Jill Mansell Boxed Set

by Jill Mansell

  Yes.

  Had she ever considered doing anything about it?

  No.

  Never.

  Because it was like fancying George Clooney from afar. Millions of women did; it was an absolutely harmless pastime. But they also knew that if they happened to bump into George Clooney, the chances were that he probably wouldn’t fancy the pants off them in return and pester them for a date.

  And that was pretty much how it felt, inwardly acknowledging that Gabe was gorgeous and funny and pretty damn fanciable—if a bit over-zealous in the tidiness department.

  However—and it was a big however—you didn’t expect for a millisecond that anything would ever come of it because you knew so categorically you weren’t Gabe’s type.

  Stumbling awkwardly to her feet, Sally headed for the chair over which he’d flung his leather jacket. Her heart flip-flopping like a landed fish, she felt in the inside pocket and pulled out his keys. His wallet and phone were in there too. He wasn’t going to get far without them.

  But she couldn’t bear to sit here waiting for Gabe to come back. She had to find him before he had time to change his mind about her. Limping across to the window and flinging it open, Sally leaned out and searched the street below.

  It was one thirty in the morning and there was no one in Radley Road. How much of a start had he got on her? Lifting her head, she called out, ‘Gabe,’ as loud as she dared. Then, louder still, ‘Ga-aaaaaabe,’ like a lone wolf howling in the forest.

  After a few seconds she heard a window being thrown open somewhere close by and a male voice bellow, ‘Shut the fuck up.’

  But it was OK; it didn’t matter, because the voice didn’t belong to Gabe. (That would have spoiled the moment.) Sally reached for her walking stick and hurried out of the flat. Where was Gabe? It was a cold night and all he was wearing was jeans and an old polo shirt. Clunk-step, clunk-step went the stick against the stairs, interspersed with the sound of her rapid breathing. Then halfway down the staircase she saw the outline of a figure in the shadows, a scruffily dressed figure with messy hair leaning against the far wall of the darkened hallway.

  Sally abruptly stopped. Now that she’d found him she didn’t know what to say. ‘I heard the front door. I thought you’d left.’

  Gabe shook his head. ‘I was going to. Then I realized I didn’t have my keys.’

  ‘Or your jacket. You’d have been cold.’

  ‘That too.’ The whites of his eyes gleamed in the darkness.

  ‘You could have stayed upstairs,’ said Sally.

  ‘I couldn’t. Too scared. I told you, I never expected to feel like this.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  She saw him nod. ‘Bit of a shock?’

  ‘Quite a lot of a shock.’ Gathering her courage, Sally said, ‘But a nice one.’

  He was watching her carefully. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. I thought I drove you mad. That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to be tidier.’

  This time she caught a flash of white teeth. ‘I thought you were doing it to impress Lola’s dad.’

  Sally shook her head, wondering if he could hear the frantic thud-thud-thud of her heart from down there. ‘No, not him. You.’

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘Well, don’t be. It’s not going to last.’ Sally felt it was only fair to warn him. ‘I gave it my best shot but the novelty’s wearing off.’ She paused. ‘Is that going to make a difference?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not if you’re moving up to Yorkshire.’

  How could everything change so drastically in a matter of minutes?

  ‘I suppose I don’t have to move up to Yorkshire. Seeing as the main reason I was planning on doing it was to get away from the miserable old git I was sharing a flat with.’

  Gabe stepped out of the shadows, came to stand at the foot of the staircase. He touched his chest. ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you.’ Feeling braver, Sally said, ‘Come here.’

  He climbed the stairs separating them. This time she knew he was going to kiss her. What she hadn’t expected was for her trembling knees to give way, mid-kiss. Smiling broadly, Gabe gently lowered her onto the stairs and carried on kissing her. God, he was so good at it and his neck smelled so gorgeous, he was… whoops…

  The walking stick she’d left propped against the banister toppled over and went clattering down the staircase. Sally squeaked, ‘Oh no!’ and attempted to muffle her laughter against Gabe’s shoulder.

  Gabe whispered, ‘Don’t worry, he’s asleep.’

