Sheer Mischief
Page 26
“Stop!” shrieked Janey. “Oh my God, stop the car!”
So wrapped up in his own thoughts that for a fraction of a second it seemed as if she had read his mind, Guy slammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt at the side of the road. Janey, white-faced, was staring back at the darkened shop. Guy followed her gaze; something was evidently wrong, but he didn’t know what. The windows were still intact, the door hadn’t been smashed down, the building wasn’t going up in flames…
“What is it?”
He put out his hand, but she was already struggling out of her seat belt, still staring and apparently unable to speak. As she fumbled for the door handle, he saw how violently her hands were shaking.
“Janey, what’s the matter?” He spoke more sharply than he had intended. In the back seat, Josh and Ella were craning their necks in order to see what was going on.
“Is it a burglar?” Josh sounded excited. He had glimpsed a figure sitting in the shadows of the recessed entrance to the shop, but burglars, he felt, didn’t usually stop for a rest.
“It isn’t a burglar.” Janey’s voice sounded odd, as if she hadn’t used it for a long time. The handle of the passenger door having defeated her, she said numbly, “Can you open this for me please?”
“Who is it?” Guy had already figured it out for himself, but he asked the question anyway.
“My husband. Alan. It’s…my husband.”
She was evidently in a state of deep shock. Guy hesitated, wondering what he should do. At this moment, he doubted whether Janey could even stand upright, let alone cross the road unaided.
He was also seized, quite abruptly, with the almost overwhelming urge to cross the road himself and batter Alan Sinclair to a pulp. Because he wasn’t dead, he’d never been dead, and he had no right to put Janey through two years of hell and still have the nerve to be alive.
“Why don’t you wait here?” He spoke in soothing tones, as if she were a child. “Just stay in the car and let me speak to him.”
But Janey turned to stare at him as if he had gone irredeemably mad. “What?”
Josh and Ella, in the back seat, listened in dumbstruck silence.
“I said, let me just—”
“I heard you,” she replied through gritted teeth. “And I can’t believe you have the bloody nerve to even think of such a thing. If you saw your wife, Guy, what would you do? Sit in the car and let me go and have a word with her?”
As a counterattack, it was horribly below the belt, but Janey didn’t even stop to consider what she was saying.
“Véronique is dead,” Guy murmured. “Your husband is alive.”
“Of course he’s alive,” shrieked Janey, almost beside herself with rage. “That’s why I’d quite like to see him, you stupid bastard, except that I can’t bloody see him because you won’t switch off the stupid child lock on this stupid bloody door!”
He flicked the switch. “There. Janey, all I’m saying is be careful. Ask yourself why he left and why he’s decided to come back.”
But it was too late. She was already out of the car.
“Oh, Dad!” wailed Ella, as he put the car into gear. “This is exciting! Can’t we stay and watch?”
“No.” Guy’s jaw was set, the expression in his eyes unreadable. “We can’t.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“My God, I don’t believe it,” sighed Maxine. “What is this, some kind of sick joke? Did they move April Fools’ Day?”
Bruno put his hand out to steady her glass, which was tilting alarmingly.
“Careful,” he said, at the same time admiring her cleavage. “Didn’t you read the government health warning on the bottle? Red wine on a white dress can seriously damage your night.”
The dress, which had cost a scary amount of money, was an Azzedine Alaïa. Moreover, it belonged to Cindy, who had threatened her with certain death if anything untoward happened to it. Mindful of the warning, Maxine placed the glass on a table out of harm’s way.
“My night’s already been damaged,” she said rudely. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Bruno grinned. “Just one of those fateful coincidences, I suppose. Jamie Laing’s an old friend of mine. When he called last week and invited me to the party, I didn’t even think I’d be able to get up here, but my new assistant manager was keen to work this weekend, so…” He shrugged and gestured around the room. “It seemed like a nice idea. Now why don’t I ask how you came to be invited to this party? Or maybe it isn’t a coincidence at all. Maybe you’re following me.”
“Oh, absolutely,” declared Maxine, the words dripping sarcasm. But the urge to show off was simply irresistible. Glimpsing a semifamiliar face in the crowd, she waved over Bruno’s shoulder, realizing too late that the face belonged to an actor whom she had only seen on television. At least Bruno hadn’t witnessed the actor’s blank stare. “Sorry, so many old friends,” she said airily. “Me? Oh, Jamie’s a darling, isn’t he? I’ve been up here all week, shooting a commercial with him. It’s all gone wonderfully well. He’s predicting great things for me if I decide to give the acting business another go.”
“So you’d leave Trezale?” Bruno, equally unable to resist putting her down, looked sympathetic. “Oh dear, you mean persuading Guy Cassidy that you were the woman of his dreams didn’t work out? Must have been a bit of a kick in the teeth for you.”
“A kick in the teeth for me?” Maxine gave him a condescending smile. “Bruno, men like you are the reason women like me wear stiletto heels. Is being obnoxious a hobby of yours, or are you just particularly miffed because I turned down your own touching little offer of a quickie in the back seat of your car?”
