Solo

by Jill Mansell

  “You never work overtime,” she argued accusingly. “You put in a few hours a day and take time off whenever you feel like it.” Max, so engrossed in this new project that he didn’t even realize the extent of her wounded pride, simply shrugged. How could he be expected to waste his time with boring dinner parties when the screenplay to end all screenplays was on the verge of being born? Besides, the sooner it was completed, the sooner he would win back the love and undying gratitude of Francine…

  “I have to work,” he said firmly. “This is important.”

  To her eternal shame, Holly felt tears burning at the back of her eyes. Having read the plot outline on the computer screen, she had already guessed the reason behind Max’s sudden, all-consuming desire to immerse himself in this new project. He was clearly still besotted with Francine Lalonde, with whom she could not even hope to compete. It was cruel, frustrating, and quite, quite unfair.

  “Of course it’s important,” she said, biting her lip as she struggled to keep control. Turning to leave, she said, “I only hope it’s as important to her as it is to you.”

  “It is, it is,” said Max happily, so wrapped up in his own thoughts and plans that it didn’t occur to him to question Holly’s oblique reference to Francine. “Don’t worry, Holly. Everything’s going exactly according to plan.”

  • • •

  As he handed Tessa’s painting over to one of the porters, Ross felt uncomfortable, as if he were abandoning a newborn baby on the steps of some hospital.

  The Royal Academy was buzzing, as crowded as Harrods on the first day of the sales. The fact that almost everyone was hauling bloody great paintings around with them didn’t help, either.

  “Take good care of it,” said Ross, slipping the man a tenner, and the porter winked.

  “Don’t you worry, guv. I’ll treat it like one of me own.”

  • • •

  After a long lunch with his old friend Nico Coletto and an expensive couple of hours touring Regent Street and the Burlington Arcade, Ross returned to the Academy. Faces that had earlier been alight with hope now bore the strain of rejection. Stoicism vied with downright disappointment. The lucky few whose works had been accepted were obviously keeping quiet about it. No one, as far as Ross could make out, was actually smiling. It was by sheer chance that he encountered the same brown-coated porter in the midst of the crowds thronging the entrance hall. The porter, clearly unconcerned by the somber atmosphere, greeted Ross with a jubilant thumbs-up and a broad grin. “Brilliant, mate. You’re in.”

  Ross, though pleased, was not surprised. He hadn’t doubted for a second that Tessa’s work was worthy of showing. It hadn’t needed a penciled “This way up” on the back like the one being jostled irritably past him at this moment.

  “That’s great,” he said, wondering whether the porter would be expecting a further tip to deliver the painting back to him. “Am I supposed to collect it myself, or do you do that for me?”

  The man looked at him as if he were crazy. “Blimey mate, where you been all your life? New to this, are you? It stays here now, until the exhibition.”

  “Bloody hell, you’re joking!” declared Ross. The whole idea had been to smuggle Tessa’s painting up here while she was bed-bound and to have it safely back in place before anyone noticed it was missing. He had planned on bringing her up to London for the day in order to view the Summer Exhibition and allowing her to discover her own work hanging here.

  Damn, he thought irritably. Now he’d have to think up some excuse for the fact that the picture had gone AWOL.

  • • •

  “Forgive me,” said Dominic, “for not believing you last time when you told me you were famous.” Pausing in the doorway, he bowed. Tessa giggled.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “Read it in the papers, of course. You’re getting more press coverage than the Royals at the moment. So I thought I’d come and see whether you still deign to mix with us lesser mortals.”

  “I love mixing with lesser mortals,” she assured him as he limped over to the bed and gave her a hug. “Especially you. Sit down and tell me all the gossip. How are things going with all the women in your life?”

  Dominic pulled a face. “Why do you suppose I’m here? My wife threw me out. Marina left me. Josie,” he added in disgust, “ran off with an extraordinarily untalented painter from St. Ives.”

