Solo

by Jill Mansell

  Tessa, meanwhile, was carrying a tray out into the garden. Ice cubes clinked, a lone bee droned. It was going to be another stunning day…or it would be, she thought, if Ross would only take that mutinous expression off his face.

  “I’m not going to argue with you about Dominic,” she said as he followed her outside. Choosing a perfect, ripe strawberry, she popped it into her mouth and offered him the bowl.

  “Good,” he said briskly, shaking his head and lighting a cigarette instead. “In that case, boot him out.”

  “Ross, he’s a friend. You’re being unreasonable.”

  “No, I’m not,” he countered. “He’s the one who’s being bloody unreasonable. Apart from the fact that there isn’t room in this cottage to swing a cockroach, and apart from the fact that you’re about to have a baby—though God knows where you think you’re going to find the space to put it—it just isn’t decent.”

  “Dear me,” said Tessa idly as she bit into another strawberry. “Whatever will the neighbors think?”

  “Exactly!” Ross flung his barely smoked cigarette into the center of a clump of dusky-pink hydrangeas. “And it isn’t funny, either. When you’re expecting my child you have to take these things into consideration. Jesus,” he fumed, “don’t you realize what someone like Sadie Labelle could make of this if she wanted to?”

  “Yet the fact that you’ve been screwing yourself stupid for the past fifteen years is perfectly OK?” demanded Tessa, her own temper beginning to rise now.

  “That’s different,” he replied dismissively. “And you know it. Look,” he went on a moment later, his tone softening in an attempt to defuse the situation, “I’m only saying all this because I’m concerned about you.”

  “No, you’re not; you’re concerned about you,” Tessa retaliated bitterly. Her back was still aching, and she simply wasn’t in the mood to placate him. “Just because two people of the opposite sex happen to like each other doesn’t automatically mean they want to have sex with each other. I realize that this is an alien concept to someone like you, but you have to understand. Dominic and I have been friends for years, and if he wants to stay here, he can. And what’s more,” she added in dismissive tones, “I don’t give a fig about what anyone else might think.”

  “So, you’re happy to live with him but not with me.” Right now, Ross could cheerfully have strangled Dominic. Thank goodness he’d had the sense to leave. “How can you let him touch you, Tessa? You know damn well what he’s like.”

  “He’s like you,” she replied, her green eyes glittering with derision. “And you’ll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that our relationship is platonic. But if you don’t believe me, maybe the fact that I’m eight months’ pregnant might—”

  “You aren’t going to be pregnant for much longer,” Ross cut in. “What’s going to happen after the baby’s born? He’s not bloody well staying here then!”

  Tessa and Dominic had discussed the matter weeks ago, and it had been agreed that as soon as the baby arrived Dominic would return to Cornwall. His wife, the long-suffering Suzanne, had disappeared off to the States to visit her family, and their home was standing empty, awaiting Dominic’s return. But since Ross had no right to lecture her like this, she was damned if she was going to tell him so.

  “Of course he is,” she said airily. “There’s plenty of room. Back in the nineteen thirties this cottage was occupied by a farm worker and his wife and their three children.”

  “That’s obscene,” declared Ross, lighting another cigarette and glancing at his watch. He had a meeting to attend in London at two o’clock, and it was already almost noon.

  “No,” said Tessa sharply. “It’s your attitude about the kind of lifestyle necessary in order to enjoy oneself that’s obscene. This is my home, I’m happy here, and I don’t happen to need five-hundred square feet of living space all to myself to prove it. My God,” she exploded, no longer able to keep her thoughts to herself, “you have absolutely no idea how privileged you are, and how different we are! You live in your ivory bloody tower”—she gesticulated wildly across the valley in the direction of the hotel—“and spend money like tap water… Didn’t you even realize how I felt when we went up to Ascot? There you were, betting more on a single horse race than I’d ever earned in a fortnight. That’s how different we are!” she concluded icily. “And that is what is truly obscene.”

