Love & Freedom (Choc Lit)

by Moorcroft, Sue

  ‘Are you telling me some kind of secret?’

  ‘I suppose I am.’ His smile stretched slowly, ruefully across his face. ‘I don’t tell Clarissa.’

  She laughed. ‘About the web design? But surely she knows?’

  He shook his head.

  Baffled, ‘Why not? It would seem to me that she’d get off your back, if she knew.’

  ‘That’s why I don’t tell her.’ He smiled at the waitress, who looked dazzled. ‘I suppose I have some ridiculous idea that she ought to accept me as I am.’

  ‘You know … last night you were pretty hard on Clarissa.’

  He glanced away. Sighed. ‘I’m afraid I’ve always had a highly developed talent for speaking in the heat of the moment and she has an equal talent for pushing my buttons. But, you’re right. I was hard on her. And it would have taken away all the sting if I’d just put my arm around her and said sorry, straight away, wouldn’t it? If I’m three parts lucky bastard then the other part is irritable and I do recognise it – but not normally until the next day. And then I’m sorry for how accurately I aimed hurtful words. And that’s when I apologise. When it’s hardest to do. But, don’t worry, I’ve already sent her a “let’s be friends” text.’ His eyes were rueful, even as he laughed at himself.

  His phone began to ring, getting him out of the confession, and he answered with a brief, ‘Hi, Ace.’

  He didn’t get up and seek privacy so Honor had no real choice but to listen to his side of the conversation, presumably with his agent, as Ace didn’t seem a common name. They talked about the shoot. And Martyn said, ‘No, I’m not home yet. I’m eating lunch with someone. No, not from the crew. Yes. Yes, she’s pretty.’ His eyes crinkled at Honor. ‘No, I haven’t …’ He took the phone away from his ear. ‘My agent, Ace is coming for dinner tonight. He says he wants to meet you.’

  The waitress stopped to clear the table and offer the dessert menu. Honor took it, not so much because she had room for dessert but to give her time to consider. ‘Why would he want to do that?’

  Martyn shrugged. ‘Typical, flamboyant, expansive – slightly nosey – Ace.’ A voice buzzed thinly and he put the phone back to his ear, then added, ‘And now he’s heard your accent, he says he loves Americans.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I guess.’ Now that she’d seen a male model in action, it would probably be interesting to meet his ‘flamboyant and expansive’ agent, too. She imagined someone who wore satin and called everybody ‘darling’.

  Ending the call, Martyn chose plain vanilla ice cream but Honor said, ‘I’ll pass. I’ve kind of lost my sweet tooth, working amongst Robina’s cakes all day.’

  ‘One thing that woman does well is make cakes.’

  ‘If she heard you say so, she’d be beating down your door to deliver lemon drizzle or rocky road.’

  ‘Then please don’t tell her. I can run off most things I eat but have never dared let myself get addicted to Robina’s cakes. And they’re positively dangerous if they arrive attached to Robina.’

  No trace of Martyn Mayfair the Model remained. He was completely his Eastingdean self, now, leaning into the crook of the wall, his hair drying and tousled as if he’d just come in from walking in the rain. She felt comfortable with this Martyn. The kind of comfortable that had a lasting feel to it. A comfortable she might never tire of … uh-oh.

  There was this feeling. As if he was reaching his hand into her chest and stroking her heart. And her heart liked it.

  She sat straighter, her breathing quickening like an animal sensing approaching danger.

  And the danger was from within herself. A self that already knew that falling for Martyn … wow. Way to improve her emotional stability! She’d have to be a special kind of swivel-eyed loon to make a fool of herself over a pin-up.

  Just like Robina.

  Chapter Seventeen

  She’d come to England to get away from the storms in her life, not to brew up new ones. ‘She says she really loves you,’ she reminded him.

  His gaze sharpened, as if he were trying to read her thoughts. ‘I thought we’d covered this – she’s just infatuated, which is uncomfortable for us both. Anyway, there’s no chance–’ he paused, deliberately, –‘no chance that I’ll return her feelings.’

  ‘But I feel bad for her–’

  ‘Why?’ He pulled himself up from his slouch and planted his elbows on the wobbly little table, bringing his face close, eyes intense.

  She halted, unwilling to formulate an explanation. One would be: You know what? I’m looking for obstacles to put between me and something that’s going to hurt because I was just zapped by this enormous bolt of desire. For you. And it was scary. Instead, she said, ‘She doesn’t believe it’s infatuation. She thinks it’s genuine, hopeless love.’

