by Jill Mansell
“Poor kid, no wonder she was so mixed up.” Ross thought for a moment, then said, “Where is she now? Has she managed to find herself another job yet?”
“I don’t know. She disappeared last week.” Her expression strained, Mattie added, “She left me a letter saying that she was going down to the south coast to look for work, and I haven’t heard from her since.”
“When she does contact you,” said Ross carefully, “will you tell her that you’ve been to see me, and that everything is…all right?”
Mattie, sensing the change of tone, gave him a sharp, intuitive look. “When did you say Grace came to see you?”
Unable to help himself, Ross smiled. He liked this proud, brave, uncomplaining woman. She reminded him in a way of Tessa.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said reassuringly. “That’s between Grace and myself. But do please tell her that I understand. And that I am sorry. I’m afraid I haven’t treated her terribly well in the past, but now that we all know where we stand, maybe we can sort something out.”
Gazing at his immobile limbs covered with a thin, white sheet, Mattie pondered the vagaries of time. Having spent years remembering the perfection of that body, it had taken falling in love with Richard to make her realize how inessential physical perfection actually was.
Before tears had a chance to blur her eyes, she returned his smile. “Of course. And I hope that you will be standing again, soon.”
“Don’t worry,” said Ross, wondering whether the faint tingling sensation in his fingers was actually real or a figment of his imagination. “I will. I’m on a promise.”
Chapter 53
“Holly? It’s Max.”
“Yes?” said Holly with extreme caution. Her heart still somersaulted at the unexpected sound of his voice, but she had, over the past couple of months, finally managed to bring some measure of control into play. Eternal optimism was painful, as she had learned to her cost. Now, at last, she was beginning to face up to the fact that the much longed-for love affair simply wasn’t going to happen.
“Well,” said Max, sounding faintly put out by her lack of enthusiasm, “I wondered if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight.”
“Fine,” she replied, picking up the remote control and flipping from channel to channel. Great, a Tom Cruise film was just starting.
“Right then. I’ll…er…pick you up in an hour, shall I?”
“OK,” said Holly and replaced the receiver. Then she stuck her bare feet up on the settee and settled down to watch the film.
Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis were just about to give in to torrid, mutual temptation fifty-five minutes later when the doorbell rang.
“For heaven’s sake,” said Max, when she opened the front door. “What’s going on?”
Holly, her red-gold curls tumbling around her shoulders, was wearing old jeans, a falling-to-pieces Miami Dolphins sweatshirt, and absolutely no makeup whatsoever.
“Well, Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis have just gone back to her place and now they’re—”
“I’m talking about you,” he interrupted. “Are you ill? I’ve booked a table at Zizi’s, and you aren’t even ready.”
“I didn’t think you’d turn up,” said Holly simply, standing her ground and beginning to enjoy herself. For the first time, the very first time in her life, she was redressing the balance. And it felt wonderful.
“But I said I would, didn’t I?” demanded Max with a mixture of bewilderment and frustration. Then he remembered, and finally realized what this was all about. “Ah, I’m with you now. You’re paying me back for the night I stood you up.”
Far more than that, thought Holly, but didn’t say it. Instead, she just nodded.
“And is revenge as sweet as they say it is?”
“Oh yes.”
Max smiled. “Well, that’s something, I suppose. Look, do you think I could come in, or was slamming the door in my face what you’d really set your heart on?”
While she watched the rest of the film, he canceled the table at Zizi’s, phoned for carryout pizzas, and made a quick trip out to the nearest liquor store. Holly, having manfully resisted the urge to slap on lipstick and mascara and screw an amber-tinted lightbulb into her bedside lamp while he was out of the apartment, forced herself instead to remain glued to the sofa. She had absolutely no idea why Max was here, but this time, this time, she had no intention of allowing him to make a fool of her.
“How’s Ross today?” she asked when Max had returned with two bottles of Chianti Classico. The pizzas, huge and garlicky and spilling over the sides of the plates, were sheer heaven. Not even caring what Max might think, she undid the top button of her Levi’s and reached across for another slice.
“Doing brilliantly. The physiotherapists are exhausted. Apparently he’s recovering faster than any of the doctors believed possible. It’s only been five weeks, and already he’s regained seventy-five percent muscle strength.”
“Poor old Tessa,” said Holly with a smile. Ross had cheerfully related the story of the promised sexual marathon to all and sundry; it had become a standing joke among his regular visitors.
“Lucky Ross,” mused Max, and laughed at the outraged expression on her face. “OK, OK, don’t glare at me like that. It was a joke. And I couldn’t seduce her even if I did want to—she’s too much in love with my brother.”
“Remember how you used to hate her?” Holly said idly as she sipped her wine.
“I didn’t hate her; I just didn’t trust her.”
“Hmm. Like I don’t trust Antonia. Did she turn up at the hospital again today?”