  At that moment Ross almost hated her. He had come here today with the intention of finally persuading her to marry him—or at least to live with him—and been confronted instead with the sight of her and Dominic together, practically in flagrante delicto. Furthermore, the bad-tempered bitch had succeeded in swinging the conversation around in order to launch an unforgivable attack on him, his morals, and his own hard-earned wealth.

  “I buy you things with my despicable money,” he reminded her, his voice a dangerous monotone.

  “But I don’t want you to buy me things!” yelled Tessa. “I don’t need your things. Which particular things are you talking about anyway?” she demanded, reaching down and grabbing the silver mobile phone from beneath her deck chair. “This? This is how much I need your bloody things!”

  The phone crashed against the garden wall and went ting. Tessa watched with satisfaction as the silver case smashed, ricocheting into the air and falling into the midst of a dense patch of drastically overgrown forget-me-nots. The fact that she didn’t normally go in for such melodramatic gestures only added to her pleasure; Ross’s face was an absolute picture.

  “You are an ungrateful cow,” he said slowly, flicking his car keys from one hand to the other. There was clearly no point in staying while she was in this kind of mood. Right now, Dominic was welcome to her. “I’m leaving.”

  “Hooray,” said Tessa with vicious sarcasm. “Got the message at last.”

  Ross cast her a final despairing glance. “Too right I have,” he drawled, furious with her for proving once again that she had the ability to ruin everything. “And when the baby’s born, I don’t want you and darling Dominic to worry too much about hurting my feelings. I was never cut out to be a godfather anyway.”

  • • •

  The uncomfortable ache metamorphosed into real pain an hour later. Tessa bit her lip and attempted to ease herself into a more comfortable position on the deck chair. The sun was beating down now, and her upper lip was drenched with perspiration. Too late she recalled why she had never smashed glasses when her temper was aroused. They needed sweeping up afterward. Similarly, a broken phone was a broken phone; all of a sudden it was no longer there when you needed it.

  And as the pain intensified, she knew that she had never needed a telephone more urgently in her life.

  • • •

  “I asked him how Tessa was and he practically bit my head off,” said Sylvie Nash, distinctly put out by the rebuff. “He was in a terrible mood.”

  “Poor Ross,” said Antonia sympathetically, lounging against the reception desk and thinking fast. “And he’s had to drive up to London?”

  “He has a meeting scheduled for two o’clock,” Sylvie told her, consulting the photocopied list in front of her. “At the Ritz. He’s going to be late as it is, and I doubt whether he’ll be back before eight o’clock this evening. Was it something urgent?”

  “Oh no,” Antonia assured the blond receptionist, at the same time thinking that if she had her way Ross wouldn’t be back that night at all. “Don’t worry, I’ll give him a ring tomorrow.”

  “Maybe he’ll be more cheerful then, anyway.” Sylvie’s talent for idle chatter was legion. “I can’t think why he should have been so upset earlier. He and Tessa must have had some kind of row.”

  Frustration strikes, thought Antonia happily, already planning what she would use as an excuse when she phoned Richard. Thank goodness she’d had her hair highlighted yesterday. And she could wear that new, ludicro
usly expensive Paul Smith dress with nothing underneath. This time Ross wouldn’t be able to turn her down.

  “I’m sure he’ll be more cheerful tomorrow,” she assured Sylvie with a complacent smile. “In fact, I can almost guarantee it.”

  • • •

  By two o’clock Tessa was in a state of genuine panic. There was no doubt at all now that this was the real thing and that her predicament was serious. Her waters had broken, gushing warm liquid down her thighs, and the contractions were becoming stronger and more prolonged. Having clumsily retrieved the mangled phone from the flower bed and discovered that it really was as useless as she had feared, she managed to drag a deck chair as far as the front gate so that she could at least sit in it while waiting for someone—anyone—to come along the narrow lane. But the sun continued to blaze down, her entire body was drenched with sweat, and the only living creature to put in an appearance was a lone rabbit bouncing across the field opposite.

