Killer Affair

by Rebecca Chance

  Lexy had said, she recalled, that Frank probably wouldn’t mind too much about a few blurry photos of her with Deacon. Caroline had agreed, pointing out that Lexy had done all sorts of wild things for the show, and by her own account, though Frank had been angry with her from time to time for crossing the line, his bad mood had never lasted that long. This, she had said blithely, would be just another one of those times, a few awkward days to live through; but Frank would understand, of course, that Lexy hadn’t really been attracted to Deacon, was just following the template laid out by Emily and her team . . .

  While of course, Ghost Mouse must have been calculating that once Lexy had a few drinks in her, and started flirting with Deacon, his insatiable libido would take things much further than she had planned.

  ‘I really played into your hands, didn’t I, Ghost Mouse?’ Lexy said aloud.

  She was staring at the last photos, the images of healthy, wholesome Caroline lying on the big rope swing with Laylah and London climbing over her. Caroline’s hair was hanging down in a long, silky sweep over the edge of the swing, and London was encircled in one of her arms, being held safely even as he crawled over her, telegraphing that Caroline was showing appropriate maternal concern.

  It was very easy to behave perfectly when you knew cameras were on you, very easy to keep a smile on your face, never look impatient or weary or frustrated. Lexy should know. She’d pulled that trick herself many times, and now it had been played on her.

  She put down her phone and walked across the room to stare out of the window. It was a view with which she was now very familiar: the majestic panorama of Alpine mountains whose slopes were snow-covered all year round, the light so clear and white that it felt as if it was meditation just to gaze at it. Sliding open the balcony door, she stepped outside, shivering in the cool air, breathing it in to calm herself down. The cold in her lungs focused her on her body, helping to balance the turmoil in her mind. It was a technique they taught here at Schloss Hafendammer, and Lexy found it surprisingly helpful, though she had told her doctor sarcastically that it wasn’t really something she could recreate at home without installing a gigantic walk-in freezer, or the kind of snow room it was now fashionable to find in spas.

  She should have known better. Doktor Weinstein had told her to step into a cold shower and stay there as long as necessary. Jason’s speculation about a German detox centre hosing her down and giving her enemas had turned out to be a fairly accurate picture of Swiss ones as well. Her regime had included colonics, purges, fast days, specially prepared herbal teas and sessions where she sat with an ‘eating coach’ and chewed every bite of food twenty times, counted out loud by the coach, before she swallowed it. The tedium had been unbearable, but she had understood and expected it, unlike many of the complaining clients, who had gone there for weight loss but bitterly resented the deprivation they had to endure in pursuit of their goal. Lexy, at least, was used to keeping her weight down.

  She craved a cigarette, but she knew that desire was psychological, not physical. It had been explained to her that nicotine addiction left your body after forty-eight hours, and after that the work was purely mental. She had quit smoking when, analyzing with Doktor Weinstein when she was most likely to drink, she had realized that one of the primary triggers was having a cigarette in her hand. Going back home an ex-smoker and maybe even an ex-drinker would surely impress Frank, and she had known anyway that she needed to kick the habit: not one facial analysis at Skin3 had failed to mention the damage done to her epidermis by smoking.

  With the cigarettes, Lexy had chosen her figure over her health for years, and now she was reversing that hierarchy. Yes, it was at least partly out of vanity; but she could tell Frank that she was setting a good example to the kids, and certainly it would be true, if not the whole truth . . .

  Lexy had been thinking non-stop about Frank and the kids: what changes she needed to make on her return, how much humble pie she’d need to eat. It was hard to believe that Frank had not responded to one of her pleading emails and texts, let alone the letter she had sent from London, followed up by two from Switzerland. Those had been very hard to write, not only because she hadn’t actually handwritten anything but her own flashy signature in so long that it had taken her several goes to be able to manage readable cursive script, but because she had known they had to be considered, come from the heart. Lexy had been living so superficially for so long that simply sitting down and being honest about her feelings, with no attempt to charm her way out of trouble, had been truly hard for her to do.

