by Jill Mansell
“Camilla was huge at seven months,” he added reassuringly. “She looked gorgeous, but she kept saying she felt like an elephant seal. I could only take photos of her if she didn’t know it was happening.”
Instead of reminding Nico that he was supposed to be keeping quiet, Tessa said curiously, “Were you there with her when she was actually having the baby?”
“Of course I was.” Nico looked surprised. “I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. And it was absolutely fantastic,” he went on with genuine enthusiasm. “I couldn’t believe it was really happening… One minute, there was this vast lump inside Cami’s stomach, and moments later, they were putting a real live baby, our own daughter, into my arms.”
Tessa paused, her paintbrush in midair. “It sounds nice.”
“Sweetheart, it’s miraculous. You just wait until it’s your turn.”
“The trouble is,” she admitted with reluctance, “Ross wants to be there, and I’d rather do it on my own.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” declared Nico flatly. “You just think he’ll find it a turnoff. Camilla’s first husband wasn’t with her when she had their two children, but I insisted on being there when Katrina was born…and in the end she was glad I was. Look,” he went on eagerly, “we can phone her now if you like; you can speak to her and she’ll tell you how she felt about it.”
“No, no,” protested Tessa, knowing when she was beaten. “I’ll take your word for it. And now,” she added with renewed determination, “you really do have to shut up for five minutes, otherwise we’ll be here until midnight.”
• • •
When Tessa had moved back home a week earlier, no longer sentenced to bed rest and anxious to see what kind of a tip Dominic had made of the cottage, Ross had made no secret of his disapproval.
But since he wasn’t able to change her mind—she was still as infuriatingly obstinate as ever—he was forced to do the next best thing and keep as close an eye on her as possible without letting her realize that he was doing so.
“Look out,” said Tessa, glancing through the kitchen window and checking her watch. “Quick, cover up that escape hatch and hide the shovels. Herr Kommandant’s making his evening patrol.”
“And bringing us a Red Cross parcel,” observed Dominic, coming up behind her. “Great, I hope it’s smoked salmon again.”
“Hi.” Ross, entering the cottage, dropped a casual kiss on Tessa’s temple and managed to ignore Dominic completely. “Just thought I’d pop over and see how you were doing. How did it go with Nico?”
“Fine.” Tessa smiled. At least Ross hadn’t insisted on staying with her throughout the sitting, as he had initially threatened to do. “I liked him. I felt awful about not being able to travel up to London, but he said it wasn’t a problem at all. He’s working on an album with some musician friend who has a recording studio near here, apparently, and he’s going to fit the next couple of sittings in with that.”
Despite their differences, Ross and Dominic exchanged a brief, despairing glance. Only Tessa, surely, could call Peter Gabriel “some musician friend” without even realizing who he was.
“Well, let’s see how it’s going,” said Ross, turning toward the easel set up in front of the living room window. “Jesus, Tess! You can’t do that to him. Nico will flip his lid when he sees this!”
Tessa looked worried. “It’s only an initial impression,” she protested. “I always rough out the first sketch in brown. But don’t you think it’s like him?”
Dominic, who had executed in less than ten minutes the bizarre, barely recognizable caricature of Nico, had to turn away in order to hide his smile. Tessa, looking absolutely distraught now—there were even real tears glistening in her emerald eyes—clung on to Ross’s arm and glanced up at him for reassurance.
“You like it really, don’t you?”
“No, I bloody well don’t!” he declared flatly. He was, after all, the one who had bulldozed Nico into having his portrait painted by Tessa. And not for peanuts either. “It looks like a cartoon drawn by a retarded monkey.”
“It’s neo-impressionistic abstract Dadaism,” said Tessa in a small voice. “It’s adventurous.”
“Tess, it’s fucking awful,” said Ross urgently. “Look, you have to ditch this and start again, right away. Nico needn’t even know. He hasn’t seen this yet, has he?”
She shook her head, a single tear trickling down her cheek. “He wanted to wait until it was finished.”
