‘Joel, I’m not quite sure where you got the idea that I’m some kind of rabid communist,’ I say. ‘My objections to your wealth relate solely to the fact you lied to me about it and made me look ridiculous. I couldn’t care less if you eat honest working folks for breakfast. With diamonds or without.’
‘Well, that’s just uncharitable of you. Won’t you think of The People?’
I refuse to be charmed.
‘Actually, Joel, I don’t think I do want to talk to you. I think you’ve said everything you needed to say.’
‘Hey.’ There’s a spark – just a spark – of irritation in his voice. ‘That’s not fair. You can’t presume to tell me what I needed to say, Libby. And won’t you even let me explain? Don’t you owe me that, at least?’
‘I’m really not sure I do.’
‘In which case, all I can do is appeal to your humanity. Please, Libby. If you hear me out, maybe what I say might actually make sense to you.’
I waver.
Grace – damn her – has got into my head.
And Joel – probably with the same instinct that’s seen him make 2.6 billion dollars since dropping out of Harvard at the age of twenty to form his own software company – pounces on my moment of weakness.
‘Maybe you don’t owe it to me. But don’t you owe it to yourself? To get an answer you deserve?’
He’s good. Of course he’s good.
And what he doesn’t know, of course, is that on the other side of this particular equation, as I make the rapid calculation in my head, are Mum and Cass, ensconced in my flat, working out ways to egg me on and up the aisle with a man I barely know.
‘All right,’ I say. I open the car door, and get in. ‘Fine. I’m listening.’
Given that I have a feeling Joel’s explanation is going to take a little while, I take the opportunity, while he waits to perform a U-turn in pretty heavy traffic on Bayswater Road, to send a quick WhatsApp to Cass.
Have run into friend and grabbing quick drink. Make yourselves at home.
Cass replies before Joel has even managed the turn.
Is it Joel?????
Followed, a few seconds later, by a new WhatsApp pinging in from Mum.
Don’t worry about coming home tonight, darling, if you’re having a good time with Joel. I’m sure Cass will be fine with you staying out overnight.
Am absolutely fine, a message from Cass confirms, almost simultaneously, with you staying out all nite. If it turns into all-night sexathon, that is. Oh, and if it does turn into all-nite sexathon, then remember he’s a BILLIONAIRE so is probably used to women offering everything under the sun. All am saying is, tonite is not nite to be shy.
I’m just shoving my phone furiously back into my bag when I see a final message appear from Mum.
Totally agree with Cass, darling. Don’t know what sort of thing you’re used to in bedroom department, but you might have to up your game with man of world like Joel Perreira (hope have spelt that right!).
I’m so bloody glad, now more than ever, that I’ve escaped my flat for a bit. I mean, all this scheming starts to make you realize why the Anne Boleyns of this world ended up with their heads hacked off, doesn’t it? What with hustling family members trying to position themselves for what I believe, in the olden days, was called ‘advantage’. Mum and Cass would have been the ones adorning themselves with rubies and diamonds, sitting pretty in their brand-new crenellated castles, while I was the poor sap pushed into marrying some syphilitic old king who kept eyeing up the ladies-in-waiting and keeping the local executioner on stand-by in case I looked at him the wrong way over the roasted swan one lunchtime.
Not that Joel is syphilitic, obviously. I mean, I assume.
And not that he has an executioner on stand-by. Again, I assume. Though I imagine if you’re as rich as he is, you can get pretty much anything, for a price.
‘Thanks, Libby.’ Joel has managed his U-turn, and is now driving back in the direction of Holland Park. His right hand, loosely on the wheel, is very sexy; his left hand, loosely on the gear-stick, even sexier. ‘I’m really glad you got in. So, do you like the car?’
Oh, God. Maybe I should have stuck out the evening with Mum and Cass, instead.
‘Joel, for crying out loud! I’m not impressed by your bloody car!’
‘Oh.’ He looks disappointed. ‘Not even if I’ve just bought it for you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I bought this a couple of hours ago. For you. If you want it.’
I feel my stomach lurch in horror. ‘You’ve bought me a Bentley?’
