Marriage material, definitely, Bart thought, smiling at her, though his reaction to Mrs Stratford, back in the day, had been entirely lascivious. If he ever – God forbid – thought about settling down, a woman like Samantha would be the ideal wife. But then, that must have been exactly what Con decided, and he’d turned out not to be able to manage without picking hothouse blooms from time to time, and that hadn’t exactly been fair on Samantha, had it?
‘I’m glad you like the toys,’ Adrianna was saying. ‘I rang Harrods and told them to send all the stuff they have that is good for children.’
‘It was so thoughtful of you!’ Paul said very warmly. ‘The children had so much fun! We played cooking – there was a little Aga, an espresso maker, even a smoothie maker! All in wood, of course. Really charming and creative. And tomorrow we thought we would make dairy-free coconut milk ice cream in the machine. Your chef has been wonderfully understanding about the children’s food intolerances.’
Adrianna smiled inscrutably as she glided towards Samantha, handing her a tumbler in which ice and lemon knocked gently against each other.
‘What does Samantha get?’ Bart asked curiously.
‘Gin and tonic,’ Adrianna said with an almost imperceptible shrug.
‘Why is that?’ Bart persisted.
‘Because she drinks gin and tonic,’ Adrianna said, as if he were a complete idiot.
‘I do like gin and tonic!’ Samantha agreed. ‘Thank you so much!’
‘And what about Paul?’
Bart was, he felt, becoming unnecessarily obsessed with the cocktails his father’s fiancée was selecting for their guests; but he was unable to stop.
‘Paul does not drink,’ Adrianna said lightly as she glided back to Jeffrey’s side.
‘Finish your Negroni,’ she told her fiancé, glancing at the gold watch on her wrist, its face entirely studded with diamonds, so bright it was a miracle she could see the hands. ‘It’s time for dinner.’
She started to help him to his feet. Bart realized, to his surprise, that everyone was acting not only as if Adrianna was the hostess, but almost as if Jeffrey were just her rich attendant boyfriend. Jeffrey had always been in the habit of letting the woman in his life take care of the household, as long as his needs were catered to, of course. Adrianna had taken over so seamlessly that it would be easy for a casual observer to think that all this was hers alone. And Jeffrey, smiling up at her blissfully, seemed more than happy for her to act this way.
As she tucked Jeffrey’s hand under her arm, supporting him, Bart retrieved his Martini glass and held it up to her.
‘A little toast to our gracious hostess!’ he said. ‘To Adrianna, who’s opened the doors to us at Vanbrugh Manor and made us all feel so very welcome, kids’ toys, personalized cocktails and all! I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say that this is a very pleasant change, long overdue. I for one very much look forward to coming to your wedding and being able to toast you again as my new stepmother!’
Jeffrey nodded at Bart in approval as he made his way across the drawing room.
‘Nice speech,’ he said. ‘Adrianna’s gone to a lot of trouble to put all of you up.’
‘I’m very happy to do it,’ his fiancée said, patting his hand. And then, sliding her gaze sideways at her prospective stepson, glancing at the glass in his hand: ‘You must eat your cocktail onions. I put them in there for a good reason.’
‘That’s right, Bart!’ Jeffrey guffawed as he went past. ‘Listen to your new stepmother – she’s the boss around here! Eat your onions!’
Bart ate his onions.
Chapter Fourteen
‘What is Bart playing at?’ Bella fumed, safely back in their bedroom, pulling off her earrings and practically throwing them onto the dressing table. ‘He was sucking up to Daddy and Adrianna all through dinner! Does he actually want the job? Do you think he does? He said a while ago that he had some crazy idea of being the one who could make the rest of us get on with each other – but he knows nothing about business! He wouldn’t last five minutes!’
‘Sit down, darling,’ Thomas suggested, and when she sank onto the upholstered stool in front of the old-fashioned dressing table with its double-hinged mirror, he stood behind her and started to massage her shoulders.
‘Mmn, that’s nice,’ she said, tilting her head from side to side, then returning immediately to the subject that was obsessing her. ‘But what do you think Bart’s doing?’
