Her grandmother put down her cup of tea so forcefully that she spilled a little. ‘Nobody gets married on Christmas Eve; it’s so thoughtless. And she’s
pregnant
? I hope it’s not going to be a church service.’
‘Well, it is. Apparently the vicar’s really progressive about these things and her dad made a massive contribution to buy a new church organ or something,’ Grace said as tetchily as she dared. ‘So, I’ll see you between Christmas and New Year, just the two of you.’
‘Now wait a minute, young lady,’ her grandfather snapped because her grandmother might huff and puff but he was the one who laid down the law. ‘You’re coming home for Christmas and you will be civil to your mother and we won’t have any upsets. Is that clear?’
‘I’m
not
coming,’ Grace gritted, because defying her grandfather when he got all Wrath of God on her was very hard. ‘I don’t ever want to see her again and, believe me, I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.’
The three of them glared at each other for a while, until her grandmother picked up her tea cup again. ‘People are staring,’ she stage-whispered. ‘There’s no point in anyone getting upset about this. We’ll talk about it another time, Grace. Now eat the rest of your scone.’
And Grace knew that there would be daily phone calls in which her grandmother would cajole and threaten and probably play the trump card that she and Grandy weren’t in the best of health and it could be their last Christmas. And Grace would eventually bow to the relentless pressure and give in, because that’s what she always did.
chapter nineteen
It was only the prospect of a long weekend in Miami Beach that turned Grace’s frown right way round again.
It was lovely to wake up on Thursday morning and realise that in a few hours she’d be soaking up the sun, putting on new fancy clothes that she could never wear to work, and seeing Vaughn again. That thought unexpectedly popped into her head while she was waiting for the kettle to boil and she examined it carefully. He’d sent her a text message - something innocuous enough about having an exciting weekend ahead of them - but then when Grace thought of their last phone call and the things Vaughn had said he wanted to do to her in his quest for her elusive orgasm, she shivered. It was a shiver that owed nothing to the fact that her plug-in radiator was taking for ever to heat up and more the thought of Vaughn single-mindedly pursuing his goal.
It felt good to shut the front door of 17 Montague Terrace and leave everything behind as she climbed into the back seat of a toasty warm car that smelled of leather, and ask the driver to crank the heating up just a little.
By the time Grace was ushered into the Business Class cabin by a smiling stewardess, she was shrugging off all the worries of the last week, along with her new Burberry coat. The woman behind her was complaining bitterly because she normally flew first class, but as Grace sipped her complimentary champagne and tried to decide which of the many films on offer she’d like to see first, she didn’t think she’d ever take travelling Business Class for granted.
As she obeyed the announcement to turn off her mobile, Grace realised she was free from Kiki, who’d been an absolute nightmare and had almost refused to sign Grace’s holiday form, Lily and her crazy baby hormones, Lily’s mother, her own grandmother’s increasingly hectoring calls and some woman from a debt collection agency who’d started calling up and leaving ominous messages. In fact, she could switch off her phone until Monday evening and pretend that her non-Vaughn world didn’t exist.
The world that did have Vaughn in it was pretty fucking fantastic. Grace had slept on the plane and was wide awake as her driver took her the scenic route along Ocean Drive so she could see rippling waves frothing along the shore on one side and, on the other, bright lights and people spilling out of clubs and open-topped cars, and she could hear the insistent thump of music. It felt like the city’s pulse was connected straight to the exhilarated beat of her own heart. Grace could remember standing in her kitchen in her underwear calling Vaughn for the first time and he’d been here in Miami. Maybe even driving along the same stretch of road - and all of a sudden she couldn’t wait to see him. She was dying to see him.
But when she was shown into their bungalow at the Delano, which was five steps away from an Olympic-sized pool that shimmered electric blue in the dark, Vaughn wasn’t there. Grace looked around the cool white space, arms clamped to her sides because it was so pristine and perfect, she was sure she’d leave dirty fingerprints over anything she touched.
She wandered from the lounge into the bedroom where there was a note propped on the pillow.
Gone to dinner. Hope you had a good flight. See you later. V.
Anyone else would have told her not to wait up, but Vaughn wasn’t anyone else and besides, Grace was too wired and excited to go to sleep. She even thought about having a dip in the pool, but decided she’d indulge in her own patented, post-plane ritual - because she had a post-plane ritual now.
Lighting the Diptique fig candle she’d brought with her ’cause she’d read somewhere that Madonna always did that, she poured all of a bottle of Korres bubble bath into the huge tub as she took a bottle of wine out of the mini-bar. This made her think of Vaughn’s incredulous reaction when they’d stayed at the Plaza Athenée in Paris and she’d asked if it was OK to get a Diet Coke out of the mini-bar. Actually he’d looked at her like she was certifiably crazy and snapped, ‘Yes - and don’t let me
ever
catch you asking something so ridiculous again.’
Five minutes later, she was immersed up to the neck in bubbles, sipping at a glass of Pinot Grigio and wiggling her toes luxuriously, because in Vaughn world you never had to wait for the boiler to fill up again and all bathrooms came with heating as standard. And in Vaughn world, there was now a Vaughn standing in the open doorway, not smiling, not saying anything, just looking at the surprised expression on Grace’s face. The silence only lasted a few seconds, but it seemed to go on for ever, until Vaughn shook his head, then stepped into the steamy, scented bathroom.
‘Hello, stranger,’ he murmured, bending down to kiss Grace briefly on the lips before he straightened up. ‘Can I share your wine?’
‘ ’Course you can,’ Grace said, and if she was pink-cheeked it was because she was in a hot bath, but then Vaughn sat down on the bath’s tiled surround and they took turns sipping from her glass as he told her about the places he’d been, turning what sounded like a nightmare blur of meetings and difficult artists and agents into a long stream of funny anecdotes. Soon there wasn’t much left in the bottle and it didn’t seem so weird to be naked when Vaughn wasn’t.
