by Jill Mansell
“Don’t be silly.” Joel tweaked her nose. “You can swim, can’t you?”
“Hell’s bells.” Cleo was looking mutinous. “Is it really terrible?”
“Just teasing. I’ve never been there.” He grinned. “The name just rang a bell. I think a friend of mine stayed there once. If that’s the one, you can stop worrying. He had a brilliant time.”
“Hmm.” Cleo sounded doubtful. “But he wasn’t stuck there for five days with Murphy ding-dong Mackay.”
Chapter 37
In the event, the San Carlo was just about the only bearable aspect of the whole trip. Formerly a fifteenth-century palace, now an elegant cream cake of a hotel just a few steps from the Piazza San Marco, it was so much better than Cleo had been expecting that for the first couple of hours, she was actually deluded into believing she might enjoy herself in Venice after all.
But not even the Cipriani itself could have made up for the awfulness of the rest of the Visawear party, the deeply depressing weather, and the unexpected, even more depressing arrival of Anton Visa himself.
Visawear, the company funding the shoot, was renowned for dependability rather than glitz. Donatella Versace they were not. But their customers, appreciating that, were loyal in return. Visawear was hugely successful across both Europe and America, and the biannual advertising campaigns for Visawear were lavish, double-page splashes seen by everyone who had ever picked up a magazine.
If only those people, Cleo thought wearily at the end of their first grueling day, knew how much misery could be involved in the making of such apparently idyllic ads.
Merry, the stylist, was miserable beyond belief. Her boyfriend had recently left her for another girl, and she was taking it out on anyone who came within fifty paces.
The photographer’s name was Pierre. His boyfriend had also just run off, but with an Australian surf bum. Pierre was consoling himself with fistfuls of cocaine. He also snarled rather than spoke and had the loudest, most annoyingly persistent sniff Cleo had ever heard.
But Pierre was a positive poppet compared with Jina and Donna, in charge of makeup and hair respectively. They made the GoodFellas look sweet, and their joint mission in life was to get laid by Murphy Mackay. Whoever got there first won. Their bitchiness was terrifying. The only consolation, as far as Cleo was concerned, was that nobody deserved them more than Murphy. They were all welcome to one another.
The happy band also included Violette, a reserved French model who seldom spoke at all, preferring to smoke endlessly instead; Martine, the bossy PA who wore her hair in braids wound Heidi-style around her head; and Anton Visa himself.
Anton Visa was so famously reclusive, most people had no idea what he looked like. This, Cleo decided, was a smart move on his part. If she looked like Anton Visa, she’d be a recluse too. Why he’d chosen to show up in Venice was anybody’s guess. Gifted designer he might be, but he made her skin crawl.
“Maybe he is the beast from the lagoon,” she’d whispered to Pierre, but all Pierre did was grunt, sniff, and shake his light meter at the filthy, gray sky.
Venice was beautiful, but the weather wasn’t doing it any favors. Cleo, first downstairs for dinner because boredom had only made her hungrier than usual, perched on a stool at one end of the deserted bar and gazed gloomily out at the endless rain, the swirling, leaden water of the Grand Canal, and the redundant, chained-up gondolas bobbing like toy ducks on the far side.
The gilded double doors to the restaurant swung open, and she was joined by Jina and Donna, bickering.
“And why would he be interested in you anyway?” Donna sneered. “With that pimple on your chin the size of a fried egg.”
“Better pimples,” Jina said sweetly, “than herpes.”
“You lying cow! I had a cold sore, that’s all—”
Jina’s bright-green low-cut dress emphasized her round shoulders and pendulous breasts. Donna was wearing a sparkly black top and an almost transparent miniskirt. Both girls reeked of scent. Cleo, trying to look as if she didn’t belong to them, smiled at the young barman and ordered an orange juice.
“Come on. Visawear’s paying.” Jina looked appalled. “You can’t drink that crap. Have a bellissima—the fat bastard can afford it! Three bellissimas, OK?” She snapped her fingers at the barman. “And make ’em doubles.”
“Bellinis?” The young Irish barman looked almost apologetic. “Peach juice and prosecco, would that be…?”
