Kiss

by Jill Mansell

  The driver who had picked her up and brought her to Stanford Manor had, by this time, disappeared. Following Tash and Jericho into the vast, high-ceilinged entrance hall, Izzy admired Tash’s tall, athletically proportioned body. This evening, dressed in a pale pink shirt, faded denims and no shoes, and smelling cleanly of Calvin Klein aftershave, he seemed altogether more normal than he had done last night. It was bizarre to think that he owned this great house, not to mention two other pieds-à-terre in Paris and New York. It was mind-boggling to think how much money that gravelly, sexy voice had earned him . . .

  ‘How old are you?’ she asked, gazing up at the stained-glass windows and at the minstrel’s gallery running along three sides of the hall.

  Tash cast a sideways glance in her direction. ‘Old enough to be your son, according to you.’

  ‘Seriously, I’m interested.’

  ‘Thirty-three.’

  Three years younger than me, thought Izzy. ‘And you’ve been married how many times?’

  Looking amused, he replied, ‘Only twice. Although I do have a tendency to find myself engaged. Every time I buy a pretty girl a ring it turns out she expects me to marry her.’

  If anything about Tash Janssen was more famous than his voice, it was his predilection for blondes. Startlingly beautiful, always tall, these blondes were famous in turn for their less-than-dazzling intellect. One or two had even been suspected of not yet having come to terms with the complexities of joined-up writing. Izzy couldn’t help wondering why someone like Tash, evidently no intellectual slouch himself, should confine himself to bimbos when he could have anyone he chose. ‘Maybe you should stick to signed photographs in future,’ she suggested absently.

  He smiled. ‘Maybe. How about you?’

  ‘Heavens, how kind.’ Izzy feigned surprise. ‘I’d like a motor bike.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of it in my diary. Through here.’ Opening a carved oak door, he waved her through to the dining room. ‘I meant how old are you and how many times have you been married?’

  ‘Thirty-six,’ said Izzy. ‘And never. I’m not the marrying kind.’

  ‘ “Never, Never”,’ Tash observed drily, pulling a dining chair out for her and ensuring that she was comfortable before seating himself opposite. The table, which would easily have accommodated a rugby team, was covered with a dark blue linen cloth and laid for two people with heavy silver cutlery, glittering crystal goblets and a bottle of Chablis in an ice bucket. Lighted candles, spilling snaky trails of beeswax down their sides, cast an apricot glow over the proceedings.

  Izzy placed her forefinger momentarily over the flame of the nearest candle then held it up, blackened, and said, ‘Isn’t this what happens when you get married?’

  He grinned and poured the wine. ‘Financially, you mean? Of course it is, if you’re me.’

  The divorce settlements obtained by his ex-wives were legendary, yet he didn’t seem perturbed.

  ‘Don’t you mind?’ said Izzy, genuinely interested.

  Tash shrugged and replied lazily, ‘What the hell, it’s only money. And it seems to keep the girls happy.’

  ‘I want to be rich,’ said Izzy, with longing.

  Deadpan, he replied, ‘That’s easily achieved. All you need to do is marry and divorce me.’

  At that moment another door opened and their dinner was served to them by a brisk, plain, middle-aged woman with the air of a schoolmistress. Izzy, half-expecting to be reminded to eat up all her vegetables, smiled at the woman as the dishes were laid out and received a blank stare in return.

  ‘Mrs Bishop makes it a strict rule to disapprove of my female friends,’ Tash explained, when they were alone once more.

  ‘I didn’t expect you to live like this.’ Izzy shook her head, bemused by the formality of it all. Having imagined wall-to-wall groupies, non-stop music, cans of lager and pinball machines, all this silence and House & Garden perfection was unnerving. ‘Do you have fun here? Are you happy?’

  Tash’s dark eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘You mean has becoming a multi-millionaire ruined my life? Sweetheart, I grew up on a council estate in Neasden with three brothers and two sisters. This is how I can afford to live now. Would you be unhappy?’