‘I think he’s just being Bart,’ Thomas said, meeting her eyes in the mirror, shrugging lightly. ‘His usual preternaturally charming self.’
‘But does he want the job? Charlotte does! That couldn’t be more obvious! I mean, I knew she was prepared to do anything to get it, but—’
Bella bit her lip, remembering her own part in Charlotte’s scheming, Nita’s discreet approach to the head of security. He had been given the impression that Nita had concerns about her niece’s new boyfriend, who seemed much too good to be true, and that she wanted to know if there was anyone who could undertake an unobtrusive investigation into his background and dating habits.
Nita had unabashedly enjoyed the whole process – the subterfuge, the exposure of Conway as being far from the perfect married man image he presented to the world, the advantage it gave her boss – which made Bella think that she was judging her twin too harshly. After all, if her own righthand woman had jumped at the opportunity to take down the front runner, wasn’t Bella being hypocritical if she didn’t judge Nita as well?
‘Did you hear what Daddy said tonight about it being a shame Charlotte wasn’t born a boy?’ she demanded instead, as Thomas sank his thumbs into her tight shoulder muscles; she’d been tense throughout dinner, had had to plead a headache to avoid joining the others for coffee and liqueurs afterwards. ‘Apart from it being sexist – and so worrying, what if that means neither of us are in the running? – he didn’t say to me that I should have been born a boy!’
‘Charlotte was pushing hard, though,’ her husband said. ‘Maybe too hard? Saying how ambitious she was, selling her credentials. A bit much for a family evening, I thought. It might not have been meant entirely as a compliment.’
Bella shook her head.
‘No, it was definitely a compliment. And I should be selling myself too,’ she fretted. ‘It’s just that – well, Charlotte’s stuff is sexier! Being up for Condé Nast Traveller’s Best Boutique Hotel Chain – that sounds fantastic! “I’m doing a huge revision and upgrading of our rewards points system so it’s state-of-the-art and incorporates major technological advances for our business travellers” – ugh, kill me now! It’ll be amazing, but it just doesn’t have any oomph. In fact, it puts people to sleep. It’s boring.’
‘It won’t be boring when it happens, though,’ Thomas said, working doggedly away at her trapezius muscles. ‘And the prognosis is great, isn’t it? You’ve had hugely positive reactions everywhere you went!’
Once she had finally embarked on the rest of her round-the-world tour, Bella had indeed found it extremely satisfying, and not just because of the excitement the scheme had generated from her management team, who were very keen to stand out in the crowded and highly competitive hotel market. She worked hard at staying in touch with their international offices, but no matter how many Skype conferences she did, there was simply no substitute for visiting in person. It had been overdue: she needed to do it more regularly.
As soon as she had returned, however, Thomas had become unusually – no, unprecedentedly – attentive. It had taken Bella some time to notice, as she had been in a jet-lagged haze. No matter how many first-class beds you slept in, how many limousines were waiting for you landside to whisk you to the latest luxurious hotel suite, the process of going round the world in a comparatively short amount of time could not fail to take its toll. Add to that a second haze – this one rose-tinted – her memories of Ronaldo, naked and inside her, sitting opposite her at candlelit restaurants, kissing her goodbye that last mornin
g as tears streamed down her face, and it meant that there was simply no room in her mind for her husband.
Travelling a lot for work, Bella had always thought that one of the times you were most grateful to have a partner was, paradoxically, when you were on the road and away from them. That moment when the plane landed, the pilot announced that you could turn your devices off flight mode, and phones started to ping with welcome texts from spouses, partners, family checking that you’d landed safely; to have your phone remain silent was very poignant. Alone in the hotel room, ordering room service, knowing you should go to sleep but with your energy crackling from having come from a different time zone and run a very successful day of meetings, you wanted an affectionate text exchange from a loved one to settle you down for the evening.
Bella had always craved that kind of attention from Thomas. But he had been sporadic about answering texts, and very rarely sent her ones wishing her a smooth flight, or sending love and saying he missed her. Maybe it was silly of her to expect that kind of thing given that they had been married for five years, especially as they both travelled for work so extensively. She had tried to show Thomas what she would like by modelling the behaviour, as the self-help books suggested. She’d texted him when he was abroad, giving him an idea of what she’d like to receive, but if he did respond, it was perfunctory, and the tone was very similar to what he would use to a work colleague.