He nods.
‘Joel …’
‘Oh, and if you open the glove box, you’ll see something else in there I picked up for you at the same time.’
With shaking hands, I open the glove compartment.
Inside is a flat, square, bright red Cartier necklace box.
‘Joel …’
‘Open it.’
‘I’m not opening it.’
‘Open it,’ he says, ‘go on.’
Out of morbid curiosity, more than anything else, I open the box.
And I’m nearly blinded, seriously, by the millions of watts’ worth of diamonds that blink up at me: a double-strand necklace of perfect, round-brilliant-cut diamonds.
You wouldn’t have to be any kind of a jewellery expert to know that this is over half a million quid’s worth of stones here.
‘You have to be fucking kidding me.’ I stare at Joel. ‘You think you can persuade me to forget about everything by buying me half a million pounds’ worth of diamonds?’
‘Over a million, actually. They’re particularly perfect stones, as I think you’d be able to see in a better light.’
I feel too weak and sick to speak.
‘But no, in answer to your question, Libby. I very much doubt that I can persuade you to forget about everything with a million pounds’ worth of diamonds. I suppose, really, I’m just using the Bentley and the necklace as illustrations of what it’s really like, being me.’
I don’t follow.
‘So you’re saying that being a billionaire means you get to drive expensive cars and buy expensive jewellery? Do you think I’m an idiot, Joel? I’m aware that you can buy all this kind of stuff if you want to.’
Though I have to say, seeing it all in the flesh, as it were, brings it all home to me with a really alarming jolt.
‘I’m not explaining myself very clearly. What I should probably say is that these things – this exact car, pretty much that exact necklace – are things I’ve been asked for recently. By women I was dating at the time.’
‘Sorry – you’ve been out with women who’ve expressly asked you for luxury sports cars?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Cartier diamonds?’
‘Yep.’
‘I see.’ I close the Cartier box, and shove it back in the glove compartment. ‘Well, the first thing that springs to mind, Joel, is that you should probably try to find a way to meet a better class of woman.’
‘I have. You. I mean, it’s the reason why I carried on that silly pretence of being a personal trainer,’ he goes on. ‘And why I’d have carried it on for weeks, probably, if you hadn’t caught me out.’ He pauses for a moment, then lets out a long sigh. ‘Every woman I meet, Libby, knows who I am. Or, if they don’t right away, they do about five minutes later, when they Google me. And you … well, you were the first woman I’ve met in the last, oh, I don’t know, the last decade or so who didn’t.’ He takes a deep breath, then speaks extra slowly and clearly, for emphasis. ‘You. Have. No. Idea. How. Refreshing. That. Is. Seriously. It was like a drink of cold water after a decade in a desert.’
‘If you hadn’t drunk anything after ten years in a desert, you’d be dead.’
‘Yeah, well, trust me, there are times when dead is exactly the way I feel. I mean, the sheer predictable misery of it: every woman I meet, doing The Face.’
‘The face?’
> He stops the car at a set of lights, and takes the opportunity to perform a pretty accurate impersonation of pretty much exactly what Cass’s face looked like when I told her the name of the man I’d been dating: eyes wide, jaw slack, something slightly waxy about the cheeks.
‘You know the way they say the queen thinks the entire world smells of fresh paint? Well, I’ve been starting to think women’s faces all look like startled goldfish. And I’m under no illusions that it’s my good looks or charming personality that’s reducing them to piles of jelly.’ He sounds deflated – sad, even – all of a sudden. ‘It’s the fact that they can’t seem to look at me without seeing flipping great wads of dosh. The last woman to look at me properly was my ex-wife, and that’s because we met fifteen years ago, before all this really took off.’
I don’t want to give this sob story – however genuine it seems – too much opportunity to work its way under my skin, so I distract from it by saying, ‘So the ex-wife in Australia is real, then?’
‘OK, so this is why I knew I really had to talk to you! Everything I told you – all the information I volunteered myself, that is – is one hundred per cent real. I have an ex-wife, yes. She lives in Sydney, yes. We have a five-year-old daughter, yes.’ He puts the car into first gear and we move off from the lights again. ‘I really don’t know my dad, who really is Brazilian. My mum really is an aid worker from Slovakia. Well, she’s in charge of my foundation these days, but that’s pretty much the same thing. Oh, and it really is her birthday soon. And I really do want to get her something from your website.’
