by Jill Mansell
The house seemed different: lighter, less cluttered, and more cared-for than Roz remembered, as if to prove that Nico was now a respectably married man and no longer a semi-wild, carefree, infinitely eligible bachelor. A year ago, he had asked Roz to marry him and she had laughed, gently refusing because her life was so perfect that she didn’t need that too. Now she did.
In the sitting room, she made herself comfortable on the settee, adjusting the black, pencil-slim skirt from Galliano that had cost far more than she could now afford and stretching out her Dior-stockinged legs in high black Gucci stilettos. It hadn’t been so long, after all, that she couldn’t remember what Nico liked.
As he stood before her, she held Nicolette up toward him. “At least hold her,” she said in a low voice. “She doesn’t bite. See, no teeth.”
Without even hesitating, Nico took the sleeping baby into his arms, supporting her small downy head with natural expertise and touching her soft pink cheek with one finger.
“She’s fast asleep. When you said she was ill, I thought you meant she was in the hospital. She doesn’t look ill at all.”
He glanced at her with suspicion, comparing the serene Roz before him with the woman who had sounded so desperate over the phone.
“I wanted to make sure you’d see us,” she informed him calmly. “She’s your daughter, Nico, your own flesh and blood after all, and she is ill. I wasn’t lying when I said I couldn’t cope on my own.” Her dark eyes filled suddenly with tears and she touched the settee beside her with a trembling hand. “Sit down.” Warily, maintaining a distance between them, he sat. Roz was wearing a heavy, musky perfume that he didn’t particularly like. It was incredible, he thought distantly, how indifferent he was to her presence. And the baby was just…a baby. If she were his, then he simply couldn’t feel it, not a thing. And if she wasn’t his, he thought wryly, then it was hardly surprising.
“It’s not like you to cry,” he said with a touch of cruelty. It was like talking to Caroline. He didn’t have the patience to be nice anymore. Being nice had caused him too much trouble in the past.
Roz said nothing and Nico felt a fresh surge of impatience. “So why are you here?”
“Think how good we were together,” she burst out passionately, tears still glistening on her smooth brown cheeks. “We were perfect, Nico—but the timing was all wrong. Everything’s different now; we’ve both changed, made mistakes and learned from them… Now, darling, we could really make a go of it. We’ve got a ready-made family; it couldn’t be better. We’d be so happy, don’t you see?”
“Bullshit, Roz,” declared Nico, wondering whether she was entirely sane. The situation was so bizarre it was almost laughable. Except that Roz wasn’t laughing…she was deadly serious.
“Think about it,” she urged forcefully. Nico handed the sleeping baby back to her as if it were a grenade. And in a way, of course, that was what Nicolette was. Ammunition.
“These mistakes we’ve both made,” he mused, his thickly lashed eyes assuming a dangerous glitter. “I assume you’re referring to my marriage? I have a wife, Roz. You were right; everything is different. I’m no longer interested in you. Now is that a good enough reason to ask you to leave?”
She stared at him, aghast. He had changed so much. The Nico who had occupied her thoughts with an intensity bordering on obsession was an entirely different person, not this cold-eyed stranger with nothing but contempt for her and her terrible plight.
“Nicolette needs a father…”
“And I drew the short straw? Come off it, Roz, you can’t blackmail me, for Christ’s sake.”
“But she’s ill!” Roz yelled at him, realizing that she was trembling with the unfairness of it all. “I can’t cope on my own. You have a responsibility toward her…toward both of us…”
“I’ll organize blood tests,” said Nico wearily, holding up his hands against the onslaught of her shouting. “If I’m her father, I’ll pay maintenance—enough to cover whatever you need. But that’s all. I’ll give you money, Roz, if that’s what you want, but me you can’t have. I just don’t want to know any more.”
“You bastard, I don’t want your money. Haven’t you learned yet that hard cash can’t solve all your problems? Just who do you think you are?”