“That’s them.” Unperturbed, Jina pointed to the half-pint glasses. “Who gives a toss what they’re called? So long as they do the job.”
They were soon joined by the rest of their party. Anton Visa, more maggoty than ever, laid a white and clammy hand on Cleo’s arm.
“You look sad, my dear.”
And you look like a slug in a dinner jacket, thought Cleo. She squirmed as his hand inched its way up and began massaging the inside of her elbow. She wished she were back in London with Joel.
“I’m OK. It’s just the weather.”
Anton Visa nodded in sympathy. “One thing, I’m afraid, over which I have no control.”
The first day had been a complete washout. As far as Cleo was concerned, the sooner they completed this shoot, the better.
She managed a brief smile. “Maybe the rain will have stopped by tomorrow. Let’s hope so anyway. Pierre has plans to use us outside the Doge’s Palace.”
“Pierre shall bring out your true beauty,” Anton Visa leered, “wherever he uses you.”
Startled, Cleo wondered if it was usual for recluses to leer. To grope and leer. Behind her, she heard Martine the PA scolding Pierre for being late. Merry, the miserable stylist, was droning on to Violette about the number of tranquillizers she was up to. Murphy Mackay, whose obscenely tight black leather trousers were the subject of much admiration by Jina and Donna, was stroking Donna’s bottom and braying with laughter at one of his own jokes.
Anton Visa was still leering. He showed no sign of moving away. Cleo, who had always prided herself on her professionalism, felt sick. The temptation to race upstairs, grab her things, and do her first-ever bunk was overwhelming. Sod being a professional, she thought, repulsed by the very nearness of the man. This was the ultimate job from hell.
“So sorry,” murmured the young barman, whose tongs had slipped. A cluster of ice cubes landed in Anton Visa’s lap, provoking a torrent of expletives and bringing him rapidly to his feet.
“Imbecile,” Anton Visa hissed.
The barman, who spoke with a soft Dublin accent, said, “Sir, my apologies.”
“It was an accident,” Cleo put in hurriedly.
But when, moments later, the young barman gave her the ghost of a wink and a smile, she began to wonder if it had been an accident after all.
* * *
“Madam,” he acknowledged her with a nod when she slipped back into the bar two hours later. “How may I help you?”
“I think you already have.” Cleo looked at him. “Those ice cubes. Did you really drop them on purpose?”
Again that mesmerizing hint of a smile hovering behind the professional façade.
“You mean, to cool his…ardor?”
“Did you?”
The young barman’s expression was delightfully innocent. “Well, let’s just say I’m not normally such a butterfingers as all that. And it stopped the old lech groping your arm.” Leaning across the bar for a second, he lowered his voice. “Although I must say, you don’t look the damsel-in-distress type. If it isn’t an impertinent question, could you not have dealt with the matter yourself?”
“Of course I could.” Cleo didn’t want the barman to think she was a complete wimp. “I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. He caught me off guard.” She shuddered. “Repellent old toad.”
“But you have to be nice to him because he’s the boss.”
Was th
is young Irish lad teasing her?
“I’m not his secretary,” said Cleo, a touch huffily.
He grinned. “Of course you aren’t. You’re that famous model who did all those yogurt ads last year.”
Her good humor restored, Cleo said, “So famous, you mean, that you can’t remember my name.”
The grin broadened. “Don’t take it personally. I have enough trouble remembering my own.”
“Which is?”
“Hang on now, let’s see…ah, that’s it. Declan Mulcahy.”
“Declan. Right. Well, thanks anyway for coming to my rescue earlier.” Cleo, deciding she liked the blue-eyed barman with the fetching smile, stuck out her hand. “Anton Visa might not be my boss, but he’s still someone it’s better to keep on the right side of. Especially in my business,” she added drily. “Getting yourself a reputation for being difficult to work with doesn’t do your bank balance any favors. It’s always better to at least try and get along with the people who count.”
Not that she held out much hope for the rest of this particular week in Venice.
“So where are the rest of them now?” Declan raised a playful eyebrow.
“Gone to visit some nightclub. I told them I had a migraine coming on.”