“Thank God for that.”
“So you don’t like it,” she murmured huskily. “But you’ve told me a dozen times that you don’t understand modern art. Who knows, maybe Nico will absolutely love it.”
“Trust me,” he replied, his tone grim. “He’ll hate it.”
Tessa shrugged. “In that case, he could always sell it.”
But Ross didn’t bite. Pushing his fingers distractedly through his hair, he said, “I don’t believe this. For heaven’s sake, Tess, tell me you aren’t serious.”
“OK,” said Tessa, winking at him. “I’m not serious.”
He stared at her. “You’re joking!”
“Oh no,” she said with a slight smile, “I’m quite serious about not being serious.”
Chapter 27
A fortnight and two further sittings later, Tessa finally completed the portrait. She spent the next week lazing in the garden, turning a pleasing shade of golden brown, and praying that the paint would be dry by Saturday.
After several days of torrential rain the previous week, the weather had improved dramatically. Now, on the first of June, a brilliant sun hung in a cloudless, cobalt-blue sky, and Tessa’s sunglasses, slippery with tanning lotion, kept sliding down her nose. Her huge stomach was very brown indeed, but since she was unable to lie on her front her back was several shades paler. Dominic, who didn’t have this problem, had fallen asleep with his face buried in a cushion, unaware that Tessa had cut the Batman logo out of newspaper and placed it carefully between his shoulder blades.
It was hot. Sighing with lazy pleasure, she closed her eyes and contemplated Saturday’s party. Nico, Camilla, and their four children, together with Nico’s two glamorous sisters and their own large families, were descending upon The Grange in order to celebrate Camilla’s birthday. Nico had insisted that Ross and Tessa should join them, and she knew that he and Ross between them had organized a small amount of press publicity prior to the party in order to promote her own work. It was all very exciting, not to mention nerve-racking. She didn’t have a clue how she would react when she found herself face-to-face with real-live journalists.
A moment later her mobile rang. Tessa, still not used to it, leaped a mile and cursed the day that Ross had bought it for her. Apart from never having been able to afford the luxury of a telephone, she had always enjoyed the sense of being incommunicado, but Ross had insisted that she have one as a condition of her release from the hotel.
“You’re pregnant, for heaven’s sake,” he had told her, as if she hadn’t noticed. “You can’t live in solitary confinement.”
“I’ve got Dominic,” she had retaliated, and Ross had given her a look that said it all.
“And I’ve got an appendix,” he had replied in withering tones. “But that doesn’t mean it’s of any use to me.”
Finding the phone at last, buried beneath the Daily Mail and an empty Snickers wrapper, she punched the button and said, “Hello, Ross.”
“I could have been anybody,” he told her reprovingly.
“But you and Holly are the only people who know I have a phone,” she said, lying back in her deck chair and surveying the garden. It was badly in need of attention but, as with her uneven tan, there was little she could do about it at present.
“I could have been Holly,” he remarked, adding, “God forbid.”
“I’ll tell her you said so.”
“Actually I have something to tell you.” His tone altered abruptly, became serious. “Tess, I’m afraid it’s disappointing news.”
“Disappointing news?” she echoed, unable to imagine what it might be. “Ross, tell me.”
“I’ve just heard from Nico. He asked me if you’d mind very much if he didn’t buy the painting after all.”
Tessa’s mouth went dry. “What? Why, what’s wrong with it?”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know it’s a bit of a blow. He didn’t like to say anything at the time, but he really feels that it makes him look too old.”
“He doesn’t want it?” She stared helplessly at the crumpled, discarded copy of the Daily Mail. Her horoscope had warned her to prepare herself for a disappointment, but she didn’t believe in horoscopes. “What about Saturday?”
“All off, I’m afraid.” The note of sympathy in Ross’s voice was clearly evident. “Well, they’re still holding the party here at The Grange, and he says we’re still welcome to join them, but I’ve told him to stick his lousy invitation. And I’ve canceled the photographers, of course.”
