It was a pity that she still had issues to resolve with Saskia, and that she, Phil and the whole entourage had hoodwinked Lolly into reserving tickets for them at the ball. They had turned up en-masse at the very last moment, to spring a very unwelcome surprise on Crystal, just as the leader of the hunt was trying to make his speeches. It had made for a very undignified scuffle, but one look at Jazz’s face had been enough for the spark which had ignited in the corridor earlier to flare into life. He’d released her from the unpleasant scene, and she’d seduced him, upstairs in the hayloft; the same barn that Saskia now wanted as a venue for her wedding. Crystal’s lips twitched, it was a well-guarded secret, but she had managed to sneak Jazz in there for the odd rendezvous on more than one occasion since, when there was no one around to bother about what they were doing.
She knew that she should try to talk her brother out of using the farm, it really was wrong in so many ways, but she also knew that the more she tried to persuade them both otherwise, the more likely they were to insist it was perfect. Jazz wouldn’t care; he wasn’t a man to ponder over the tiny indelicacies of the situation, the whole thing would probably give him a bit of a buzz. He could be a bad man and a powerful lover, when he dropped his urban mask.
She flipped the book open now and turned a few pages, noting the entries from the early days, when she’d first moved out to LA. There was a whole chunk, written when she and Phil had first moved in together. She remembered spending a wet and windy autumn afternoon cooped up inside his swish Bel Air apartment, eating home-made popcorn and drinking Bellini’s, the entries she’d made that day told their own story, ‘bold, powerful, strong’ and ‘confident’ she had written in a neat childish hand, underlining the word ‘confident’ twice. She smiled and bit her lip, the other words she had penned showed her complete lack of artifice at the time, she’d described his body intimately and the powerful words brought a hot flush to her cheeks even now. He had been her first ‘adult’ relationship, and although it had all ended badly, she’d learned valuable lessons about herself and her psyche via that disastrous exchange.
She closed the book carefully and set it aside, purposefully. Better make sure that didn’t end up in the wrong hands, heaven knows what kind of interpretation others might make of her whimsical fantasies, she’d written eloquently and had managed to get right down to the nitty-gritty details of their life together, dangerous stuff. The technical pages would come in handy with the wedding planning, though, so she’d better leave it handy, just in-case. Saskia wanted several things that could only be purchased mail-order State-side, and this diary had all the connections and information that she needed.
She had just moved through to the kitchen to grind up some beans for a nice, hot strong cup of coffee, when there was a loud knock at the side door. No-one bothered to use the front door these days, apart from visitors, so she was completely unprepared for the jolt which charged through her system when she yanked the door open and was confronted by Phil, the same Phil, standing there on her doorstep. Dark hazel eyes caught her completely off guard and she stared into his face, transfixed. There were faint lines gathering at the corners of his eyes these days, he was older, stronger, leaner. His skin bore the healthy glow of a winter suntan and he’d filled out a bit too, the extra weight was pure muscle; no excess flesh there, the cocky attitude was way below the surface, simmering enticingly, guarded and contained. The impact was immediate and base, she gulped and her mouth opened and closed like a goldfish.
His mouth quirked and formed a sheepish grin. “Hi, Crystal,” he offered.
What the hell did he want? Her belly hit the soles of her feet, odd, seeing him standing there, in the flesh, so soon after her errant jaunt along memory lane. She remembered the last time she’d seen him, hung-over and dog-eared, the night after the Hunt ball, four years ago now. His skin had been pasty, white as alabaster, and his hair had curled greasily, over-long on his collar. She’d torn him off a strip then, and he’d let her, she suddenly realised with clarity. She’d been mean and critical too. She swallowed, hard. She knew that she owed him an apology, but where to start?
Somehow, she couldn’t form the right words, unconnected thoughts rattled around inside her brain and she drew a blank. She had to say something. “Phil,” she acknowledged. There was a pregnant pause. “Hi,” she tacked on, more forcefully. Then, “What are you doing here?” She cringed, the words had come out all wrong, she had sounded bristly and waspish, it wasn’t her intention but she’d started off on the wrong foot already.
He grinned. It was a real, warm grin, the kind you could get lost in and Crystal was forcefully reminded of exactly why she’d fancied this guy. The emotion hit her hard in the stomach and trailed along her nerve-endings robbing her temporarily of the power of speech.
His eyes flickered and he tipped his head on one side, “You always did have a way with words,” he rebuked lazily, his sexy southern drawl heightened by the time he’d recently spent in the States. “Sorry to turn up here, un-announced. I realise now that I should have ‘phoned first.” He scuffed the toe of his boot in the gravel of the side path. “Transatlantic manners baffle me, sometimes,” he owned.
Crystal acknowledged the apology. There were things she needed to say to him, apologies long past overdue, but not here on the doorstep, she needed some thinking time or this conversation would come out all wrong. She stood aside. “Please, come on in?” she asked, remembering to smile as if she meant it.
