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‘Just take the card,’ he said mechanically, holding it out again.
‘I don’t want it,’ Grace protested. ‘That wasn’t why I came round to see you. Look, could you just sit down?’
‘You want me to sit on one of those?’ Vaughn asked sceptically, staring at the deckchair like he’d never seen one before. Then he lowered himself carefully down and looked surprised when it didn’t collapse under him. ‘What do you want, Grace?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I miss you. Have you missed me?’
‘You mean you missed my money,’ Vaughn corrected. He rapped his knuckles against the card-table. ‘I can see why.’
‘How can you think that all you meant to me was just a blank cheque? Why are you selling yourself so short?’
Vaughn didn’t reply. Just looked at Grace and then at the room with so much disdain that she decided this wasn’t her Vaughn, but his evil twin that Grace had never liked very much. For a second she wondered if she should abandon her plan altogether, or if she should just go for it. Because, really, what had she left to lose? ‘I’m not going to lie,’ she began, but Vaughn snorted derisively at that.
‘Why change the habits of a lifetime?’ he drawled, and he could stop acting so superior when he was sitting on a deckchair and he’d had to get pissed before he could come and see her.
‘I’m not going to lie,’ she repeated, glaring him furiously into silence. ‘I do miss your money. I miss getting chauffeured to work and I miss not having to look at the price tag before I buy something, and I even miss your poured resin floor.’ Vaughn’s lips twisted wryly but he hadn’t taken his eyes off Grace’s face. ‘But I have my own money now and this great place to live and work’s going OK, but everything just feels horrible without you. Worse than horrible. I can manage fine without you but I don’t want to—’
‘Grace - please . . .’ Vaughn dropped the disaffected air so he could put his elbows on the card-table and rub his eyes. ‘You were the one who left. It was your decision and your decision alone.’
‘Have you missed me though?’
‘Yes.’ He made it sound as if Grace had dragged the confession from him with some electrodes and a pair of rusty pliers. ‘Of course I have. If you remember, I asked you to stay.’
Then Vaughn scraped his chair back and stood up, so he could loom over her again. Grace had even missed the looming, but not the withering stare.
‘Five minutes to get to the bloody point and then I’m leaving.’ Vaughn sounded like he meant it, but he couldn’t stop himself from freeing a strand of her hair that was tucked into the collar of her T-shirt. His fingers brushed against her neck for one fleeting, glorious second, and it was the final push Grace needed.
‘I’ve had a lot of time to think,’ she said. ‘And you’re not such a prize, you know? Like, you’re a divorcé and you used to be a drug addict, and you have a serious eating disorder. Plus you’re controlling and you’ve hurt me in ways I didn’t think I could be hurt.’
‘And why did you feel the sudden need to tell me this?’ Vaughn asked, his voice shaky, and Grace could see him swallowing compulsively as if nothing she was saying came as a surprise but he didn’t particularly like hearing it said out loud. ‘You’re far from perfect yourself.’
Grace nodded. ‘I know. I lie all the time. In fact, I lie so much that I have a hard job remembering what happened and what didn’t. I’m shallow and a neat freak, and sometimes I don’t actually think I’m that smart.’
Vaughn tilted his head. ‘You forgot to mention that you whine a lot and you’re the most passive-aggressive person I’ve ever met. Fine, we’re both thoroughly objectionable people, can I go now?’
‘We’re not objectionable,’ Grace contradicted. ‘We’re broken. It’s like we have all these jagged edges that scare other people off, but when we’re with each other, our jagged edges fit together and we’re almost whole.’ It had been a much better analogy when she’d just been thinking it in her head. But Vaughn wasn’t running for the door or telling her not to be stupid, he was still standing there and there was no good reason not to get up and take his hands. So she did.
‘Don’t,’ Vaughn murmured, but he didn’t pull away as Grace gripped his wrists tightly and felt his pulse positively galloping. ‘We had a good innings, but six months is just about my limit.’
‘So you let me have a month for free, then?’ Grace was getting a contact high from being this near to him, able to smell the faint citrus tang of his aftershave and the whisky he’d been drinking, could press her head against his chest to hear his heart beating. ‘And three months was all I ever normally got, but now I realise that three months was all I could deal with so I didn’t bother to put any effort in. And neither did you. You liked having your little arrangements because you thought you’d be safe that way. It meant you didn’t have to try, you could just give them money and cut your losses after six months because you were worried that they’d start to see the real you and they wouldn’t like him very much.’
‘Just so we’re clear, I didn’t push you away,’ Vaughn said, and he was stroking her hair and Grace wondered if he’d reach down and kiss her, but then he stepped away. ‘I begged you not to leave.’
‘You offered me a new contract. It’s a big difference.’
