Just a Family Affair

by Veronica Henry

  Just as he did now.

  ‘Right,’ he said decisively. ‘This is what we do. If Kay wants the dosh, she’ll have to agree to tell everyone the baby’s mine.’

  Mickey looked thunderstruck. ‘What?’

  Patrick shrugged matter-of-factly. ‘It’s the only solution. It doesn’t make me look bad, because if Flora is nearly five the date of conception was obviously before I started going out with Mandy. So the only thing I’m guilty of is having sex with a married woman. I wasn’t actually unfaithful to anyone.’

  ‘You would really do that for me?’ asked Mickey, incredulous.

  ‘Nope.’ Patrick was quite firm. ‘But I’d do it for Lucy.’

  Mickey tried to take in what his son was suggesting. ‘What if Kay doesn’t agree?’

  ‘I’m sure Kay won’t mind what the story is, as long as she gets the money.’

  ‘I think you’re misjudging her.’

  Patrick gave a bark of laughter. ‘We are talking about the same Kay Oakley?’

  ‘She’s changed. You haven’t seen her. She’s a different person. Almost a shadow of her former self.’

  ‘Dad - she’s on her uppers. She’s going to pull every trick in the book to get your sympathy.’

  ‘You’re very cynical for one so young. I’m surprised you want to get married.’

  Patrick strode over to the window and looked out at the millpond. The shadow of the brewery tower fell across the dappled water. He wasn’t going to say that he was getting married to safeguard all of this. That his impending nuptials were the only means he knew to clinch their security. And even then, their future wasn’t certain, because he wasn’t sure Keith had the wherewithal to steer them all to safety.

  Anyway, it wasn’t the only reason. He was getting married because he loved Mandy. Cementing the bond between the Sherwyns and the Liddiards was just the icing on the wedding cake. It was ensuring her security as much as his.

  Either way, he didn’t want to talk about that now. Kay was the pressing issue.

  ‘Leave Kay to me. I don’t trust her not to manipulate you. I’ll drive a harder bargain.’

  ‘Patrick. Don’t forget. She’s our flesh and blood now.’

  Patrick rolled his eyes. ‘Only now it suits Mrs Oakley. She was quite happy to forget that fact while she was living it up in Portugal, remember? Anyway, we don’t actually have proof yet, do we? We’ve only got her word that it’s yours. And if she was bonking you and me and Lawrence around the same time, who’s to say there wasn’t someone else?’

  ‘She’s not stupid. She knows it would only take a simple test to prove it wasn’t mine. So it must be mine.’ Even Mickey had worked that one out. ‘Let’s not go down that road. It would be too tacky for words.’

  ‘I’m just thinking of delaying tactics.’

  ‘Look, Patrick. Forget it. If you’re going to be so hard-nosed—’

  ‘Absolutely too right I am. Someone’s got to protect our interests. Half a million fucking quid?’

  The words rang like a death knell around the office walls. Mickey grimaced.

  ‘Yeah. Never mind who we say the father is. Where are we going to get the money?’

  Patrick fell silent. That was the one answer he didn’t have. It was all very well playing tough and calling the shots. There was no doubt they were going to have to come up with some sort of cash. And whether it was five hundred thousand, or fifty, or even five, none of them had it.

  ‘I’ll go and talk to her,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to play for time. I’ll ask her if she’d mind waiting until after the wedding. It’s only six weeks away. We can give her some money in the meantime. I’ve got a bit of cash saved up.’

  Mickey felt a sudden urge to hug his son. His brave, loyal, unquestioning son, who had done so much for him. Who he didn’t deserve. He put his arms round him.

  ‘I’ve hardly got a thing. Lucy blew a fortune on that bloody kitchen, not that I begrudge it. I’ve just put a massive deposit on a place for Georgie to rent in Gloucester. And I’ve promised to pay for Sophie’s flight home from Australia—’

  What a loser. Expecting his own son to fork out for his indiscretions.

  ‘We’ve got to think carefully about this, Dad. This is fucking serious. It could affect our decisions about where to go with the brewery. We might not have to give her the whole lot at once, but we’re not talking petty cash here.’

