Two's Company

by Jill Mansell

  Rose had finished anyway. As Pandora did up the two unfastened buttons on her shirt, the baby looked across at Sean. For a moment, she seemed as if she was about to smile, then she let out an earsplitting burp.

  Donny started to laugh.

  “Hey, man, all I did was ask her what she thought of your act last night.”

  “Ha ha,” said Sean coldly, because last night’s act hadn’t gone down that well. To further irritate him, the baby was now gazing with rapt attention at Donny. This time, her toothless smile was genuine.

  “So how long have you been here?” said Sean. “You should have phoned first.”

  “Couple of hours.” Donny shrugged. “No worries. I didn’t particularly come to see you anyway.”

  Sean looked at him. “I see.”

  “I decided it was time I introduced myself to your daughter.” Again, the big, flashing, white-and-gold grin. “She’s a beauty. Takes after her mother.”

  “Mm.” Sean was becoming less and less amused. What was Donny’s game? Checking that Pandora was decent, he drawled, “Well, the floor show’s over.”

  “And it’s time I was off.” Rising slowly to his feet, Donny waggled his fingers at Rose. “Bye, sweetheart. I think I’m in love.”

  “Nice to see you,” said Pandora. “And thanks. For everything.”

  Donny winked. “Anytime.”

  “Thanks for everything,” Sean mimicked furiously the moment Donny had left. “Anytime. What does he think he’s playing at?”

  “He was just being nice.”

  Too buoyed up to care what Sean thought, Pandora showered Rose’s face with noisy kisses.

  “And I can guess why,” spat Sean. “He didn’t really come all this way to pick up a sweater.”

  The sweater, borrowed by Sean a week earlier, had provided Donny with the excuse he needed to smuggle the diary out of the house.

  Pandora shrugged. “No?”

  “He’s making a play for you.”

  “Really?” She raised her eyebrows, unable to resist the dig. “No wonder I didn’t twig. It’s been so long since anyone showed any interest…”

  Sean was getting madder by the minute. “So what the fuck does ‘Thanks for everything’ mean?”

  “It means thanks for an afternoon of wild and thrilling sex.” Pandora lifted the baby onto her hip. She turned to face Sean. “Which was something else I’d almost forgotten about. Now if you’ve quite finished, it’s time for Rose’s bath.”

  Having been too weary over the past few months to retaliate, Pandora realized she was making up for it now.

  Startled, Sean backed off. “Look, you know what I mean. How many times have I told you about Donny Mulligan? He’s a screwing machine, the biggest lech in the club.”

  “Second biggest,” said Pandora.

  Chapter 44

  Jack pulled up outside the house at exactly eight thirty. He had on a new dark-gray suit, the cut more modern than he was accustomed to wearing. Cass wondered if Imogen had taken to dragging him around the shops, persuading him into younger, trendier styles. The pink tie in particular was something he would never have had anything to do with before.

  “Well,” she said, as they set off back down the drive, “this feels strange.”

  “Like a first date, you mean?” Out of the corner of his eye, Jack could see her smoothing her black satin skirt over her thighs, a gesture he was so familiar with that it seemed odd when Imogen didn’t do it.

  “Hardly.” Leaning forward, Cass turned down the volume of the music coming from the new state-of-the-art stereo. “On our first date, I rode on the crossbar of your pushbike.”

  “And I spent the whole evening wondering how I was going to handle the good-night kiss.” Jack grinned. “I nearly tossed a coin, you know. Heads, mouth open. Tails, mouth closed.”

  Cass felt herself being drawn helplessly back to that night, one she would never forget. Even now, just thinking of it, the butterflies in her stomach were starting up.

  “Where are we going to eat?”

  It was an abrupt change of subject but necessary. If they were going to spend the evening playing “do you remember?” she needed a couple of drinks inside her first.

  Jack had booked a table at the Phoenix, a quiet restaurant in Streatham they had visited on and off over the years. The food was sublime, the atmosphere welcoming, and the doorstep mercifully free of paparazzi.

