‘
Hey, Nico . . . how’s the wife?’ shouted one
of the photo
graphers, and he turned and gave
him a flashy smile.
‘How was Paris?’
‘How’s
Loulou Marks?’
‘
How’s Roz
Vallender?’
‘
How would you like your neck stretched?’
murmured Nico
through gritted teeth, making
sure that only Mac could hear.
‘Come on, let’s get inside. I can’t stand
the sight of blood.’
Three bottles of wine and half a
bottle of Remy Martin later,
both men were feeling better, alcohol having blurred the edges
of their respective troubles. Luigi
had joined them earlier,
falling briefly asleep at the table, and two unsubtle young
actresses had slid into chairs opposite them, staying for
three glasses of wine before realizing how unwelcome they were.
Now they
were alone, Mac pulling desultorily at a lobster claw and Nico pouring a hefty
measure of cognac into his coffee.
‘I don’t
even know what she’s calling it,’ said Mac gloomily, swallowing the succulent
lobster meat without even tasting it.
‘
Liliane.
Lili. It was her grandmother’s name, apparently.’
‘
The old woman would turn in her grave.’
‘Come on,
Mac. It isn’t a crime.’
Mac nodded, looking thoughtful. ‘Ah, but you haven’t been
married to Loulou. You don’t know how I feel. She’s done some
crazy things in her time, but this is the craziest.
Giving two
million pounds to that
charity runs it a close second. Jesus – if
that baby had been mine I was going to ask her to marry me.
Again.
Despite
everything she’s put me through.’ Now he was shaking his dark
head. ‘I’m the one who must be crazy. What a mess.’
‘
Getting married doesn’t
help,’ declared Nico, lighting a
cigarette with the air of one who
knows. ‘I only did it to get Roz off my back. Finding someone who had never
even heard of me, someone I knew wasn’t only interested in me for my money . .
.
that was a bonus. I thought it was fate.’
He raised his cup,
draining it. ‘Now
I know it was bloody fatal. Even marrying
Roz couldn’t have been worse.’
‘Shame about Nicolette. Hers . . . yours . . . do you
think she really was yours?’ asked Mac, who was fast becoming obsessive
where paternity was concerned and who knew he could
ask
Nico anything. They had known
each other for several years
now and their friendship had been so
effortlessly and instantly forged that it seemed much longer than that.
Nico shrugged. ‘Who can say? It was a
possibility, I suppose.
I felt as
guilty as hell when she died, but when I heard what was wrong with her . . . I
didn’t know until afterwards . . . it sounds terrible, but I was almost
relieved. Is that sick?’
‘
Of course it isn’t.
Only natural. Roz was looking OK last
night, anyway. She turned up with
Camilla’s ex-husband of all
people and
apparently had a real go at Camilla before she left
for having the nerve to write to her after the baby
died.’ He
sighed heavily. ‘What a bitch.’
Nico couldn’t help it; the mention of
Camilla’s name jolted
him. She could still have that effect. He hadn’t got her out of
his system yet. For a moment he was unable to speak
without
giving himself away, and his
confused feelings for Camilla
were about the only secret he had kept
entirely to himself. Mac had no idea.
‘
Poor Camilla,’ went on
Mac, refilling his glass and failing
to
notice the pause. ‘For some reason or other Roz has given
her a pretty
hard time over the past year.’
For a moment Nico wondered whether to confide in Mac, then through the
haze of alcohol remembered why he hadn’t
done
so before. He had failed Camilla in bed. Those kind of
details he preferred
to keep to himself.
The next afternoon when Nico finally
arrived home, he had come to one conclusion. Dinner at Luigi’s followed by four
bottles of Dom Perignon at Tramp,
chased down by the remains
of Mac’s drinks
cabinet had steadily clarified his dilemma and
its obvious solution.
Having spent the night in Mac’s spare bedroom, and awoken
with a bone-crushing hangover, much of the previous night’s conversation had
faded into merciful oblivion.
Only the idea – and subsequent decision – remained clear,
crystallized and necessary in his mind. His marriage was over —if it had ever
truly existed. The sooner he put an end to it, the
easier it
would be for both Caroline and himself.
It was the
best thing all round, without question.
And in Caroline’s present mood, he
realized, it should be
easy enough
to persuade her that he was right. Undoubtedly it
would cost him a great deal of money . . . he wasn’t naive
enough to think otherwise. Equally undoubtedly
such a very
short marriage, and on
the heels of his disastrous liaison with
Roz, would result in scandal, bad publicity, general loss of
favour.
Monty would flip when he heard the news. The Press would speculate wildly,
probably put it about that he was gay.
His mother
would be distraught.
It was raining slightly as he stepped
out of the car, a grey
chilly drizzle which clung to him, coating his blond hair and
white cotton shirt with a layer of
dampness too light to permeate.
The gravel, gleaming wet, crunched beneath his feet as he
turned towards the house.
Was Caroline even there, he wondered, after last night? He
hoped she would be reasonable and listen
calmly to what he
had to say. Any more appalling fights like yesterday’s
and his
modest art collection – with a pang
he recalled Camilla’s
innocent joy when he had brought home the five
Hockney prints – would be lost.