  Izzy, however, still wasn’t convinced. Despite the excellence of the food she had lost her appetite. ‘I might be,’ she replied, pushing her plate to one side. ‘Of course, that’s something you never find out until it’s happened, but I’ve always been poor and I’m curious. I have fun spending money on things I know I can’t afford, like going out for a wonderful meal when I really should be saving the money to pay the gas bill.’ She paused, then added helplessly, ‘But what do you do, when you want to have fun?’

  ‘I can’t believe you asked that question,’ drawled Tash, his dark eyes glittering with amusement. All pretence at dinner abandoned now, he rose slowly to his feet and held his hand out towards her. ‘Come on.’

  ‘What?’ Izzy gulped, her stomach leaping helplessly as his fingers curled around hers. ‘Where . . . ?’

  ‘You wanted to know what I do when I want to have fun,’ he reminded her. ‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’

  The recording studio, situated in what had once been a wine cellar, was a revelation - as far as Izzy was concerned - in every respect. Making the demo tape at the prestigious Glass Studios on the Chelsea Embankment had been exciting, but then she had been the performer, singing when she was instructed to sing and generally doing as she was told, while the producer and sound engineers worked their inscrutable magic in the control room next door.

  Now, sitting at the amazingly intricate thirty-two track console and actually being allowed to experiment with the wondrous effects of the midi-synthesiser, a whole new world was opening up to her. Who needed to be able to write music when any notes played on the keyboard were instantly displayed on a computer screen and stored on disc? Who needed to be able to play the drums when at the touch of a button the same keyboard could transform any note into that produced by a snare, a kick-drum, a crash cymbal or a hi-hat? Who needed to struggle to emulate the exact degree of reverberation required at the end of a verse, when they had a machine like this, capable of doing it for them?

  Even more stunning, however, had been the change in Tash. Gone was the lazy, laid-back demeanour, the air of boredom which she had first observed at The Chelsea Steps. The moment he had pulled up a chair and begun to demonstrate the different functions of the myriad machines before her, he had come properly alive. Making music - this was what gave him pleasure. This was Tash Janssen’s idea of fun and for all his earlier double entendres Izzy realised that now if she were to pull off her jeans and top and dance naked around the studio, he would take no notice at all.

  ‘Flick that switch,’ he instructed her, so engrossed in the columns of figures on the computer screen that he didn’t even realise his fingers were resting on Izzy’s knee. Izzy tried hard not to notice, either. Whereas it had been easy to rebuff his good-natured advances yesterday, this abrupt switch to indifference - and the fact that he was no longer trying to seduce her - was ridiculously erotic. Pressing the switch he had indicated, she glanced around the room in order to take her mind off his proximity. Each wall was lined with cork tiles of different thicknesses in order to deaden the acoustics and the stone-flagged floor was covered with matting. More inviting was the slightly battered, green velvet sofa positioned against the wall behind them. Apart from the faint whirring of the tape she had set in motion, the room was in total silence.

  ‘Now press play,’ said Tash, when the tape had skittered to a halt.

  Izzy, entranced by his seriousness, obeyed. Moments later, as the first bars of ‘Never, Never’ filled the studio, she sat upright and said, ‘Oh . . . !’

  When the tape ended she gazed at Tash with new respect. ‘You did all that from memory.’

  He smiled briefly. ‘Since you wouldn’t let me keep the tape, I didn’t have much choice. It isn’t exactly the same, but I wanted
to experiment with the vocals . . . I’m pretty out of practice as far as this kind of singing’s concerned.’

  ‘I knew you could do it,’ sighed Izzy. Unaccustomed though he might be to producing anything less than hard-driving, full-tilt rock, that husky voice was wonderfully suited to the slower, gentler pace of ‘Never, Never’. Despite herself, she felt a lump form in her throat. She had known he could do it, but she hadn’t imagined he would do it this well. Now, for the first time, she realised just how much of an effect last night’s impulsive introduction could have on her life . . .

