by Anna Premoli
The phone starts to ring threateningly again and, without a second thought I turn it off altogether. I'm too weak to face this kind of thing at ten o'clock in the morning.
Two seconds later my company BlackBerry starts to trill imperiously. Won't take no for an answer, eh? I grab it and turn it off too. “Right, let's see if he can find something else to ring,” I exclaim in annoyance.
“Do you think ignoring him is a good idea?” asks a worried Vera.
“I think it's a great idea.” It must be said that the anger of the last few minutes has brought me back to earth a little bit.
“So your amazing plan is… to ignore him?” she asks sarcastically.
“I haven’t got a plan! And for the moment ignoring him is a necessity. My head feels like it's about to burst! For God's sake, at least you two could help me—” I moan, sinking into the chair.
“Ok, Ok. Don't get yourself into a state. We’re on your side, but what we want to know is, why?” asks Laura gently.
All my despair must be visible on my face. “Why what?” I ask, trying to re-assure myself.
“Well, you could start with why what happened, happened—” suggests Laura. It's nice of her to be so diplomatic.
I look to the heavens, in search of a sensible answer. “If only I knew. It was a fatal combination of too much wine on an empty stomach and what you might call insistent advances… But it's crazy, isn’t it? Ian can’t have wanted to do it, can he?”
“What do you mean? It's crazy that he likes you? I thought that seemed pretty clear from the way he was holding onto you on the sofa at our place,” says Vera frankly.
“Yeah. You can’t really act like this is completely out of the blue. After all, we are talking about a guy who goes around kissing you and telling everyone you're his girlfriend—” says Vera, speaking to me as if I'm a bit slow on the uptake.
“His pretend girlfriend!” I say, stung.
“Pretend or not pretend, I don’t think he was pretending that evening on our sofa!” Vera snaps.
“Can we not talk about the business on the sofa?” I implore them. Really, I can hardly bear to think about things like that.
“Ok, because the real problem is what happened last night, right?” asks Vera. Next to her, Laura nods.
“Oh my God, last night—” I say desperately. “Well, last night I fell for it like an idiot. Ian is obnoxious, annoying, unbearable, competitive and a snob, but when he wants he knows exactly how to get to me.”
“So what's the problem? You two could be dating like a couple of normal adults,” suggests Laura with the best intentions.
My only answer is the look of horror on my face. “Are you round the bend? No normal woman could put up with something like that. Ian never goes out with anyone seriously, not to mention that he changes women the way some women change handbags. Believe me, I have too much respect for myself to fall for someone like him. I've never done this before and I'm certainly not going to start now.”
As I say this, the image of Ian staring at me like I was the most precious thing in the world appears in my mind, and I shake my head to try and get rid of it.
Laura looks at me with uncertainty. It’s obvious they both think I've already lost it.
“So tell me then, what's the plan?” asks Vera.
“Simple. For today, it'd be better for me to not think about what’s happened. Do some shopping, go and see a film, have a few drinks down the pub. Tomorrow I’m going to my parents’ for lunch and on Monday, in the office, I’ll have a chat with him and explain that it was all a terrible mistake and that the best thing is if we pretend it never happened.”
“Has it occurred to you that he might not agree?” asks Laura.
“He will, believe me,” I say with conviction.
We get up from the table and decide to head for Oxford Street. I’ve never been a woman who deals with her problems by throwing herself into shopping, but apparently this weekend is going to be full of new things. Let’s try and be positive. A credit card is the lesser of two evils.
Chapter 23
I’ve been sitting in my mother's kitchen peeling potatoes since ten o'clock this morning. Not exactly my favourite pastime. My sister Stacey is watching me with a worried look on her face which she’s not even trying to hide.
“Why did you come so early?” she asks suspiciously. “You hate being here.”
Her observation is accurate so I would have a hard time trying to deny it. “I'm a bit stressed at the moment, Stace, a bit more than usual, and I needed to do something different,” I admit, deciding not to stray too far from the truth. The fewer lies I tell the better chance I’ll have of not getting caught out.
“And what is this additional stress?” asks my mother, as she chops the carrots.
“Work,” I say, vaguely. Well, Ian is work after all.
“Darling, we're all very worried about you,” my mother begins. “First you throw away a relationship that we'd hoped was finally the right one for you, then you start working like a complete lunatic. You're so pale, and the bags under your eyes – good grief!”
Last night wasn’t exactly a quiet night in, I must admit, and not even make-up managed to hide the fact this morning. When I dared turn on my phone for a minute to check my messages, I found my inbox overflowing with e-mails from Ian begging me to contact him. Yes, begging… he seems to think he can order me about the way he does the rest of his household.
I didn’t answer and immediately turned my phone back off. People lived for centuries without phones, I think I'll manage fine without one for two days. Tomorrow he’ll have plenty of time to tell me I’m just another idiot who has fallen at his feet.
But it happened once and it’ll never happen again! Never, never, I solemnly promise myself.
“Mum, Charles and I were really mismatched,” I try to explain for the thousandth time. “And with work, I’ve been working the same hours for nine years, so I doubt I’ll die, even if I have to carry on like this for the next ninety-nine.”