He tipped his head and glanced at her thin silk pyjamas, her body clearly outlined beneath the flimsy material. He hesitated. Gentlemanly manners surfaced and he squashed them down hard, if Crystal didn’t mind holding a conversation with him half-dressed, then he supposed that he shouldn’t mind either, it was not as if it was something he’d not seen before, after all. The thought sent a flush, straight to his cheek-bones. Whatever was wrong with him? He’d been in her orbit less than thirty seconds and his mind was in the gutter along with his morals already. He squared his shoulders and stepped over the threshold, averting his eyes from her breasts, clearly outlined beneath the thin top. He smelled her perfume as he brushed past her, uniquely Crystal.
The corner of the kitchen that Crystal had chosen to use as an office was a riot of paper, files, magazines and junk. Coloured pencils, pens, make-up and office supplies spilled out of boxes and cupboards, reports lay abandoned half-used on the small scrubbed pine table and spilled out of brightly coloured box-files distributed all over the floor. The bright red, velvet covered braided chaise-lounge that Crystal used as a comfortable day-bed and sofa was currently home to her favourite soft fluffy blanket, flimsy silk dressing gown, which matched the pyjamas, and the left-over remains of a large flaky chocolate croissant which she’d been eating for breakfast when he’d knocked at the door. Messy as ever, he acknowledged, as his eyes alighted on the tequila printed diary balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa. He remembered that book with far less fondness and amusement than Crystal did herself.
He’d had to go through all kinds of subterfuge to get his hands on that diary, four years ago. Then when he’d driven down here, to confront Crystal with it, he’d ended up shagging her cousin in the flowerbed of the farmhouse on the night of the Hunt Ball and had subsequently sealed his fate with the wilful and histrionic Olivia. Speaking of which, that was why he was here now, wasn’t it? He scratched the back of his neck, where to start?
Crystal watched the play of emotions cross his face and wondered what he wanted, they’d not been exactly on visiting terms in the intervening years, even though Lolly had been living with him in America on and off since then and harboured a ridiculous and naive desire for them all to make up and become friends. She was momentarily distracted by the motion of his hand rubbing at the short curly hair which protruded from his skull at the base of his neck. Her hands had tangled there, in that very same hair, aeons ago now, it seemed. The image and sensation flashed through her brain at lightning speed, her knees felt weak.
What was it with this man?
When she’d discovered that he was married and learned that he’d betrayed her, she’d been armoured against him. She’d left him, where he stood, in their flat in America and walked away from him and their life together without a backward glance. She’d been robust and hard-hearted, impervious to his pleas and protestations. She’d cast aside their life together in one fell swoop. Anger and bitterness had been her constant companions and she’d welcomed the strength that the negative emotions had given her. It had taken a lot of nerve to walk out on him and their life together, but she’d been resolute.
Now though, her conscience prodded, she knew differently. Their separation had been based on a web of lies and deception. She’d grown up a lot in the years since they had parted and she realised that she really should have given him the chance to explain. Their relationship at the time had been volatile and intense, she shouldn’t have just walked away from him in the manner that she did, it had been spiteful and callow and although she’d been hurt at the time she was not a coward, not then and not now. She should have faced him, sorted this all out. His marriage to Amanda had been over, in all but formality, long before they’d begun dating and she now knew that it had been Amanda, rather than Phil who had been pulling the strings in LA.
She’d inadvertently discovered the truth last Christmas, over a couple of bottles of Dom Perignon and a plate of cold roast turkey and pickles. Lolly, as ever, had unwittingly revealed the tiny snippet of information in her usual petulant manner, while Gran and Norma snoozed on the sofa and Jazz and the other men had played a ribald game of poker. Lolly had been lamenting the fact that she’d had to leave Phil in the States while she travelled home alone to spend some time with her family, and Crystal had declared that it was no more than he deserved. Phil, the rat, was not welcome among their current company, and the sooner that Lolly appreciated that fact, then the happier they would all be.
Lolly had already drunk far too much champagne, and had retaliated with, ‘Why on earth are you so hung up on the fact that he’s married? So, what? It’s not as if his wife minds one iota, she’s down in California with the delectable Lydia, and good luck to her.’
“Lydia, who is Lydia, Olivia?” Crystal had asked quietly, even as she began piecing the ‘facts’ together in her mind’s eye.
“Girl-friend, lover, house-sitter, whatever, she’s been around forever, I though he explained all this to you years ago? Did you listen to a single word that he said to you in L.A? He told me that you were in shock when he tried to explain, but I’d have thought that you’d have taken the time to work it all out long before now.”
At Crystal’s blank expression, Lolly had continued, “Phil doesn’t talk about it much, but, for the record, Amanda never wanted him you know, not even on their wedding day. She married him to get her hands on her trust fund, she wanted Daddy’s money and she used Phil to get it. Now she’s famous she’s not prepared to risk the truth leaking out, which is why he keeps everything quiet. Phil made her a promise, Crystal, and he’s not about to break it. He promised to preserve the sanctity of their marriage in the eyes of the world, so long as he’s free to conduct his own affairs in a discreet and private manner. Amanda doesn’t care what he does, she never has done. Just don’t tell him I’ve been talking to you about it, he gets so prickly about it all. He hates it when people find out that Amanda married him for the money, he has his pride, you know,” her cousin had divulged, confidentially, before passing out in a champagne fuelled stupor.