“Oh, Ross, this is awful,” said Tessa shakily. “I really thought he liked the portrait.”
“Sweetheart, you know what these rock stars are like,” he said consolingly. “They just don’t have any appreciation of real talent. When he told me that his nine-year-old son could have painted a better likeness, I realized that he had absolutely no idea of—”
“He said that?” she shrieked, ripping off her sunglasses and hurling them into the nearest flower bed. “You’re kidding!”
“Yes,” said Ross happily. “I am.”
• • •
“It’s wonderful!” exclaimed Camilla, seeing her husband’s portrait for the first time. “Tessa, how can you paint like that? You’ve caught his personality exactly.”
“I know.” Nico, putting his arm around his wife’s slender waist, winked at Tessa. “I’m an ugly son of a bitch, aren’t I?”
Camilla, accustomed to his sense of humor, ignored him. “And that smile,” she enthused, moving closer. “Darling, it’s so like you!”
“You don’t think it makes me look old?” he asked, managing to keep a straight face for an entire second. Then, with a sideways glance at Tessa, he burst out laughing. “Sorry, Tess. Ross told me everything. I still can’t believe that you really fell for it, though. You already knew how great I thought the portrait was.”
“I suppose it was a combination of my fragile ego and the thought that you were just being polite,” said Tessa with a rueful grin. “Finishing a painting is a bit like having a baby; you don’t want anyone to tell you it’s ugly.”
“And speaking of ugly babies,” said Nico cheerfully as Ross approached them with Katrina in his arms. “Give me back my daughter, Monahan. Trini, come and give your daddy an enormous kiss.”
“Daddy!” Katrina beamed, flinging a chubby brown arm around Ross’s neck.
“Trini, shh!” remonstrated Nico. “There are reporters present. Ross isn’t your daddy, I am.”
“I’m just grateful that she looks like Nico,” Camilla told Tessa, as Nico swept his beautiful daughter into the air. “She’s dreadfully indiscriminate. As far as she’s concerned, every man she sees is Daddy, and the effect can be electrifying.”
“She certainly gave Rod Stewart a scare last week,” recalled Nico with a broad grin. “Hey, Trini! What do you think of this then? Who is it?” Swinging her around, he pointed her in the direction of the portrait. Katrina’s huge green eyes focused with interest upon the likeness, and a moment later she let out a shriek of delighted recognition.
“Who is it, Trini?” prompted Nico proudly.
“Mummy!”
• • •
Tessa was grateful to Nico for his reassuring presence at her side while she underwent the ordeal of answering questions from the three journalists chosen to interview her. With his easy camaraderie and expertise, he helped her to relax as they posed in front of the portrait for photographs. As far as he was concerned, of course, it was just another brief encounter with the press, thought Tessa, admiring his effortless repartee and wishing that her pulse would slow down to something approaching its normal rate. But it was her first real experience in this field, and she was only too aware that they were far more interested in her unborn child than in the portrait.
The air in the library was cool, however, which helped. Through the long windows she could see the rest of the party beginning without them, thirty or forty of Nico’s friends and relatives enjoying themselves outside on the sunbaked, flower-strewn terrace. She wished she could join them.
“So the baby’s due in five weeks, Tessa,” said the journalist from the Express, her smile conspiratorial. “Tell me, do you and Ross have any marriage plans lined up?”
“Sadie, please,” intercepted Nico, before Tessa could even formulate a reply. “We’re here to promote Tessa’s career. She’s a marvelously talented artist; isn’t that enough for you?”
“Marrying Ross Monahan could be construed as a marvelous career move,” parried Sadie Labelle, directing a coquettish smile in Nico’s direction. “Not to mention a pretty desirable proposition in its own right. Many have tried before now, after all.” Extending her smile to include Tessa, she added, “And I must say, I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to him myself.”
“Ross would never tangle with an old dog like you,” said Nico cheerfully. “There are limits, Sadie.”
