“We’ll be very good,” Zak promised. “Besides, I think I’ll nip down to The Ship anyway and catch up with some people. I did think about meeting Alex at the hotel bar but I reckon I’ll give that a miss now. The gooseberry look isn’t really me!”
As the family gathering broke up, with some setting off for the carol service, some about to go to the pub and some leaving the dining table to wrap presents by the big tree in the living room, Tom fetched his coat from the boot room and prepared to head back to The Ship with Zak and Nick. For a moment he teetered on the brink of calling Alex and confessing all, before he remembered that the mobile coverage was a bit patchy here. Well, he imagined it was, anyway. He’d probably get cut off mid-sentence. Besides, Alex would surely have arrived by now and with any luck he was already enjoying a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with his one who got away. There’d been no angry phone calls to his mobile as yet, so all was looking hunky-dory. In fact, Tom felt rather optimistic. As he zipped up his jacket and stepped out into the crisp night air he was smiling. After all, luck didn’t come into things at Christmas and neither was it required where true love was concerned. Everything was going to be perfect. Alex Evans and Kat James were bound to be having an evening they would never, ever forget. They’d be thanking him tomorrow. Tom could hardly wait! There was no doubt in his mind that it was going to be a very memorable Christmas.
Chapter 4
Two miles along the road from Seaspray, Alex Evans was making what felt like his millionth three-point turn and growing dangerously close to lobbing his satnav out of the (borrowed) Ferrari window. Given that the record label’s boss would kill him if he so much as got the tiniest scratch on the paintwork, each manoeuvre was taking five times longer than normal. If every single train heading south west hadn’t been booked solid, there was no way Alex would have taken this car. It may well be worth over a hundred grand, but clicking the paddles was a headache and the turning circle was crap.
Come back Smart car, all is forgiven, thought Alex as he spun the wheel and headed back along what looked to all intents and purposes to be a farm track. At this rate he’d arrive next Christmas. He must have been mad letting Zak talk him into coming down to Cornwall. Surely after a year working with the blond-maned, music-making, totally crazy whirlwind that was Alpha Music’s hottest new star Alex should have known better? Zak was a great one for having brilliant ideas that tended to end in chaos for all around him while he walked away without so much as disturbing a hair on his golden head. Accelerating through the mud, and wincing as stones and dirt flew at the windscreen, Alex had a gnawing feeling that things were only going to get worse.
Christ, he should have stayed in London. At least there he could have been fed up in his flat, drinking his way through a crate of Bud rather than getting lost in a labyrinth of dark and twisting lanes and trashing a supercar. Couldn’t a man be allowed to wallow in peace and eat his own body weight in takeaway food? This was the kind of Christmas that appealed to Alex today, not being all sociable and festive in a village that looked like the set of Doc Martin.
“Come and have some fun in Polwenna Bay. Our village Christmases are the stuff of legend,” Zak had said when he’d heard that Alex’s holiday plans had changed so abruptly. “We’ve worked bloody hard to have time off, so you should enjoy it. Jesus, I can’t believe your ex.”
Alex had held out his phone so that Zak could see the curt message that had flashed up only seconds before and turned his world, or at least his Christmas, upside down. “Believe it.”
Alex should have been spending Christmas in LA – that had been the idea – but typically Krissy, his ex, had changed her mind at the eleventh hour and decided she didn’t want him there after all. Something else had come up, apparently (probably another man, Alex thought acidly), and it was no longer convenient for Alex to be around. If he was honest, Alex was relieved in some ways because Krissy was hard work. All the same, he was also furious. He’d booked his plane ticket and more importantly Emmy was expecting him. He’d promised to take her to see Santa and had been looking forward to watching her open her presents; seeing the wonder in your child’s eyes certainly brought back the magic of Christmas even when you were tired and jaded. It was one thing for his ex-wife to dick him around but another altogether when it affected their daughter.