It was a nightmare. Nothing was going as she had planned, yet she couldn’t prevent the terrible diatribe… Nico had to understand what he was doing to her…
“I’m a bastard,” he replied in bored tones.
“Bloody right. And you’ve got your values screwed up as well,” she hissed at him, her arms tightening around the still-sleeping form of her daughter. “Take Camilla. You went out of your way to help that stupid, fat cow when all she’d done was lose the husband she couldn’t even manage to keep. Gave her a home, didn’t you? And a nice little job? Help Camilla, help her get her act together—that must have made you feel really good. But then I have a problem, a real problem, and you don’t even want to hear about it. I’ve been through hell because of you and you just aren’t interested. What’s so different between us, Nico? What’s Camilla got that I don’t have?”
And then she glimpsed the pain in his eyes and guessed. A knife twisted in her stomach and she laughed aloud, incredulous and appalled. “Oh no. That’s too much. That’s exactly what you did do, isn’t it? Take Camilla. You screwed her. Really, Nico, isn’t that taking the Good Samaritan act just a little too far?”
“You foul bitch,” said Nico, dangerously slowly. For the first time in his life, he wanted to hit a woman, but he wouldn’t give Roz the pleasure of wearing his bruise, parading it like a trophy along Fleet Street, selling it to whoever would do him the most damage.
Besides, he knew how to hit her where it really hurt. “Yes, I slept with her,” he said evenly. “It wasn’t screwing, though—not like you and I used to do. It was the real thing. The two of you don’t even compare. Camilla’s better than you in every sense, Roz, and I do mean every sense. She’s a far nicer person, and she’s better in bed than any other woman I’ve ever known. So you can forget about the Good Samaritan bit, because it really couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Roz, white and shocked, stared at him as if she’d just been shot. With hatred in his heart, Nico gazed stonily back at her until she spoke.
“I’m going.”
“Good idea,” he said calmly. “I’m sure you can find your own way out.”
* * *
Vampires was losing a great deal of money, fast. The rapid downhill slide was staggering, and it was all Loulou Marks’s fault. Worse still, she didn’t even appear to be concerned about it. It was a catastrophe. Sharing a bath with an alligator was preferable to visiting Vampires these days, it seemed, yet there wasn’t a single thing anyone could do to reverse the slide.
Loulou wasn’t any fun anymore. She had lost the knack of abuse. She was happy.
As far as Christo Moran was concerned, it was an altogether desperate situation, the very worst kind of disaster. Loulou had been the spark, the catalyst bringing Vampires exploding into life for as long as they had both been there. Now, incredibly, more beautiful than ever, the spark had gone to be replaced by an almost incandescent shimmer of loveliness.
It really wouldn’t surprise him, Christo thought darkly, if she’d caught religion. It was that particular kind of shimmer.
* * *
While Christo pondered over these murky thoughts and polished glasses that would most likely not be used in the almost-empty bar that day, Loulou sat cross-legged upon her settee upstairs and practiced her breathing, immersed in her own thoughts.
As if watching herself from a comfortable distance, a detached observer, she marveled at her calmness. Who would have thought it possible that here she was, awaiting the knock on the door that would signal Mac’s arrival, and she wasn’t even panicking?
Mac! Remember Mac? Second husband, al
most fourth, and possible father of your child? Taunting herself, attempting to goad herself into some kind of reaction, Loulou exhaled slowly without even trying. It was no good. Whatever happened would happen, but nothing could stop her feeling like this. A cocoon without end. Wasn’t nature miraculous to be able to make her so happy?
As thoughts of Mac drifted away—prolonged concentration these days was beyond her—she pulled open the wide neck of her giant white sweatshirt and held it away from her body, gazing down with absolute, unwavering absorption at the pale-gold swell of her stomach. A tiny movement, either a foot or a fist, disturbed the smoothness for a second and Loulou smiled, slowly exhaling once more. Clever, clever baby.
And clever me, she thought with peaceful satisfaction, for being able to hold you inside me.
When the knock came at the door, she let the neck of the sweatshirt spring back into place and gave her stomach a reassuring pat.