Caroline was waiting, if that was the
word, in the sitting-
room. Nico ground to a halt in the doorway when he saw her. His
first thought was that she had been on
the vodka and tonic
with a vengeance.
‘Darling, thank goodness you’ve come home,’ she said,
rising from the settee and moving towards him with a slow, sinuous sway. Naked
but for cream silk knickers, a matching bra and suspender belt, her excellent
legs encased in the sheerest silk stockings and ivory high-heeled shoes, she
pressed herself
against him and in his state
of shock all Nico could say was,
‘It’s raining; I’m wet.’
‘Good,’ murmured Caroline, sliding her arms around his
neck
and burying her face against his open
shirt front. ‘Nico, I’m
sorry about last night. I love you so much; it
was crazy to fight
like we did. I don’t know
what I’d do if we broke up. I was
jealous but I know now how wrong I
was. Loulou’s your friend and I had no right to interfere. Forgive me, hmm?’
As she spoke she was moving against
him, her barely
contained breasts
rubbing sensuously across his chest, her pelvis sliding against his own.
Despite himself, Nico felt his body responding. Caroline was running her hot,
wet tongue along the
line of his collarbone,
her hair brushing his skin. The sex
between
them – before he had begun avoiding it – had always been fantastic. Inhaling a
delicious waft of Caroline’s perfume
he felt himself weakening,
remembering how erotic it felt to be undisguisedly seduced by a woman, and
allowed her fingers to trail down towards the front of his black denims.
This wasn’t what was supposed to
happen, he thought, his mind dazed by lust, his own fingers expertly
unfastening her
bra
so that those generous breasts could spring free . . . but it
had been so long . . . and this was his wife, after all .
. . and he knew he could please
her .. .
‘
Don’t leave
me,’ whispered Caroline against his neck, as he slid her panties down to her
trembling knees. ‘Forgive me, stay with me, I swear I won’t ever make you angry
again. Just make love to me, Nico . .
C
hapter
37
’Christo, if you tell me now that
there is no hot water I shall make
you
babysit all night, and it will
serve you bloody well
right for being so mean with that immersion tank. I’m going to
a wedding, for Chrissake . . . I can’t go smelling of
baby-sick.’
Christo swept the baby, Lili, from her
mother’s arms and
held her high in the
air to gurgle contentedly above him.
‘Electricity costs money. Happily,’ he said, teasing her, ‘today
is Tuesday and I still have some. So you may have your bath, Cinderella. Did
you really think I’d let you go to the wedding of the year without one?’
‘
You’re an angel.’
Loulou dropped a kiss on to his russet
head,
then pulled a face at Lili whose black saucer eyes were
only inches from her own. ‘And so are you,’ she
murmured
lovingly, addressing her daughter and tweaking one of the pink
ribbons which had by some miracle stayed in her
fine candy
floss hair for over ten minutes. ‘Just be good for Christo
while
Mummy has her bath and then we’ll get
you dressed. Seven
weeks old and you’re
going to your first wedding. Who’s a
lucky girl?’
It was Christmas Eve and Loulou had never been happier. As
she sank into the hot bath she reflected for the hundredth time how absolutely
right she had been to give up Vampires.
Vampires had been fun, but it was also a lot of hard work
and
an enormous responsibility. And while
some women managed
to carry on in business when their children were
born, Loulou
wondered how they coped. Lili
took up not only all her time,
but
her emotions too. Loving someone with such intensity,
she had discovered, left no room for anyone or
anything else. And
loving a tiny human being with ravishing black eyes,
a perfect
rosebud mouth, irresistible dimples
and the most adorable
fingers and toes she had ever seen was
so
much
more fun than loving a wine bar — or even a man — that she was completely
hooked.
Thank heavens, she thought with a smile, for darling
Christo.
By closing her mind to the possibility
that Lili might not
have
been Mac’s daughter she had blithely assumed that once
she had given up her business and her
home, he would invite
her to live
with him. They had been getting on together so wonderfully that it had seemed
the obvious thing to do. They would live together, a proper family, and be
disgustingly happy for the rest of their lives.
But Mac had taken the news of Lili’s undoubted paternity
extremely badly and as a result had missed out on
all the
happiness in which Loulou was so luxuriously wrapped. Instead
it had been Christo who, having had the foresight
to consider
what might ensue, had come to Loulou’s rescue. He had been renting
a small flat in Kensington with an Australian who was
now returning home to Sydney, he explained to her. A room
was
therefore available, the rent was reasonable and the landlord was agreeable.
Christo, who had arrived from southern Ireland
three years ago with nothing, had never forgotten how Loulou
had
given him a job and installed him in her spare room until he
could find a place of his own. They had always got
on well
together. Now it was his turn to help the impulsive, generous,
wayward girl who had done so much for him in the past.
Touched
beyond words, Loulou had hugged him so hard that
his lungs almost
collapsed. Four days after Lili was born they
had both
moved into the tiny flat with Christo and from the sale of her own furniture
and other possessions she raised enough money to pay her share of the rent for
almost two years. Further
ahead than that
she couldn’t think. Fate, she had told Camilla
airily, would take care of her. Money wasn’t important, after
all.