I can feel my cheeks burn, remembering this.
‘I honestly can’t tell you,’ he goes on, ‘what a pure joy it was to have an evening off from all the shit. And I really liked you. Really fancied you. And I didn’t want to mess that up by letting all the usual crap get in the way. Besides, what was I supposed to do? Wait until I’d poured the wine at the pub and then said, Oh, by the way, just so you know, I happen to be a billionaire? Wouldn’t that have made me look like a prize numpty before we’d even started?’
‘Yes. I suppose it would.’
‘Then please. Give me one more chance. Let me prove to you,’ he goes on, ‘that I’m just … me. Who just happens to be worth a few bob.’
‘Joel, you’re not worth a few bob …’
‘So? If the money doesn’t matter to you, then don’t let it matter to you.’ He shrugs. ‘If you’re not impressed by it, don’t be overwhelmed by it. Sure, I own expensive homes, and I wear expensive clothes, and I fly to places in my own helicopter—’
‘You have a helicopter?’
‘OK, OK, I get how that sounds, but in all honesty, Libby, it’s just a practicality. I have a lot of people to oversee in a lot of different countries …’
‘There is a thing called Skype, you know. There is a thing called video-conferencing.’
‘Yeah, but neither of those is anywhere near as awesome as flying around the place in your own helicopter.’
I laugh, despite myself.
‘Look,’ I say, ‘believe it or not, I do understand. I can imagine that it can’t be all that nice to have everyone evaluating you on nothing but the size of your bank balance. Which, by the way, I’d have understood even if you hadn’t just pulled this silly stunt with a Bentley and a million quid of diamonds.’
He winces. ‘So you think this was silly?’
‘Just a bit, Joel, yes.’
‘No, you’re right. I don’t really know what I was thinking. Would I have been better off focusing on the whole just a normal guy angle?’
The very fact that he’s just called this an angle is, if I had the time and space to think about it, probably evidence that he really isn’t just a normal guy.
‘Joel, honestly, it’s not about being a normal guy, or an extraordinary guy … it’s more that, either way, I don’t really know you.’
‘Sure, but that’s just what a new relationship is all about, isn’t it? Getting to know someone? I mean, ideally they’ll be telling you the absolute truth … look, I’ve got a suggestion. Why don’t you come back to my house with me, right now?’
‘Oh, Joel, er, I don’t know …’
‘It won’t just be you and a man you barely know in a big old house. There are staff there.’
‘Wow. You have staff.’
‘Well, it’s the house I use for formal dinners, and stuff, for the foundation, so I really need to keep the place ticking over … I’m much more at home at my place in Sussex—’
‘Joel. It’s fine. There’s no need to explain everything.’
‘Thank you.’ He reaches over and puts a hand on mine, and strokes my palm very, very gently with his thumb.
The impulse to hurl myself across the gearbox, into his lap, is – all of a sudden – completely overwhelming.
I blame Cass for this. And Mum. With the mere mention of the words all-night sexathon, they’ve set my mind venturing down the path of … possibilities. What, if Joel’s hand feels this nice on my mere palm, would it feel like on other bits of my body … What that solid, Krav Maga-honed body looks like without a shirt on …
And then, of course, there’s the fact that I haven’t had sex since I broke up with Dillon, almost eighteen months ago.
I mean, let’s call a spade a spade, here.
This isn’t even anything to do with what Grace Kelly was saying to me earlier. Maybe her advice about moving on and forging ahead is sound, maybe it isn’t … but right now, all I can think about is the fact that I fancy the pants off Joel Perreira, and I’d give my eye-teeth to be falling into bed with him right this very moment.
‘So,’ he asks, after a moment. ‘Would you like to come to my place, or—’
‘Yes.’ My voice has gone pretty husky, with undisguised lust, and I know he can hear it. ‘Yes, Joel, let’s head to your place.’
