by Jill Mansell
“Exactly. You said you could keep a secret when you had to.” His smile broadened, his teeth gleaming white in the darkness. It had evidently not even crossed his mind that she might turn him down. “It could be fun. A lot of fun. You and I.”
Charisma was a powerful aphrodisiac, and Bruno had more than his fair share of it. He really was amazingly attractive, thought Maxine. But then he had to be. Only men at the very top of the league in the attractiveness stakes could expect to get away with this kind of thing. And most of the time, presumably, they did.
Wishing now that she hadn’t worn four-inch heels—although at least she was only a quarter of a mile from home—she ran her hand lightly over the soft leather upholstery.
“Do these seats go right back?”
Bruno grinned. “All the way.”
“Hmm,” said Maxine. “Somehow I thought they would.”
“Where are you going?” he protested as she opened the passenger door and climbed out of the car.
Yuck, thought Maxine as her heels sank into three inches of mud. So this was her reward for making a noble stand. No wonder she’d never bothered in the past.
“Home,” she said, her tone brisk. “I realize this may come as a bit of a shock to you, but you aren’t totally irresistible. And if you really want to know, I think you’re a complete shit.”
“Maxine—”
“Poor Janey,” she continued, slamming the door shut and addressing him through the open window. “What chance does she have, falling for a two-faced bastard like you?”
“OK,” said Bruno, making calm-down gestures with his hands. “I get the message.”
“And here’s another message,” Maxine snapped. “I may not be perfect, but did you seriously think I’d play a dirty trick like that on my own sister?”
Bruno sighed good-naturedly. “Spare me the moral lecture. It was just a suggestion, after all. Some girls would take it as a compliment.”
“My God, you’re amoral!”
“And you’re some kind of saint?” Bruno was grinning once more. “Come on now. There’s no need to make this much of a fuss. All you had to do was say no.”
“I don’t care about me,” Maxine said icily. “I care about Janey. You’re going to hurt her.”
“I’m rehabilitating her,” he protested. “Where’s the harm in that? I haven’t made any false promises.”
“You’re just incredible.” She shot him a look of disdain. “When I tell Janey what you’ve said to me tonight…”
“Now that really would hurt her,” said Bruno reasonably.
Maxine, who had already worked that out for herself, glared at him. She knew she couldn’t tell Janey, but she still didn’t see why Bruno should escape scot-free.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he said again, patting the seat beside him. “No hard feelings. Now you’ve got that little outburst out of your system, I’ll drive you home.”
Maxine, however, hoisted the strap of her evening bag over her shoulder and shook her head. “I’d rather walk.”
“Why?”
Because I’ve just dropped an opened bottle of traffic-light-red nail polish onto the passenger seat, thought Maxine, still gazing at him through the wound-down window. And I don’t want to get it all over my nice white skirt. Explain that one away to your girlfriend tomorrow morning, sweetheart.
“I’d just rather walk,” she said, straightening up and stepping away from the car. “Don’t worry. I’ll be safe.”
“I’m sure you will,” murmured Bruno, switching on the ignition once more, realizing that he had well and truly blown it. Well and truly, he mused as he reversed out of the muddy gateway. And what on earth is that peculiar smell…?
Chapter Twenty
Oliver enjoyed watching Thea at work in her studio. Never having considered himself a suitable candidate for retirement, taking it easy for the first time in forty years had come as a pleasant surprise. Now, with the sun streaming through the windows and nothing to do but relax, he found it extraordinarily soothing simply to sit and admire her skill.
And Thea was such good company too. She didn’t indulge in idle gossip. If she had something worth saying, she said it. If she didn’t, she kept quiet. As far as Oliver was concerned, the companionable silences, together with her down-to-earth attitudes and innate sensuality, made her about as perfect as any woman could be. Now that he had found her, he had absolutely no intention of letting her go.
“I wish you’d marry me,” he said, but all Thea did was smile and reach into the bucket beside her to rinse her hands.
“I thought you might have learned your lesson by now.”
Each of his three ex-wives had squealed with delight when he had proposed, the pound signs glowing practically neon in their eyes as they accepted. Thea, however, calmly continued to fashion a jawline from clay, studying it intently as a cloud passed over the sun, altering the shadows on the semiconstructed face.
Moving over to where she sat, Oliver stood behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “They were the wrong women. You’re the right one. Thea, you know how I feel about you.”
She knew, she knew. And if she had been young and foolish, she would have married him in a flash, as recklessly as she’d once married Patrick. But independence was sweet, and learning both to achieve and enjoy it had taken half a lifetime. Thea was superstitious enough to believe that if she married Oliver their relationship would be spoiled. Furthermore, like Snakes and Ladders, she would then be forced to start all over again…
“I do know how you feel about me,” she said, tilting her head and smiling up at him. “And I love you, darling. But we’re allowed to feel this way. We don’t need a vicar to give us permission.”
“I want us to be together,” he protested. “Properly together.”
“And you think a silly scrap of paper would do the trick?” She leaned back, sounding amused. “I’m not going to say yes, Oliver. I’ll be your mistress, but I won’t be your wife. Just think, people might call me Mrs. Kennedy the fourth. I’d end up feeling like the consolation prize in a raffle.”