  And with that, Patrick left the room, leaving Mickey wishing he had never opened his mouth.

  Patrick walked back into the main office with his head reeling. But before he’d had time to really absorb the finer details of what his father had told him, Mandy bounced in brandishing a print-out of their wedding invitation. She’d been fiddling with it all morning on the computer.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘I thought we could print it on cream parchment with a sort of rusty brown ink. To make it look old.’

  Patrick gave it a cursory glance.

  ‘Fantastic,’ he replied, though at this point he couldn’t have cared less about the bloody wedding invitations.

  ‘No, really.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘There must be something you’ve got to say about it,’ Mandy persisted.

  ‘It’s perfect. It says everything we need it to say.’

  ‘Do you think it would be naff to have our initials entwined at the top?’

  Patrick froze in panic. What was the right answer? He did actually think it would be incredibly naff, for he was all for things being as plain as possible. But he thought Mandy probably wanted him to say it was a lovely idea.

  ‘Sounds a lovely idea,’ he said carefully.

  Mandy put the invitation down with a sigh. ‘You’re not interested, are you?’

  Oh God. Was this what the next six weeks were going to be like? He might as well be honest.

  ‘If I’m honest, I’m not interested in the invitations. No.’

  Mandy looked as if she was about to burst into tears. He took her face in his hands and kissed her gently.

  ‘All I really care about is you and me becoming Mr and Mrs Liddiard. That’s what it’s about for me. How we do it is . . . almost irrelevant. I’m happy to do it barefoot and go for a McDonald’s afterwards.’ Mandy opened her mouth to protest in outrage. ‘I’m only joking. And I know it’s important to you. I completely trust you, Mandy. I know whatever you organize will be fantastic. But I just want to say . . . things are a bit tricky at the brewery at the moment.’ Understatement of the century. ‘It’s not going to make any difference to the wedding, but I have got to concentrate on business for the next couple of weeks. And I’m sorry. But nobody else is going to do it.’

  Mandy frowned. ‘So don’t bother you with the details? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Have fun with it. Do whatever you like. And rest assured that I trust you, and I will love whatever you decide. That’s why I’m marrying you. Because I trust you!’

  He looked at her beseechingly, but could see that his words had done little to placate her.

  ‘But this is the fun bit,’ she said. ‘I want you to help me. I want us to decide on things together. It’s our big day.’

  ‘Let’s go out for dinner on Friday,’ he offered. ‘We’ll go through everything. I’ll give you my undivided attention. I promise.’>

  ‘Mum’s arriving on Friday. We’re all having dinner at Keeper’s Cottage.’

  ‘Oh.’ Patrick tried not to look too disgruntled. He found Mandy’s mother absolutely terrifying. Ever since the night she had crept into his room and tried to get into bed with him. It took a lot to embarrass Patrick, but the memory of grappling with a drunken Sandra in her slippery satin nightdress still made his cheeks burn.

  ‘What about the guest list?’ Mandy persisted. ‘We need to get the invitations sent out by the end of the week, so we’ve got to decide who we’re having. And the vicar wants to see us.’

  ‘Let’s go to church on Sunday. Have a chat to him then. And we
can fine-tune the guest list on Sunday afternoon. Surely the invitations can wait till Monday morning?’

  Mandy looked doubtful. ‘I know we said keep it small,’ she ventured, ‘but there’s over a hundred already.’

  Patrick shrugged.

  ‘In for a penny,’ he said.

  After all, in the grand scheme of things, a few extra sausage rolls wasn’t going to make that much difference.

  Somehow he managed to get through the afternoon. Thankfully Keith was out at a meeting, because Patrick didn’t think he’d be able to look him in the eye. The information was so loaded, the implications so far-reaching.

  If only he had kept quiet his proposal the day before. Somehow it complicated everything. The stakes were so much higher with a wedding on the horizon. He knew it was impossible for Kay to have known about it, but he wouldn’t have put it past her to have chosen her moment. She was a tactician, with the ability to prey on weak spots. God knows the Liddiards between them had enough of those.