“Ah, you’re not missing much,” said Declan when Cleo told him the name of the nightclub. “It’s a shame, though, to be here in Venice and not see something of the city at night. I’m off duty myself in another twenty-five minutes”—he hesitated, glancing at his watch—“if you’d like a bit of a guided tour. I don’t know, how’s that migraine of yours? Does it feel as if it might clear itself up in the next half hour or so? Would a quick gin and tonic help, d’you think, to do the trick?”
“Make it a large one”—Cleo beamed—“and it just might.”
* * *
The rain had finally stopped, an almost full moon hung in the inky night sky, and Cleo was having more fun than she’d imagined possible.
Declan Mulcahy was great company and the perfect person to show a stranger around a new city. He knew all the best café-bars, most of the owners, and a riveting amount of local gossip. Between each café and the next, Cleo was regaled with a stream of jokes as unrelenting as the waves lapping against the damp, mossy walls of Venice’s canals.
At midnight, they almost bumped into the rest of the Visawear entourage, making their way back to the hotel across the Piazza San Marco.
“Quick.” Declan pushed Cleo into the shelter of a darkened doorway and squeezed her wrist, hard, when her fit of the giggles almost gave the game away. “Jesus, d’you think I want to be held personally responsible for the decline and fall of Britain’s top yogurt model?”
“I can’t help it,” Cleo gasped. “I feel like a fifteen-year-old on the run from boarding school. Maybe I should’ve stuffed pillows down my bed, in case they look in my room.”
This time, Declan pinched her nonexistent waist, the bare brown bit between her crop top and the top of her jeans.
“Napkins, more like. You’re hardly the pillowy type.”
This only made Cleo want to laugh more. She covered her mouth as Murphy, Jina, and Donna—the eternal triangle—passed within twenty feet of them. Donna’s high heels, clicking through the puddles, were sending splashes of muddy water up over Jina’s pale-yellow trench coat. Jina retaliated, swinging her imitation Chanel handbag viciously into the small of Donna’s back. Murphy, who loved to be fought over, waved his hands in placatory fashion and smirked. “Girls, girls, take it easy. There’s enough for everyone…”
Behind them, Merry gazed longingly in the direction of the nearest deep canal. Pierre, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, sounded like a sniffer dog. Martine, as officious as ever, was barking instructions about the schedule for tomorrow. The toad-like Anton was absent, evidently having decided to go back to being a recluse.
“My hero,” Cleo whispered in Declan’s ear when the party had moved out of sight, leaving them alone once more. “You saved me from the worst night of my life.”
“Ah well, that’s to prove I don’t bear a grudge.”
He was smiling. She could see his white teeth gleaming in the darkness.
“What grudge? Why should you?”
Declan swung her around to face him. “Well now, aren’t you the very one who persuaded me to buy a six-pack of that inedible yogurt? I tell you, I couldn’t believe how terrible it was. Do you not think we poor consumers deserve some form of compensation for having to eat the stuff?”
“Like what?” Cleo smiled. There were no threatening sexual undertones to the challenge.
“I finish work at eight tomorrow evening,” said Declan. “And I know some great restaurants. Do you think you could get away with going AWOL again?”
Delighted, Cleo gave him a hug. Declan really was the answer to a prayer. Thanks to him, Venice might not be unbearable after all.
“You are brilliant,” she said happily. “We’ll go somewhere wonderful. My treat.”
Chapter 38
The morning’s mail had, for Cass, been more heartbreaking than usual. Other people’s problems made her own seem embarrassingly minor by comparison. One woman had written in a shaky hand to say she was a widow suffering from multiple sclerosis, afraid of what the future might hold for her mentally handicapped young son. Cass had been forced to rush to the bathroom and sob uncontrollably into handfuls of toilet paper. Jenny, no help at all, had simply groaned and said, “Pass the sick bag! She’s having us on, Cass. It’s one of those pathetic begging letters. Toss it in the bin.”
But what if the woman had been genuine? There was so much injustice in the world. Some people, Cass knew, battled against far more than their share of tragedy.
