‘Were you really? Do you think she’d have done it?’
‘Even Jason thought she should.’
‘Shit. Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you say?’
‘You didn’t give me the chance!’
Deano got up to pace, his hand over his mouth.
‘So you think I’ve blown it with Jenna?’ he said after a while.
‘Yeah. For both of us.’
‘What am I going to do, Kayley?’
His self-absorption sparked rage in her.
‘I don’t give a shit,’ she exploded. ‘Just like you don’t give a shit what happens to me. Oh, fuck this, I’m out of here.’
She stormed over to the front door, as if to open it.
Jenna returned to the hallway, her lips set in a thin line.
‘I think it’s time you left now, don’t you?’
‘Jen, hear me out—’
‘Get. Out. Now.’
Kayley watched with growing bemusement as Deano Diamond threw himself on his knees in front of Jenna.
‘What do you want from me, babe? Name it. It’s yours. I’m lost without you. I need you.’
Jenna turned away, her eyes shut. When she spoke her voice was less firm than it had been.
‘You can’t give me anything any more, Deano. Give it up. Leave now, or I’ll call the police. I’m serious.’
‘You wouldn’t?’
But he was back on his feet, brushing down his knees, eyeing the front door in seconds. The adverse publicity was just as undesirable to him as it was to Jenna, apparently.
‘Give me my space,’ said Jenna, hurrying to the front door to open it. ‘I’m not saying we’ll never have an amicable relationship at some stage. But not like this. This is all wrong. Goodbye, Deano.’
‘I’m down, Jen, but I’m not out,’ he said, and then he left without as much as a backward glance at Kayley.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kayley, immediately the door shut.
‘Yes,’ said Jenna, icy and unsmiling. ‘You should be. What on earth possessed you to invite him here?’
‘I didn’t – he invited himself. He did ask me, but I said no …’
‘When? When did he ask you?’
‘Earlier on, on the phone.’
‘He phoned you this morning? Oh my God. What else aren’t you telling me?’
Jenna threw up her hands, then covered her face.
‘It’s not like that …’
Jenna took her hands away from her eyes and stared.
‘Like what? You don’t have a cosy little private relationship with my ex, then? Because it certainly sounds that way. No.’ She spoke over Kayley’s attempts at protest. ‘No, I don’t want to hear any more of this. I don’t feel I can trust you now. And I really, really need to be able to trust the people in my life. You’ve let me down. You’re on his side.’
‘It’s not about sides! He did me a favour, so I felt I owed him one, that’s all.’
‘You owed him one? What about me? Don’t you owe me anything?’
‘Jenna …’
‘No, don’t speak to me. Don’t even dare speak to me. I want you out of here. Now. Get out. I’ll have your stuff sent back over to your dad’s. If I can’t trust you, I can’t have anything to do with you.’
‘But Jen …’
‘Get out.’
Her voice rose to a pitch of hysteria.
Kayley couldn’t think of anything to do. She looked for Jason, but he didn’t seem to be anywhere nearby. Jenna’s face was rigid with fury and something a bit like fear, as if she wasn’t sure she could control what she might do.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I hope you change your mind.’
‘Out!’
Kayley wasn’t going to beg. She had her pride.
She opened the door and slammed it shut behind her, stalking with her head held high all the way to the gate, where she expected to find the usual throng of camera-wielding jackals … but where were they? Oh, right.
At the corner of the street, Deano was holding court, waving his hands, doing the charm-school body language. Well, he wouldn’t be feeling so charming once she was done with him. She was having a word with that flash git.
She put her head down and began a determined progress towards the corner.
But she hadn’t gone far when a car pulled up to the kerb beside her and the tinted window lowered.
‘Get in.’
‘What? Who are you?’
‘Do it.’
She was still frowning, bewildered at this latest development, when the back door of the car opened and an arm, heavily tattooed and even more heavily muscled, shot out and grabbed her, forcing her into the car.
