by Heidi Rice
She avoided his eyes, bent down and retrieved a shoe from under the bed.
‘I need to get going.’
He shoved the tray down on the chest of drawers as she moved towards him. On her way out.
‘To do what, exactly?’
‘I need to get to work. This article won’t write itself.’
‘Come back to bed. Have some breakfast. Another hour isn’t going to make a difference.’
‘Well, if that’s your attitude I’m amazed you’ve made such a success of your career,’ she said. ‘Lying in bed until all hours.’
‘It’s only seven-thirty,’ he pointed out.
She was next to him now, next to the open door, shoes balanced on top of her clothes. She apparently really was going.
‘So you’re choosing work over a lie-in with me?’ Surely she couldn’t be serious. ‘Let’s just have something to eat and then you can get started, spend the day on it. You can use the office, if you like.’
‘I don’t need to use the office. I need to get packed and then I’ll be out of your hair.’
His mind whirled. What the hell was this?
‘Out of my hair?’
She shrugged.
‘It’s been fun, but we both knew it was never going anywhere … right?’
He didn’t answer. He was too busy trying to fathom how things had gone from the intimate sizzling passion of the night to this detached coldness.
Not bothering to wait for an answer, she finally pushed past him and walked barefoot down the hall towards her own room, still clutching her clothes against her. He followed her, the smooth contours of her naked back tantalising him. Messy waves of hair were tumbling every which way over her shoulders.
She talked loudly without looking round. ‘Won’t take me long to get my stuff sorted.’
‘You’re moving out?’
‘Yes, our agreement’s reached an end. I told you I needed to stay until I got enough material. I’ve done that.’ She paused. ‘It’s over.’
She walked into her room, made as if to close the door. He grabbed it and stood in the way.
‘But you haven’t written it yet.’
‘Oh, I can write the thing anywhere,’ she said. ‘I’ve got all my notes. Once it’s done I’ll just e-mail it in and hope it’s good enough. I’m going to see my mum.’
‘You’re going home to the country?’
‘For Christmas,’ she said. She turned. Faced him. ‘Let’s face it, Alex, I was always going to be going home to the country for Christmas. This can’t come as a big surprise.’
‘But last night …’
‘Was great. But you’re not exactly the marrying kind, are you?’
She smiled at him, as if she was perfectly fine with that, but it was a perfunctory effort and didn’t really touch the blue eyes. He’d seen what a proper smile looked like on her face and this was a poor imitation. Whatever was going on here, he wasn’t buying it.
‘I’ve got ambitions,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot riding on this project for me. I don’t have time to take a few more days out for sex with you just because you’re stuck here and you happen to have an empty diary.’
That was all it was to her? Sex? He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘Let’s just cut our losses and get back to normal. You must be going back to work any day now, anyway, aren’t you?’
There was a loaded tone to that question, a hint of contempt. Or maybe he’d imagined it.
He dropped his eyes for a moment, but there was no point trying to hide it.
‘I do have to fly out to the States,’ he admitted. ‘My spat with Richard Moran is going to be plastered all over the papers for the next day or so, but my PR team will smooth it over. We’re well known as business rivals, and it isn’t the first time we’ve crossed swords, so they’ll pass it off as a long-running feud and your name shouldn’t come into it.’ He gave her a small smile. ‘And even if it does it won’t be your real name.’
‘Good,’ she said. She didn’t smile back. ‘So I’ve become Viveca Holt. You sleep with me, there’s a scandal in the press and you make yourself scarce. History repeats itself.’
‘What happened with Viveca has nothing to do with this. Don’t you think I’d stay here if I could? Ride out the storm with you? There’s been a hitch with the funding for one of my films—the kind of thing I don’t want to leave to anyone else to sort out. That’s the reason I have to go. I need to get back in control. I’ve been gone long enough.’