Bloody, bloody Krissy, Alex thought now as the latest lane petered out into a sodden footpath. If there was ever an ex-wife from hell, then she was it. Barely a week passed without her demanding something or complaining about how hard life as a single mom was, as if life was hard in a luxury gated community with hot and cold running helpers and a lucrative modelling income too. He’d come to dread her texts and messages buzzing away on his phone like malevolent wasps. If it hadn’t been for Emmy, he’d have been delighted to never clap eyes on the woman again.
Talk about be careful what you ask for. Don’t all wannabe rock stars dream of dating blonde models? The problem was, no one ever pointed out that the dream had a nasty habit of turning into a nightmare. Mick Jagger had a lot to answer for!
Reversing the car again and heading off in what surely had to be the right direction this time, Alex found himself struck by the irony that he’d rather be stuck in this muddy lane miles from civilisation than relaxing by his ex-wife’s pool. Five minutes with Krissy and he generally felt like drowning himself in it anyway. Thank goodness Emmy was such a sweet little girl and as little trouble as it was possible for a four-year-old to be. She made up for all the stress of having to contend with her mother.
Alex and Krissy’s relationship had been fun to start with. Of course it was, because what young guy didn’t dream of a sexy blonde with Grand Canyon cleavage, racehorse-long legs and a penchant for butt-cheek-skimming skirts? But five years on from the initial rush of passion he’d found himself tired of her mood swings, constant demands and vacuous conversations. Krissy had cost more to run than this Ferrari probably did, and although Alex earned seriously good money as a successful songwriter, he’d been alarmed by the endless outpourings for handbags and trips to Tiffany’s. He’d been even more alarmed when he’d discovered her inability to grasp the fact that fidelity was pretty important to a marriage. The only thing that had kept Alex trying to make it work was their daughter Emmy. If he knew deep down that Krissy wasn’t really the one for him (and sometimes found himself longing for big brown eyes, swathes of glossy burnt-umber hair and a smile that played a symphony on his heartstrings), then he’d told himself firmly that this was nothing more than nostalgia. He’d been a kid back then, with freedom and possibilities wide ahead of him, so of course he looked back on being eighteen through rose-tinted sunglasses. Now, more than ten years later, he was a man with an ex-wife, a child and responsibilities.
The irony of it all hadn’t been lost on Alex. It had been his desire to run from responsibility that had made him say goodbye to those brown eyes and that sweet smile in the first place. He’d been an idiot but it was hardly surprising. All young guys were idiots.
And a lot of older ones too…
But the most idiotic thing Alex had done was to believe that marriage had meant something to Krissy. She drove him insane but Alex had been determined to make things work, because that was the kind of man he was. Alex the boy might have been scared of feeling too much too soon and chosen to run away, but Alex the man stayed the course – or at least he had until he’d come home unexpectedly and caught his wife with the tennis coach in the middle of an activity that gave a whole new meaning to the term ball skills. He’d known then that their marriage was over for good.
“Lucky escape, man,” his manager had said, pouring Alex a bourbon. But it hadn’t felt lucky. Divorce was messy and getting access to his daughter even more so, especially when the nature of his job meant that Alex split his time between at least four different time zones. He did his best to see Emmy as much as he could, but Krissy liked to make this as hard as possible and was always changing plans or cancelling on him at the las
t minute.
That Alex had even imagined Christmas would be any different was a real triumph of hope over experience. He’d been in his Hoxton loft apartment, halfway through packing his case before catching the red-eye flight across the pond to LA (his head still spinning, since he and Zak had only flown in from recording in Sweden two hours before). It was only then that his ex-wife had called to say there was no point making the trip – something else had come up for Christmas.
Another man’s appendage probably, Alex thought savagely as he turned the Ferrari onto the closest thing Cornwall had to a main road and put his foot down. The car sprung forward like a cheetah and he lifted his foot off the gas again hastily. There was no point taking out his irritation with his ex-wife on an innocent supercar.
It wasn’t as though the thought of Krissy with another man bothered him in the slightest. Alex was well and truly over her. In fact, he was over women in general: they were nothing but trouble. From the second he’d walked out on his marital home, Alex had decided he was through with relationships. Instead, his terrifyingly intense focus had been turned onto his songwriting career – and of course Emmy, when he was allowed to see her. Emmy was his world.