I should be ashamed of myself, Cass thought as she drove home from the studio that afternoon. I’m healthy, my children are healthy, so what do I have to complain about? All I am is nearly divorced.
She pulled in at the gas station on the way home. Anything to stop that irritating red fuel light flashing endlessly on and off, distracting her attention from the road.
“Damn—”
Cass leapt away as a wave of gasoline shot back out of the tank, splattering her light skirt and pale-pink suede shoes. This was always happening to her; she never understood why. It provided endless amusement, too, for other gas station users, particularly the men. If there was one thing they enjoyed more than the sight of an incompetent woman driver, it was one who couldn’t even manage to get gas into a car.
Sure enough, at that moment, the driver of the vehicle behind her blasted his horn, making Cass jump a second time. Blushing, she risked a quick glance over her shoulder. The car was a denim-blue Mercedes, its windows heavily tinted. It was bound to belong to a smirking bloody man.
When she heard the driver’s door being opened, Cass’s heart sank. This time, she didn’t look around. Her fingers tightened around the metal trigger of the pump, and she wondered if she would have the nerve to accidentally spray the maker of the next patronizing remark with as much gas as she had just splashed over herself.
Patronizing remarks were the least of Cass’s worries. Having resolutely refused to look at the other driver when he climbed out of his car, she was unprepared, moments later, for the arm that snaked unexpectedly—and with surprising strength—around her waist. It was a brown arm attached to a solid body. Warm breath fanned Cass’s neck. For a fraction of a second, she wondered if she should scream for help. Her finger pressed convulsively down on the trigger of the gas pump. All the pump did was go clunk.
“Of all the filling stations in all the world,” murmured a familiar voice in Cass’s ear, “you had to pull into this one.”
Immensely relieved she hadn’t screamed for help—what a fool she would have looked—Cass turned and greeted Rory Cameron with an affectionate kiss on the cheek.
�
�You idiot. I thought I was being kidnapped.”
“No, you didn’t.” Rory started to laugh. “You thought I was some smug chauvinist unable to resist making fun of a damsel in distress.”
“Well…”
“Come on. I saw that look you gave me earlier.”
Cass blushed and smiled. “OK, maybe that is what I thought. I know this is going to sound completely ridiculous, but Jack was nearly always the one who put gas in the cars. And now I just can’t get the hang of it,” she concluded lamely. “These pumps seem to have it in for me.”
“My poor darling.” Taking over, Rory finished the job. “It’s the angle of the nozzle, you see.” He winked. “Makes all the difference in the world.”
Through the window, the young cashier was watching with interest.
“Now I really look feeble,” said Cass.
“If you ask me, you’re looking rather splendid.” Rory stepped back and cast an appraising eye over her. “And far better than you have any right to look, considering how long it’s been since you visited the club.”
“Ah.”
“I know, I know.” He had guessed her reasons for staying away. “But Jack doesn’t come to us anymore. Hasn’t for almost a year. Nor does Imogen. So you see, you’d be quite safe.” He smiled. “And amazingly welcome.”
“Well, maybe.” Cass wasn’t sure she had the heart for working out, let alone the stamina.
“I mean it.” As Rory locked her gas cap back in place, he was watching the expression on her face. “We’ve missed you at the club. I kept meaning to get in touch, but you know how it is. Shona and I were having a few ups and downs of our own.” He grinned. “I threatened to enter her for suitcase packer of the year. You have no idea how many front-door keys I’ve had flung at me in my time. Shona especially. Now she loved throwing them.”
Rory Cameron had sensibly gotten his first two marriages out of the way while he was young. Now nearing fifty, he had spent the last couple of decades getting engaged instead, because it was cheaper, to a series of leggy blonds. Each blond was more unsuitable than the one before. They were getting progressively younger too. The club regulars organized pools, betting on how long each doomed relationship was likely to last. Shona, who was twenty-six, had worn a gold ring through her skinny brown navel and a three-carat canary diamond on her engagement finger. She had actually exceeded the club members’ expectations, managing a grand total of fourteen months, although Bill Matthews had argued that with all that to-ing and fro-ing, she and Rory had only been together for nine. Nine, coincidentally, was the number Bill had in the locker-room pool.