It was a double-edged sword, dug slyly in just beneath the ribs. Faced with Tessa’s almost constant presence at Ross’s bedside, Antonia had begun to turn her less-than-subtle attentions toward Max. Since Richard’s funeral she had returned to live at home, but, seemingly unable to tolerate her own company, still visited The Grange—and Max—on an almost daily basis. Everyone felt sorry for her of course, but public grief mingled with shamelessly flirtatious behavior wasn’t easy to cope with. Max, having taken over the running of the hotel in Ross’s absence, had taken to closeting himself in the office whenever her car screeched up the graveled driveway. Ross had been known to request physiotherapy in order to get her out of his room.
Tessa, trying to be philosophical about the situation, found Antonia’s attitude difficult to deal with; as far as Antonia was concerned, Tessa simply didn’t exist.
“Hmm?” said Max, whose attention had been elsewhere. Quite suddenly, he found himself wondering why he had always treated Holly so offhandedly in the past. Chic and sophisticated she was not, but she undoubtedly had her good points, and over the last few weeks, seeing the way in which she had worked so hard to maintain morale both at The Grange and at the hospital, he had come to realize that there was a lot more to Holly King than met the eye. Furthermore, as he had noticed before, the less she tried to alter her appearance with that bloody awful circus makeup she was so fond of, the better she looked.
“Antonia,” repeated Holly, realizing that she was in danger of losing her composure. Why did Max keep looking at her like that? It was unnerving. More than that—it was unfair.
“She was there,” he said dismissively. “But I don’t see why we should spoil our evening talking about the weeping widow. Look, I’ve been invited up to Goodwood the weekend after next. Crazy Daisy isn’t racing, but it should be a good day out… How would you like to come up with me?” Then, seeing the expression of sheer misery on Holly’s face, he pulled a mock-miserable face in return. “On the other hand, maybe you wouldn’t like it at all.”
Holly, never one to beat about the bush, couldn’t help herself. She had been doing so well, had thought that she was almost immune by now, and here was Max turning on the full force of his charm. She was confused. This was more than unfair—it was downright cruel.
“All of a sudden you’re being nice,” she said bluntly. “I don’t know why you’re doing it, and it’s making me nervous. Why are you being so nice to me now, when you never have before?”
Max’s smile was rueful. “I know, my track record in that department isn’t great. But I do like you, Holly. I suppose I’m just wary of committing myself to someone who might demand more of me than I’m prepared to give.”
“Who said I wanted commitment?” demanded Holly, crossing her fingers beneath the table to counteract the awful lie.
“Nobody said it,” he replied with a shrug. “It’s just the way my mind works. I’m a suspicious bastard, I suppose.”
Her gray eyes sparking with righteous indignation, she said sharply, “Well, you were wrong. I thought we could maybe have had fun, that was all.” The crossed fingers, hidden from sight, tightened. “Settling down with one man isn’t my style at all, I can assure you.”
When Max, still smiling, leaned forward and took her hand, turning the palm upward and dropping a kiss into its center, she knew that she was back on the slippery slope once more. She couldn’t resist him. Maybe, she thought helplessly, this would get him out of her system. On the other hand, maybe she could change Max’s suspicious mind, make him realize that settling down with the right woman wasn’t such a terrible fate after all…
“In that case, I’m sorry,” he said, leaning closer still. His mouth was now only inches from her own, and the tone of his voice, together with the scent of that aftershave, was invading her senses like a drug.
Totally addicted, Holly surrendered herself to his kiss. When she finally drew back, giddy with pleasure, Max murmured, “Since you aren’t drunk this time, may I assume that you won’t be falling asleep within the next hour or two?”
She shook her head, coloring slightly at the memory of that awful night.
“Good. And now that we understand each other—no promises, no ties—I want you to know that I would like, very much, to make love to you.”
A faint sound, a cross between a sob and a sigh, escaped Holly’s lips. Drawing her into his arms, he said slowly, “Was that a yes or a no?”
It was, she thought, like an entire lifetime of birthdays rolled into one. Running her fingers tentatively along the line of his collarbone, admiring the exquisite musculature of his shoulders beneath the blue-and-white-striped shirt, she knew that this was what she had been waiting for, this was her fantasy come true.
“Yes,” she whispered, but by the time she finally managed to say it the slow, melting, magical seduction had already begun.
Chapter 54
“I still can’t believe that you’ve done this much,” said Ross, standing back and studying the canvases, some of which were framed and hanging on the walls while others lay stacked in a corner of the small sitting room. Once again he was struck by her incredible range of style; moody, muted watercolors here, tropical, carnival-bright oils there, clever pen-and-ink sketches vying with classical, architectural studies of noted buildings that, in turn, competed earnestly for attention with those quirky, comical crowd scenes at which she excelled. “These are seriously good, Tess. I mean it.”
“Thank you,” she said, hugging Olivia and struggling to keep a straight face.