“Mac’s here,” she whispered. “Come on, baby. We’ll show him, shall we?”
In some small, sneaky corner of her subconscious nestled the treacherous thought that maybe, just maybe all this excessive goodness was a ploy; that it formed part of a pact. If she was good, really good, then God would reward her by making the baby Mac’s. Occasionally the thought bothered her. Most of the time, however, she was too busy enjoying her newfound serenity to be concerned.
It will be interesting, she thought idly, to see what Mac makes of it all, anyway.
“Hi,” said Mac, his eyes straying instantly to Loulou’s stomach as if to ensure that the photographs he had seen in the papers were true.
“Yes, I really am,” Loulou promised him, amused. “Come in and sit down, Mac. It’s lovely to see you again. You’re looking well.”
“So are you.” Christ, she did too; the silver-blond hair he had always loved was longer than ever, brighter than ever. Barefoot and dressed all in white, she looked so angelic it wasn’t true. Despite the harsh words, he had dealt himself before setting out, reminding him what a lying bitch she was, he could feel himself weakening already.
But he was, at the same time, wary. Phoning Loulou and arranging to meet her had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, and he was still acutely aware of the circumstances of their last meeting. Traveling down to the Cotswolds and whisking her away with him in a helicopter at dawn had been his last spontaneous gesture, and that had turned out to be a disaster of epic proportions.
The trouble was, Loulou made him act illogically. She always had. Today, he was on his guard.
“Drink?” she said, waving a bottle of his favorite St. Emilion.
Mac shook his head. The flat brought back so many memories that he felt instantly ill at ease. It was Loulou’s home now, her territory. Disadvantages like that he could do without.
“It’s a nice day. I thought we could go out. Are you up to a walk, or are you supposed to be resting?” He had only the haziest ideas about pregnant women. Were they allowed to go for walks, or were they supposed to lie with their feet up?
Loulou suppressed a smile. “Oh, I think I can manage a walk. Hang on a sec and I’ll find some shoes.”
And she certainly could walk. Eschewing Mac’s suggestion of a gentle stroll in nearby Hyde Park, she pulled him in the other direction, away from the glittering shops of Knightsbridge, along Sloane Street then cutting through to the Chelsea Embankment. A heavy mist hung low, shot through with autumn sunlight; a perfect London morning.
And as they walked, they talked.
But, wondered Mac as they reached Parliament Square, awash with burnished-copper leaves, had they actually said anything?
There had been no mention, for a start, of Josh, whose existence she had so blithely denied, so conveniently forgotten on the night of the ball. No mention either of who the father of her child might be. She was treating him like a long-lost brother, for Christ’s sake. And while he might not know much about the subject of pregnancy, he could still count on his fingers. There was a chance, there had to be at least a chance, that the baby was his.
Meanwhile, Loulou, stepping easily along beside him, looking for all the world like an elegant puffball, was admiring the view of the Thames and reminiscing about a more distant past.
“When I was sixteen or seventeen, visiting London, I always used to come here,” she said quietly. “This was my favorite walk. I wanted so badly to become someone; it was like an obsession. One day I’d be back and everyone would know who I was. God only knows how I thought I was going to do it, although I have a sneaking feeling that I did harbor a secret plan to marry an MP and turn him into prime minister. Can’t you just see it?” She smiled up at Mac. “The perfect prime minister’s wife?”
“You’ve done pretty well on your own,” he said, longing to touch her hair. “You’re successful. For a girl who couldn’t even pass her math exams at school, you’re a bloody miracle. And you seem happy,” he added, searching for an entry into the conversation he really wanted to be having. “Are you, Lou?”
She glanced sideways at him, amusement playing on her lips, seeing through him at once, as she always had. “Ridiculously happy.”
“You’ve changed.”
She shrugged. “I just don’t feel that I have to fight anymore.”
“Am I the father?” he blurted out, desperate to know.
Loulou squeezed his arm. “I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry.”
