‘But?’ asked Chris, his blue eyes meeting hers.
‘A week is a long time.’
‘Well, how about a long weekend? It’ll be fun. You get ducks coming right up to the door to ask for bread.’
She looked at him and smiled. She knew it would be fun. But spending a week with Chris Scanlan writing a novel wasn’t really where her heart lay and they both knew it.
‘I’ll think about it, okay?’
‘No skin off my nose, sweetheart,’ said Chris, putting the paper back over his face. ‘But hurry up before Cameron Diaz jumps in. I’ve heard she loves ducks.’
She laughed and threw another crust at him. ‘I’ll think about it.’
34
By lunchtime, Summer and Adam were sailing out of Poole Harbour, the sail of their forty-foot yacht billowing in the strong breeze as they passed Brownsea Island, heading towards the Solent. Adam was barefoot on a walnut deck warm from the sun, his mouth set in a line of concentration as he piloted the boat single-handedly.
‘Do you want to take the helm while I put a tack in?’ he called, taking Summer’s hand.
‘Me?’ she shouted over the cracking flap of the sail. ‘You don’t want me in charge of this thing, do you?’
‘I take full responsibility,’ said Adam, moving behind her and placing her hands on the big wheel.
Summer shut her eyes, enjoying Adam’s strong arms around her, not quite believing that only twelve hours earlier she had been trapped in a nightclub with Ricardo. But, if she had felt dreadful when she had got up that morning at Adam’s, the salty wind whistling through her ears seemed to have blown anything toxic out of her body.
‘Hard to starboard,’ said Adam, moving to the side, pulling hard on the rope for the headsail.
‘Argh! What do I do? What do I do?’ squealed Summer, as the boom swung towards them.
‘Don’t worry, you’re doing fine,’ smiled Adam, moving back behind her.
‘So is this boat yours then?’ she asked when they were back on a straight course. ‘You must be a pretty good sailor.’
‘She belongs to a friend of mine who lives on the Sandbanks over there,’ he said pointing to a spit of land behind them. Summer had heard of Sandbanks, of course. Her mother was constantly talking about all of the most exclusive places in the country to live.
‘But I do sail a lot. I have a house in Maine so I take a boat out whenever I’m there.’
‘You’re going to think I’m an idiot, but you can’t do all this tacking thing on that boat we were on in Monaco, can you?’ asked Summer. For some reason, she felt okay asking Adam questions like this; she felt safe with him.
Adam smiled and shook his head, reaching into an icebox for a cola.
‘No, The Pledge is a motor yacht, it doesn’t have a sail. It’s used more for corporate entertaining than actual sailing. I have a small yacht like this in Dark Harbour, but I’m having a sailing yacht built as we speak in a shipyard in Holland.’
‘What’s it like?’
Adam’s eyes glinted with passion and pleasure. ‘She’s not even half built, but already she takes my breath away. She’s twenty-five metres, a sloop-rigged sailing yacht based on the eighteenth-century French cutters, which just slide through the water, but with the best technology and material that we’ve got today. An aluminium hull, carbon-fibre mast and boom.’
Summer laughed. ‘She sounds beautiful.’
He nodded absent-mindedly out to sea. ‘I’d love to race her in the America’s Cup.’
‘So why don’t you?’
‘It’s the world’s most expensive hobby,’ he shrugged. ‘Your yacht is just the start of it. There’s management, crew, transporting the boat all over the world; it’s a serious business. You’re looking at around twenty million pounds a year to compete seriously.’
‘Wow!’
Summer wondered how rich you had to be before you didn’t even have to think about your limitations. She was sure it wasn’t a good place to be. As Adam said, you had to have your dreams.
After an hour at sea, they sailed into Studland Bay. It was more sheltered and, without the wind of the open sea, the sun burnt down on their bodies.
Adam dropped the anchor as they bobbed a few hundred metres from shore. ‘Do you want to go on land? There’s a mooring close by.’
‘No, I like it here,’ she said softly.