  Reaching the main road at the end of the lane was by this time a physical impossibility. Lying out in the sun was almost as unbearable, but if she crawled indoors she ran the risk of missing her only remaining hope, a passing car.

  Closing her eyes and silently cursing her stupidity, she clutched her taut, pain-wracked stomach and wondered whether she would be capable of giving birth on her own. Dominic, she knew, wouldn’t be back for hours. The deserted lane remained deserted. By smashing the phone in a mindless moment of anger, she could well have endangered her baby’s life, maybe even her own. Out here, in this sunny garden, they could both die. She gasped as another vice-like spasm of excruciating pain gripped her. The need to push was becoming overwhelming now, but she knew she mustn’t do so. All my own fault, thought Tessa despairingly, her bare heels digging into the sun-dried grass beneath her. How could I have been so stupid…?

  • • •

  Sylvie, not knowing how to deal with the man on the phone, passed the call on to Max. He, unamused at being disturbed, was even more annoyed when he eventually realized that the caller wanted Tessa.

  “She’s no longer staying here,” he replied curtly, not wanting to lose the thread of the particularly tricky scene he was working on. “And I don’t have her mobile number, but I’m sure you can get it from reception.”

  “But you are Mr. Monahan,” persisted the man. “We were instructed to refer any correspondence directly to you.”

  “I’m not that Mr. Monahan. He’s unavailable for the rest of the day.” Max frowned at the screen and silently mouthed a line of dialogue, wondering whether it really worked.

  “In that case I shall have to contact Miss Duvall,” said the voice with fastidious disapproval. “Thank you so much for your help.”

  Less than five minutes later, Max’s phone rang again.

  “What?” he barked with mounting impatience.

  “I’m very sorry to have to trouble you again, Mr. Monahan, but Miss Duvall’s mobile phone is currently out of order. Since this is a matter of some urgency, I wondered if there were any other way in which she might be contacted.”

  By this time Max’s concentration had been well and truly shattered. Screenplays were ten times more difficult than novels, and if it weren’t for Francine, he would never have persevered with this one. But he needed a break, and he supposed he could always drive over to Tessa’s cottage. It would be his good deed for the day.

  “Give me your number,” he said, less irritably this time. “I’ll make sure she phones you this afternoon.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” replied the caller, his own tone correspondingly warmer. “If she could call me back any time before five?”

  Good, thought Max, glancing at his watch. He could have a quick swim first. And then maybe something to eat before he set out…

  Chapter 29

  The only way Ross was able to control his anger was by immersing himself in the business to hand. Having driven to London at lunatic speed—if any police patrol cars had been around, they certainly hadn’t been able to catch up with him—he had arrived at the Ritz in a foul mood, his mind churning with replays of the dreadful argument with Tessa and with the insults they had flung at each other.

  But good businessmen didn’t allow their private lives to disrupt their work. That was the way to slide downhill, fast. Forcing himself to forget Tessa for a couple of vital hours, Ross smiled and shook hands with the gathered executives, made pleasant preliminary small talk until the meeting was declared open, then concentrated on the matters under discussion with such all-consuming intensity that time, miraculously, really did fly.

  • • •

  At first she thought it must be a mirage induced by heat, pain, and sheer desperation. A dark-gray, matchbox-sized car far away in the distance with a white dust cloud kicking up behind it appeared to be heading toward her. Panting noisily, she managed to pull herself up on her elbows to see the mirage more clearly. As it approached she was able to make out the roar of a powerful engine amid the dizzying thud of her own pulse drumming in her ears. It really was a car. All she had to pray for now was that the driver, upon seeing her, would stop.

  Tessa, by this time exhausted and on the point of collapse, didn’t have the energy for tears when the car screamed to a halt at the roadside. For a confused moment she thought it was Ross. When Max leaped out of the car and said “Jesus Christ!” her confusion mounted, and she shook her head in bewilderment.

  “What did you say?” demanded Max, his voice echoing strangely as he leaned down and scooped her up into his arms.