  “Not San Lorenzo then,” Cass said lightly when the waiter had handed them their menus and moved away.

  Jack carried on studying the wine list. “I didn’t think you’d enjoy the attention.”

  “Me?” She glanced at him. “Or Imogen?”

  “I felt it was something we could all do without.” He sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table. “Don’t look at me like that, Cass. And no bitchy remarks please. Let’s just have a nice evening.”

  “A nice, civilized evening.” She remembered the term he had used on the phone, pronouncing it with due solemnity. “To celebrate the end of a nice, civilized marriage. I think I’ll have the smoked trout, then the guinea fowl. Speaking of trout, how is Imogen these days?”

  Jack shot her a warning look. This wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he had invited Cass out to dinner.

  “Stop it.”

  “Sorry, sorry.” Cass was beginning to enjoy herself. “OK, I’ve stopped now. I’ll be serious. How’s Imogen?”

  Stiffly, Jack said, “Fine.”

  * * *

  “Most of the time, it’s fine,” Jack amended two hours later. The fingers of his left hand pleated and unpleated a corner of the linen tablecloth. “But she wants a family.”

  “If she marries you”—Cass marveled at how composed she was able to sound—“she’ll get one. Three gorgeous stepchildren,” she said innocently. “Goodness, even a step-grandchild thrown in for luck! What could be nicer?”

  “Come on,” said Jack. “You know what I mean. She wants a family of her own.” He heaved a sigh. “In fact, she’s obsessed with the idea.”

  “Ah.” Cass nodded. “And you aren’t.”

  Jack’s expression was bleak. “Can you seriously imagine going through all that again? I mean, actually wanting to, at our age?”

  Our age, thought Cass. But Imogen wasn’t their age. She was only in her twenties.

  “Hang on.” She frowned. “Isn’t this a bit serious? Imogen’s desperate to have children, and you’re horrified at the thought. What are you going to do if she gets pregnant?”

  “What can I do? It’s not what I want.” Jack paused while the waiter removed the last of the plates from their table. “But I dare say I’d survive. I wouldn’t run away, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He gave Cass a brief smile. “I’m not that much of a shit. I know I would grow to love a new baby just as much as I loved the old ones. It’s a bit of a daunting prospect, that’s all.”

  “One you’d better get used to all the same. Imagine,” said Cass, “in less than a year, there could be baby sick on the shoulders of that new designer suit. Look how fertile I was. I only had to think about babies and I got pregnant.”

  “Hmm.” Jack sighed. “The thing is, she’s been trying. Since Christmas. Seven months now, and nothing’s happened. It’s really getting to her.”

  Cass wondered if she was expected to feel sorry for Imogen. The temptation to remark that maybe this was her punishment for being such a marriage-wrecking cow in the first place was tempting in the extreme…

  Heroically, Cass resisted the temptation. Instead, downing her sambuca, she said, “Well, isn’t that quite useful? As far as you’re concerned, surely it’s good news?”

  “That’s what I thought.” For a moment, Jack wondered if he should really be confiding all this to his ex-wife, but what the hell. “The thing is, she’s fixing up all these i
nfertility tests.”

  “For her, you mean?” said Cass.

  If she laughed, Jack thought, he would kill her.

  “That’s the trouble.” He gave her a gloomy look. “For me too.”

  * * *

  It was almost midnight when they left the restaurant.

  “Imogen will be wondering where you are,” Cass remarked as he drove through the darkened streets, taking the familiar route back to Hampstead. “Is she jealous? What’ll happen when you get home? Will she bombard you with questions about tonight?”

  “No.” Jack smiled as if the idea were an amusing one.

  “Why not?” Offended, Cass twisted around in her seat to face him. “Aren’t I enough of a threat? Just because I’m your ex-wife, does that mean I’m not worth getting jealous about?”

  The black satin skirt, unbeknownst to Cass, was riding up her thighs. One dark-stockinged leg was half-tucked under the other. With her piled-up blond hair escaping from its combs and her eyes bright in the reflected glow of the streetlamps, Jack wondered if she had any idea how havoc making she looked.