She sounded calm, but her heart was racing. She knew she shouldn’t have come, but she wanted to be here more than anywhere else in the world. She still felt sick when she imagined Karin watching them, angry and betrayed, but they were having too much of a good time. Adam’s fingers felt too good on her skin when he touched her. He had saved her from Ricardo, and swept her away and made her feel alive and safe, sexy and interesting. And a hundred miles away from London, it was just the two of them on the boat, unable to escape from one other. Not wanting to, she thought, looking at him squinting in the sun.
He walked towards her and took her face in his hands. ‘I don’t want to go home yet, either,’ he whispered, pulling her in closer. And then they were kissing, pulling at each other’s clothes.
They stumbled down the stairs to the cabin, and Summer bumped her head on the low beam, giggling. He pulled off his T-shirt and then hers. There was a light scrub of dark hair on his tanned chest which tickled her breasts as he held her close. She licked his neck, his skin tasting of salt.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he whispered, pushing her up onto the bed. He cupped his hand around her breasts, and circled her nipple, round and round until she gasped. Not thinking about anything except the need to feel and taste every inch of each other, they scrambled out of their clothes, his thick cock sliding through her wetness until they were locked together, their bodies coming together with a passion as strong and powerful as the sea. And when she came, the sweetest pulse rippling round her trembling body, she cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks, as she finally understood what the fuss of hot, passionate sex was all about.
35
Curled up on the four-poster bed in the master bedroom of The Standlings, Molly swallowed a mouthful of brandy and grimaced. She just couldn’t concentrate on the late-night movie she was watching – even the fifty-inch plasma screen couldn’t make it more interesting. She sighed and took another sip. The last fortnight had been hell. The humiliation of having to clear her desk at Midas had been bad enough, but then she had been forced to face a week of complete paranoia, terrified that Marcus would smell a rat. Thankfully he seemed to buy her excuse that she wasn’t enjoying the job and would much rather get on with the renovations at The Standlings. But Molly was missing London. Working in Piccadilly had given her so much freedom – to meet Alex, go shopping or see friends for lunch on her Midas expense account. She had once boasted about ‘the manor’ but, now it was all she had, she felt trapped and suffocated. Just then, Molly’s mobile chirped. She didn’t want the distraction, but Marcus was away on business and would expect her to answer. She put down the brandy and flipped it open.
‘Hey there …’ she purred.
‘Is that you, Molly?’ asked a woman’s voice, its tone soft and apologetic. ‘I’m sorry for calling, especially so late. But you hadn’t replied to my letters and I wasn’t sure if you’d received them.’
‘How did you get my number?’ asked Molly, instantly recognizing the voice and sitting up straight.
‘I called – what’s it called? – the Midas Corporation. I saw you in the papers and it said you worked there. That’s how I knew where to send the letters. Anyway, I told them who I was and said it was very important I speak to you.’
‘You haven’t got my phone number for a reason,’ said Molly coldly.
There was the sound of soft sobbing down the line. Molly sat there listening, her eyes drifting to the window. It was pitch-black outside and she could see her reflection in the glass, her face shadowed and sinister. She looked like a ghost.
‘Okay, so I got the letters,’ said Molly
, irritation in her voice.
‘Did you read them?’
‘Yes, Janet,’ said Molly numbly. ‘I read them.’
‘Well, it’s got worse, Molly, it’s worse than when I last wrote. Your father. I think he’s going to die.’
Molly Sinclair had wanted to escape her small village on the outskirts of Newcastle for as long as she could remember. At sixteen she was already tall, beautiful and precocious; a lazy student, she had little desire to do well in the classroom, knowing that her fortune lay in her face and her body. There were no shortage of men in Newcastle’s Bigg Market queuing up to buy her drink. One told her he was a photographer and offered to get her started as a model. At the ‘studio’, a small bedsit in Fenham, the man told her to take off her clothes and lie down on a bed draped with black chiffon. When he’d gone to fetch his film, she’d smashed his camera onto the floor, then run. Did he think she was stupid? She wasn’t going to be exploited by anyone.