Women loved Alex and they tended to love a challenge even more. His haunted green eyes and air of aloofness were irresistible to them, and each girl who met him longed to be the one who mended his broken heart and put a smile back onto that full sexy mouth. Alex was only human, but he was so polite and thoughtful that although he invariably let them down, he did so with such regretful sweetness that nobody had a bad word to say about him. As time passed, his reputation of being impossible to catch grew within the music industry.
“It’s a bloody smart trick,” Zak Tremaine often remarked with a mixture of awe and envy. “Every girl wants to be the one to fix you – they really love that kind of stuff. No wonder they can’t resist!”
“I’m not broken,” Alex insisted. “I’m just not into relationships.”
“That’s because you haven’t met the right girl and fallen in love,” declared Zak, who for a supposedly hedonistic up-and-coming rock star had a romantic streak wider than the Amazon. “When you fall in love you’ll want a relationship; you’ll see. Until then,” he’d added, raising his bottle of Bud in a toast, “enjoy being single!”
Enjoying being single was exactly what Alex did do, and if there were times when he found himself thinking about the past or if he woke in the night only to find the bed beside him empty and that the warm brown eyes he’d been dreaming of belonged to another life, then he pushed those thoughts aside or channelled them into the songs that he wrote for other artists. Pouring these feelings into music had proven very lucrative. In the eighteen months that had followed his divorce, Alex Evans had risen to the very top of his game. He was now so highly regarded in the industry that some of the biggest names had come to blows over who was going to have him play lead guitar on their album and write their next hit. Tired of this and with enough money in the bank to keep even Krissy happy, Alex had flipped the music business the bird by turning down a massive recording contract with a famous rock band, in favour of working with the unknown and upcoming Zak Tremaine. Alex had met Zak in a London recording studio and had instantly sensed that he was a star in the making. With Alex’s songs and Zak’s huge talent, they’d soon realised they were onto something massive, as had the record company that had signed them up. The past twelve months had been a blur of touring and recording.
No wonder they were both exhausted, Alex thought as his car zoomed past a sign for Polwenna Bay. (Thank goodness; at last he was going the right way.) He yawned widely. Christ. He couldn’t wait to stop, have a shower and eat dinner. Then he’d have an early night, Christmas Eve or not, and leave the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle behind for a bit. The novelty of travelling and gigging had soon worn thin, and with his ex-wife’s mind games to add to all that, Alex was ready to collapse. Kind as Zak’s offer to stay with his family had been, Alex now craved some peace and quiet. How lucky was it, then, that his old school friend Tom happened to work at the local hotel and had found him a room at short notice? This was what had made the decision to come to Cornwall a no-brainer. Sitting at home – or rather stewing in the achingly trendy flat that was to homeliness what Jordan was to Kate Middleton – would have been soul destroying, and the Emmy-shaped gap unbearable. At least in Cornwall he could have some time out from everything. He’d walk on the cliffs and blow the cobwebs away, eat some hearty home cooking and maybe even get out on the water. This break from everything was going to be his Christmas present to himself.
Then, when he got home, he’d find the best and meanest lawyer ever and make sure Krissy could never pull another stunt like this again…
The Cornish roads were on Alex’s side now and at long last he turned left onto the sweeping driveway that wound through manicured lawns and flowerbeds to the Polwenna Bay Hotel. An elegant Georgian mansion high on the hillside, it gazed across the ocean with an air of ownership and confidence. It was everything that Tom had promised it would be. Alex exhaled with relief. Now Christmas could begin.
The Ferrari crunched up the drive, past stately cedar trees and weathered statues. Alex reflected that Tom had truly fallen on his feet here. The place was stunning. He could only imagine that in the daylight the view would be staggering as well. A broad flight of steps swept up to a huge front door that stood invitingly open, spilling warm light into the gathering darkness. Even from this distance Alex spotted the flickering fairy lights of an enormous Christmas tree and the sparkle of chandeliers. Yuletide was celebrated in style here, that was for sure.