The men had abruptly ceased their loud-mouthed bantering, and had picked up on the tail-end of the girl’s conversation. Their expressions jointly mirrored their surprise and shock.
“Did I just hear right? Is Phil still not divorced? Is he still protecting Amanda?” Jeremy had asked, stunned. He’d stared pointedly at Crystal, “You didn’t know before, did you? You thought he was cheating on you in LA?” He turned to look at Saskia, as comprehension dawned all around. “Is he really still married to that hot-shot lawyer woman?” he asked quietly.
Saskia had known Phil longer than any of them, they’d grown up together as teenagers in New York. She’d actually been a guest at his wedding, and knew all about Amanda, but she had no intention of sharing the information. She shrugged one slim shoulder, “it’s not my secret to tell,” she’d hedged, delicately.
Jeremy had flashed his girl-friend a stunned look and she’d responded with a cool ‘cat’s eye’ stare. Their swift and silent interchange spoke volumes. He’d raised an eyebrow, but he’d not asked any other questions. Her brother was learning the power of tact at long last, Crystal realised.
She had eyed Saskia speculatively, fitting the pieces together in her head, she wasn’t that drunk. More importantly, just how long had she known, and why hadn’t she shared the information sooner? Saskia knew only too well the reasons behind Crystal splitting up with Phil in the first place and her long-standing aversion to him in the years that followed, this could have been resolved years ago. How could she just sit there and shrug her shoulders and pretend that it didn’t matter. She noticed that Saskia’s hands were not entirely steady as she took another mouthful of wine from her glass. It looked like Jeremy’s girl-friend had been holding out on all of them. She also knew that she wouldn’t tell them, not until she was ready. No-one ever got the upper hand with Saskia, unless she let them.
Four years may have passed since the debacle in America but seeing Phil here, now, prowling around her kitchen, the years dropped away as if they’d never existed. The pain was as raw today as it had been then, his betrayal just as strong, the sentiment just as intense. Just catching sight of him here was enough to resurrect old passions, re-ignite long dead emotions. He dwarfed the space, the walls closed in.
She moved over to stand beside the chaise-lounge, curling a tendril of long white-blonde hair around her fore-finger, toying with the end, “So…?” she prompted.
Phil’s eyes darkened as he watched her self-consciously playing with her hair, he remembered a romantic dinner at a shore-front restaurant in Baltimore, early on in their relationship, she’d used those same delaying tactics then. He bit his lip, neat white teeth pulled at the skin of his lower lip. Where to start?
Crystal watched his response. It had been a terrible shock learning of Phil’s deception via the media, in LA, but she’d not been prepared for such a tumble of thoughts and feelings now, many years later. The worst snap-shots of that fateful day ran through her mind in slow-motion, like a tape on a film, and she was powerless to stop the flow of images that ran riot in her brain.
She had woken up in bed alone that day and taken her time getting up, luxuriating in the knowledge that she had all day, Phil wasn’t due home until much later. She’d pottered around making coffee and watching the news, waiting for the early morning weather forecast, they might go out to eat later if Phil’s flight was in on time. Item number three on the news bulletin, had caught her completely unawares. She’d stared at the TV transfixed as an image of her boyfriend had flashed across the screen, wearing a gaudy pair of pyjama trousers and otherwise barefoot and bare-chested, as he opened the front door of the ‘Mistrianos’ town-house running a hand through sleep tousled hair. As the newsreader had prattled on about the latest turn in a high-profile court case involving a well-known celebrity divorce lawyer, Crystal had gaped at the television screen in horror.
The celebrity lawyer representing one of the high-profile clients had been caught out ‘inflagrante’ with a rival judge apparently. The camera panned back to Phil, holding the hand of a beautiful brunette and declaring to the media that his marriage was sound, there was no discord between him and his wife, they’d been tucked up in bed together all night long. The gossip about their marriage was ‘hogwash’ and ‘balderdash’, criminals trying to pervert the course of justice, trying to discredit his wife and make a fast buck on the back of some smudged and grainy photographs, taken late at night in some seedy dive.
The sto
ry ran all day, with most of the major networks turning up for the press-call which he’d attended with his wife. He’d been bombarded with questions, his replies broadcast live to the world, and Crystal had listened to every word. His mobile had been unobtainable; he’d remained out of contact all day.
The other news channels, much like Crystal, had been unable to garner any response from Phil or any other quarter, so they simply made the story up as they went along. Phil’s job, connections to the music industry, his private life and business associations had been scrutinised in detail, every facet of his discreet but traceable life with Crystal had been given a squalid and underhanded twist. Speculation was rife. The less salubrious channels had played out snippets of his married life alongside footage of him leaving the LA flat with Crystal, showing her as the gold-digging strumpet, marriage-wrecker and harlot. She’d been photographed earlier in the week brandishing Phil’s credit card, buying underwear and fripperies, she’d been tried by the media, and found guilty as charged.
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