So when, in Dallas, she had yielded to temptation and texted Ronaldo, only to have a text ping back saying how great it was to hear from her and he hoped she’d had a good flight, finishing with ‘xxx’, Bella had been near-ecstatic. She had been on tenterhooks for the fifteen minutes it had taken him to get back to her, terrified that she had overreached the boundaries, as they hadn’t agreed to be in touch at all. After that, she had tried hard not to act as if they were in a relationship, had told herself she needed to limit herself to just one text every few days – but he hadn’t. He had started texting to ask how things were going, where she was, and then she would respond, it would turn into a conversation . . .
Thomas was still massaging her shoulders, but Bella was a thousand miles away, barely feeling what he was doing to her body. Her husband might have been a paid masseur in a spa. Her mind drifted off to her lover, to the gloomy fact that she really couldn’t text him all weekend, let alone Skype him – because their texts had swiftly progressed to sexts, and then to increasingly explicit Skype sex sessions . . .
‘Shall I go and shake hands with my little blue friend?’ Thomas said. Bella practically jumped off the stool in alarm, partly because he seemed to have read her mind, at least enough to know that she was thinking about sex, and partly because he had lowered his head and spoken softly into her ear. Since she had been oblivious to his bending over, suddenly finding him that close had been quite a shock.
‘Oh!’ she heard herself exclaim, even as Thomas staggered back, rubbing his ear; she had bumped it as she jumped up.
‘Sorry!’
She settled down on the stool again, meeting his eyes once more in the mirror.
‘I really didn’t expect you to say that,’ she said feebly. ‘I mean, now? In someone else’s house? After dinner?’
‘Why not? Let’s live a little!’
Thomas, to her intense irritation, now started stroking her shoulders again, but this time sexily.
‘You never like to do it unless we’re completely alone in the house,’ Bella said, still looking at him. ‘And you never like to do it after dinner, because you feel too bloated.’
Wow. She had never articulated before so clearly Thomas’s very specific requirements for when sex could happen. In a moment she’d be saying ‘Viagra’ out loud rather than using his preferred euphemism about his little blue friend. While Thomas had no difficulty getting erections, he needed Viagra to sustain them. This was another reason for the Sunday morning sex. It could be scheduled so neatly; he could get up twenty minutes beforehand, pop his pill and then settle comfortably back in bed with his wife, waiting for lift-off. No wonder Ronaldo’s spontaneity had swept Bella away. And now, clearly, it had freed her to talk frankly about the limitations of her sex life with her husband.
She held Thomas’s gaze, refusing to let him look away, forcing him to hear what she had just said. It felt hugely freeing to actually talk about this, speak the truth, rather than dance around it. She was used to pretending, sparing his feelings, agreeing that she was tired after dinner and just wanted to go to sleep, when really, pre-Ronaldo, she would have loved to have a happy roll around the big bed, fuelled into a pleasantly relaxed randiness by the cocktails and wine they had drunk.
‘I thought you might like a bit of, er, poum-poum?’ he said feebly, and Bella wondered why she had ever put up with a husband who preferred to use this term to mean sex. ‘You’ve been travelling, you’re so stressed . . . wouldn’t it relax you? It usually does!’
‘I’m okay, thanks,’ she said, standing up. His hands fell away and he stood there looking very hangdog.
‘I’ve been missing you, you know,’ he said. ‘Even when you’re home, you’re somewhere else.’
So that was it. He had noticed her distance and was trying to close the gap. How ironic that now she had no need for him sexually, he was sensing that and attempting to fix the problem.
Or was it just that he didn’t want her to slip away? If his tactic worked, and she turned back into the loving, affectionate Bella who had always wanted more from him than he could give, he would promptly revert to the old pattern of withholding behaviour, surely! It was shocking how clearly she was seeing things nowadays.