  “You’re all alone?” gasped Tessa with mock dismay. “Is there no justice in this cruel world? However will you cope?”

  His sky-blue eyes regarded hers with soulful stoicism. His tanned fingers stroked the insides of her slender wrists. “I shall bury myself in my work,” he replied mournfully. “And embrace celibacy. Maybe in time—seven or eight years say—I might meet another woman with whom I could consider sharing my life, but until then…”

  “Please!” exclaimed Tessa. “You’ll have me in tears next. This is heartrending stuff.”

  “My heart has never been so rended,” Dominic assured her, his expression tragic. “I need comfort, I need understanding. I need to know that my true friends still care about me. I need—”

  “Don’t tell me,” intercepted Tessa shrewdly. “Let me guess. A roof over your head.”

  “Not only incredibly fat,” he replied with a dazzling smile as he ran his hand lightly over her swollen stomach, “but incredibly kind. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Oh yuck, it kicked me!”

  • • •

  “I’m turning into an old spinster,” declared Holly on Friday afternoon. “All my friends are paired up. You”—she pointed accusingly at Tessa—“are laid up in that damned bed, and all I’ve got to look forward to on my precious night off is a frozen curry and the news.”

  “You hate the news,” said Tessa patiently. It didn’t appear to have occurred to Holly that she too might be bored, stuck in bed for the third week running with only an occasional foray into the bathroom for excitement. When Holly was upset, she liked the world to really know about it.

  “Exactly!” Snatching a peach-tinted carnation out of a nearby vase, Holly began agitatedly shredding petals all over the bed. “He loves me not, he loves me not, he loves me not! What am I supposed to do, Tess? Take up evening classes in knitting?”

  “There’s always Adam,” suggested Tessa hesitantly, realizing that her timing wasn’t brilliant, but risking it anyway.

  Holly jammed the headless carnation stalk back into the vase and rose to leave. “For heaven’s sake,” she snapped. “I’m not that desperate.”

  “In that case,” said Tessa with a wry smile, “you can give me the highlights of the world news tomorrow.”

  • • •

  “Christ, that cottage is isolated,” complained Dominic half an hour later.

  “I’m sorry,” said Tessa, suppressing a sigh. “Why don’t I pop down there now and build a few pubs and houses around it?”

  Sensing her irritation, he smiled. “I know, I know. I’m an ungrateful bugger. It’s just that I’m hopeless on my own. Last time you were there.”

  “And now I’m here. If I moved back to the cottage,” she added slyly, “you’d have to wait on me hand and foot. And do all the washing up.”

  Dominic, recognizing the dig, pulled a face. “OK, so I’m not the world’s greatest nurse. But, Tess, I don’t know anyone in Bath, and I’m so bored…”

  • • •

  “I want you to know that this was Tessa’s idea, not mine,” announced Dominic without preamble. “So don’t go getting any funny ideas.”

  Holly, not in the sunniest of moods, glared at him. Sarcasm and abuse from yet another disinterested male was just what she needed right now.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said irritably. “Just shut up and get on with it.”

  Dominic pulled a face. “Charming. OK, Tessa mentioned the fact that you were bored
and lonely. I simply thought you might like to go out somewhere tonight.”

  “With you?” said Holly, her eyebrows lifting in disbelief.

  “According to Tessa,” said Dominic, his own expression deadpan, “no one else is interested.”

  “I also told her that I wasn’t desperate,” she retorted smartly.

  “So is it yes or no?”

  For a micro-second, Coronation Street exerted its pull.

  “OK then,” said Holly, knowing she would live to regret it. Dominic looked triumphant. “Is that a yes or a no?” he repeated, taunting her now.

  “Don’t push it, smart-ass, it’s an OK.”

  Chapter 26

  After years of being caught out by women, Ross imagined himself to be a pretty accomplished liar. When confronted with the evidence, he stuck rigidly to his motto: deny, deny, deny. And until now it had served him remarkably well. Lying was easy. Stick to your guns for long enough and everyone runs out of arguments in the end.