She was always doing that, getting his name wrong. “Cassidy,” he corrected her with mock severity.
“Of course.” Thea grinned, then looked puzzled. “Why is that name so familiar?”
“It belongs to the man who wants to marry you. If you weren’t so bloody obstinate, it could be your name!” Faintly exasperated, he added, “Then you’d have to remember it.”
But her expression had cleared. “Of course. Guy Cassidy, the photographer. That’s the chap my younger daughter works for. You’ve probably heard of him, darling… I believe he’s rather famous.”
“Ah.” Oliver, who had been waiting for some time for her to make the connection, realized he may as well get it over with. Clasping Thea’s hand in his, he took a deep breath. “As a matter of fact, I have heard of him…”
• • •
“One question,” said Thea when he had finished. “Was I part of this plan? Did you know I was Maxine’s mother when you came into the studio that day?”
“No.” Oliver shook his head. “You definitely weren’t part of the plan. Just a glorious, unexpected bonus.”
Thea smiled, satisfied he was speaking the truth. “That’s all right then, and I suppose you’d rather I didn’t mention any of this to Maxine?”
“It might be best.” He kissed her teasingly on the forehead. “Not until the wedding, at least.”
• • •
“How have the children been?” asked Guy, sitting down at the kitchen table and watching Maxine wash up. Serena had left for a fashion shoot in Barcelona, and he’d spent the day in London after seeing her off at Heathrow.
“Wonderful.” Maxine, immeasurably cheered by Serena’s departure, grinned at him. “I took them to the supermarket this morning. When we got ba
ck here, I found a bag of jelly beans in Ella’s pocket. I felt like Fagin.”
Guy frowned. “I hope you told her off.”
“Told her off? I stood in front of her and ate every last one. And I’ve told her that next week she has to go back, apologize to the manager, and hand over two weeks’ pocket money. If she’s lucky, he won’t send her to prison.”
“She won’t do that again in a hurry, then.” He looked amused.
“She won’t speak to me again in a hurry either,” said Maxine. “According to Ella, it was my fault for not allowing her to buy any jelly beans in the first place.”
Guy rose to his feet and picked up a tea towel. When he started drying the plates she’d washed, Maxine knew at once something was up.
“But they do speak to you,” he said, his tone casual. “Tell me, what do they think of Serena?”
Uh-oh. It hadn’t escaped Maxine’s notice that Serena had arrived with four suitcases and only left with two. She might have known she shouldn’t get her hopes up. “Why? Are you thinking of marrying her?”
“I’m just interested in hearing anything you may have picked up,” said Guy.
Serena had stuck up for her, Maxine remembered, when he had bawled her out over the Oliver Cassidy incident. She’d also given her a Monopoly board–sized box of expensive makeup, an unwanted gift that she said she’d never use. In her own vague way, Maxine supposed, she wasn’t really that bad. Not scintillating, but bearable.
“They think she’s OK,” she replied, washing a teaspoon with care. “They don’t dislike her, anyway. She doesn’t really talk to them that much.”
Guy raised an eyebrow. “Is that it?”
Maxine handed him the teaspoon. “As far as Josh is concerned, most of your girlfriends go so far over the top they’re practically in orbit. At least Serena doesn’t do that. She doesn’t gush over them.”
“Hmm.” He paused, then said, “And how about you?”
She gave him an innocent look. “I don’t gush either.”
“What’s your opinion of Serena?”
He wasn’t being very fair. If she said anything remotely bitchy it could only go against her. With a trace of resentment, Maxine said, “Why are you asking me? My opinion hardly counts. You’re old enough to make up your own mind about whether you like her.” Furthermore, she thought grumpily, she couldn’t for the life of her understand why he should be so apparently taken with Serena and so uninterested in herself.
“I know.” There was a glimmer of a smile on his face. “I have. But it is going to affect you. Serena’s sold her flat in London, and she’s going to be moving in with us when she gets back from Barcelona.”
Oh hell, thought Maxine. If Guy and Serena were going to play happy family, did that mean she was out of a job? Aloud, she said, “Permanently?”
He shrugged. “We’ll see how it goes. She was looking at other flats, but completion on her own went through more quickly than expected, so it seemed an appropriate time to…well, try it.”
Maxine turned, gave him a look, and said nothing.
“I know, it’s hardly the romantic gesture of the decade,” hedged Guy, “but it’s tricky, with the children… I just don’t want to make any mistakes.”
“And what do Josh and Ella think of all this?” she countered. “They haven’t said anything about it to me.”
“I’m speaking to them this evening.” He smiled. “I asked you first.”
“What for, my permission?”
“Your opinion.”
Maxine dried her hands on a tea towel. “Don’t their opinions matter?”
“Of course they do,” Guy retorted. “If they really couldn’t handle it, Serena wouldn’t move in. And this isn’t a cue,” he added severely, “for you to put the boot in behind my back.”
She kept a straight face. “Would I?”