She was wonderful, he thought, filled with silent admiration. He adored almost everything about Maxine Vaughan, from those fabulous bare shoulders right down to that pair of ridiculously high heels. But if the body was terrific, the mind was even more entrancing. She could trade insults like no female he had ever met before; she was sharp and funny, a talented liar, and out for everything she could possibly get. They were alike in every way. Best of all, he thought with a barely suppressed smile, she was as mad about him as he was about her.
“I wasn’t miffed,” he replied easily, leaning against the wall and running his fingers carelessly through his hair. The emerald-green wallpaper matched his eyes and offset his deep-purple jacket to perfection. “You were being loyal to your sister—an admirable quality in any girl, but especially you.”
He thought he looked so great, thought Maxine, with all that streaky blond hair and that toffee-brown tan. He was only resting against the wall because the color of it went so well with his jacket. And he had some nerve too; you had to be unbelievably un-gay in order to get away with wearing a jacket like that over an ocher T-shirt and pale-yellow trousers. She was only surprised it wasn’t smothered in bloody sequins…
“I told Janey she should never have got involved with you,” she declared, ignoring the last jibe. “I knew exactly what would happen, and I was right. Tell me, does it give you some kind of thrill, finding some vulnerable female and tearing her to pieces like that?”
“I didn’t actually set out to hurt her,” Bruno protested with a good-humored shake of his head. “Believe it or not, Janey couldn’t accept the way I am, that was all.”
“You mean she couldn’t accept the fact that you’re such a bastard?” There was derision in Maxine’s eyes. “Or that you deliberately humiliated her in front of two hundred people at your stinking rotten party?”
“Maybe I went a bit far.” Despite the admission, Bruno was still smiling. “But she started it. All I did was retaliate, and she didn’t even fight back. Let’s face it, Janey’s too nice.” He shrugged. “We really weren’t suited at all.”
“You can say that again.”
“Ah. Well, these things happen. I suppose she hates me now.”
“Good.” He glanced over his shoulder, winked at Cindy, then returned his attention to Maxine. “So loyalty is no longer an issue. You can stop pretending, sweetheart. We just take it from here.”
As he said the words he moved closer, lowering his voice accordingly. For something to do, Maxine reached for her drink and took a great slug of red wine. The glass remained in her hand, between them, on a level with Bruno’s trousers.
“Armani versus Alaïa,” he observed in conversational tones. “We’re talking serious money.”
“You think you’re so irresistible,” Maxine drawled. “Don’t you?”
“Not at all.” Bruno removed the glass from her hand, drained it, and put it out of reach. “I’m just honest. Maxine, I admire you enormously for your loyalty toward your sister, but it’s different now. You can relax. We’re both three hundred miles from home. Janey hates me. As far as I’m concerned, you are the most delectable female I’ve ever known, and as far as you’re concerned, you fancy me rotten. So why don’t we stop playing games and simply admit how we feel about each other? OK,” he conceded, “so it’s a massive coincidence, but since we’re both here in London at the same party, why waste time? Why don’t we just take advantage of the situation and enjoy it?”
Coincidence had had precious little to do with it, other than the fact that Jamie Laing really was a friend of Bruno’s. Upon hearing from his new waitress that according to her son—who attended the same school as Josh Cassidy—Josh’s nanny was doing a TV commercial with someone called Jamie, all it had taken was a phone call. He had practically invited himself along to the end-of-ad party at Jamie’s elegant, three-story Chelsea home. His appearance there tonight might have caught Maxine off guard, but he had been rehearsing these lines for days.
Maxine fixed him with an unswerving gaze. Beneath a great deal of gold eye shadow and at least three coats of mascara, her dark eyes were serious.
“You really think,” she said very slowly, “I fancy you rotten?”
“I don’t think.” Bruno gave her a modest smile. “It’s a fact.”
“Shit!” howled Maxine. “That is just so unfair. How could you possibly know?”
The fact that she was wearing those ludicrous high heels didn’t bother Bruno in the least; he didn’t care that at this moment she was a couple of inches taller than him. Leaning across, he kissed her very lightly on the mouth.
“I’m an expert,” he said, then broke into a grin. “But even if I hadn’t been, I would still have known. It was obvious from the start, angel. You might be able to act, but even you aren’t that good.”
This was unbelievable. Talk about one-upmanship, thought Maxine, torn between admiration for such a talent and annoyance because if there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was being seen through. And she had thought she’d done so well too. Damn, damn, damn!
“You don’t even know me.” She looked cross. “Not properly, anyway.”
“Don’t sulk,” Bruno chided. “And of course I know you—as well as I know myself. I told you before: we’re alike. I’ve never met anyone as much like me before in my life. That was why it was so easy. Looking at you is like looking into a mirror.”
“Except I wear more makeup.” Hopelessly unprepared for such a turn of events, Maxine resorted to flippancy. It gave her time to think.
But she had not reckoned with his ability to read minds.
“You’re also more nervous,” Bruno replied, sliding his arm around her waist. “And there’s no need to be. Stop trying to analyze it, sweetheart. It’s happened, whether you like it or not. Some things are just out of our control. All we have to do now is enjoy it.”