  Lying to Tessa, however, was a different matter. She didn’t argue, for a start. And if she doubted the truth of what he was saying, she gave no sign of it.

  The problem for Ross was that the more readily she accepted his explanations, the more convoluted they became.

  “And since Nico’s convinced that this friend of his will be interested in your work,” he said, elaborating still further, “he asked me if he could borrow your painting.”

  “Fine,” said Tessa cheerfully. “And it isn’t my painting anymore, anyway. It’s yours.”

  “Yes, well…this friend is over in the States at the moment; even Nico doesn’t know when he’ll be able to get back. But as soon as he does, and sees your—my—painting, he’ll return it.”

  “Good. Ross, d’you think you could pass me the book that’s on top of the chest of drawers over there?”

  “It might take a couple of months,” he said warily.

  Tessa tilted her head to one side. Speaking slowly and clearly, she said, “It’s a library book. It’ll be overdue by then. Couldn’t you get it for me now?”

  “I meant the painting,” said Ross, still edgy.

  “I’m bored with this story,” shouted Tessa, hurling a cushion at his head. “Do whatever you like with your painting. Just pass me that bloody book.”

  • • •

  After a decidedly rocky start, the evening had turned out far better than either Dominic or Holly had imagined possible.

  Since Dominic was without transport, Holly had picked him up from Tessa’s cottage. Determined that he shouldn’t think she was out to impress, she had taken care to dress as casually as possible in a very plain, sage-green cotton shirt worn over darker green Fiorucci jeans. Minimum makeup, minimum perfume, and a decidedly offhand manner completed the outfit. Dominic, realizing at once what she was up to, took enormous pleasure in outdoing her in every department. His own creased black sweatshirt and torn denims were genuinely old, he wore no makeup, and as far as offhandedness was concerned, he was unbeatable.

  But verbal sparring could only pass the time for so long. After a couple of drinks in a tiny, candlelit wine bar in the center of Bath, Dominic managed to break through Holly’s mile-high defenses long enough to discover—to his amazement—that she enjoyed listening to live jazz.

  He was even more astounded, three hours later, to find out that she could not only dance rather well, but that she possessed more stamina than the All Blacks. With her red-gold hair flying, her cheeks flushed, and her hips swaying, she monopolized the dance floor, exchanged good-natured banter with the band, and danced a succession of partners into the ground.

  And since all that exercise in such a hot, smoky cellar made her incredibly thirsty, she also had a great deal to drink. “Pizza,” she said finally, collapsing beside him and finishing off his pint of lager. “I must have pizza. There’s a great restaurant just around the corner from here.”

  “Good,” replied Dominic. “God knows how I’m going to get home tonight, because you certainly can’t drive. You’re drunk.”

  “I’m enjoying myself,” said Holly, sounding surprised. “And I was so sure I wouldn’t. Isn’t life strange?”

  “Bizarre,” agreed Dominic, keeping a straight face and deciding that Holly wasn’t so awful, after all. “But I still don’t know how I’ll get home.”

  She gestured airily with his empty glass. “No problem, you can stay with me. My apartment’s not far from here.” Then she grinned and gave him a nudge that nearly sent him flying. “But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m talking about a bed for the night, nothing steamy.”

  “My sentiments entirely,” agreed Dominic, profoundly relieved. Taking her arm, he pulled her to her feet. “Now, pizza. If you don’t eat something soon you’ll be out cold.”

  • • •

  Dominic had never thought of Holly as attractive, however he was prepared to admit that there was something about her that would undoubtedly appeal to other men.

  And now that they were back at her apartment and he had consumed the best part of a bottle of Barolo, he was also able to concede that she really wasn’t looking bad at all. That pale-green shirt suited her, and the fact that another button had just popped undone only added to its appeal. A lifelong devotee of slender women with small breasts and narrow hips, Dominic wondered what it would be like to make love to someone like Holly, all extravagant curves and pillow-softness.