Sadie arched pale, elegantly plucked eyebrows in Tessa’s direction. “Ignore him, dear. Nico’s sense of humor is bizarre to say the least. Why don’t you tell me what your immediate plans are?”
Tessa, straight-faced, said, “Well, I’m going to have a baby.”
“And will you and Ross marry, or is he happy to father an illegitimate child?”
Sadie Labelle was famous for her hard-hitting personality pieces and acerbic manner. Her controversial method of questioning frequently resulted in lost tempers and heat-of-the-moment indiscretions. Tessa smiled, forcing herself to relax.
“He’s happy to father a child,” she replied sweetly. “Neither of us wants to get married just for the sake of it.”
“So you didn’t plan this with the deliberate intention of trapping him into marriage?”
Tessa, refusing to bite, shook her head. “I didn’t plan anything. I never do.”
“But a child needs security,” persisted Sadie. “Without Ross, your situation would be difficult to say the least, whereas if you were married to him you could have everything you’ve ever wanted. Or could it just be that Ross hasn’t asked you to marry him?” she concluded archly.
“It could be,” said Tessa, her own expression thoughtful. “But on the other hand, it could also be due to the fact that I’m already married.”
• • •
“Why didn’t you just tell them that we were getting married?” asked Ross an hour later, his eyes shielded behind dark glasses but his tone truculent. Sadie Labelle wasn’t going to take too kindly to the fact that Tessa had lied to her. Besides, he didn’t want people to start wondering whether there might not be some deep, dark reason why Tessa chose not to be his wife.
“Don’t nag, Ross. She annoyed me, that’s all.” Tessa stretched out in the white, wrought-iron chair and shook back her hair. “She wasn’t the least bit interested when I was talking about my work. At least the others bothered to listen…just. And Nico thought it was funny, anyway.”
“Nico can afford to think it’s funny,” he replied grimly. “But you may have blown a great chance. Sadie Labelle can be a bitch, Tess.”
“Don’t worry,” said Tessa, kicking off her flat, pale-pink shoes and grinning at him. “So can I.”
Chapter 28
When Ross turned up at the cottage two days later, he was less than amused to discover Tessa, wearing
only a sunflower-yellow bikini, submitting with a smile on her face to a dubious-looking back massage from Dominic.
“If I were you,” he said, his tone dangerously cool, “I’d leave her alone.”
“If you’d left her alone in the first place,” replied Dominic equally smoothly, “she wouldn’t have a backache now.”
Tessa sighed. Her back really was hurting, and the last thing she needed at this moment was a battle of wills between two men who didn’t trust each other an inch.
Ross threw his jacket over the nearest chair and dropped his car keys onto the coffee table. “I’ve come here to speak to Tessa. Alone.”
“Suits me,” said Dominic with a careless shrug. “I was just leaving anyway.”
“He should have left weeks ago,” stormed Ross ten minutes later as he watched Dominic saunter down the lane. “That’s something else we have to have a serious talk about.”
He didn’t doubt for a moment that he was right to distrust Dominic. Tessa had always been ludicrously unaware of her own desirability. As her pregnancy had advanced, she had made constant fun of her figure; to hear her talk one would imagine her to be grotesquely overweight.
But she was not. She still carried herself with uncontrived elegance, her long legs were as slender as ever, and the recently acquired tan only served to accentuate the dazzling color of her eyes. Her sun-kissed blond hair, freshly washed and rippling past her brown shoulders, smelled of shampoo, and her once small breasts, having miraculously blossomed with pregnancy so that they spilled over the top of the flimsy yellow bikini, were equally tanned.
In fact, thought Ross with a fresh surge of jealousy, the tan was far too allover for his liking. Having long ago recognized certain inescapable similarities between Dominic Taylor’s character and his own, he was only too well aware of the dangers that entailed. Tessa might not realize how delectable she was looking, but Dominic was another matter altogether.
It was definitely time, Ross decided, to put his foot down.