Molly’s luck had changed on her seventeenth birthday. Her new boyfriend, an oil-rigger stationed in the North Sea, couldn’t get to the shops to buy a present, so had sent her £500 cash.
‘I’m going to London,’ she had told her father and stepmother the moment she opened the envelope.
They hadn’t shared Molly’s vision. ‘What’s so special about London?’ her stepmother Janet had demanded angrily. ‘It’s not paved with gold, you know.’
She’d show them, she thought, boarding a train for St Pancras.
Molly had a plan: she had read The Face and Blitz magazine religiously and she knew that Chelsea and Soho were where all the beautiful people hung out. Trying on a pair of PVC pants in Seditionaries, the famous shop on the King’s Road owned by Malcolm McLaren, Molly had been approached by a glamorous woman who wanted to know if she was a model. This time, the photographer was real, and within six months Molly had bookings for Harper’s & Queen and Cosmopolitan magazines, a commercial for a cosmetics company and catwalk shows for the top fashion houses. Molly was part of a new era of girls, the next generation from Marie Helvin and Jerry Hall, and her status brought her wealth, fame and fun. She lived in a house in Edith Grove with two other models, Michelle and Lulu, both slightly older and both protective of Molly when she confided in them about her upbringing: the death of her mother, her father’s neglect of his only daughter when he’d remarried ‘that bitch Janet’. Molly had hinted at domestic violence and abuse, and Michelle and Lulu took her out on the town to help her forget. They spent night after night in The Wag Club and the Limelight, or being wined and dined by rich men at Langan’s. Sucked into her new glamorous jet-set world, she forgot Ken and Janet even existed; when people asked, she told them her family was dead. Sometimes she even believed it.
Then, six weeks ago, the first letter had arrived for her at the Midas Corporation. In scratchy black ink, Janet had told her that Ken was ill, having suffered a minor stroke. The second said that hospital investigations had revealed weaknesses in his heart that could spark off an aneurism at any time. She’d hadn’t bothered reading the third letter; she had simply folded them all up and put them at the back of Marcus’s wardrobe. She had tried hard to forget about them, but at night when The Standlings was very dark and the floorboards creaked, the sight of the wardrobe had begun to trouble her, as if there were ghosts banging inside.
‘I’m sorry to hear about it, Janet,’ she said finally, knotting her hand in a fist. ‘But I don’t see what all this has got to do with me.’
‘Molly! How can you …? Don’t you care? Don’t you want to see your father?’ said Janet, her voice becoming angry. ‘He’s having open-heart surgery. We’re hoping he’s going to be strong enough for it, but he … well, he needs it. Without it, doctors say he will only have a few months.’
Molly shook her head. What was all this to her? Why was this woman bothering her again after all these years? She dug her nails into the bedspread, feeling angry for being disturbed and angry with herself for feeling bothered at the news.
‘Are you going to come home, Molly? He still doesn’t know what he did to upset you, or why you won’t see the family …’
Molly was silent.
‘But none of that matters now,’ said Janet. ‘It’s time for us to be together. Maybe for one last time.’
‘We’re not really a family any more though, are we?’ said Molly, closing her eyes as she said it. ‘I don’t belong there, I never have done.’
‘This is ridiculous, Molly. He’s your father. Your father!’
‘Janet. Please don’t bother me again.’
‘Listen, he’s in Newcastle Infirmary. The operation is a week tomorrow and—’
Molly didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. She dropped the phone, went over to the wardrobe to retrieve Janet’s letters, tearing them into pieces before she flushed them down the en-suite toilet.
36
For once in her life, Erin felt truly happy. Sipping a champagne cocktail, surrounded by twinkling candlelight, facing the man she felt sure she was falling in love with, Erin felt as if she were on a set of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Julian had picked her up after work and taken her for dinner at Julie’s restaurant in Holland Park, grabbing a cosy table for two in the gorgeous open-air courtyard. This was just typical of Julian, she thought gleefully. Every morning, she would spend at least half an hour deciding what to wear on the off-chance that he would show up after work, the top down on the sports car, to whisk her out for supper or home to her flat, where they would sit on the tiny balcony drinking red wine or go straight to the bedroom.