  Two hours later, dropping the headphones she’d been wearing on to thé desk and rumpling her hair back into some sort of shape, Izzy collapsed on to the sofa. Adrenalin was still bubbling through her veins and it didn’t appear to have anywhere to go. Trying not to gaze at Tash’s rear view - at the way his jeans clung to his narrow hips as he leaned across the mixing console to close down the computer - she said, ‘So, this is what you do when you want to have fun.’

  ‘Mmm.’ He had his back to her, but she thought he was smiling. ‘Better than sex, don’t you think?’

  ‘That depends on who you’re doing it with.’

  He was definitely smiling now. ‘I thought you didn’t want to sleep with me.’

  ‘I didn’t want to sleep with the famous Tash Janssen,’ she replied carefully. ‘But you’re different.’

  Izzy held her breath as he turned and came to stand before her, then slowly reached out and drew her to her feet. Even more slowly, he traced the curve of her cheek with a forefinger. Hopelessly excited, incapable of concealing her own longing, she was pink-cheeked and trembling.

  ‘We have a business partnership,’ he reminded her. ‘I don’t think it would be a wise move. I really don’t think we should risk spoiling that.’

  Oh bugger, thought Izzy, not knowing whether to argue the point or give in gracefully. The humiliation of it all! And how Sam would laugh if he ever found out that she had been rejected by none other than Tash Janssen, the most unscrupulous seducer since Valentino.

  ‘Right,’ she said bravely, attempting to sound businesslike and uncrushed. ‘Of course. Look, it’s past Jericho’s bedtime. I’d better be making a move . . .’

  But she didn’t move anywhere, because at that moment Tash bent his head and kissed her, slowly, luxuriously and with stunning finesse. It was about the most unbusinesslike kiss she had ever encountered, and her senses reeled. Izzy was now thoroughly confused.

  ‘Just checking,’ murmured Tash, glancing over her shoulder and meeting Jericho’s calm, unflinching gaze.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That dog of yours. He is one lousy chaperone.’

  She looked surprised. ‘Of course he is. Would I have brought him along otherwise?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Pausing, he slid his hand beneath her hair and idly stroked the sensitive nape of her neck. ‘I don’t know what you might do.’

  Izzy thought she might be in danger of exploding with frustration. Trying not to squirm, she said faintly, ‘Look, you said we were business partners. This isn’t very fair . . .’

  ‘You said you didn’t want to sleep with me,’ he reminded her for the second time.Then he smiled. ‘Maybe I was lying, too.’

  ‘I wasn’t lying,’ Izzy protested, wanting him to understand. ‘I just changed my mind.’

  Suppressing laughter, Tash pulled her towards him once more. ‘Well, don’t do it again. At least, not for the next couple of hours . . .’

  Chapter 30

  Tash was a light sleeper. Through half-closed eyes he watched for some time while Izzy crept about the bedroom struggling to locate her clothes in the dark. Finally, he said, ‘What on earth are you trying to do?’

  ‘Find my shoes.’ Izzy, who had barely slept at all, didn’t turn to look at him. She had been lying awake, bitterly regretting her actions, even before he had flung out a bare arm and murmured, ‘Anna,’ in his sleep. She’d already known she’d made a mistake, but that was the moment when she realised she could no longer stay. She’d behaved just as Sam had predicted and now she was suffering the inevitable consequences. She was nothing but a tart. And where the bloody hell were her shoes, anyway?

  ‘You don’t have to leave.’ Tash sounded amused but made no move towards her. ‘Breakfast will be served from eight-thirty onwards. Why don’t you just come back to bed and—?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Izzy abruptly intercepted him, sensing that he was humouring her. Just as he must have humoured so many other women in the past, she thought with a surge of shame. ‘I’m going home.’