“Of course you would.” He raised an eyebrow. “That’s why I’m saying don’t even think of it. This is important to me.”
Me too, thought Maxine. Leaning against the sink and folding her arms, she said mildly, “If Serena’s moving in, does that mean you won’t need me anymore?”
“Good God, of course not!” Guy looked astonished. “Is that what you thought? No, Serena has her career…she travels abroad more often than I do. You’d still be needed to look after the children.” He paused, then added, “If anything, I was more concerned that you might decide to leave.”
It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to her, Maxine decided. Heavens, it was practically a full-scale compliment. “Does that mean you really want me to stay?” she said, milking the situation for all it was worth.
But Guy wasn’t that easily fooled. “The children do,” he replied neatly. “But then they don’t know about the incident the other night outside your sister’s flat.”
“Oh, but I hadn’t really been arrested—”
“I know.” He looked amused. “I’m just saying there isn’t much point in fishing for compliments. There’s such a thing as pushing your luck too far.”
• • •
“If you want to marry someone, why don’t you marry Maxine?” said Ella, as if that solved the problem. “Then Serena wouldn’t need to move in.”
Guy tried to imagine what was going on in her seven-year-old mind. Ella’s memories of her mother were becoming sketchy. She had been cared for by nannies—first Berenice, now Maxine—for over three years.
“I’m not marrying Serena,” he replied carefully. “We just thought it might be nice if she came to live here.”
Ella frowned. “But she’s your girlfriend. Does that mean she’d be sort of like a mummy?”
Guy didn’t know the answer to that. In darker moments during the past year or two when other people had made pointed comments and guilt had mingled with the weight of parental responsibility, he had wondered whether he should simply find himself a wife, a suitable stepmother for the children, and stop waiting for it to happen. It, he thought, was taking its time. Love didn’t grow on trees. There had been more than enough willing candidates, God knows, but the ones who would have made ideal stepmothers had never captured his interest, and those with whom he had become briefly involved had on the whole been wildly unsuited for the task.
And it was a hell of a task for any woman; he knew that. But of all of them, at least Serena had had the guts to be honest with him from the start. Young children weren’t something she was familiar with. She was sure Josh and Ella were perfectly nice, but if he didn’t mind, she’d prefer to take her time getting to know them. Besides, she had added, who knew how their own relationship would work out? There didn’t seem much point in getting too emotionally involved with the kids if all she and Guy ended up doing was splitting up. That would only cause Josh and Ella more unnecessary pain.
It might be a pessimistic attitude, but it was practical. Guy was willing to give it a go. Just because he had fallen in love with Véronique within minutes of meeting her didn’t mean it always had to happen that way. Maybe this time with Serena, it would simply unfold at a gradual pace.
Ella, wearing pale-pink pajamas and Mickey Mouse slippers, was curled up beside him on the sofa. Reaching for the doll she had been playing with earlier, she began replaiting its blond nylon hair.
“No, Serena’s just…Serena,” said Guy cautiously, in reply to her question. “She’s a friend.”
“So we aren’t going to be a whole family?” Ella gazed up at him, eyes serious.
He gestured toward Josh, sitting on the floor in front of them. “The three of us are a family, sweetheart. You know that.”
“Serena’s just Dad’s girlfriend.” It was Josh’s turn to explain the situation to his younger sister. “She isn’t part of our family because she isn’t related to us. The only way she can get related is if Dad married her, but even then she’d only be a distant relation.�
� Glancing at Guy for confirmation, he added cheerfully, “Like that man who gave us the money the other week, our grandfather. He’s a distant relation too. It means they can buy you presents, but they aren’t allowed to tell you off.”
Guy hesitated, then nodded. This particular matter had yet to be sorted out. All he’d gotten so far each time he’d attempted to call his father was the answering machine.
Ella, however, brightened. “He was nice! When are we going to see him again?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. We’ll have to see. Now, are you happy about Serena moving in? Is there anything else you’d like to ask me?”
She shrugged. “I don’t mind. As long as she isn’t allowed to tell us off.”
“That’s what Maxine does,” said Josh earnestly. “It’s her job.”
Ella finished fiddling with the doll’s springy hair. “And teaching me how to do plaits,” she said with pride. “Daddy, will Serena sleep in the same bed as you when she starts living here?”
Guy nodded once more. For the sake of appearances, Serena had been occupying the guest room for the past week. From now on, however, the subterfuge was going to have to come to an end. “Yes, sweetheart, she will.”
“Poor Serena,” said Ella with a sigh. “She’s really going to hate it when you snore.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The trouble with liking the sound of someone from the letter they had written in reply to an advertisement, Janey decided, was that it didn’t tell you everything about them. Certain vital details only emerged later, when it was too late to say you’d changed your mind after all and that although you hadn’t even gotten to know them yet, you just knew it wasn’t going to work out.
If James Blair had only mentioned in passing that he had a laugh like a donkey on helium, for example, she would have crossed him off her list faster than you could say snort. As it was, he only hit her with the awful reality of it after introducing himself in person, in the foyer of the theater where they had arranged to meet prior to seeing a play in which his sister had a starring role.