“But don’t you want a family? Children?” asks Stacey. Oh God, not this boring old speech again.
“I don’t want them just to have them. If I meet the right person then I might, but I don’t want to have them at any cost,” I explain, knowing that I’m wasting my breath.
“I know men like my Tom are rare, but perhaps I could introduce you to some of our friends,” says my sister.
“I don’t think so,” I say. Something tells me we like very different kinds of men.
“Why not?” asks my mother, just as I was sure she would. “Are you seeing someone?” she asks suspiciously.
“Of course not,” I say. It's true, I’m not seeing anyone at all.
“Then come and meet Eliott, Tom’s best friend. He’s just split up with his girlfriend too. Can I give him your number?” she offers, glad that the idea was hers. “I mean, Eliott doesn’t usually like girls with dyed hair, but I'm sure he’ll make an exception for you. I still haven’t yet figured out why you went blonde.”
I decide not to take the bait. I'm enjoying being blonde very much and I don’t give a damn if Eliott loves 'natural-looking' women. After over thirty years of being natural I've decided to be artificial enough to feel attractive.
“Oh, I'm so glad your sister's going to introduce you to somebody nice,” my mother chips in, smiling. “Try not to be the usual grumpy old you when he calls, dear.”
Strewth! How on earth could I have thought that coming here to peel potatoes was a good idea?
My desperation is interrupted by a cloud of dust rising up along the road that can I see through the kitchen window. Apparently a car is approaching our house at high speed.
“Were you expecting someone?” I ask, noticing that the car has pulled up just outside the window.
“Not that I know of,” she says doubtfully. “Perhaps your dad's invited some of his friends round.”
But my father's friends don’t race along the road that leads
up to our house at a hundred miles per hour. Suddenly I have a sinking feeling, which, unfortunately, is confirmed by the sight of a black Porsche.
My heart begins to pound. This can't be happening.
The potato slips from my hand, falling with a thud to the kitchen floor.
“A Porsche?” my sister calls out, standing up and moving closer to my mother. At that point I can only join them to observe the scene, although I try to keep my distance. I'm afraid my expression might give me away.
I see the way they’re staring in amazement at Ian getting out of his car. He's wearing a pair of blue jeans, a polo shirt with the collar turned up and has a sweater knotted round his waist.
Ian raises his sunglasses to check the name of the farm on the gate, then locks the car with the remote and strides purposefully towards the front door.
Moments later we hear the bell, and my brother gets up to go and open the door.
What the hell do I do now?
The question is taking shape in my mind when Stacey turns to look at me. “Someone you know?” she asks me point-blank, her voice suspicious.
A flush starts to spread over my face. “A colleague,” I answer, not knowing what else to say.
Tom enters the kitchen. “There's a colleague of Jenny’s at the door,” he says, surprised. “He says he needs to speak to you urgently.”
“Couldn’t he have just called?” asks my sister, folding her arms across her chest. That's rich coming from her – she hates mobile phones.
“My battery’s dead,” I stammer, red as a beetroot.
“Well, he could have tried your home phone,” she suggests.
“Errrrm, I’m afraid that’s dead too,” I say quietly.
Pleased to meet you, I'm the new queen of telecommunications.
Stacey glares at me. She can tell that there's something rotten in Denmark, and is trying to figure out what it is.
“Let me go and see what he wants,” I say. I have no idea how I'm going to stop my family’s curiosity.
When I enter the room, Ian is sitting on the sofa as though his presence there was the most natural thing in the world. He is maybe a little tense, but overall he seems at ease, although when he sees me enter his face suddenly becomes darker.
“Couldn’t you have climbed out of a window, or something?” he asks sarcastically, as he meets my defiant gaze.
“What the hell are you doing in my parent’s house?” I ask furiously, approaching the couch. The scene is quite grotesque, because someone like him looks totally out of place in my parents’ rustic living room.
He smiles at me cynically. “Since you've turned off all your phones and weren’t at home, I decided to come here,” he says angrily. As though it were normal to hunt me down like this.
“And how did you know where 'here' was?”
“I went to your house this morning and when I saw that you weren’t there I got the address from your friends.”
Vera and Laura will pay for this.
“Ok, now that you're here and have managed to get my whole family's attention, what are you planning on doing next?”
But before I can get an answer, my mother decides to make her entrance, followed by my father. Hats off to them, they managed to wait two whole minutes before coming to have a look. I would have bet money that they wouldn’t have lasted more than thirty seconds. As soon as Ian sees them he changes tone. He stands up and holds out his hand to my mother. “Ian St John,” he says, flashing his usual smile. My mother grabs his hand and stands there enchanted, because she is a woman and a pair of eyes like that would bowl anyone over. That shirt, the same colour as his eyes, isn’t just a coincidence, I’d bet my next bonus on it.
“A pleasure. Cassandra Percy,” she says, timidly.
Then it's my father's turn, and he shakes Ian's hand vigorously.
“I hope it isn’t anything serious,” my mother says.
“Oh no, really. Just a small matter, but of some urgency,” he says, lying flawlessly.