  Try as he might, Patrick couldn’t envisage an outcome that wasn’t going to cause a lot of people a lot of hurt. He looked around for someone to blame, and every time he came back to himself. He’d done as much damage limitation as he could at the time of Kay’s affair with Mickey. He’d always known that it was a loaded gun. Admittedly Kay and Mickey were never going to fall in love and run off into the sunset together - there was nothing romantic about their encounters whatsoever - but their mutually selfish desire for illicit, up-against-the-wall, frantic sex was dangerous. Of all of them, only Patrick had realized at the time just how close they had come to ruin - financial, emotional, marital. And he had worked incredibly hard to deflect that. Not hard enough, it seemed. He should have done the job properly, made sure that the threat of Kay really had gone away, but he had been so relieved by the news that she and Lawrence had left the country that it had never occurred to him that she might reappear one day with the one weapon that no one could argue with.

  It was going to be up to him again. Mickey was so clueless, and he had a tendency to panic. He had no idea how to handle the likes of Kay at all. And he was already allowing himself to get emotionally involved. Patrick knew he could trust himself to keep his heart hard. This was, after all, about money and nothing else.

  At six o’clock, he managed to make his escape, promising Mandy faithfully that they would sit down later that evening and go through all the wedding details. Then he jumped in his car and made his way up the road to the Honeycote Arms.

  He had to get Kay out of the pub, for a start. It was far too close to home. Barney and Suzanna had arrived in the village long after Kay had left, but they might think it strange that Mickey and Patrick were both paying furtive visits to the mysterious blonde visitor. And Mickey had mentioned that Kay’s little girl, Flora - his own half sister, Patrick realized, as closely related to him as both Sophie and Georgina - was playing with Poppy. Friendships might be struck up, wine might be drunk, tongues loosened.

  He pulled into the car park with its pristine Cotswold chippings, parking in front of a bollard from which swung a black-painted chain. Despite the circumstances he allowed himself a smile. The Honeycote Arms was his pride and joy, and it always gave him a kick when he pulled up outside. He had overseen its transformation from a nondescript village local to a renowned gastro-pub. And unlike many similar ventures, it hadn’t opened in a burst of glory and then gone downhill when the managers had lost interest. With Barney and Suzanna at the helm it had gone from strength to strength.

  The pub was always buzzing, lunchtimes and evenings, and was popular with locals and tourists alike. They kept ahead of the game by changing the menu frequently but keeping the old favourites, like juicy Aberdeen Angus steak with bearnaise sauce, and fish pie. And so regulars didn’t tire of the decor, Suzanna rearranged the furniture to give the place a fresh feel every now and again, adding zebra skin cushions or huge colourful vases or some vibrant paintings to give them something new to look at. She changed the table linen and the floral displays to match the seasons, not in a twee way, but so that every time you went in the atmosphere was slightly different.

  Patrick slid in through the front door, quickly glancing into the bar on the way past and noting with pleasure that it was already starting to fill, although it was early. He went up the striped coir runner to the top of the stairs. He knew Kay was in room four. He stood for a moment looking at the door’s grey-green paintwork, and the pewter Roman numeral. How strange to think that both their past and their future lurked behind it.

  He rapped on the door with a knock that meant business.

  He gasped when he saw Kay. He thought Mickey had been exaggerating, but he scarcely recognized her. That brash outer layer had totally evaporated, the brittle glitz that despite himself he had once found attractive. There were lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes that may have been there before, but would have been covered in a careful application of age-defying foundation. Her hair, once immaculate, was long and tousled and unstreaked.

  She looked . . . helpless. And startled to see him. He would have expected her hackles to go up immediately, and for her to go on the defensive. But she almost seemed to crumple.

  ‘Patrick.’

  There was so much sorrow in her voice. He’d been meaning to lay it on the line straight away, having decided that the only way they were going to get through this was by playing it tough.

  He couldn’t play it tough with this fragile creature.