He was breathtakingly self-confident. Maxine decided with some regret that he was also right.
“Has it even occurred to you that I might say no?” she asked, because it went against the grain to be too much of a pushover.
Bruno grinned. “What would be the point? We both know you’re going to say yes.”
• • •
Everything seemed to be happening in ultra-slow motion. Just crossing the street was like climbing Everest. Janey, dimly aware of Guy’s Mercedes accelerating away behind her, felt the muscles in her legs contract with each step. She listened to the sound of her own uneven breathing, and she saw the figure in the shop doorway turn in her direction, tilting his head in that achingly familiar way.
Still numb with shock, she tried to formulate some kind of plan. It was so strange, she had no idea what she was going to say. All she could think of was the fact that her hands were cold. Alan had always hated being touched by cold hands. If she touched him, would he wince and draw away? Should she just keep her hands jammed in her pockets? God, was this really happening?
“Janey.”
It had taken forever, but somehow she had made it across the street. Her heart was pounding in her ears and she still couldn’t speak, but to Janey’s immense relief, she didn’t need to because Alan was saying it all for her, pulling her into his arms and hugging her so tightly she could hardly breathe. Over and over again, as he covered her face with kisses, he murmured, “Janey, oh, Janey, I’ve missed you so much… You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed of this day.”
“You’re alive,” she murmured finally, touching his face as if to prove it beyond all doubt. His cheek was warm and her hands were cold, but he didn’t flinch away. She had almost forgotten how good-looking he was. The sun-bleached hair was shorter; the face, confusingly, looked both older and younger; and a new, pale scar bisected his left eyebrow. But the eyes, light blue and fringed with long lashes, were as clear as they had always been. They, at least, were unchanged. The eyes, and that hypnotically reassuring voice…
“Oh, my poor darling,” Alan whispered tenderly, taking her icy fingers and pressing them to his lips. “Don’t say that. I can’t bear to imagine what I must have put you through. All I can say is that at the time I thought I was making the right decision for both of us. The trouble was,” he went on, breaking into a sad smile, “no matter what I did or how hard I tried, and God knows I tried, I could never stop loving you.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Stupidly, she had almost forgotten that the flat had been Alan’s home too. It seemed odd, watching him walk into the kitchen and know without having to ask where things were.
“It should be champagne, of course,” he said cheerfully, uncapping the half-empty bottle of cooking brandy that was all Janey had in the way of something to drink, “but you look as if you could do with warming up, so…cheers.”
He had filled her balloon glass almost to the brim. With a trembling hand, Janey raised it to her lips and gulped down several eye-watering mouthfuls, willing it to have some kind of effect on her numbed brain. She had fantasized over this scene a thousand times, her fevered imagination running riot as she covered every possible eventuality. It had never even crossed her mind that she might be so lost for words she would barely be able to say anything at all.
There were still too many questions to be answered. Alan had disappeared from her life, and she didn’t know why. Now he was back, and she was still none the wiser. The brandy, however, was beginning to make its presence known; she could feel that much, at least.
“Sit down,” she said haltingly when Alan had switched on the gas fire and paused to admire the new painting above the mantelpiece. “You’d better explain everything. Right from the start. I need to know why you did it.”
She had chosen the armchair for herself. Alan sat on the sofa opposite, nursing his drink and looking contrite.
“I want you to know, Janey, that I’m desperately ashamed of myself. I took the coward’s way out, I realize that now, but it really did
n’t seem like that at the time. I was under pressure, confused, I couldn’t figure out any other way of going about it without causing you even more pain.”
As far as Janey was concerned, even more pain was a physical impossibility. She had hit the threshold and stayed there, trapped like a bluebottle stuck to flypaper.
“Go on,” she said briefly, her eyes clouded with the unbearable memories of those first months. “What are you trying to tell me, that you’d met someone else?”
“No!” He looked appalled. “Janey, absolutely not. Oh God, is that what you thought?”
Impatience began to stir inside her. “I didn’t know what to think,” she replied evenly. “I tried everything, but there were never any answers. And you weren’t there to ask.”
Alan had known this wasn’t going to be easy. He shook his head and tried again. “I know, and it was all my fault. What’s the expression? Be careful what you wish for, because you may get it.”
Janey stared at him.
“Don’t look at me like that, sweetheart, please. The truth is, I loved you too much. You were what I wished for, and I got you.” He hesitated for a second, then went on. “And it scared the hell out of me. It became a kind of obsession, you see. I managed to convince myself that sooner or later you would fall out of love with me. It’s a terrible feeling, Janey, to think you aren’t good enough for your own wife. It was all right for you—you knew how much you meant to me—but all I felt was more and more insecure. Every single morning I’d wake up and ask myself whether this would be the day you’d decide you’d had enough of being married. To someone,” he concluded brokenly, “who didn’t deserve you.”
He’d stopped speaking. It was Janey’s turn. Her glass was empty, and she’d almost forgotten how to breathe.
“But that’s crazy,” she managed to say, her voice barely above a whisper. Of all the possible reasons she had come up with, this was one she had never for a moment even considered. “We were married; we were happy together.”