That urge to be back in charge was as strong as ever. He had a hands-on involvement in every film. Delegation didn’t come naturally. He found it hard to believe anyone else had the commitment and standards that he did. And yet now he found it tempered by the want, the need to be with her.
‘When?’ she asked, matter-of-fact.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Well, there you go, then!’
He clenched his hands at her sudden dismissive attitude.
‘It’s the States, Jen. It’s not the moon. I’m not disappearing off the face of the earth. There are phones. There’s Skype. And I’ll be back.’
‘Of course you will. Next time your work demands it. I’m sure I’ll read about it in the papers.’
Her tone was don’t-care.
She turned her back on him, dropped the ball of clothes on the bed and stood momentarily naked except for her panties, shrugging her way as fast as she could into a T-shirt. He could be across the room with her in three quick strides, sliding his hands around her to cup her breasts, kissing the back of her neck. It took huge willpower not to do exactly that, to use sex in that way he was used to—to divert a woman from anything with more depth and importance. But he didn’t go. He didn’t know where he wanted this … this thing between them to go, but he suddenly realised he wanted more from her than just sex. And to pitch them at that level now would, he instinctively knew, be a huge mistake.
Now wearing T-shirt and panties, she hauled a suitcase out from under her bed and crossed the room to the bureau, pulling open drawers, gathering up clothes and belongings. He crossed the room and shut the lid of her suitcase, stood between it and her.
‘Will you quit packing for a minute?’
She took a deep breath and stood still, a T-shirt in each hand. Her expression was one of sad resignation and his heart lurched.
‘I don’t want this to be it between us. Don’t you understand?’ he said. He made an effort to curb his tone. In his determination to make her understand his temper was fraying. ‘I know the situation isn’t perfect. We’ve both got huge demands on us, on our time. But I want to carry on seeing you.’
‘For what? A couple of dates? Or are you after an easy date whenever you happen to be in town? Call me up and I’ll drop everything and be there? Is that it?’
‘Jen, I know why you’re acting like this. You’re cutting me out because you think you know me. You’re judging me, judging us, by a million stories you’ve read about me in the press. And that’s not fair. I’m serious about this. Don’t you think you at least owe me the chance to show you that?’
She looked at him, eyebrows raised.
‘How do you plan to do that?’
He thought her tone had warmed up slightly, almost imperceptibly. Maybe at last he was getting through to her.
He took a deep breath. He couldn’t quite believe what he was about to suggest.
‘I fly out tomorrow to LA. Spend today with me. And at the end of it, if you still want out, I won’t argue with you. Your damn article can wait one day.’
‘You think spending one day in bed with you is enough to convince me you’re serious about me?’
‘Not you, no,’ he said. ‘But then you’re not run-of-the-mill, are you? Get showered and dressed. We’re going out.’
‘The M4?’
She glanced at the motorway sign. The main route to her home village.
‘I thought you were talking me out of going home. Trust me, my mother won’t thank
me for turning up out of the blue with a guest in tow. She’ll be up to her elbows in pastry, making the famous Brown mince pies. Or, worse, she could be stuffing the turkey.’
‘The M4 doesn’t just serve Littleford, you know,’ he said, not taking his eyes off the road.
Light snow was falling against the windscreen, but it was deliciously snug in the Maserati with its seat-warming gadgetry and perfect climate control.
She caught on.
‘We’re going to Bristol?’
‘We’re visiting my parents,’ he said. ‘The Hammond Christmas drinks and nibbles. You’d better brace yourself.’
Jen sat in silence as he took the Bristol slip road, mulling over what this could mean. She’d challenged him with this, hadn’t she? With taking her to meet his family? Was Alex proving a point? Nervous butterflies pinged around her stomach.
It seemed the bonkers British weather hadn’t put off the traditional last-minute rush of Christmas shoppers. The roads to the town centre were stuffed with traffic, which finally began to ease as they headed for the Downs and Clifton.