  ‘Kay . . . Can I come in?’

  She looked uncertainly behind her. ‘Flora’s just going off to sleep. Can I meet you down in the bar? In ten minutes?’

  He was astonished that she was so unsure of herself. He nodded. She gave him a wan smile and shut the door.

  Patrick went down to the bar and bought himself a large double Scotch, which he knocked back in one. Then he ordered a bottle of Cloudy Bay and a bowl of olives. He appropriated a pair of armchairs facing each other in a quiet corner. They were low and deep, covered in turquoise and coral striped velvet. He put the wine and nibbles on the low coffee table that separated them. The scene was perfectly set for a romantic assignation.

  When Kay came down, she looked a little more like her old self, but not much. She’d put on some pink lipstick and some mascara, and brushed her hair. Patrick found it hard to believe that once he’d slid her out of a skin-tight sequined dress and ravished her in a gazebo. That she’d writhed with delight and dug her nails into him. He stood up politely as she came across to him.

  ‘She’s fast asleep,’ she said, then gave him an appraising glance. ‘You look well.’

  He wasn’t about to say that she looked dreadful, so he poured her a glass of wine. The glass was so huge, and her wrists so tiny, she seemed barely able to lift it. Harden your heart, he told himself. Kay is perfectly capable of playing us all for fools. He drew an envelope from the inside pocket of his moleskin jacket and chucked it carelessly on the table.

  ‘There’s a cheque for five grand in there,’ he said curtly. ‘It’s going to have to last you three months. Because it’s going to take at least that long to sort things out. Legally. And financially. And it’s all the cash we’ve got. So take it or leave it.’

  She picked it up. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and he was astonished by the gratitude in her voice. He’d expected a battle, a derisive laugh. But her features had been suffused with relief.

  ‘I hate doing this.’ Her voice was almost a whisper, and he had to lean forward to hear what she was saying. ‘I would have done anything I could to avoid it. But I didn’t have any choice.’

  She reached out and took a cigarette from his packet. He couldn’t remember now if she used to smoke. He thought not. Wordlessly, he held up his lighter and flicked it. The light from the flame lit up her hollow cheekbones.

  ‘Flora doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her.’ She spoke matter of factly. ‘Lawrence was a wonderful father to her. They were everything to each other. Now sh
e’s got nothing. Except me. For whatever that’s worth.’

  She gave a self-deprecating grimace. Patrick lit a cigarette of his own to hide his shock. Kay had never been one for selling herself short. She’d always been bursting with confidence, so incredibly sure of herself. It was one of the things that had made her so sexy. Now she was even less than a shadow of her former self: the bitten nails, that had once been long and shiny red; the flat loafers, when he couldn’t remember her in any other than three-inch heels. He’d definitely never seen her in jeans.

  Yet there was still something appealing about her . . .

  Don’t even go there, Patrick, he reminded himself.

  ‘Look,’ he said, trying to take an assertive stance, but being as gentle as he could. He didn’t want her breaking down in the middle of the pub. ‘This couldn’t come at a worse time for us. Mandy and I are getting married in six weeks—’

  There was a flash of warmth in her smile. ‘Oh. Congratulations. I didn’t know you were still together.’

  ‘Yes. And I don’t want this to spoil the occasion. For Mandy or Lucy or Dad.’

  ‘No. I agree. I don’t want to spoil it either. Not at all.’ Kay looked distressed. ‘Patrick - just tell me what else I can do. What the hell else am I supposed to do?’

  Her eyes were huge as she gulped her wine.

  Shit, thought Patrick. He was losing control of the situation. He’d been so sure of what he was going to say, so clear in his mind that he wasn’t going to take any crap from Kay Oakley.

  ‘We can’t let anyone know this is Dad’s child,’ he said desperately. ‘It would be a disaster. You’ve got to agree to say that I’m the father. If you want the money without a fight.’

  Kay looked at him in amazement. Then gradually a smile crept over her face.

  ‘My God, I’d forgotten what a bloody hero you are,’ she said. ‘Your father is an incredibly lucky man.’