‘That’s the best news I’ve heard,’ he says, his own voice suddenly a bit thick with lust, too, ‘since I floated my company on the stock market fifteen years ago and made my first hundred million.’
Hang on, is this all a big mistake …?
‘I’m kidding,’ he says, ‘by the way.’
Then he puts his foot on the accelerator, just a little, to get us to his place faster.
*
Well, as far as getting to know him better goes, ending up in bed together three minutes after we’d arrived was possibly the most efficient way to accomplish this worthy goal.
And I can now report, with the new information I have to hand, that Joel’s hands really did feel even nicer on other parts of my body, and that his Krav Maga-honed body really was very nice with his shirt off. A shirt that I’m now, incidentally, wearing, as I sit in the bed.
I mean, there’s quite a lot else I could report, too – and all of it pretty spectacular – but, right now, I’d rather just wallow in the sheer deliciousness of it all.
Most delicious of all, to my shame, the excellent scrambled eggs on toast he’s just whipped up in the kitchen, and brought to me in bed, for a late-night (and, I can’t help hoping, energy-boosting-for-round-two) snack.
(I say to my shame not just because I’m so bloody starving that I’m genuinely enjoying the scrambled eggs almost as much as I did the fantastic sex, but also because the fact that Joel seems to be such a dab hand in the kitchen has just reminded me, uncomfortably, of Olly. Who, I’ve all-too-often imagined, would follow up a dreamy bedroom session by producing something scrumptious on a plate. Or, more likely, knowing Olly’s preference for tapas-style food, several scrumptious things on several plates. And if there’s anything more inappropriate than still letting Olly pop into my head after the amazing half-hour I’ve just spent in Joel’s bed … well, I’d have to ask Cass, the Queen of the Inappropriate, for help with that.)
‘More champagne?’ he’s asking me, now (because yes, of course, we really are drinking champagne with our midnight feast; the evening really is this much of a fairy tale), ‘or if you pref
er, I can call over to the main house and get someone to go to the cellar for something red?’
‘No, champagne is wonderful, Joel, thank you.’ I take a sip of the glass beside the bed. ‘But you’re going to have to explain all this stuff about the main house. And, to be fair, explain to me exactly where we are now.’
‘Ah. Of course. It’s a bit confusing, in the dark. And then there was the fact that you could barely restrain yourself from jumping on me the moment I stopped the car in the driveway …’ Joel grins. He looks absurdly handsome, loosely wrapped in a bathrobe, as he gets to his feet and pads to the nearby window. ‘OK, so over there,’ he says, pulling up the blind, ‘is my official London residence.’
Even though it’s dark outside, I can see, across a half-acre or so of garden, a looming white mansion that I did vaguely clock once we’d pulled up on the driveway almost an hour ago.
And it really is looming: huge, at least four storeys tall, and sort of crenellated.
‘Er … it’s …’
The word lovely dies on my lips.
‘Monstrous?’ Joel asks. ‘Obscene? Bordering on the offensive?’
‘I … well, I mean, we’re all keen on different things, obviously …’
He grins. ‘Politeness itself. But, as it happens, I agree with you. I really only bought the house for formal functions. I mean, we can host all kinds of fund-raisers here, for the foundation, and it’s big enough for a professional kitchen … but the main reason I chose this particular monstrosity – over any of the other monstrosities my accountants were keen for me to buy – was this place.’ He gestures around the room we’re currently in. ‘I don’t know if it was originally some sort of staff quarters, or what, but when I saw that the property included an entirely separate cottage on the grounds, I had to snap it up.’
I’m embarrassed to admit that, in my sheer lust to get out of the car and into Joel’s pants earlier, I really didn’t notice that we were in an entirely separate cottage.
Though looking around, now that I’m a little less dazed by desire, it makes a lot of sense. Because the bedroom, although beautifully decorated, and with some pretty fancy modern art on the walls, is, nevertheless, just a normal-sized bedroom. Just big enough for a king-size bed, a Scandi-style (though probably not IKEA) wardrobe and a couple of small armchairs.
A Night In With Grace Kelly Page 20