  This time he yawned and made a non-committal gesture. ‘If that’s what you want, OK. Don’t say I didn’t offer.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she replied evenly, dredging up every last vestige of pride. ‘I won’t say anything at all.’

  Tash smiled to himself as the two figures came into view ahead of him, imprisoned in the twin beams of his headlights. Izzy Van Asch was one hell of a stubborn lady. A barefoot stubborn lady, at that. He was impressed they’d managed to get this far in the twenty minutes or so since they’d left the house.

  Slowing to a crawl alongside them, he lowered his window and held out one of her shoes. ‘OK, Cinderella, you’ve made your point. Were you really thinking of walking all the way back to Kensington?’

  Since Kensington was over twenty miles away, Izzy certainly was not. As soon as she reached the nearest village - she could have sworn they’d passed one on the way here last night - she was going to find a public callbox and phone for a cab. But the village had mysteriously distanced itself from Tash’s isolated home, the soles of her feet were burning with pain and she was hungr y . . .

  ‘Come on, get in,’ said Tash, admiring her spirit. ‘Look, poor old Jericho wants a lift, even if you don’t.’

  Jericho, with characteristic shamelessness, was pressing his nose against the window. Izzy couldn’t help smiling at the expression on his face. When Tash opened the car’s rear door the dog scrambled on to the back seat with all the grace of an eager groupie.

  ‘I don’t turn out at five-thirty in the morning for just anyone, you know,’ he remarked as Izzy slid into the passenger seat.

  ‘I’m not just anyone.’

  ‘Of course you aren’t.You’re a damn sight more bloody-minded than most people I know.’

  They had breakfast at an hotel in Windsor, sitting out on the terrace and watching a string of polo ponies setting out on their dawn gallop across the dew-drenched lawns of Windsor Great Park. Jericho, wolfing down sausages and basking in the pale, early morning sunlight, was in heaven. So were the hotel staff, when they realised they had Tash Janssen on the premises.

  ‘I felt cheap,’ Izzy explained, feeling immeasurably better after five bacon sandwiches and several cups of strong black coffee.

  ‘Maybe I did, too.’ Behind his dark glasses, Tash gave her a mocking grin. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that whenever some woman wonders what it must be like to go to bed with a rock star, I’m the one on the receiving end? They don’t want me, they just want to screw a celebrity and it’s up to me to put in a good performance, otherwise they’ll rush out and tell all their friends how hopeless I was.’

  Izzy, who hadn’t thought of it that way, pinched a grilled mushroom from his plate and said, ‘You weren’t hopeless, you were very good.’

  ‘Of course I was good!’ He raised his eyebrows in mock despair. ‘That’s because it wouldn’t be healthy for my ego if you were to go belting off to the papers screaming, “We were going to record a song together but he was so terrible in bed I couldn’t bear to go through with it. I’m going to sing with Des O’Connor instead.” ’

  ‘Des O’Connor,’ breathed Izzy reverently. ‘I hadn’t thought of him. How stupid of me . . .’

  Katerina’s heart sank when she rounded the corner and saw Andrew waiting for her in his car. It wasn’t what she needed right now, but at the same time she wasn’t particularly surprised to find him here.
Last night had been awful and he hadn’t taken it at all well. Katerina wondered whether he’d had as little sleep as she had. The big difference, of course, was that he wasn’t due to take a final physics exam in less than half an hour.

  ‘Kat, we have to talk.’ Andrew certainly didn’t look as if he’d slept. His thin face was almost grey with anxiety and the inside of the car was thick with cigarette smoke. Since a group of Katerina’s classmates were meandering past, however, she wasn’t about to get involved in a shouting match on the pavement. Pulling the passenger door shut behind her, she said wearily, ‘I’m not going to change my mind, Andrew. We can’t carry on seeing each other. It’s wrong and I’ve been a selfish bitch—’

  ‘But I love you,’ he said urgently, trying to take her hand. ‘And you love me, so how can it possibly be wrong? Nothing else matters.’