‘I’m just working so hard,’ she said, going past him and into the bathroom, which was all peach and brass fittings and a claw-footed bath, a wooden gentlemen’s caddy against one wall, modern fittings posing as antiques, even a brass pull chain hanging from the toilet cistern. She wanted to have a bath, but she was not going to get naked in front of her husband, not with him in this odd mood. She’d have a quick shower tomorrow. There was no way to make a shower look antique, so it was tucked discreetly away behind a garland-tiled wall to keep the old-fashioned look consistent.
‘Is this going to – well, keep going?’ Thomas had followed her in and was standing in the doorway. ‘You know, your working this crazily? I never see you any more!’
‘Wow, I would have thought you’d like that!’ she blurted out before she could help herself, angry at his hypocrisy. ‘You were always ringing and saying you couldn’t make it home for the weekend, when I’d shopped and got food in and made plans for us. I’d have thought you’d be grateful I’m not getting in your hair and fussing that you’re never home!’
Thomas looked genuinely hurt. For a moment she wanted to take the words back. But though an apology had formed, she could not, would not get it out. Because it was true, every word she was saying was true, and he would be a liar if he denied it.
‘I—’ He stuttered to a halt, looking genuinely confused. After a long moment, he tried again. ‘Bella, I—’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, suddenly exhausted. The effort of being so honest right to Thomas’s face had taken a lot out of her.
She turned away, holding on to the edge of the pedestal sink for support, a chamfered white basin set on top of an Edwardian brass washstand.
‘I need some privacy,’ she said, using the phrase that Paul, who was very much into teaching his children about their right to bodily autonomy, had trained them to use. It sounded less cute when used by Bella than when it was piped in Posy or Quant’s high childish voices, but it still got the job done.
‘Okay,’ Thomas said, retreating, reaching for the doorknob. ‘But we need to talk about this another time, don’t we? We’ve got into a rut, I know. With . . . you-know-what.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Poum-poum. I’m actually really glad you raised this. I’ll give you time now, but maybe we can go for a walk tomorrow and have a talk about it? The grounds look lovely.’
‘Sure.
Okay. Yes.’
Bella would have said anything at this stage to get him to leave her alone.
‘Great. Okay, I’ll let you get on with . . .’
Thomas’s voice trailed off as he closed the door. Bella leant forward and pressed her forehead against the mirror, enjoying the cool of the surface. Her eyelids closed. How much she wished that she could Skype Ronaldo right now! It was 11 p.m. UK time, which made it 6 p.m. in Chicago; he might even be home from work and free to relax . . .
The memory of Ronaldo a few nights ago, lying back on his bed, pulling slowly on his big cock while keeping eye contact with her, telling her what to do with her vibrator, made her instantly so sexually charged that she had to turn on the cold tap and splash water in her face. There was no way that she could leave this room and get into bed with her husband, only to toss and turn, consumed with need for her lover.
She cleansed off her make-up, brushed her teeth, went to the loo, preparing to face Thomas again briefly as they changed places. He was in his pyjamas by the time she emerged, and he gave her a hug, enfolding her tightly in his arms, asking her to look up and give him a kiss. She complied with the first, but stood passively while he kissed her, managing a smile for him before he padded off to the bathroom.
And as Bella unzipped her dress and hung it up, as she reached for the pyjamas she herself had brought – no sexy Chicago-purchased lingerie for this weekend away; it was all safely concealed in the expansion pocket of one of her travel suitcases, stacked inside two others in her dressing room at home – a thought struck her. There was one thing she had not confronted Thomas about, and that was his ‘little blue friend’.
How was it, she had always wondered, that during their courtship he had never needed Viagra to keep going? He had not precisely been ardent or pressing, but the sex had been perfectly fine, good enough for her to sign up to have it for the rest of her life – before she had met Ronaldo. Almost as soon as they were married, however, their sex life had fallen off a cliff. They had nursed it back, with Thomas gradually revealing his increasingly stringent list of conditions under which it could happen; but it had been Bella who had suggested the Viagra, as when he started to lose his erection halfway through she had found it more and more humiliating.
Bad Twins Page 17