Vaughn had never used to look this old. Older, yes. But now he seemed to have aged and be ageing before Grace’s eyes. ‘Maybe I did think six months was what it took until the novelty of the money wore off,’ Vaughn admitted heavily. ‘But I saw that moment when the realisation hit them that all the presents and the parties didn’t go far enough to compensate for having to put up with me. Obviously I miscalculated what an incentive my money would be to a girl like you.’
Grace dropped his hands and stepped away to the other side of the room. ‘Jesus, Vaughn, you’re not listening to a single word I’ve been saying!’
‘I don’t know what you are saying, Grace, apart from assassinating my character and dredging up the same tired conversation that we’ve had before.’
‘I wanted you to make this big extravagant gesture that we didn’t need agreements or contracts, because we had something that was deeper than that.’ Grace paused because she didn’t want to simply have the words fly out of her mouth with their usual lack of precision. ‘I thought it meant that you didn’t care about me.’
‘That’s not what I meant at all,’ Vaughn said furiously, and the anger was better than the sarcastic voice he’d been using. ‘It means that we both know where we stand so there can’t be any confusion or disappointment later on.’
‘Didn’t work out so well for us though, did it?’ Grace wanted to reach across and touch Vaughn, or maybe hit him over the head - she wasn’t sure. ‘We’re both crap at relationships and we’ve both done terrible things to each other. I know I’ve given you no reason to trust me and I want to trust you. I want to believe that we can make this work, but you’re so sure that we need a contract to do that. I don’t, I still don’t, but if this is what you need for us to be together, then so be it. I had a new one made . . .’
‘A new what?’
‘I need to get something. Don’t go,’ Grace pleaded, as she scurried to the hall where she’d dumped her Marc Jacobs bag. ‘Hang on.’ She eased the folder out, opened it and handed Vaughn a copy of the agreement she’d had her lawyer draw up.
It was another of those big life-changing moments when you didn’t know what the next ten seconds would bring but you knew that nothing would ever be the same after. Grace sat down as she wasn’t sure her legs could hold her any longer.
Vaughn stared at the top page like it was written in Dolphin. ‘Is this meant to be some kind of joke?’
‘No, it’s me wanting to be with you so much that I’ve found a way that we can both get what we want, even though I’m absolutely fucking terrified of being rejected.’
‘But this is a pre-nup.’ Vaughn pointed at the words with his index finger, as if Grace might need some help decip
hering them. ‘You do know it’s not legally binding in this country, don’t you?’
‘And you do know that making your mistress sign an employment contract and then threatening to sue her for breaching it would never have stood up in court?’ Grace asked sweetly.
Vaughn narrowed his eyes and in the old days Grace would have recoiled from the scowl on his face, but she just sat and waited until Vaughn realised she wasn’t going to back down. ‘Well, yes, but I was relying on the fact that you didn’t,’ he admitted slowly.
Grace tapped the address on the top sheet. ‘You’re sneaky, Vaughn, but I can be sneakier. That’s why I had this drawn up in New York. Of course, we’d have to get married there too, which will really annoy my grandparents, but it means this will be one hundred per cent legally binding.’
‘You’re unbelievable.’
‘In a good way or a bad way?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Vaughn’s voice was as soft as feathers and the harsh lines of his face finally relaxed. ‘Oh Grace, what am I going to do with you?’
Grace really didn’t know, but then Vaughn was squatting down in front of her so he could rest his hands on her knees and look at her so she was drowning in the blue of his eyes. ‘Hey,’ she said softly. She guessed it was all right to touch him now and let one finger trail across a pronounced cheekbone. ‘You’ve got so thin.’
Vaughn smiled in a lopsided way that made Grace itch to kiss the crooked corners of his mouth. ‘It turns out that when I’m really miserable, I don’t want to comfort eat. Gustav’s very worried about me. He’s letting me have carbs again.’
‘I don’t expect you to sign it, you know.’ Grace shrugged. ‘But it was the only thing I could think of to make things right between us. Like, you might appreciate a big extravagant gesture. Sometimes, I do actually have some follow-through, you know.’
‘Do you have something to sit on that’s not made of canvas?’ Vaughn enquired, as he thumbed through the sheaf of papers.
‘Not right now. But our interiors editor has said I can borrow her Habitat discount card,’ Grace said, and Vaughn smiled again. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way but there’s the airbed . . .’
Vaughn pulled Grace out of the deckchair. ‘What way would I take it?’
‘I’m not putting out,’ Grace said firmly as she led Vaughn into the bedroom. ‘Not like this, not when everything is so up in the air and I still don’t even know if you’re going to leave and I’m never going to see you again.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘I’ve missed you, Grace. There were so many times that I wanted to tell you to come back, that the contract didn’t matter, but I convinced myself you were better off without me.’