  Doktor Weinstein had helped with that. Some shrinkage, as Lexy had called it, had definitely taken place. She had needed to work out why she’d kept drinking and smoking and partying instead of spending more time with her kids; a spoilt little girl who’d become a spoilt young woman and reality star, she hadn’t been ready to change gear and finally put herself second.

  Well, she was prepared to do that now. Despite Frank having locked her out of Sandbanks, despite him not having responded to her efforts to contact him, she had never had any doubt that he would be willing to reconcile when she returned to the UK. They had two children together. She hadn’t cheated, she had just been stupid and got carried away for a moment. She had done serious, substantive work on her problems. And most importantly, they still loved each other.

  In her letters, she had explained to Frank that she was unable to contact him any other way. She had asked him to write back, or at least send a card from him and the kids. Every time she had returned to her room hoping to find an envelope that had been slid under the door, and every time she had been disappointed.

  Bitter as it had been, she had understood the message. Frank was punishing her for her sins, and it was no more than she deserved. When her plane landed at Heathrow tomorrow, her plan had been to drive straight to Sandbanks, sit outside London’s Montessori daycare until picking-up time, walk over to Laylah’s school with her son and whoever had turned up to collect the children, and then take her kids back home. Start as she meant to go on, be a mother instead of a selfish, Pinot-sodden bitch.

  But now what did she do? The only reason she had been allowed her phone was because Jason had rung the Schloss urgently, saying that it was an emergency and that Lexy needed to see something online; she had assumed it was more pictures or video of her and Deacon, but how much worse could those be? How could she have expected this?

  Lexy couldn’t blame herself. No one could have expected this, not even Frank. Caroline had played her hand superbly. She must have had her eye on him ever since she came to The Gables, gradually working out the best way to his heart. Lexy remembered Caroline’s lack of interest in the kids when she first visited the house; she hadn’t been bothered with them at all apart from making sure she got their names and dates of birth right for the book. It was only later that she had evolved into bloody Mary Poppins, chucking a ball around in the pool with them, rating Laylah’s endless outfits at the little girl’s request, talking to London’s teddy bear as if it had opinions of its own – Lexy’s heart clenched as she thought of London and his precious Brown Bear, of Laylah trying on one tutu after another and demanding to know whether the blue went better with her top than the silver. Jealousy flooded through her at the realization that Caroline was in her house, looking after her children, taking her place in bed with her husband. Lexy had never wanted her family life so much as now, when it looked as if it might be slipping away from her.

  Because that danger was real. Lexy knew Frank: he wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t have feelings for Caroline. He had never been a man who indulged in casual sex, as the groupies who always hung around footballers had discovered to their great disappointment. Lexy had been genuinely appalled on their first meeting that, although he saw her home, he did not take up her enthusiastic invitation to come inside, in all senses; instead, he asked her out to dinner the next evening. When, after three dates, they did eventually go to bed and she realized how high his sex
drive was, she had expressed surprise that he had held out so long. Frank had just smiled and said that he’d always been good at waiting for the right person to come along.

  Lexy had never thought he would cheat on her, and she was sure that until now he never had. But did he even consider this cheating? Did he think that what Lexy had done with Deacon meant their marriage was over, that they were headed for divorce, with Ghost Mouse lined up to take Lexy’s place? Ghost Mouse, who had wormed her way into Lexy’s home without Lexy even noticing. Ghost Mouse, who had learned from Lexy exactly what Frank liked in bed. Ghost Mouse, who had seen from Lexy’s behaviour what Frank was missing in a wife, and had set out to provide it . . .