“You can’t tell me or you don’t know?” demanded Mac, struggling to control his impatience. Goddamn it, how could she be so changed? So bloody calm?
“Well, both. If I knew, then of course I’d tell you.”
“Christ!”
“I’m sorry, darling,” she said again, sympathetic but unrepentant. “But don’t worry. If it does turn out to be yours, I won’t sue you for child support or anything like that.”
“Who are the other contenders?” he said, jealousy surging inside him. Loulou shrugged.
“Only one other. You met him.”
“Jesus.”
“No, not him.”
“It isn’t bloody funny!” he exploded, his dark eyes narrowing with anger.
Loulou shook her head. “Of course it isn’t. But there’s nothing I can do to change it. And there’s no need to shout at me either, because it really doesn’t affect you. It isn’t as if I’m begging you to marry me, Mac. Don’t think that, please, because that’s the last thing in the world I’d do. So just calm down.”
They walked on in silence for several minutes, entering Birdcage Walk. Loulou admired the perfect autumn trees bordering St. James’s Park while Mac attempted to come to terms with her words. She had changed. He had gone to meet Loulou today mentally prepared, knowing exactly how she would react. She was going to fling herself into his arms, beg his forgiveness, and plead for his support. He, in turn, would be kind but firm, making sure that she understood the situation from both their points of view. Further than that he had been unable to plan since a great deal, obviously, had depended upon the answer she gave him to that all-important question.
So much, thought Mac numbly, for his carefully laid plans. Gone with the bloody wind.
“Money!” declared Loulou unexpectedly, shaking back her hair and enjoying the sunshine on her face. “Do you realize, Mac, that the root of all my problems has always been money?”
To show that he could keep up with any change in conversation instigated by his crazy ex-wife, Mac said, “Bullshit. You have plenty of money.”
“That’s just what I mean,” she replied, her expression thoughtful. “I have too much. It’s a problem.”
Stopping in his tracks, Mac pulled her around to face him. Nobody had ever been able to accuse him of beating around the bush. “Lou, listen to me. If you really don’t know what your problem has always been, and if you really want to know, I’ll tell you. It’s men.”
Loulou lo
oked as if she were going to burst. With a glittering, triumphant smile, she exclaimed, “That’s exactly what I’d always thought—but I was wrong all the time! Think about it, Mac. You were too proud to let me help you when I had more money than you did. You hated the fact that poor Omar left me Vampires because you couldn’t stop wondering what I must have done to earn it. Then there was Hugh, who only gambled as much as he did because he knew I could afford it. Bang go two marriages straightaway, you see? And Joshua, of course, was simply more interested in my money than in me. All of them, Mac.” She gestured with her arms. “They all either wanted my money or couldn’t handle the fact that I had so much of it. It’s so obvious I just can’t understand why I never realized it before.”
In her enthusiasm, she looked like a young girl. Mac understood with a jolt how much he still loved her. What a totally crazy state of affairs.
“So what are you going to do?” he said, fighting the urge to take her into his arms and kiss that beguiling smile off her face.
“It’s obvious,” Loulou declared cheerfully. “Get rid of it, of course. Now, do you think we could go get an ice cream? A chocolate one? Before I starve?”
* * *
Anesthetized by shock into terrifying, icy immobility, Roz sat at the kitchen table clutching a glass of water and staring at Nicolette’s bottle. The brown teat looked like a tiny upraised thumb. The container of formula beside it bore a picture of a contented, smiling, normal baby, cradled in its mother’s arms. Outside, it was growing gradually light, the wavering shadows of the ash trees darkening against the gray backdrop of the sky. The only sound in the kitchen, in the entire house, was that of the relentless clicking of the grandfather clock in the hallway that only served to accentuate the otherwise total silence.
Struggling to the surface, searching for some practical course upon which to steer her numbed thoughts, Roz reached for the bottle and the box of formula and rose jerkily to her feet. Crossing the kitchen to the bin, she took a shallow breath and dropped them into it with deliberate care.