  “Wr-wrong brother,” murmured Tessa, closing her eyes and clutching at his shoulders with sweat-soaked fingers. A moment later she felt herself being deposited in the back of the car, just as another agonizing surge of pain pressed down into her spine. Gripping Max’s hands, she bit her lip and forced herself not to scream. When the contraction receded she opened her eyes once more, pushed her wet hair away from her forehead and managed a wry, barely discernible smile. “But under the circumstances,” she added weakly, “you’ll do.”

  • • •

  “Well, well,” said Antonia softly, knowing at that moment that she had won. If Ross, upon seeing her, had veered away…well, then she would have lost.

  But he had not, and victory—pleasurable victory—was hers. Crossing her tanned legs so that the slippery silk jersey edged up another couple of inches, she allowed her mouth to curve into a conspiratorial smile. “What an amazingly small world we live in. Ross, how are you?”

  “You shouldn’t be sitting alone like this in a hotel foyer,” he remarked bluntly, stalling for time but realizing even as he did so that there was no point. For all his harsh words to her in the past, Antonia knew him too well to be fooled.

  Her dark-blue eyes widened in mock alarm. “You mean I could be picked up? Propositioned? By a tall, dark stranger? My God, what a terrifying prospect!”

  “It is,” said Ross, slowly nodding his head, his own dark eyes taking in every detail. “Particularly for the tall, dark stranger.”

  This time Antonia threw back her head and laughed. The midnight-blue blue jersey obligingly slid sideways to reveal a little more cleavage, and he caught a waft of her familiar heady perfume.

  “In that case,” she replied, “maybe it’s just as well that I bumped into you instead.”

  “Maybe,” said Ross, though he seriously doubted it. What he should do and what he knew he was about to do were two different matters entirely, and it was more than likely that he would live to regret it. The trouble was, right now he simply didn’t care. Glancing across the sumptuous peach-and-gray foyer and abandoning the pretense, he said, “Wait here and I’ll book us a room.”

  In reply, Antonia opened her clutch bag, removed a key, and dangled it in front of him. With a small, triumphant smile she murmured, “Great minds think alike, darling. I already have.”

  • • •


  Unable to resist taunting him, she slipped out of her dress and said, “Don’t you feel guilty?”

  She had chosen just the right moment in which to ask him.

  Unbelievably aroused by her unexpected nakedness, Ross dismissed the question with a slow shake of his dark head. No matter how hard he had tried, Tessa had persisted in believing the worst of him, doubting his motives at every turn, and refusing to even consider the possibility that his feelings for her might be genuine. He had worked so hard to show her that he had reformed—never before had he lavished even a fraction of the attention he had given her on any other woman—but so determined was she to protect her goddamned independence that it had been nothing but a waste of time. He had offered her the world, and she simply hadn’t wanted it.

  As far as Ross was concerned now, he deserved a little fun. It was, he thought, only fair. And long, long overdue.

  “I don’t believe in feeling guilty,” he told Antonia, moving toward her and running his fingers lightly between her golden breasts. “It’s a waste of time.”

  Aching for him to pull her into his arms, she said, “I think we’ve wasted enough time already. How long has it been now, Ross? Six months?”

  He grinned. “You tell me.”

  She knew, of course. Five months and sixteen days, give or take a few hours. But since she had no intention of letting him know quite how obsessively she had been counting the weeks, she reached up instead and loosened his tie, letting it fall to the floor, then returning her attention to the buttons of his white linen shirt.

  “Well?” he demanded, when she didn’t reply.

  “So long,” said Antonia finally, as the last button came undone, “that I’ve almost forgotten what to do.”

  And then, at last, he removed his shirt and drew her toward him, his dark eyes glittering with desire and his erection pressing against her flat, taut stomach. His hands slid from her shoulders, tracing the contours of her slender waist and narrow, almost boyish hips. She quivered in delicious anticipation, her own fingers finding the cold metallic rectangle of his belt buckle, her entire body tingling with helpless longing.