Grace wanted him to say more, a whole lot more about how, as well as not eating, he didn’t sleep and wandered round his big empty house trying to catch the lingering scent of her perfume, but he just gingerly approached the airbed and sat down with a little moue of distaste. ‘God, I can’t believe you sleep on this contraption.’
‘It’s not so bad,’ Grace said, and let him tug her down, though she wasn’t sure that the bed would take both of them. She could already feel the floor hard against her hip, but Vaughn was lying with his head in her lap and she could play with his hair while he read her contract.
He started laughing when he got to the top of the second page. ‘You’re going to take me out on a date every week?’
‘Yup. Nothing fancy. It will probably be ten-pin bowling and a pizza, but you need to start realising that there’s a whole world out there that doesn’t involve the buying and selling of art.’
‘And you’re going to cook me dinner at least once a week,’ Vaughn continued, his mouth curving into a smile. ‘How did you manage to get any lawyer to agree to draft this agreement?’
Vaughn had a point. Her lawyer, and his boss, and even his boss’s boss had told Grace that she was insane, although they’d couched it more politely than that. It was the first clause of the second section that had really rocked their stuffy worlds. If they did break up, no matter whose fault it was, Grace would take nothing except the items that she’d brought with her or separately purchased with her own income.
When Vaughn got to that part, Grace watched his eyebrows knit together and his eyes flicker from left to right so rapidly she wondered if he was about to have an aneurism. ‘Exactly what items were you planning to bring to our union?’
‘I’ve got some really cool Tiki shot glasses and a lot of vintage dresses. That’s in the next section.’
‘I see.’ Grace could have sworn Vaughn was smiling, but as if he knew she was scrutinising his face for hidden clues, he thinned his lips and read through to the end without further comment.
‘Really, Vaughn, I know it’s crazy but it’s the only way to make you realise I’m in this for a long, long time and I’m going to do everything I can to make it work. If you want to start investing in Young Berlin Artists then I’ll learn to speak German. You decide that collage is where it’s at, I’ll swot up on that.’ There wasn’t much else to say and Grace was starting to feel a little angry. She was the only one giving here and making impassioned speeches and doing everything she could to show Vaughn that she wanted to be with him, and he wasn’t doing much of anything.
‘You’d do that to be with me?’ Vaughn asked doubtfully. ‘And it doesn’t have anything to do with my money?’
Grace was ready to throw in the towel or throw Vaughn out because really, what was the point . . . but something in his voice stopped her. She could sense the fear underpinning his words and she was able to slot in the last piece of the puzzle. It was far too much responsibility for this to be all about him, when he didn’t like himself very much, and he couldn’t understand why anyone else would.
‘Vaughn, you wouldn’t be you without your money,’ Grace sighed. ‘It’s part of who you are. So, yeah, I’d say it’s ninety per cent about wanting to be with you and ten per cent about the fact that you’re absolutely loaded.’ She took a moment to reassess. ‘Thirty- seventy when you’re being an arsehole, though.’
She looked down to see a satisfied smile appear on Vaughn’s face. ‘My turn, I think. Are you going to do something about your hair?’ he asked, sitting up. ‘And promise never to wear those pyjama bottoms ever again?’
‘What has that got to do with anything?’ Grace snapped.
‘You’ll need to work on the pout too,’ Vaughn added, as Grace’s lower lip began to jut. ‘Do you promise?’
Grace rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever.’
‘Well, it’s a start, I suppose,’ Vaughn said, producing a pen from the inner pocket of his jacket and starting to flick through the pre-nup. ‘This won’t do at all,’ he said, scoring through the section where Grace agreed to relinquish all claims on his estate and initialling it, then moving on to the dotted line that was waiting for his signature.
‘What are you doing?’ Grace tried to snatch the pen away from him, but Vaughn warded her off with one arm, which was infuriating. ‘You can’t just cross out my big, extravagant gesture. And you need to get your lawyer to look at it and—’
‘I know,’ Vaughn said, and signed his name with a flourish. He put the contract down and turned to Grace with a smile that made her stupid heart start beating again. ‘I’m glad we’ve cleared that up, will you put out now?’
It was, Grace thought, a strange way to say, I love you.
Inhoudsopgave
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
/>
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
chapter twenty-one
chapter twenty-two
chapter twenty-three
chapter twenty-four
chapter twenty-five
chapter twenty-six
chapter twenty-seven
chapter twenty-eight
chapter twenty-nine
chapter thirty
chapter thirty-one
chapter thirty-two
chapter thirty-three
chapter thirty-four
chapter thirty-five
chapter thirty-six
chapter thirty-seven
chapter thirty-eight
chapter thirty-nine
chapter forty
chapter forty-one
chapter forty-two
chapter forty-three