  There was no doubt in Lexy’s mind that her husband and Caroline were having an affair. She could see the tenderness in his eyes as he looked at Caroline, the care with which he handed her down from the Range Rover, his smile of contentment as he took the Tupperware box she was handing him with the children’s snacks inside it. Was he in love, or just happy to have found a woman with big tits – oh yes, Caroline was lucky she had those! – who wanted to spend time with his children, have sex with him twice a day, stay in with him in the evenings instead of going out most nights to parties and launches?

  Whether it was love or just convenience, Frank’s affair with her ghostwriter was, Lexy thought with great bitterness at the irony, a fantastically strong storyline for a whole new season of the show, plus a sequel to Lexy on the Loose.

  Only Caroline would scarcely be commissioned to write it.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The next day

  ‘Twist in the Tale: Frank’s new love wrote Lexy’s book!’

  ‘The Write Stuff – Lexy’s ghostwriter steals her hubby!’

  ‘Why it matters that Lexy didn’t write her own memoir: we want our idols to tell us the truth’

  ‘Who is Caroline Macintosh – the girl who’s told Lexy’s story and taken her man?’

  ‘What am I going to do?’ Caroline sobbed, turning away from the computer screen. ‘I signed a confidentiality agreement! No one was supposed to find out that I wrote Lexy’s book! I’m going to be in such trouble with Bailey and Hart!’

  Frank, who was sitting next to her on the sofa, enfolded her in a comforting embrace.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ he said, cuddling her, spouting the standard words that men used to calm down crying women.

  ‘How can it be all right?’ she wailed. ‘What’s going to happen? What am I going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘You’ll just have to wait and see what Lexy’s editor says. When is he ringing?’

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ Caroline said into his shoulder. ‘With her agent. It’s a conference call.’

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ Frank repeated. ‘Look, you haven’t done anything wrong. You worked so hard to get that book written, and they love it! Everyone loves it! Didn’t he tell you everyone at the publisher really enjoyed it? And the agent did too?’

  Caroline nodded against him. His hand cradled her head, stroking her hair.

  ‘This isn’t anything to do with you,’ he said soothingly. ‘You just got caught in the crossfire. How did people even find out it was you? I thought no one was ever supposed to know!’

  ‘They weren’t,’ Caroline said, pulling back and wiping her eyes. ‘I mean, everyone who thought about it would assume Lexy’d have some help writing a book, but you never actually admit there was a ghostwriter. There was a pop star who said she wrote a book last year, and it turned out that someone else got paid to write it. It sold tons, and I don’t think her fans really cared at all.’

  ‘And how did people find out she hadn’t written it herself?’ Frank asked again, a question upon which Caroline wished he wouldn’t focus quite so hard.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I think she thanked her ghostwriter in the acknowledgements and people recognized the name, because the ghost had written books of her own.’

  ‘But that wouldn’t happen with you,’ Frank said naively.

  ‘Yes, I haven’t had anything published under my own name,’ Caroline said, rather irritated that he had needed to make that comment. ‘And Lexy on the Loose isn’t even out yet. When J. K. Rowling did a crime novel under a pseudonym, there was a weird tweet that hinted at it from someone who knew her lawyers, and people put the pieces together from that. It was a really odd situation.’

  Frank was frowning.

  ‘I can see why someone would want to break that story,’ he said slowly. ‘I mean, the crime books would sell much more if they realize that it’s her who wrote them. But this is different. I don’t get why anyone would want to make it public. It doesn’t help anyone at the publisher, does it?’

  ‘No, of course not! Quite the opposite!’ Caroline agreed quickly. ‘Especially with you and me being in the press – those pictures of us picking up the kids –’

  Frank heaved a deep sigh.

  ‘Look, Caroline,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘I’m really confused, and I’ve made no secret of that. I have a wife, and I said vows to her, and I meant every word. But after what she’s done . . . when it came out that guy visited her at our London flat before she went off to Switzerland, and she hasn’t bothered to text me once, not even to ask how the kids are!’