‘What the fuck?’ she shouted, but the door was shut and locked and the car already in motion. As they passed the street corner, bulbs flashed and popped, but not for her.
For Deano Diamond.
Chapter Nine
‘YOU DID WHAT?’
Jason turned from his frescoes, to which he had retreated while Deano was in the house, and gave Jenna a look that combined astonishment, confusion and outrage in one wide-eyed package.
‘Well, what else could I have done? She betrayed me.’
‘Betrayed you?’ Jason put his brush in a water jar and ran paint-streaked fingers through his hair. ‘Jenna, I’m only here now because of her. Because of the brave, unselfish thing she did for us.’
His words took the hot wind out of Jenna’s sails.
How could she have forgotten that? How had her privacy and her need to avoid Deano have come before the great debt she owed Kayley?
She tried to justify herself. ‘Well, she just did what was right. She just stopped doing what was wrong. Everyone would have done the same.’
Jason shook his head.
‘They fucking wouldn’t. As far as I’m concerned, that girl is number one on my guest list for life. She deserves it.’
‘But she was … colluding … with Deano.’
‘Oh yeah? Got proof, have you?’
‘She told me she’d been on the phone to him earlier today. She invited him here! I can’t trust her.’
‘Jen, she’s allowed to take phone calls from whoever she likes. And she probably didn’t even want him to phone. He’s probably been pestering her just as badly as his PR people have been pestering yours. Did you even let her give her side of the story?’
‘I was angry. And why should I believe what she says when she … she …’
‘When she’s been so truthful in the past?’
‘She told the truth once, after lying for months. Who’s to say she’s changed that much? You can take the girl out of the estate …’
‘Oh, fuck off! Listen to yourself!’
Jenna felt her face burn. She knew that had been a low thing to say, but somehow she couldn’t seem to let go of this paranoia, and it had the upper hand of her.
‘So,’ she said in a low, barely controlled voice, ‘you’re saying that Kayley is more important to you than I am?’
‘Don’t be a dick, Jen.’ He picked up his cat, as if he needed it as a shield, tickling it under its ears. ‘I’m not saying that. But what I am saying is that, until you pick up that phone and give that girl her job back, I don’t want to know you.’
Jenna’s head was a deafening noise of conflicting options. Admit she’d acted in haste? Burst into tears? Run into Jason’s arms? Swallow her pride?
But her pride was like a lump of hot ash in her throat; unswallowable. She was still too angry, too hurt.
‘I guess I’ll see you later then,’ she said hoarsely, and she left the attic.
‘Jen, don’t …’
Jason’s voice in its exasperation floated after her, but she stomped down the back stairs with miserable determination.
She had done nothing wrong. She’d fired plenty of people for much less. It was Jason, with his estate code of ‘look after your mates’, who was at fault.
There was no way she
was stewing around the house all day, waiting for Jason to come downstairs and speak sense. He could get knotted.
She switched off her mobile, picked up her handbag and headed for the car. If she wanted to look into those old parish records, now seemed like a very good time for it.
Some hours later, she was thoughtful at the wheel. So thoughtful that she sat at a red light long after it had turned green. Only the impatient honking from behind her brought her back to herself.
What she had found out at the county archive was potentially immense news.
She wasn’t even sure she could tell Jason. Would he want to know? Almost certainly not.
The spat with Kayley was a long way back in her mind now. Even Deano hadn’t featured in her consciousness for hours.
So she was almost surprised when she walked into the kitchen and found no Kayley, sitting at the table with her notebook, looking at spreadsheets with a mug of tea to hand.
The memory hit her like a sledgehammer.
Oh.
God, she had been completely over the top. Jason was right. Kayley was their friend, and at heart she was loyal to a fault. If she’d been sucked in by Deano, she was hardly to blame for it. More sophisticated people than Kayley fell prey to his manipulations and charms every day of the week.
She went to the wine rack, took out a bottle of Jason’s favourite red, and headed upstairs with two glasses and a corkscrew.