The bubbles were melting away and Grace could see her body slowly coming into focus. She glanced up to see Vaughn looking too, then he reached down and deliberately trailed his hand through the water, dispersing the last of the bubbles so he could see Grace’s breasts: her nipples a deep, dusky pink compared to the paleness of her skin.
‘I think it’s time you got out of there before you turn into a prune,’ Vaughn said casually, but he was swallowing hard, so if Grace was nervous then he was too. ‘I never did care for prunes.’
Grace gently levered herself out of the water and let Vaughn wrap her in a snowy-white towel, because in Vaughn world nothing ever went grey in the wash. Standing up in the tub, she was the same height as him for once and she wrapped her arms round his neck so she could rub her nose against his and tease a smile from him. ‘You promise you won’t get mad if I can’t come?’ she whispered in his ear.
‘Well, we’re not leaving that huge bed in the other room until you do, so let’s hope there’s twenty-four-hour room service,’ Vaughn said, as he lifted her out of the bath.
Grace had always imagined that the secret to good sex was like an algebraic equation or a chemical formula. There was a complicated sequence of manoeuvres, positions and breathing exercises that other girls knew about but she didn’t because she’d overslept the day they were being given the printed handout.
It had to take more than a pillow under her hips and a simple combination of tongue and fingers building her up and then easing her down so Grace was digging her heels into the mattress, tears of frustration spilling down her cheeks.
‘No, you’re not ready yet,’ Vaughn said to every one of her desperate pleas, until she was beyond mere words and reduced to these high-pitched moans that would make Grace shudder with embarrassment when she thought about them later.
But not then. No, then, she grabbed handfuls of Vaughn’s hair so she could tug him upwards and he had no choice but to give in to her growled, ‘Now. You have to fuck me right now,’ or emerge from their battle with half a dozen bald spots.
As soon as Vaughn slid inside her, it was inevitable. Grace went from not-quite to all-the-way-to-happyland instantly, clutching at Vaughn’s arms, his shoulders, anywhere she could reach as he lifted her legs so her knees were almost touching her ears and drove into her again and again. The world seemed to break around her, shattering into a million different pieces and it only seemed whole again, reshaped by Vaughn’s hands and mouth, long minutes later.
Grace sprawled carelessly on the bed, still fighting to catch each breath as tiny and delicious after-shocks rippled through her.
‘Are you all right?’ Vaughn asked, his voice equally unsteady.
The ability to form words would have required way too much effort, so Grace just sighed instead. A little, rapturous exhalation that sounded odd coming from her mouth. She raised her head slightly so she could confirm that her skin was sheened with perspiration and she had a mottled flush on her chest and collapsed on the bed again. Yup, she’d definitely had an orgasm. A monster, no-holds-barred, satisfaction-guaranteed-or-your-money-back orgasm.
She rolled on to her side so she could curve herself against Vaughn and haul one heavy arm around her waist. ‘It was probably just a fluke,’ she murmured. ‘A Miami-sponsored fluke.’
‘Well, why don’t we check again in the morning, just to be on the safe side?’
‘Usually I can’t come more than once in a twenty-four-hour period,’ she shared, and felt Vaughn’s chest rumbling against her back. She reached around so she could dig him in his shaking ribs. ‘Don’t laugh at me! I’m being serious.’
‘It can all wait until tomorrow,’ Vaughn decided, as Grace yawned and rested her head on his shoulder.
By 5 p.m. the following afternoon, Grace was forced to admit that the whims and workings of her own body were a complete mystery to her. Vaughn had coaxed another two orgasms from her: the first before breakfast, and later as he fucked her over the distressed white table in the corner of their suite, his palm grinding against her clit, number three hit. Grace vowed that she was going to try out a cartwheel when she got home. She’d never been able to get the hang of them either, but maybe with the right kind of application, she’d soon be a cartwheeling pro.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Vaughn asked, as he cupped Grace’s breasts with soapy hands because showering together now seemed entirely innocent after the positions Vaughn had had her in.
Grace shook wet strands of hair out of her face. ‘Nothing.’ She turned herself round in the circle of Vaughn’s arms so she could look up at him. ‘You’re, like, my favourite person in the world right now.’
Vaughn tried not to look smug but failed. ‘I’ve got a few years on you and I don’t think your past boyfriends knew what they were doing.’
Grace thought of all those guys who had never gone down on her in return for lengthy blowjobs that had given her lockjaw. Boyfriends who’d been more interested in trying to persuade her to forego a condom, than get her off. ‘Well, they didn’t pay as much attention to detail as you do,’ she sniffed, coiling herself sinuously around Vaughn, because, hell, right now, she
was
his biggest fan.
But Vaughn was holding her firmly at arm’s length. ‘Do you realise that I’ve blown out at least three meetings and two exhibitions today? I’m not cancelling dinner too. I’m a mere shell of the man I used to be.’
Art Basel, Miami was the most important event in the American art calendar. Over 200 galleries exhibited work from their best artists, put on shows and introduced new talent to the industry. That was Vaughn’s official line, but as far as Grace could tell, Art Basel was like an end-of-term school disco with art installations.
It seemed like the art world had converged on Miami for a weekend of drinking, partying and getting off with each other. Grace found that she wasn’t propping up the wall any longer and trying to look animated at parties when Vaughn disappeared in the direction of museum directors or stinking rich hedge fund managers. At Art Basel it was easy to talk to people - or maybe it was because she was giving off a post-sex glow and was so chilled out that she was beaming at anyone who strayed into her field of vision.