  His conscience began to prick him. It just went to show, he thought, how deep an effect poor self-esteem could have. Cass’s lack of confidence in her own appeal was so unfounded, it would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. What she needed, Jack thought, was a man in her life. Some highly satisfactory sex. He wondered, as they approached the house, if she would invite him in.

  “Of course you’re worth getting jealous about.” He braked and turned left through the gates and up the graveled drive. Relenting, he went on, “And yes, OK, I daresay Imogen will give me the third degree. She’ll want to know what you were wearing and how you—Oh! Whose car is that?”

  The denim-blue Mercedes was carelessly parked across the top of the drive.

  It was empty.

  “How sweet,” exclaimed Cass. “Rory had a meeting up in Newcastle. He said he’d try and get back, but I didn’t think he’d be able to make it. Gosh, I hope he hasn’t been waiting here all evening—”

  “Rory? Rory Cameron?” Weeks ago, Sophie had mentioned in passing that Cass had gone to some wedding with Rory Cameron, but there had been no word of him since. Jack stared at the car with indignation. The fact that it was unoccupied meant Rory must have let himself into the house. “You can’t be serious. You aren’t seeing him?”

  “Yes, I am,” said Cass.

  “But not actually…seeing him?” Jack floundered, struggling to find the appropriate words.

  “If you mean sex,” Cass supplied with a trace of impatience, “then yes, having sex too. Why so shocked, Jack? Did you think you were the only one allowed to do that kind of thing?”

  “But—”

  “And don’t you dare say I’m too old for him.” Having unfastened her seat belt, Cass was out the passenger door in a flash. Almost as if, Jack thought darkly, she could hardly wait to leap into bed with her new and deeply unsuitable lover.

  “You might not be too old for Rory Cameron, but you’re definitely too good for him.” The man was a smooth-talking rogue. Just the thought of the pair of them together filled Jack with a kind of helpless rage. So much for thinking Cass might have invited him in for coffee.

  “Don’t be so stuffy. Rory’s fun, he’s kind, and he makes me laugh,” said Cass. Blithely, she added, “And he’s divine in bed.”

  * * *

  “Well?” Imogen demanded when Jack finally rolled in at twenty to one. Oh dear, it was all very well being determined not to sound like a shrew, but when it came down to it, how else could you find out what you needed to know? She smiled to soften the effect. “How did it go?”

  Jack shrugged. “OK.”

  Imogen’s suspicions were instantly aroused. She thought it bloody odd anyway that he should feel the need to take his ex-wife out to dinner to celebrate their divorce. If anything, surely it would have been more appropriate for Jack to have taken her out to dinner to celebrate the fact that he was now free to remarry.

  “You can’t just say OK.” She followed him upstairs and sat on the edge of the bed, watching him undress. Jack was an extremely tidy undresser. “What was it like? Was she upset? Did she cry?”

  Did you kiss her, comfort her, sleep with her? These were the questions Imogen was dying to ask.

  “No.” Jack had his back to her. She watched him hang up his suit, ensuring the trouser creases were straight. His white shirt went into the laundry basket. Imogen knew she would have to check it tomorrow morning for lipstick.

  “I thought that was the whole point of taking her out,” she persisted, oh so casually. “To cheer her up. She must have been a bit upset.”

  Jack knew he wasn’t helping matters. He knew exactly what was going through Imogen’s mind. The trouble was, all he could think about was Cass in bed with Rory Cameron. Having fun, Jack thought savagely. Being made to laugh, laugh, laugh and enjoying endless divine sex…

  “You could at least tell me what she was wearing.” A petulant note had crept into Imogen’s voice. “Unless, of course, she wasn’t.”

  “Look.” Wearily, Jack turned to face her. It wasn’t Imogen’s fault. He mustn’t take it out on her. “Cass is involved with someone else. It’s come as a bit of a shock, that’s all. I know him, and I’m not sure she’s doing the right thing.”

  “Oh!” Taken aback but hugely relieved, Imogen said, “Is she happy?”