  ‘It’s not, but why should you feel bad for her? You’ve only known her a few days.’

  She paused. ‘Do you have to know someone a long time before you get to care?’

  He thought about it. ‘I suppose not. Not in my experience.’

  His smile went crooked and the hand around her heart began to squeeze. What was hanging from the edges of his words? She tried to think about Stef. Stef, who’d once been her best friend and protector and, for many years, had been her husband.

  You’re fighting mad with Stef, Sensible Honor reminded her. Falling for some guy – even if it’s a hunky male model with a cute English accent and buns of steel – is stupid. Did your commonsense crumble with every click of the camera? Did you get a CRUSH for goshsakes? Like some pitiful teenager? Don’t embarrass yourself. You’ve just taken a pounding and if you hand your heart on a plate to Martyn, with his uncompromising only-single-will-do lifestyle, it’ll end up as hamburger meat.

  The waitress arrived with a tall glass filled with scoops of ice cream as white as snowballs and Martyn released her from his gaze as he picked up a long spoon from the saucer and took a mouthful. ‘Mm. Good.’

  Honor seized the opportunity to redirect the conversation. ‘What’s the nuddy?’

  He almost choked, covering his mouth with his napkin while his eyes sparkled. ‘The nuddy?’

  Her stomach crept with embarrassment. She must’ve said something idiotic. ‘What? Lily said it. She asked if you’d been sunbathing in the nuddy.’

  He swallowed and cleared his throat with a swig of water. ‘The nude. She was asking if I’d sunbathed nude.’

  ‘Oh!’ Her face fired up as hot as the day Martyn had first found her, getting sunstroke, and she made herself busy studying the coffee column of the menu.

  He turned back to his ice cream. Just when she felt her temperature returning to normal, he drawled, ‘I do sunbathe in the nude.’

  Involuntarily, her eyes flew to his.

  ‘But not on the beach,’ he added.

  Her voice strangled, but she had to ask. ‘So … where?’

  His eyes were dancing again. ‘Come tonight, and I’ll show you. Where I do it, I mean. Not me doing it.’

  By the time she’d bought a book about Arundel to add to her collection and they had followed one of the walks that it suggested, up and down the steep little lanes, over cobbles and flags and elevated sidewalks, in and out of quaint shops, it was early evening before they began to make their way back to Eastingdean.

  Fresh air and exercise and the passing Sussex scenery had almost rocked her to sleep by the time he drew up in the small lot behind the shops of Starboard Walk. Although she had only tentatively accepted his dinner invitation, somehow she slipped into following him up the metal stairs. Yeah, ‘somehow’. Right.

  Inside his apartment, Honor again kicked off her shoes in deference to the blond carpet, which felt like velvet on her feet as she prowled around and Martyn took trays from his stainless steel refrigerator and posted them into his stainless steel oven. The sofas, black suede, were angled towards a huge TV on the wall. Cream slatted blinds shielded the French doors that led out on to a curved black metal balcony. She pressed her nose against the
glass and saw Marine Drive rumbling by, right below. No nude sunbathing on the balcony, then …

  The open-plan design meant windows all around, overlooking not just Marine Drive and the backs of the houses that ran along the road, and The Butts, but also any cars parked behind the flat. If not for the dips and folds of the land, she might have been able to see the back of the bungalow.

  Between the sofas stood a piece of leather-topped furniture that, she guessed, doubled as both table and footstool. A large black laptop computer, the kind that was only portable if you were a weight lifter, lay folded shut, on top. Beside one of the sofas, papers and magazines were piled haphazardly on the floor with untidily kicked-off blue canvas shoes and a khaki jacket that had landed like a parachute.

  ‘Red, white or rosé?’ Martyn called.

  ‘Rosé, please.’ There was no point asking what they were eating because she could never remember what to drink with what. Rosé meant she didn’t have to bother.

  Then he was strolling across the acre of carpet, a glass in each hand. The sun, slanting through the rear window, threw shadows across his face. He gave her one of the glasses. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers,’ she echoed, suddenly aware that she was alone with him in his apartment.

  ‘Let me show you the rest of the flat.’ He led her back to the entrance hall, where the wooden floor was suddenly chill to her toes. He opened a door, ‘Downstairs loo.’ Mainly white, but for a cobalt-blue-tiled floor.