‘I should warn you they’re likely to be a bit narky,’ he said as he pulled the car into a wide avenue lined with snow-dusted trees. They came to a standstill outside a beautiful three-storey townhouse. ‘On account of the fact I haven’t visited for a while.’
She crunched across the frozen gravel driveway behind him. He rang the bell.
‘How long is “a while”?’ she asked as the front door opened and a man stepped into view.
Alex shrugged. ‘Eighteen months-ish.’
‘More like two years,’ the man said.
He had to be Alex’s father. The resemblance was strong. Sixty-ish, he had the same thick hair, though it was steel-grey, and glasses. Alex had his green eyes.
And then they were surrounded. Alex’s mother appeared from nowhere, petite with a short light brown haircut to match her elfin features. Alex made an apologetic face at Jen over her head as she dragged him into an enormous hug. There was a brother, there was a small niece and nephew who hung off Alex’s legs, there was a grandma sitting in a high-backed chair by the fireplace, and there were uncles, aunts and cousins. A total of four generations of the Hammond family.
Cheesy Christmas music was belting out from somewhere within.
The rich exterior of the house didn’t match the inside. It was stuffed to breaking point with mismatched furniture and no surface was left uncluttered. There were ornaments and knickknacks everywhere she looked.
‘I bought them the house seven years ago,’ Alex said as they were ushered through the hall. ‘Not long after I got my first big break. Took me ages to persuade them to move out of their old house, and when they eventually did they told my interior designer to get stuffed and basically moved the interior of their old place as it was.’
In the corner of the sitting room there was an enormous fake Christmas tree, festooned with a combination of hideous baubles and homemade ornaments that spelled the word family in a way that nothing else at Christmas quite did. A threadbare fairy perched on the top, well past her best but clearly there for years to come based on sentimentality instead of appearance.
Alex was subjected to an inquisition from the entire family that he clearly deserved and took calmly in his stride.
‘Good of you to finally show your face,’ his father said when they’d been each been given a glass of cranberry-red Christmas punch.
Yep, there was definitely an air of narkiness.
‘I’ve invited you and Mum to visit me in LA loads of times,’ Alex protested. ‘Tried to persuade you to come and have a holiday. You never take me up on it.’
‘You know your mother is afraid of flying. And I don’t hold with that foreign food. It doesn’t agree with me.’
Everywhere Jen looked there were framed pictures of Alex with his younger brother, growing up. There was an enormous table groaning with quiche, sausage rolls and sandwiches. Good hearty food, not the one-bite-and-it’s-gone canapés she’d been served these last few weeks.
The argument went on.
‘Would it kill you to phone your mother once a week? Or even once a month? I know your every move, Alexander Hammond, I read the red-top newspapers. I know when you’re in this country, skulking in London, not bothering to nip down the M4 for an hour or so to see your family. And then just this morning there’s a picture of you smacking someone at some racetrack. Off the rails! Are you on drugs?’
Alex held both hands up to ward him off.
‘No, I am not on drugs! And I was staying out of the way because I wanted to protect you lot from all that.’ He turned to Jen. ‘The press hounded them when I broke up with Susan,’ he explained. ‘They’d follow my mother when she walked down the street, barking out questions.’ He looked at his parents. ‘I didn’t want that for you again.’
‘We’ve taken more grief than that in our time,’ his mother snapped. ‘When our Michael got caught shoplifting I couldn’t hold my head up in the supermarket for weeks. A few gutter press weren’t going to bother me after that.’
‘What’s shoplifting, Daddy?’ Alex’s six-year-old niece piped up.
Michael threw his hands up. ‘Oh, cheers, Mum. Trying to be a role model here and you bring that up.’
As the day progressed and the punchbowl emptied things slowly began to thaw. As darkness fell Jen stood in a corner of the warm kitchen watching Alex deep in conversation with his father and brother.
‘You’re the first girlfriend he’s brought home in a long time,’ his mother said, joining her. She topped up Jen’s glass, then her own.