  It had been a great stroke of luck for Caroline that Deacon’s first visit to the Chelsea flat had been documented by a lurking paparazzo. The later one, where he had bribed the Deliveroo driver and obscured his features with the big food box, had gone unnoticed, but the photographer had sold to a tabloid the pictures of Deacon entering the building and talking to the doorman; the paper had used them to imply that Deacon had been given access to Lexy’s apartment. It had been an extra nail in Lexy’s coffin as far as Frank was concerned, bolstering his conviction that she was having a full-blown affair with Deacon.

  ‘I should go back to London,’ Caroline said, squeezing his hand and then letting it go. ‘I’ll start packing this afternoon. My being here’s just making things worse for everyone.’

  ‘It isn’t, though,’ Frank said, leaning forward, propping his hands on his knees. ‘We’ve talked about this already. You make me feel better. I’d be so lonely without you. The kids are really happy you’re here – they think you’re family by now. And Lexy’s abandoned us, hasn’t she? So why should you go?’

  Caroline looked at him, wondering if he had any idea how he truly felt about her. She doubted it. He had just said how confused he was, and yet when she gave him the opportunity to ask her to leave, he had turned it down, just as she had hoped. She was giving him what he had always wanted: the wife at home, doing her own work but still an essential part of the family, not just someone who came and went in a cloud of perfume and glamour and film crews.

  ‘I’m not asking for anything,’ she said gently. ‘I think we just need to live day to day and see how things go. And I don’t want to leave, I honestly don’t. But I also don’t want to put you in a difficult position. I mean, Lexy’s due back the day after tomorrow!’

  Frank lifted his shoulders and let them fall as heavily as if he were carrying weights strapped to his back.

  ‘That’s what Jason says. I wouldn’t bloody know. Haven’t heard a word from her, have I?’

  ‘What will you do if Lexy gets in touch?’ she asked. ‘I mean, not “if” – she will, of course, one way or the other . . .’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I really don’t.’

  The landline rang, and they both jumped, as if it were Lexy calling, as if they’d summoned her by speaking her name. Frank answered it.

  ‘It’s for you,’ he said to Caroline. ‘That call you were expecting.’

  She noticed that his expression, on realizing it was not his wife on the other end of the line, was a complicated mixture of relief and sadness.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, giving Caroline the handset. ‘I’m going to work out. Come down to the gym
afterwards and join me?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said, flashing him a smile and switching the handset to speakerphone as she sat down at the desk.

  ‘Caroline? It’s Gareth,’ her editor said grimly. ‘Miranda’s here too.’

  ‘Hi, Caroline,’ Miranda said, sounding no more cheerful than Gareth. ‘Well, this is a total bloody shitstorm, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Caroline said. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  Gareth heaved a deep sigh.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Not a thing. We’re drafting a press release as I speak, saying that naturally Lexy, as a novice, needed some practical help putting a book together and that she asked you, as a blogger she admired, to work with her collating dates, organizing the book structure, etc. It turns out it was a very good thing you hadn’t written a book before, eh? We might be able to get away with it by highlighting your lack of experience, making you look like just an assistant.’

  ‘So, are you and Frank an actual couple, Caroline?’ Miranda asked bluntly.

  ‘It’s much too early to say anything like that,’ Caroline said, managing not to let any anger show in her voice at the ‘assistant’ comment. ‘I’m just helping out with the kids and seeing how things go.’

  ‘I can’t even with this,’ Gareth said, and from the squeak of leather shifting it sounded as if he was slumping in his chair. ‘We have a book coming out about Lexy settling down after a wild ride, and her ghost is fucking her husband! The publicists are going mental! Why didn’t we just do a bloody novel instead?’

  It was Miranda’s turn to heave a huge sigh.

  ‘I know,’ she said, sounding weary. ‘Do you mind if I vape in here, Gareth? I really need a smoke. There’s just been so much crap with celebs not writing their own novels recently and getting bad press for it – or they actually try to write them, God help us, and of course they’re always terrible . . .’