  Jack’s mouth twisted in an unamused half smile. “Oh yes, she’s happy…”

  What was he looking at now? Following the line of his gaze, Imogen saw that it was her thermometer and ovulation chart, lying on the floor next to her side of the bed.

  “That’s all we need,” she said with helpless bitterness. “Cass to get pregnant before me.”

  Chapter 45

  The royal film premiere was to be one of those glittering affairs so beloved by the media. The paparazzi were working on overdrive as limousine after rented limousine slid to a halt, disgorging yet more done-up celebrities. Half a dozen different TV crews jostled for position. Microphones were being shoved under perfect, remodeled noses. Leicester Square was bursting at the seams with fans.

  “All this and jet lag too,” murmured Cleo as she stepped out of the hired limo to face a barrage of flashbulbs. Wincing at their brightness, she said, “Got any aspirin?”

  “Don’t worry.” Dino, right behind her, put his arm around her waist and whispered into her ear. “The film’s crap. You can sleep right through it.”

  Cleo pulled a face. “Great. I fly back on the red-eye from New York. You invite me out to the movies. I’m wearing a dress that costs as much as a three-bed semi in Swindon…and now you tell me the film’s crap.”

  “Miserable old bag.” Dino gave her nonexistent spare tire an affectionate squeeze. “I thought you’d enjoy a night out. I wish I’d invited someone else now. Naomi Campbell,” he added in mocking tones, “would have been here like a shot.”

  The fans were cheering, waving autograph books, and screaming out the names of their favorite stars. The photographers, more concerned with the money they would make selling their pictures to magazines and newspapers worldwide, yelled out, “Here, Cleo!” “Over here!” “Give us a smile…let’s get a good look at the dress.” “Hey, Dino, this way! Give the girl a kiss…”

  “Cleo Mandeville and Dino Carlisle!” A gushing female interviewer, swooping down on them, was closely followed by her TV crew. “On a truly star-studded night, may I say how fabulous it is to see the two of you together. Now, the film you’re about to see is a romance.” The interviewer’s eyelashes fluttered. Avid for details, she turned coquettishly to Dino. “So! Is this a hint? Are you and Cleo seeing a lot of each other? Could this be”—quick turn, exaggerated smirk to camera—“luuurve?”

  Cleo’s dress, as Dino had cheerfully informed her earlier, consisted of two slivers of m
aterial smaller than ironing-board covers. These slivers, one at the front and one at the back, one black, one white, were held together with narrow strips of transparent Perspex. It wasn’t the kind of outfit that lent itself to underwear.

  Dino grinned at the interviewer, who had orange lipstick on her teeth.

  “Well, I think we’re all seeing a fair amount of Cleo at the moment.”

  “Ah, but are you two an item?” Persistence was this interviewer’s stock in trade. “I must say, you certainly make a striking couple. Cleo—amazing dress, by the way—perhaps you have something to add?”

  The crew, Cleo realized, were from a popular London-based early-evening news and entertainment program. It was what Joel generally watched if he was home from work in time. For a split second, she imagined him lounging across the sofa with his feet up, starting in surprise at the sight of her on the TV screen, racked with envy and remorse…

  “Dino’s everything I’ve ever looked for in a man,” she told the astonished interviewer. Dino looked momentarily astonished too. “He’s gorgeous. We’re very happy,” Cleo went on. “Of course, he has to be back in the States soon, work commitments you know, but I’m not worried. We have absolute trust in each other, don’t we, darling?”

  Dino, whose wrist was being pinched, said good-naturedly, “Sure we do. Absolute trust. Darling.”

  “Well, that is splendid news,” gasped the interviewer, all the more startled because no one ever gave her the kind of exclusives really worth having. “So is marriage in the cards?”

  The arrival of the royal entourage was imminent. Men with walkie-talkies were rushing around, gabbling into them.

  “Sorry,” Cleo said sweetly. “Looks like we’re being herded inside.”

  “Well?” said Dino when they had been ushered upstairs to the plushly carpeted foyer. “Is marriage in the cards?”