‘I’m sure it’s just because work keeps him away so much.’
A pause and an unconvinced smile.
‘Come and let me show you something.’
Jen followed her out of the kitchen.
There was an enormous ball of mistletoe suspended from the doorway into the sitting room, and Alex’s eccentric uncle Norman seemed to be hanging around it rather more than necessary. He flashed her a toothy smile as she sidled past him into the room.
‘I’m amazed to see him,’ Alex’s mother said as they sat down on the sofa. ‘He has no need for us any more. We’re lucky to get a phone call now and then. He’s got all he needs—all those rich friends. There’s nothing here that he wants to come back for.’
Jen shook her head. ‘You’re wrong. He misses you. He misses this.’
She was fascinated. It had always been just her and her mum. Her grandparents were long gone. She envied him the warmth, the buzz of it. You’d never be on your own with a family like this.
Unless you took yourself out of it. Which was what he had done.
‘I’ve kept all the cuttings from his career.’
She produced a groaning photo album. Jen forced her face to keep a smile on it as she flipped through a few pages. It was full of tabloid pictures of Alex with various models and starlets. Here was Alex on the red carpet with a gorgeous redhead. And here he was cavorting in the surf somewhere tropical, with Viveca Holt of all people.
Photos of ex-girlfriends. Exactly what you needed to boost your ailing confidence when you met the parents for the first time. Not.
‘Fabulous!’ she exclaimed, smiling so hard her cheeks ached. ‘And have you seen all his films?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘We’ve got all the DVDs.’
Alex’s mother leaned in conspiratorially and added in a stage whisper, ‘Some of them are a bit dull, to be perfectly honest, a bit too arty for us. Still, I’d never tell him that. It’s brilliant that he’s won all those awards. Graham and I prefer more of an action film, like that Faith trilogy. We love those—have you seen them?’
As they said their goodbyes Alex bandied about promises of regular visits and phone calls. In the silent warmth of the car on the drive back to London Jen wondered if he’d meant them. Or whether the whole day had really been about proving a point.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rule #8: When you’
ve snared your millionaire, gradually introduce him to the real you one step at a time.
‘WHY did you take me to meet them?’
Alex stared into the fireplace for a moment. She was curled warmly against him on the sofa in the den, back in his apartment. The room was lit only by the soft glow of the fire and the coloured lights on her little Christmas tree. She followed his gaze, watched sparks flying from the logs into the velvety darkness. Two glasses of wine and the remains of scrambled eggs on toast lay on the coffee table to the side of them.
‘I wanted to show you my roots,’ he said. ‘You were so determined to accept the newspaper view of me as a playboy, and I don’t blame you. I’ve never tried to correct it either publicly or privately. To be honest I haven’t cared either way what was written about me.’ He glanced at her. ‘Not until now.’
‘Why now?’ Her heart beat faster as she waited for his reply.
‘I want you to know what I’m really like. Not the press image. The real me. If you’re going to do a bunk I want it to be because you’re not happy with me, not some illusion.’
‘Why haven’t you seen them for so long?’ she asked. ‘They were so delighted to see you I thought you were going to be lynched, and you obviously love them all to bits.’
He took a sip of his wine.
‘Part of it was the demands of work keeping me away. I wasn’t lying to them about that. But it isn’t the only reason.’
He sighed.
‘After Susan left it was just such a reminder of what I was missing, seeing them all. My brother became a dad, something I could never see happening for me after she went, and it became easier somehow to just stay away. They’ve never been excited by what I do. Not when I was a kid starting out and not even when I became a success at it. Michael’s given them grandchildren. He sees them all the time. Those are things they can relate to. His life is real to them.’
He ran a hand distractedly through his hair.
‘I think they see me in the newspapers and wonder who the hell I am. When I see them they act like I think I’m better than them. I sometimes think they’d have been happier if I drove a taxi for a living or worked down at the docks.’