  The next door: ‘Office.’

  A desk, a printer, a fax machine, some filing cabinets, trays piled high, a roll of tape in a dispenser, a spilling holdall. ‘It looks like an explosion happened in here.’ She liked the untidiness, liked that he was only perfect when captured by the camera.

  ‘It looks better when I remember to shut some drawers.’ He shoved shut one filing-cabinet and four desk drawers, improving the situation only slightly but at least allowing Honor to squeeze into the small square space. Over the desk was a glossy image of a younger Martyn, hair shorter and spiked, staring down at a pouty, tousled female model, gazing up at him. He was easing a strap from Pouty’s perfect shoulder with such an expression of hunger that it seemed the shutter must have clicked only an instant before he ate her right up. Honor swallowed. He’d looked at her like that, too, as if she were on the menu. But, in her case, not on his diet sheet – like Robina’s cakes.

  He shifted self-consciously. ‘That was the first ad that got into FHM. It’s a bit narcissistic to frame it but nobody usually comes in here. It was a career landmark.’ He bustled her out as if he wasn’t much more at ease with Martyn Mayfair the Model than she was. He steered her towards the staircase that spiralled up from the centre of the floor. ‘The other rooms are in the roof, so the upstairs is a touch smaller.’

  The stairs were steep, each one a wedge of polished wood on the black metal frame, opening up on to a landing and three doors. The first stood open. ‘Spare room. That’s where Ace will sleep tonight.’

  ‘He’s staying over?’ She glanced in at the white-and-cool-green room.

  ‘He’s a friend, not just my agent.’ Another door. ‘Bathroom.’ The floor and wall tiles were palest blue and a bathtub in size XXL took up a quarter of the space. The final door he opened and walked through. She followed into a huge bedroom with windows set in the sloping walls, and a super-king-sized-this-is-the-biggest-I’ve-ever-seen bed. She looked away. Beside the bed, another pair of French doors was set into a dormer. He threw them wide, exhibiting a few square feet of balcony and a great view over the gardens and rooftops of the houses on Marine Drive. ‘It’s nice to look out but looking down isn’t so hot – at the car park and the outbuildings belonging to the shops.’

  She glanced down and saw what he meant. But a few flat roofs one level down didn’t seem a high price to pay for such a view. The sun, dipping towards the sea beside Brighton, spread an elongated patch of light over the balcony and onward, inside, on a thick blue rug.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, indicating the pool of sunlight on the floor. ‘That’s where I do my nude sunbathing. Nobody can see.’ Then, before she could lick her lips and formulate a reply around the burning image of Martyn baking his nakedness in his private slice of sunlight, he clicked shut the doors and led her back to the winding stairs, just as the doorbell pealed out like a fire alarm. Martyn said, ‘That will be Ace. We can eat.’

  Ace Smith. His silvery suit, black shirt but no tie, looked all-designer; he probably wore nothing but. Hair and beard were buzzed down to the stubble, giving his head a suede look, like Martyn’s sofas. He wasn’t exactly handsome but had interesting cheekbones and big brown eyes. He smelled of alcohol.

  She knew there was an appropriate formal response to his ‘How do you do?’ but couldn’t remember what it was so just said, ‘I’m good. How are you?’

  Ace looked at her, long and slow. ‘Martyn was right, you’re pretty.’

  Coolly, she responded, ‘Thanks.’ And sipped her wine.

  Martyn poured another glass for Ace and began setting out cutlery and plates. ‘She won’t fall for your bullshit, Ace. She’s too switched on.’

  ‘But she has a real look,’ Ace objected, tossing his jacket and taking the stool next to Honor’s, edging it closer.

  ‘She does. But she either doesn’t know, doesn’t care, or takes it for granted. Unresponsive to compliments, anyway.’

  Ace fixed his seal-pup eyes on her. ‘Interesting. See, in our business, we’re more used to women who suck in compliments like the rest of us breathe air.’ He let his elbows slide along the polished granite until his arm brushed Honor’s. ‘You’re in good shape. Sure you’re not in the biz?’

  There was a looseness about his movements that was consistent with the alcohol fumes and Honor guessed he wouldn’t pass a sobriety test. ‘Biz?’

  He waved his wine glass in an encompassing motion. ‘Modelling. Fashion. Photography. Are you an MUA?’