‘Pax,’ she said, entering the attic and holding out her peace offerings, but she was stopped in her tracks by the progress he’d made on his history of Bledburn fresco. It was finished. ‘Wow.’
‘What’s stuffing mix got to do with it?’ asked a yawning Jason, who had been asleep on the manky old sleeping bag she’d somehow never been able to bully him into throwing out. The cat was lying on his chest, purring away.
Jenna laughed. ‘I said pax, not Paxo. It means, let’s call a truce. Jason, this is just … well, I don’t use the word much because it’s overdone these days, but in this case it really does apply. It’s awesome.’
‘Cheers. I’m quite chuffed with it myself.’ He sat up, dislodging Bowyer, who mewed and gave him a dirty look. ‘What’s the wine for …? Oh yeah. I remember now.’
‘Are you still talking to me?’
‘Depends. Have you called Kayley?’
‘Not yet. But I’m going to. Let me have a bit of Dutch courage first.’
‘Fair enough.’ Jason took the corkscrew and loosened the cork. ‘Come to your senses, then?’
‘When Deano turned up this morning, it really threw me. I know I overreacted. I’m just so … He makes me feel really threatened, you know?’
She poured wine into the glasses and handed one to Jason.
‘Yeah, I know,’ he said dryly. ‘But I don’t really get why. What can he do to you?’
‘Objectively, I know he can’t do anything, apart from silly games with the press and so on. But I suppose … it’s the weight of the past. It’s all the baggage we share. It’s so heavy, Jason. Twenty years’ worth of it. It’s oppressive.’
Jason gave her a half-hearted smile. ‘Will you be saying that about me in twenty years’ time?’
She laughed, choking slightly on her first mouthful of wine.
‘In twenty years? You’ll be fifty.’
‘Yeah. I reckon I’ll be a proper silver fox. And you’ll be one of those women nobody can guess the age of ’cos she’s so, like, timeless and shit.’
‘Oh God, I’ll be pushing sixty. Saga time.’
‘I always liked those Saga ads on telly. I wouldn’t mind cruising the rest of my life away, if I had the wedge. Shall we do that, Jen? You and me. Just cruise around the world, playing bowls on deck?’
‘You’re daft, you are,’ she said fondly, trying and failing to imagine Jason as a distinguished older gent in pristine chinos and shirt.
‘Yeah, but at least I don’t go around firing people for nowt.’
‘I know, I know.’
‘What made you come to your senses, then?’
‘A bit of time and space, I suppose,’ said Jenna, reflecting. ‘I just needed to calm down. There’s something about Deano that makes my blood boil.’
Jason turned his face away for a moment.
‘With anger,’ Jenna added hastily, then wondered if she should have done. It should go without saying, surely.
‘Pretty strong reaction,’ said Jason, staring ahead.
‘I can’t help it!’
‘No. But, y’know … I can’t help wondering sometimes …’
Jenna put down her glass and put her hands in his, holding them tightly.
‘Jason,’ she said. ‘I’m never going back to him.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it’s time you both started acting like grown-ups around each other then.’
She nodded, taking the criticism to heart.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Well, I will if he will.’
Jason tutted, rolling his eyes.
‘Playground talk,’ he said. ‘Be the bigger person, Jen. Be cool around him. It’ll wind him up no end. This way, with you going off like a rocket every time you set eyes on him, he thinks he’s still in with a chance. Do you get me? Like, there’s still passion there or whatever. Just be cool and polite and he’ll back off. I bet you.’
Jenna leant her head on his shoulder.
‘You’re not just a pretty face, are you?’ she said.
‘Oh, I’m a lot more than that,’ he said, reaching around to tickle her neck. ‘And you know it.’
They sat there, wrapped up in each other, quiet and calm after the storm, enjoying the sheer togetherness of the moment.
‘So,’ said Jenna, sitting up and retrieving her wine. ‘The fresco is finished. And bloody amazing it is too. What’s your next project?’