The sex, of course, had been sensational. He was both unselfish and demanding; his hunger for her body made her feel sexy, desired, grown-up. His touch excited every nerve-ending in her body, and her orgasms were like fireworks. On those mornings, the Julian mornings, Erin would go into the office with a smile as wide as China.
Adam would tease her, of course. ‘Did someone strike it lucky last night?’ he grinned. But Erin had denied everything: she’d had to. Julian’s company were still potential clients and, as Adam’s PA, it would be very poor form indeed to date an employee.
‘How about we skip dessert and go back to your place?’ asked Julian. It was only 9.30. Julian winked and motioned the waiter over.
‘What about your place?’ asked Erin. They had only been to Julian’s Hoxton loft apartment once, but she had loved it. She had seen sleeker apartments – she saw them every day as part of her job – but pottering around Julian’s place in his oversized towelling robe, sliding into his free-standing stone egg-shaped bath, or making tea in the chrome-fitted kitchen, she felt as glamorous as any of the sophisticated designer-clad women she had met working at Midas. More than that, she felt at home.
Julian pulled a face. ‘No, not my place. Islington’s closer. Anyway, I prefer it at yours, I like being around your things.’
Erin’s brief disappointment dissolved as she saw other women glance enviously at her as they left the restaurant and screeched off in the convertible, her hair trailing behind her like a banner. For a second she thought this is how Karin must feel every day of her life.
At Peony House, Julian parked the car while Erin went into the lobby to check her post.
‘So you’re alive, then?’
Chris was waiting for the lift, looking as if he was just coming back from work, with bicycle clips still fastened around the bottom of his suit trousers.
‘So it seems,’ smiled Erin, collecting a parcel of Amazon books from on top of her pigeonhole.
‘Well, you’re in luck, Frankenstein,’ said Chris, holding the lift door open for Erin. ‘I’ve been sent a bottle of Petrus by a French importer. Don’t ask me why. All I do is take their bribes,’ he smiled. ‘Fancy a nightcap? You can tell me where you’ve been hiding for the last week.’
Erin looked embarrassed as she heard footsteps and Julian appeared behind them.
‘Did someone say nightcap?’ he smiled.
Chris gave a vague nod of t
he head. ‘Oh hello. Yes, I’m Erin’s neighbour. And you are …?’
‘Chris, Julian. Julian, Chris,’ said Erin, rushing to introduce them, feeling her cheeks blush hot. But why should she feel awkward? Okay, so she should have mentioned Julian to Chris before now, but it was hardly a secret, was it? She had just declined to mention it. Chris merely raised his eyebrows and the three of them rode up in the lift silently.
‘Are you always nipping over for nightcaps then?’ asked Julian when they were in the flat. He had slipped off his shoes and had gone over to the fridge to open a bottle of wine while Erin lit a scented candle and quickly tried to tidy up.
‘Don’t be silly, it’s nothing like that,’ she said. ‘He writes about food and wine for the Herald, so it’s kind of research.’
‘Is that what they call it now?’ he grunted as he pulled the wine cork, pouring them both a glass before they flopped onto the sofa together.
‘Don’t go getting all huffy,’ said Erin, kissing Julian on the neck. ‘I’ve barely borrowed a cup of sugar from him.’
‘Well, just see that you don’t,’ grumbled Julian.
Perversely, Erin was enjoying his jealousy. It was a new experience for her – and she liked it. The room was dark, lit only by the candle, which gave it a sepia glow. Erin’s head was fuzzy with claret and happiness.
‘So, how are the plans coming along for Belvedere Road?’ she asked.
He reached over and stroked her hair. ‘Hey, don’t spoil a nice night talking about work.’
Erin knew he was right, she really needed to unwind, but, still, she was feeling more than a little anxious about the development. She’d had a phone call from the site manager that afternoon, who had told her that he had six men pencilled in to start in eight weeks’ time and there was still no sign of the plans.
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