  “What?” she demanded, reaching past him for a second slice of margherita pizza.

  Dominic smiled. “I was wondering what you…felt like.”

  Holly was feeling deliciously reckless. She’d had enough of being ignored by Max, she badly needed an ego boost, and she wasn’t so drunk that she hadn’t realized what was going on in Dominic’s mind. Maybe a one-night stand was just what she needed, after all.

  Dropping the pizza back down into its box, she stretched out across the settee and returned his smile.

  “I think,” she said slowly, “I feel like another glass of wine.”

  “You’ll regret it in the morning.” Dominic refilled her glass anyway, brushing his fingers against the inside of her wrist as he handed it to her. The pale skin was silky, deliciously warm, and apricot-scented.

  Max didn’t appear to want her, not at the moment anyway. Holly, who was lonely and who craved affection, set aside the glass and leaned forward, reaching out to touch Dominic’s own brown hand. As she watched their fingers curl together, she said softly, carefully, “Don’t worry, I never regret anything in the morning.”

  • • •

  “No, I sold it last week.” Ross, speaking on the phone, didn’t even acknowledge Grace’s timid sideways entrance into his office. Out of sheer habit, he swiveled around in his chair in order to gaze at Tessa’s painting and instead encountered bare wall. Frowning, he swiveled back again. “Well, they saw it, liked it, and made me an offer that only a madman would refuse. I hadn’t planned on selling it, but a profit’s a profit, after all.”

  He transferred his frown to Grace, who was taking an extraordinary length of time to clear away two empty coffee cups. Harry Bradford, who had set his heart on buying Ross’s boat, was still expressing his disappointment and trying hard to find out exactly how much Ross had sold it for. Ross, enjoying himself, neatly evaded him at every turn.

  “Sentimental value? Of course it had sentimental value,” he exclaimed, leaning back and pushing his fingers through his gleaming dark hair. “But we are businessmen, Harry. You know how it is…”

  • • •

  “I didn’t realize that Mr. Monahan had sold your painting,” said Grace when she took Tessa’s evening meal up to her an hour later.

  Tessa, startled, said, “Neither did I. Are you sure about that?”

  “I heard him talking on the phone. He said he’d sold it last week because someone had made him a
n offer he couldn’t refuse,” relayed Grace, who had wondered at the time why the picture—which she liked a lot—had vanished from the office. Wearing an indignant expression, she added, “He also said that it had sentimental value but that he was a businessman and money came first. I thought he would have told you, though.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to hurt my feelings,” said Tessa, recalling the string of garbled excuses he had come up with and trying hard not to feel hurt. It was Ross’s painting and—as she had so impatiently told him at the time—he could do whatever he liked with it. She was disappointed, nevertheless, that the prospect of making a quick profit had meant more to him than the pleasure of owning a piece of work that he had, after all, commissioned for himself in the first place. It was yet another ill-timed, jolting reminder of the vast differences between them.

  “Well, I think it was a rotten thing to do,” declared Grace self-righteously.

  So do I, thought Tessa. But I’m damned if I’ll let Ross realize quite how much it bothers me.

  • • •

  “You’ll have to stop talking for a few minutes now,” she said, flexing and unflexing her right hand and easing herself into a more comfortable position. “I’m concentrating on your mouth.”

  Nico’s dark-green eyes narrowed with amusement. “In that case,” he countered, “I shall concentrate on your legs.”

  “I wouldn’t bother.” Tessa pulled a wry face. “They’re not a pretty sight. Honestly, I didn’t know it was possible to get so fat.”

  Nico grinned. “You’ll shrink back afterward. And I like looking at pregnant women, anyway. What are you now, seven months?”

  She nodded, working to capture that famous half smile. Ross had been right; any worries she might have had about painting Nico Coletto had been banished within minutes of their first meeting. His easy charm and complete lack of show-business egotism had disarmed her totally. He was funny, thoughtful, wonderfully easy to talk to, and quite clearly devoted to his wife and family.