  He wasn’t. The door to the ground floor flat was wrenched open and Mr Kowalski, his white hair standing up like a cockatiel, bent down and picked up the walking stick. He turned, in his green and white striped flannel pajamas, and eyed Sally and Gabe balefully.

  ‘You two! Vot arr you doing, huh? Making sex on ze stairs in ze mittle of ze night?’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Kowalski. Didn’t mean to wake you.’ Gabe grinned apologetically. ‘We weren’t… um, making sex on the stairs.’

  ‘Ha. Pretty close, if you ask me.’ Shaking his head, the old man skillfully threw the stick up to them, Gene Kelly style.

  Equally skillfully Gabe caught it. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Off, off you go! You make sex in your own beds and leave me to sleep in mine.’ Having gestured extravagantly at the ceiling he shuffled back into his flat muttering, ‘Too much noise, too much sex, tuh.’

  Sally buried her face in Gabe’s chest.

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Gabe murmured, standing and helping her to her feet.

  By the time they reached the flat, Sally was light-headed with lust, dizzy with joy and minus her shoes. As Gabe lifted her into his arms to carry her through to the bedroom, his mobile burst into life.

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, just leave it.’

  Fretfully, Sally said, ‘I hate not answering a phone.’

  ‘It’s not your phone.’

  As well as ringing, the mobile was switched to vibrate. When Sally had taken it from his jacket pocket she’d left it, along with his keys, on the glass coffee table. Now it was buzzing and jiggling ever closer to the edge.

  ‘It’s going to fall, it’s going to fall off, I hate it when that happens.’ Sally flapped her free hand agitatedly and Gabe, still carrying her, veered back across the living room.

  She scooped up the phone and answered it. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh hi, it’s Maurice, is Gabe there?’

  ‘Hi, Maurice.’ Sally knew this was one of Gabe’s fellow paps. ‘I’m afraid Gabe has his hands full at the moment. Can I give him a message?’

  ‘Right, sure. The thing is, I’m down in Brighton at the moment but I’ve just heard from a reliable source that George Clooney was spotted twenty minutes ago sneaking into a house in Notting Hill with a classy-looking redhead. Nobody else knows about it and I owe Gabe a favor so I thought he might like a chance at an exclusive. The address is 15 Carmel Villas.’

  ‘OK, got that.’ Sally’s heart sank; what rotten timing. ‘Thanks, Maurice, I’ll tell him. Bye.’

  ‘George Clooney?’ said Gabe, who had been listening in. ‘Mystery redhead? Notting Hill?’

  ‘Fifteen Carmel Villas.’ It was the perfect tip-off; Carmel Villas was less than a minute away on foot. When she’d been leaning out of the living room window just now yelling Gabe’s name, George might actually have heard her. He might even have been the one who’d yelled at her to shut the fuck up. No, surely not; George would never be that rude.

  ‘Put me down,’ said Sally. ‘You have to go.’

  But Gabe was shaking his head, grinning that devil-may-care, easy-going grin she hadn’t seen for so long. ‘No I don’t.’

  ‘Gabe. You can’t miss a chance like this.’

  ‘Switch the ph
one off. Stop thinking about George Clooney.’ Kicking open the door to his immaculate bedroom, Gabe said, ‘Just this once, why don’t we let the man have his fun without being interrupted?’

  He was about to lower her onto the crisp, spotless, geometrically aligned white duvet. Sally, her arms entwined around his neck, whispered, ‘I’m warning you, I’m going to make your bed awfully untidy.’

  Gabe’s eyes softened as they sank down together. ‘I’m counting on it.’

  Chapter 52

  Sometimes you went away for a couple of days and it felt like a couple of days. Other times you went away for a couple of days and when you got back everything was different.

  Lola felt as if she’d been away for a year.

  ‘What’s going on?’ She walked into Gabe’s flat and saw the look on Sally’s face. Total, total giveaway.

  ‘What?’ Sally half laughed in that way people do when they’re trying so hard to appear innocent.

  ‘Hey, you’re back!’ Gabe, emerging from the kitchen with a tea towel slung over one shoulder and a cold beer in his hand, said with delight, ‘Come here,’ and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek.