Jason took a long glug of wine then turned to her with a crooked smile.
‘You,’ he said.
‘Me? You mean that sketch you were doing?’
‘Oh, more than that. A lot more than that. I’ve got plans for you, madam.’
A pleasurable shiver started at the nape of Jenna’s neck and fluttered downwards.
‘What sort of plans?’
‘I had this idea for a series of portraits,’ he said. ‘Erotic portraits.’
‘You’re not doing pornographic pictures of me!’
‘Don’t be so narrow-minded, Jen. It’s not porn. It’d be art.’
‘Oh yes, that’s what they all say.’ She put down her glass and hugged her arms around her body, as if in defence of it.
‘Well, thanks a lot. You think I’m some low class tits and fanny merchant. Great. Nice one.’
‘No, I don’t,’ she said, opening herself up again. ‘I don’t think that. But Jason – I can’t … My image! I’m not some professional life model, am I? I’m a person with a high public profile.’
‘You think it would hurt your public profile, if people knew you liked sex? Why the fuck should it?’
‘Because you know what it’s like out there. I wouldn’t get a moment’s peace for the rest of my life. The pictures would be referenced in every single interview, every single profile, every single silly paragraph about Talent Team forever more.’
‘So? Let them have their smutty fun. Who cares what dicks like that think anyway? And when did I say I’d exhibit them?’
Jenna took a breath, her fears suddenly falling away.
‘You mean, you wouldn’t?’
‘No. I’d keep them for myself. They’d be my undiscovered masterpiece, a little treat for the world for after we’re both gone. I mean, you’re not going to care if people see them after you’re dead, are you?’
‘What a very comforting thought,’ said Jenna. ‘But … are you serious?’
‘Cross my heart, hope to die. Well, eventually. Sometime after I get this series painted.’
‘So when you say series …?’ Jenna picked up her wine glass to hide behind in case the answer was too shocking.<
br />
‘I want to paint you in different stages of having sex,’ said Jason.
She burst out laughing.
‘How on earth is that possible? I mean … wouldn’t you be a bit busy?’ She spluttered into her wine glass, a further thought making her giggle. ‘Unless you mean you’re literally going to get to work on my body with a paint brush. Is that it?’
‘It’s a thought,’ said Jason, undeterred. ‘I quite fancy that, actually. But no. Listen, I haven’t explained properly. I won’t actually be on you at the time. I want to do upper body and face portraits. Mainly, I want to capture the look on your face. Every time I see it, I wish I could get it on canvas and keep it forever. It’s always just that little bit different and I hate the thought of never seeing you exactly like that again. So I thought I’d try and paint it.’
Jenna sobered, more moved than she cared to admit by his words. They really sounded like something somebody deeply in love would think.
‘Just face and upper body?’ she repeated.
‘Yeah. No porn stuff, all right? Unless you want me to …’
‘Well, if it’s going to stay private, perhaps …’
‘Wicked. Another project for after this one.’ He bent to snatch a kiss from her, red wine mixing with lips and tongues.
‘So how are you going to do it, if you’re over there at the easel and I’m … not?’
‘What I want is your face, when you’re aroused, then when you come, then afterwards. Maybe a couple more in between. So I just need to capture it, get that moment, then work from there.’
‘But …’ Jenna laughed with appalled embarrassment. ‘You can’t paint that quickly, can you?’
‘I’d take a photograph, then do a sketch from it, obviously, first. And you’re right. We’d have to repeat it a few times.’
His smile was broad and unabashedly lascivious.
‘I do suffer for my art,’ he said.
She slapped the back of his hand.
‘You’re unbelievable sometimes,’ she said. ‘I wish I could see what goes on in your mind.’
‘Trust me, you don’t. We’ll get started then, shall we?’
‘Hold on. There’s something I really ought to do first.’ She took her phone from her bag and dialled Kayley’s number.
Diamonds Forever Page 9
