting for the perfect moment to spring the surprise. This wasn’t how he’d imagined it happening, but it was definitely a perfect moment…of sorts.

  “Sleep with Nico Coletto,” he said casually, “and I’ll kill you.” The chicken leg dropped with a clatter to Tessa’s plate. The anger drained from her face. Ross speared a mushroom and ate it with enjoyment, waiting for her to respond.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he dropped by the hotel yesterday to see me. We’re old friends. He happened to notice your painting hanging in my office and liked your style. He’s off on tour to the States next week, but as soon as he gets back he wants you to paint his portrait.”

  “Nico Coletto wants me to paint him?” Tessa was dumbstruck. Overcome with awe. Astounded. The publicity would be sensational. And Holly, poor Holly, she thought with a secret smile, would be absolutely lacerated with jealousy when she found out.

  “Two grand,” he said, savoring her reaction. “Up front. And an extra two hundred if you can finish it in time for his wife’s birthday.”

  “Two thousand pounds!” Forgetting that she didn’t drink, she grabbed his glass and took a hefty gulp of icy white wine. Shaking her head in wonderment, she said, “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. Now, am I great?” said Ross modestly. “Or am I great?”

  Recovering from the shock, Tessa grinned at him. “Nico Coletto’s pretty great himself. And for that kind of money, I’d go to bed with him after all.”

  “He doesn’t screw around,” said Ross quickly. She’d only said it to tease him, he knew, but the very idea filled him with alarm. Jealousy was an emotion to which he was unaccustomed, but Tessa could always rouse it in him, both effortlessly and at will, and the thought of her with another man, particularly Nico, was unbearable. “He has one of those happy marriages you refuse to believe exists.”

  She shrugged, enjoying herself enormously. “Oh, I believe they exist…for a while. But sooner or later anyone could give in to temptation. And Nico’s had his share of adventures in the past…who’s to say that if the right girl came along he might not—”

  “Stop it!” In a rage, Ross snatched back his wineglass and fixed her with his most ferocious glare. “Just stop it, will you? I set this whole thing up, and you haven’t had the common courtesy to even bloody well thank me. All I get instead is a rundown of your plan to jump into bed with one of my best friends just for the thrill of breaking up a decent marriage…!”

  Tessa obtained a quiet satisfaction from knowing that she’d made her point, even if Ross was at this moment too furious to see it. He could sleep with all the married women he liked, but he couldn’t tolerate the idea of anyone being unfaithful to him. Was it really any wonder, she thought with bleak satisfaction, that she refused to allow herself to become seriously involved with him?

  “I was joking,” she said now, in reassuring tones.

  “Well, it wasn’t funny,” retaliated Ross, the fire in his dark eyes only gradually beginning to recede.

  Tessa looked suitably penitent. “I promise not to seduce Nico Coletto.”

  “You’re damn right you won’t seduce him,” he said grimly, circling the back of her hand with the point of his knife. “Because you’ll be chaperoned throughout every sitting.”

  “What?”

  “Just to make sure,” said Ross, so seriously that she didn’t even dare to smile. “I’m going with you.”

  • • •

  It was something he had planned to do a couple of days ago and that had completely slipped his mind, but as he made his way back to the hotel Ross spotted a small florist at the end of a row of elegantly fronted shops, and since there was a convenient parking space outside he pulled into it. Rifling through his wallet for the scrap of paper upon which he had scribbled the girl’s address, he almost gave up. It had only been a spur-of-the-moment idea, anyway, engendered by a sense of guilt that was quite out of character for him. But something about her pale, distraught face had gotten to him and… Ah, here it was. And if he wasn’t mistaken, she lived less than half a mile away. Maybe he’d even drop them around to her himself…

  • • •

  Mattie, cold and exhausted and weighed down with groceries, paused at the end of the street in order to transfer the heaviest shopping bag from one hand to the other. She was less than a hundred yards from her front door now, and a cup of tea was what she most needed. A warm welcome from a loving, smiling daughter was what she most needed, she corrected herself, but she was resigned by now to the fact that such a miracle simply wasn’t going to happen. Narrowing her eyes, she peered through the misty twilight, searching for the familiar little blue Fiat that would signify whether Grace was yet home from work.

  But the Fiat was nowhere in sight, and the parking space outside their small house was occupied by a large, white, expensive-looking car with its headlights blazing and the driver’s door left wide open.

  It was a Mercedes, Mattie realized as she drew nearer, rakishly parked and with its engine still running.

  Then she froze, gripping her shopping bags so tightly that her short fingernails dug into her palms. For even in the semidarkness it was impossible not to recognize the tall, dark-haired figure moving out of the shadows of her own front porch and climbing back into the car.

  It had been eighteen years since she had last seen him, spoken to him, gladly surrendered her virginity to him, waited in an agony of suspense for him…and now Ross Monahan was here, in the flesh, outside her home.

  Mattie didn’t have time to formulate a plan of action. In the brief secon
ds when she might have moved forward or shouted to gain his attention, she remained rooted to the spot, her heart pounding and her mind spinning as pent-up anger and shame and a determination to protect her daughter from further pain welled up inside her like bile.

  She heard the roar of a powerful engine as he accelerated toward her. She blinked as the even more powerful dazzle of the headlights blurred her vision. For a second, dizzied by confusion and the intensity of her emotions, Mattie swayed. Almost without realizing it she stumbled forward, off the edge of the pavement and into the path of the oncoming car.

  He had to swerve sharply to avoid her. For a split second, in the reflected orange street lighting, she glimpsed his face, saw again the so-familiar glittering dark eyes, chiseled cheekbones, and sensual, narrow mouth.

  No doubt he was at this moment cursing her for her stupidity, cursing the absentminded housewife who didn’t even have the wits to look both ways before she crossed the road. And she had no doubt too that in less than twenty seconds, he would have put the incident, the minor irritation of having to swerve to avoid a clumsy woman weighed down with shopping bags, completely out of his mind.

  But that was the great difference between them, thought Mattie, turning to watch the Mercedes as it sped off down the main road and breathing in the last, lingering exhaust fumes. She hadn’t forgotten. She would never forget. And one day, Ross Monahan was going to learn that some people needed to be treated with a little more respect than he had been prepared to give them.

  The bouquet, of perfect pink roses and deeper pink carnations amid a froth of white baby’s breath, was propped against the front door. When Mattie bent to pick it up, the glossy cellophane wrapper crackled and a trickle of water from the protruding damp stems ran down the inside of her wrist. The small white envelope stapled to the top of the wrapper was addressed to Grace.

  Once inside the house, Mattie realized how badly she was shaking. She had to sit down at the kitchen table and draw several deep breaths before opening the envelope.