  Ha, confirmation if any was needed. He’d been like a bear with a sore brain for weeks. And now he was kissing her. What’s more, the atmosphere in the room was positively zingy.

  ‘We’ve missed you,’ Gabe went on cheerfully—and he definitely hadn’t been cheerful for weeks. ‘How did the book thing go?’

  ‘Great.’ Lola indicated the bag she was carrying, emblazoned with the name of the publishing company that had hosted the event. ‘They gave me lots of books. I was just asking Sal what’s going on.’

  ‘Hmm? In what way?’ Now it was Gabe’s turn to look innocent, like a six-year-old being asked what had happened to the last Jaffa cake.

  ‘You and Sally,’ said Lola. She narrowed her eyes at the pair of them. ‘Shagging.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Sally let out a shriek of disbelief. ‘How did you know? How can you tell?’

  ‘OK, three reasons. One,’ Lola counted on her fingers, ‘Gabe’s stopped being a miserable old git. Two, you look so sparkly there’s only one thing that can have caused that.’

  ‘Sparkly? Do I really?’ Sally rushed over to the mirror.

  ‘And three, I just bumped into Mr Kowalski on his way out to the paper shop. He happened to mention you’d been making sex on ze stairs.’

  ‘Oh bum!’ wailed Sally. ‘We wanted to tell you ourselves.’

  ‘If you hadn’t woken up poor Mr Kowalski, you could have.’

  ‘OK, but we weren’t actually doing it, not out there on the stairs. I just accidentally dropped my stick.’

  Ha, not to mention her knickers! Lola was still struggling to take in the news, but in all honesty not as stunned as she could have been. It was one of those scenarios that was so bizarre it made sense, so wrong it was almost right. Hadn’t she wondered from the word go whether Sally and Gabe would be drawn to each other, if they found each other physically attractive but were so at loggerheads that they simply couldn’t bring themselves to admit it?

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Gabe. ‘But I’m crazy about her.’

  ‘She’ll drive you mad,’ said Lola.

  ‘Probably. OK, definitely.’ He slid an arm around Sally’s waist. ‘But she’s been doing that since the day she moved in. I’m used to it now.’

  ‘She’s never going to be tidy,’ Lola warned.

  ‘We’re going to hire a cleaner.’ Sally was glowing with happiness.

  Gabe grinned. ‘Isn’t it great?’

  What choice did she have? If it worked out, of course it was great. Lola knew she should be thrilled for them and on one level she was. But at the same time, and she was deeply ashamed to have to admit it even to herself, there was that niggling worry that the balance of the relationship between the three of them was about to tip. Before, the triangle had been more or less equal. Now it was changing shape, lengthening, drawing two of the points closer together and distancing the third. She was going to feel left out and unwanted and—oh God—lonely…

  ‘Are you worried that we won’t have time for you any more?’ Effortlessly reading her mind, Gabe let go of Sally and gave Lola a reassuring hug. ‘There’s no need, we won’t abandon you.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, of course I wasn’t worried. We’re all grown-ups.’ Lola submitted happily to the hug; how could she have thought everything wouldn’t be fine? ‘Ooh, that reminds me, I just saw a sign outside the King’s Head—that comedian you love is doing a show there on Saturday night. Johnny thingummy? I thought we could all go.’

  She felt Gabe hesitate. Sally exclaimed, ‘Oh, what a shame, we’d have loved to, but…’ She pulled a face and looked over at Gabe to help her out, as if Lola were a child asking how babies got made.

  ‘The thing is, we kind of decided to fly over to Dublin,’ said Gabe. ‘And we can’t really cancel now that the plane tickets have been booked.’

  ‘And the hotel.’ Sally shrugged apologetically.

  Gabe said, ‘But how about if we book another ticket? Then you can come along too.’

  Zooouuuup, that was the sound of the triangle lengthening, like Pinocchio’s nose. OK, it hadn’t really made a noise but they all knew it was there.

  ‘Thanks,’ Lola shook her head, ‘but I’ll be fine.’