  ‘No. But I did think, today, watching the shoot, that there are worse jobs.’

  His eyes widened. ‘Martyn took you to a shoot?’

  Suddenly, she wondered whether she was not supposed to have been there. Maybe she was getting Martyn in trouble? She had only the haziest idea of the agent/model relationship. ‘I was going to go to Arundel on the train and he offered me a ride,’ she said hastily. ‘I really just hung out on the fringes.’

  ‘Right.’ He looked at Martyn and smiled.

  Martyn placed warmed plates in front of them and then began to pull dishes from the oven, steaming and sizzling as they met the air. Ripping foil from the top of each he slid them on to the granite. ‘Braised lamb, Mediterranean vegetables and roast potatoes. Honor’s just here for the summer, looking for her mother.’

  ‘But not too hard,’ Honor added. ‘I’m beginning to think of that saying, you know? “Don’t wish too hard for what you want, or then you might get it.”’ Politely, she offered the serving spoon for the lamb to Ace.

  Martyn took the seat opposite. ‘She’s met Clarissa and I think it’s put her off mothers.’ He took the serving spoon from Ace, who was waving it uncertainly, and ladled a lamb steak on to Honor’s plate.

  ‘Did you cook this?’ she queried, going next for the baby roast potatoes, golden and crunchy and pitted with rosemary leaves.

  ‘I ordered it from a caterer and they gave me instructions for how long to put it in the oven. Does that count as cooking?’ He topped up her glass.

  Honor remembered Clarissa suggesting his interpretation of ‘domesticated’ revolved around avoiding real cooking. ‘I guess it’s domestication Martyn-style.’

  Ace laughed. He didn’t attempt to put any food on his plate but drained his wine glass and held it out for Martyn to refill. ‘We should have had pizza, Martyn – American Hot, in honour of Honor.’

  Martyn began to put food on Ace’s plate. ‘Tomorrow night we’ll have fish and chips.’

  ‘Yeah! Eastingdean fish and chips are the best in the world
.’ Ace’s voice was a touch too loud.

  ‘Honor can take on a gang of thugs armed only with fish and chips.’ Martyn tasted the lamb and then reached for the pepper grinder. He told Ace the whole story, making a big deal out of Frog hopping about – appropriately enough – with steaming fish dropping into his boxer shorts.

  Poking desultorily at a potato, Ace nudged Honor. ‘It’s every woman’s fantasy, isn’t it? For a giant to come striding to the rescue, like Martyn did?’ Once more he drained and refilled his wine glass and tried to top up her top up.

  She put her fingers over the glass. A smart woman knew when to stay sober. ‘In my experience, men’s ideas of women’s fantasies bear little resemblance to women’s actual fantasies. Your caterer can cook up a storm, Martyn.’

  Twizzling his wine glass, Ace fastened his eyes on her. ‘Go on.’

  Her fork paused in mid-air. ‘Go on with what?’

  ‘Educate us. Tell us about what women’s fantasies really are.’ His eyes had slitted and sweat beaded his forehead. The wine was disappearing fast.

  ‘I’ll pass, thanks.’

  ‘Ignore him.’ Martyn frowned. ‘He’s taken his winding-down at the end of the week too seriously. Eat, Ace, soak up some of the booze.’

  ‘What, and waste the buzz?’ But Ace did pick up his knife and fork.

  Taking refuge in silence, Honor addressed herself to her delicious meal – the gravy was to die for – and let Martyn steer Ace into talking shop. She listened to curious phrases such as, ‘I’ve taken a pencil on it,’ wondering if it meant the same as, ‘I’ve pencilled it in,’ and noticed that Ace heaped praise on Martyn at every opportunity. ‘DownJo love you. Everyone loves you, Martyn. I do, every time I look at my bank statement.’ Noticing, also, that Martyn never responded, as if he either didn’t want or didn’t need the ego trip.

  She had the feeling that somewhere in Ace’s alcoholic pushy bullshit there was a nice guy trying to get out. But he wasn’t making it tonight.

  As they were in deep conversation, she went into waitress mode, quietly clearing the plates and stacking them in the dishwasher. Then she figured out Martyn’s coffee machine, sliding in the little pouch and waiting for the jug to fill as she opened cupboard doors and found bright blue coffee mugs and a jar of sugar. The milk was in the refrigerator. She moved her finds over to the island counter and then went back for the coffee jug.