Pulling up at the foot of the steps, Alex killed the engine and reached across for his small holdall. Instantly a valet in crimson and green livery was opening the car door for him while a footman waited to take his bag. This was more like it! There was nothing like a bit of luxury to take a man’s mind off his vindictive ex-wife and missing Emmy. She’d be so excited to think that Santa was about to visit – she’d been writing her Christmas list since the summer, and it broke Alex to know how disappointed she’d be when the ballerina doll he’d promised her didn’t appear. How could it? It was wrapped up in his luggage, waiting for a flight that would never happen now.
God. He needed a drink. Maybe he’d have a quick brandy in the bar after he checked in. That wouldn’t hurt, surely?
Pushing painful thoughts of his daughter away for the time being, Alex climbed the steps and entered the grand hall, glancing around with pleasure. Although he travelled widely and had stayed at some pretty opulent hotels during his career, this place was in a league of its own. The hotel oozed class and style, from the fittings to the furniture to the well-groomed blonde behind the reception desk. A roaring fire blazed in the enormous marble fireplace, crystal chandeliers glittered from the vaulted ceiling, and every step on the sweeping staircase was decorated with greenery and red bows. A string quartet played softly, waiters circulated with steaming glasses of mulled wine, and the chink of cutlery against bone china drifted from the restaurant. The food smelled delicious, making Alex’s mouth water as he waited to check in. He hadn’t eaten for hours and the thought of dinner, even if he dined alone, was very welcome.
Check-in was straightforward enough, although the blonde did look a little perplexed when he asked her for a key.
“A second key? Yes, by all means, sir. Let me just get you another,” she said, putting the card into a machine and tapping in a code with her blood-red nails. A brief image of those nails scoring his back flickered through his mind’s eye, and Alex had to give himself a stern talking-to. Cornwall was a small place and this girl was probably one of Zak’s relatives. Pooping on doorsteps and all that. He peered at the name badge pinned just above her left breast. Ella. Hmm. Alex was pretty sure Zak hadn’t mentioned an Ella. There was Mo and Issie and Summer and Jules, but Ella? That name didn’t ring any bells.
“One’s all I need,” Alex assured her.
“Your wife already has one, sir. It was issued when she checked in earlier. Would you still like another?”
For a dreadful moment Alex thought Krissy was cued to pop up from behind the desk, like a stunt from some awful MTV show, demanding more alimony and tossing her peroxide mane like a show pony shaking off flies. His stomach lurched.
“I don’t have a wife.”
Ella looked confused. “I do apologise, sir. My mistake. I must be confusing you with another guest.”
Alex treated her to a smile. “I’m hurt.”
Ella blushed and looked down. Alex’s smiles hadn’t appeared much lately but when they did they were worth the wait. As she tapped away at her computer, programming a room key for him, Alex’s stomach righted itself. Of course this was a mistake. The hotel was exceedingly busy and they would be checking in lots of guests. It would be easy to mix people up.
“This must be my Assistant Manager’s error. He’s off tonight and I think in his haste to celebrate he must have entered the wrong details for your room.” Ella looked seriously annoyed and Alex imagined the poor Assistant Manager was in for the high jump. He hoped it wasn’t Tom.
“It’s not a problem at all,” he assured her, taking the key card and tucking it into the pocket of his faded Levi’s.
“Well, anything you need, sir, please just call reception. And don’t forget, there are canapés and mince pies being served in the drawing room,” she said, her red glossy lips curling upwards. She really was very attractive beneath the heavy make-up, Alex observed as he thanked her. Not that she was quite as pretty as the girl who haunted his dreams. That person was clear-skinned and pink-cheeked, a natural beauty who was forever eighteen in his memory…
What was it they said? The past was a foreign country? As he climbed two flights of stairs Alex told himself sternly that his passport back in time had well and truly expired. He’d left his old life behind a long time ago; there was no way he wanted to revisit it. A Christmas drink with Tom was as far down Memory Lane as Alex wanted to meander. If the past was so great, it wouldn’t be the past. Right? It was best certain things – people – stayed there.
Cornwall for Christmas: A Polwenna Bay novella Page 4