  Of course she would. It didn’t matter. She was happy for them, she really was. At the moment Gabe and Sally were besotted with each other but after a while the icky-yicky lovey-doveyness would wear off and they’d slide back to normality.

  ‘You can at least stay for dinner.’ Gabe was persuasive, eager to make amends. ‘I’m doing a cannelloni.’

  Lola smiled, because the last thing they really wanted was a third wheel sitting at the table. ‘It’s OK, I’ve just eaten. And I’m shattered—all I really want is a shower and an early night.’

  Which was probably top of their agenda too.

  ***

  The following evening Nick came round to Lola’s flat after work. She was just telling him about Gabe and Sally when there was a tap at the door.

  ‘Hi, come in.’ Nick, answering it because he was closest, grinned at Sally and said, ‘Congratulations, I’ve just been hearing your news.’

  ‘Th-thanks.’ Sally tucked her hair behind her ears and looked flustered. ‘Um, Lola, about this weekend.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Had their flights been cancelled after all?

  Sally shook her head. ‘No, no, it’s just that I thought you might be at a bit of a loose end and Doug just called. His company’s taken a table at another of those charity dinners and he wanted to know if we’d like to go along. Of course we can’t make it because we’ll be in Dublin, but I wondered if you’d be interested.’ Sally looked pleased with herself, as if presenting the answer to a single girl’s prayers and solving Lola’s abandonment issues in one fell swoop.

  Lola shook her head, funnily enough not even remotely tempted. Being at a bit of a loose end was one thing, but was any end really that loose? ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Oh, go on. It’s at the Savoy! On Saturday night!’ Sally’s eyes were bright, her tone cajoling. ‘And there isn’t a quiz this time, so you don’t have to worry about showing yourself up.’

  Up until a few weeks ago, Lola knew, she would have leapt at the chance to spend an evening in the same room as Dougie. Just breathing the same air and being able to gaze adoringly at him across the dinner table would have been enough.

  But that had been then, when she’d still had hope, and this was now. Besides, Dougie would be there with Isabel doing the adoring bit at his side, leaving her, Lola, stuck at the far end of the table with the unfriendly know-alls who didn’t see why they should waste their time being polite to the brainless bigmouth who’d messe
d up the question about George Eliot and single-handedly lost them the New Year’s Eve quiz.

  Phew, when you put it like that…

  ‘Well?’ Sally was still doing her bright-eyed persuasive thing. ‘Wouldn’t it be fun?’

  ‘I don’t think it would be much fun at all. In fact I’d rather boil my own head.’

  ***

  At Stansted airport on Friday evening Sally walked straight past W. H. Smith.

  ‘Are you ill?’ said Gabe.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You didn’t go in.’ He waved an arm at the lit-up, colorful displays.

  ‘There’s nothing I need.’ She held up her bottle of water, patted her lilac leather handbag.

  ‘But… you haven’t got any magazines.’

  ‘You noticed.’ Sally looked pleased. ‘I decided I was reading too many. It’s time to stop.’ Proudly she said, ‘I’m going cold turkey.’

  Gabe kissed her. ‘What will you do on the plane?’

  Sally grinned and kissed him back. ‘Thought we might join the mile-high club.’

  But when they boarded the flight there were loads of nuns on the plane, which acted as a bit of a contraceptive. Instead, as they flew over the Irish Sea, Gabe found his attention caught by the magazine being read by a middle-aged woman sitting further up the plane. For a split second as she’d opened the magazine he thought he’d glimpsed a photograph that… except no, it couldn’t be.

  Frustratingly the woman was now engrossed in an article about celebs with cellulite and wasn’t allowing him to get another look at the photo on the cover.

  ‘Who are you ogling?’ Sally’s nudge almost sent Gabe tumbling into the aisle.

  He pointed. ‘No one. Just trying to see what that woman’s reading.’

  ‘Hey, I’m the addict around here. Thanks for being so helpful.’ Leaning past him, Sally peered along the aisle. ‘It’s about cellulite. One of those things where they show you photos of people’s legs and bottoms then point out the dodgy bits with whopping great arrows in case we’re too stupid to know what we’re meant to be looking at.’