“Well if this small matter has been resolved, you can stay and have lunch with us,” she says, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
I suddenly turn white. Ian at the table with my family? Not if I can help it.
“Mum, Ian's very busy,” I say, giving him a nudge as a warning.
“Actually, I'm not,” he says, giving me a dirty look.
Heaven help us, because Ian doesn’t really know what he's doing. My family might look harmless, but I'm sure they've already got an idea who he is, and it won’t take them long to start laying into him. Not to mention that if they realised that there was a member of the English nobility standing in front of them, things would get really nasty.
My father keeps casting glances at Ian’s watch, which certainly must have cost a small fortune. Dad's no expert in such objects, but when you see someone dressed in designer clothes from head to toe, you just know that everything they're wearing must have cost a packet.
Not to mention that this person turned up at his house uninvited, driving a brand new Porsche. And eccentric as he might be, even he can put two and two together…
“See? He’s not busy,” says my mother. “Sit down, Ian. It’ll be ready in half an hour.”
As if the room wasn't already crowded enough, my sister Stacey appears. “We haven’t been introduced yet. I’m Stacey, Jenny’s sister,” she says, shaking his hand and showing off a smile. He reciprocates the smile.
“St John?” asks Stacey, “Like the famous St Johns?”
Damn you and your love of history.
“Errr… I'm not quite sure what you mean by famous, but if you mean the St Johns of the Duchy of Revington, then yes,” he confirms almost proudly. Poor fool.
“The Duke of Revington?” asks my mother in a voice that smacks of horror.
“Yes – he's my grandfather,” says Ian, as though it were nothing.
“Your grandfather?” my mother repeats, turning pale. Today is about to turn into a Shakespearean tragedy, I tell myself.
Stacey is also stunned. “And who would you be, then?” she asks, sensing something.
“I'm the Earl of Langley,” confirms Ian, his voice quieter in response to the looks on the faces of my relatives.
There then follow a few moments of embarrassment. I desperately need to intervene.
“Right, well, now that you've rattled off all your family tree, what do you say we go and have a look around the farm?” I suggest, desperately looking for a way out and grabbing him by the arm.
Ian must have sensed that his announcement has not produced the expected effect and wisely decides to follow me. “Gladly,” he replies, sounding unperturbed.
“Let's go, then,” I urge him, leading him away from my family who watch us escape. And fortunately they do it without uttering another word. It'll take them at least a few minutes to start coming out with the barbs.
Once we're outside, I breathe a sigh of relief. “This really is the worst idea you could have had,” I reprimand him while he looks at me quizzically.
“Why?” he asks, sounding a little embarrassed.
“Are you actually asking me why? You show up on a Sunday, at lunch, at my parents' house! Not only that, but you also tell them that you're a member of the nobility… For God's sake, Ian, I really thought you were smarter than that.”
He looks at me with a vaguely hurt expression. “I was a bit angry,” he admits, “and I wasn’t really thinking straight when I got behind the wheel. But it's your fault! I've been trying to call you for twenty-four hours.”
He's right, I know.
I take him by the arm and lead him round the corner, away from the window where my whole family is surely watching, their ears pricked up like hares. Touching his arm makes me nervous, so I let go of it as soon as I’m sure we’re safe from prying eyes.
“Ok, we should be safe here,” I say. He just stands there looking at me, getting more and more angry as he awaits a plausible justification.
He seems to appreciate my confession, because straightaway his face brightens a little.
“Good thing I admitted it,” I joke. “I swear, I didn’t mean to run away forever. I'm a terrible fugitive. Tomorrow morning I was going to talk to you.”
“Looks like I’ve beaten you to it then.” He leans on the fence. “But you can talk to me now. I mean, let’s make the most of this opportunity.”
“I haven’t prepared a speech!” I cry.
Ian laughs. “Thank God! I'm not really a fan of your speeches. You're better when you're speaking off the cuff.”
“I'm the queen of formal speeches!” I exclaim indignantly.
Ian looks at me as if to say 'come on, let’s be serious'.
“Ok, then back to us… no, I mean, there isn’t an ‘us’, so, back to the subject—” It's obvious I’m struggling. “…What happened was clearly a mistake, and the best thing would just be to forget about it altogether and not talk about it again.”
Ian notices my embarrassment. “Yes, I was expecting something like that,” he says, as if I were the most predictable woman in the world. “I know you well enough by now to have an idea about what goes on in that weird head of yours.”
I wish I could say the same, but I haven’t the faintest idea what he’s thinking.
“Good, I'm glad you agree,” I reply, trying to work out what he's implying.
“Did I say that I agreed?” he asks, looking askance.
“You didn’t say anything, so I assumed—”
Ian stops me. “You have a bad habit of assuming things.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you'd tell me what you were thinking,” I say in irritation.
“As though it matters—” he says.
I take my head in my hands in despair. “Lord, give me strength—” I say with a sigh. After laboriously managing to count to ten without physically attacking him, I compose myself. “Ok, seeing as I’m the interested party, can you try and put aside your wounded nobility for a moment?”