Ross, leaning on the ebony walking stick that seemed so at odds with his otherwise faultlessly healthy appearance, moved slowly toward one of the smaller paintings and studied it in detail for several seconds. Then, with that expression on his face that she had come to know so well, he turned back to face her and said, “We really are going to have to get something organized now. You need your own exhibition.”
“Do I?” said Tessa, thankful that Holly wasn’t here. She would have been rolling on the floor by now.
“Of course you do!” Encompassing all four walls with a sweeping, expansive gesture, he went on, “You must have over a hundred paintings here. Look, let me talk to some people, get them interested, and then we can start looking at possible venues. I’ll phone Marcus Devenish. He’s—”
“Actually,” she said, interrupting him in midflow, “there’s an exhibition I’d really like to see in a fortnight’s time, at the Devenish Gallery. Maybe we could both go along to that, and you could speak to him then.”
“Why wait? We could go today. God, you don’t know how glad I am to be out of that hospital at last… I just want to get on and do things…”
Tessa had to turn toward the window this time in order to hide her smile. Outside, a gunmetal-gray October sky hung heavily over frost-encrusted hills. While Ross had been lying in the hospital, a gaudy autumn had been usurped by the onset of winter, arriving unusually early this year. And while he had been out of action, she had been the one who had been getting on and doing things. Shifting Olivia’s squirming body over to the other hip, she bent down and retrieved a leaflet from her bag. Deadpan, she handed it to him. “This is the exhibition I want to see. It sounds interesting.”
“I hope it’s not one of those bloody modern abstract things,” grumbled Ross, taking it from her. “If you think I’m going to waste my time looking at a load of colored squares—”
Then he halted abruptly. Tessa, still unable to look, braced herself.
“Is this real?” he said at last, and she turned to face him.
“Yes.”
“Who organized it?”
“I did.”
“An exhibition of work by Tessa Duvall,” he read aloud. Then he glared at her. “Are you sure this isn’t another of your jokes?”
“Oh, quite sure.”
“But you didn’t even ask me to help you.”
“I thought,” she replied carefully, “that it was about time I helped myself. It proved to me that I really was worthy of an exhibition. I suppose I needed to know,” she explained with a shrug, “that I was being given one on my own merit and not simply because you’d called in a favor from a friend.”
He glanced once more at the clever, classily designed leaflet in his hand, then transferred his gaze to the clever, classy girl standing before him. At last, at last, he thought with a mixture of pride and relief, she was truly beginning to believe in her own talent.
“Does this mean you’re going to become celebrated, rich, and famous?”
“There is that chance,” she replied with a touch of amusement. “In that case,” said Ross, countering with a wicked smile of his own, “maybe we should be celebrating. In time-honored fashion.”
“What a good idea,” Tessa replied cheerfully. “Will you put the kettle on, or shall I?”
Not that kind of time-honored fashion. Moving toward her, giving her the full benefit of his beguiling dark gaze, he slid his free arm around her waist and murmured, “This kind of time-honored fashion.”
It was a tempting proposition—too tempting—but someone had to exert a little self-control. She knew Ross well enough to realize that the kind of celebrating he had in mind wasn’t going to fall under the heading of what the physiotherapists termed “gentle exercise.”
Sidestepping neatly out of reach, she said, “You aren’t well enough yet.”
“Bet you I am.”
Tessa shook her head, refusing to rise to the challenge. “Really, Ross,” she said, her soothing tones masking genuine regret. “It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Is this fair?” he demanded, eyebrows raised in good-natured despair. Feeling sorry for him, and also for herself, she patted his arm.
“You aren’t back in full working order just yet,” she reminded him. Those had been the terms under which he had extracted her unsuspecting “promise,” after all. “Give it another couple of weeks. Meanwhile, exercise a bit of patience.”
“I thought you were the one,” Ross countered ruefully, “who was going to exercise the patient.”
• • •
“I’m just not cut out for this kind of thi
ng,” cried Holly, slamming the car door and jamming her keys into the lock. “I thought I could do it. I thought it would be terrific…but I feel worse than I did before, and it’s all so depressing that I don’t even know anymore why I carry on.”
“Last week you told me that everything was terrific,” Tessa pointed out reasonably.
“That was last week. This week he seems to have forgotten that I even exist. Right now,” concluded Holly, the epitome of gloom, “I feel like an out-of-work hooker.”
A bowler-hatted passerby, overhearing her declaration, gave her an interested sideways glance. Holly glared at him.
“You have to admit, though,” said Tessa, flinging the ends of her white scarf over her shoulders and digging her hands into her jacket pockets, “that he hasn’t actually been seeing you under false pretenses. He did warn you what to expect.”
“Of course he did,” admitted Holly crossly. “That’s what makes it so much harder to bear. We’re just good friends who see each other occasionally, enjoy each other’s company, and have great sex. No ties, no strings, no commitments.”
“And?”
“And those times are so great that they make all the other times—when I don’t see him—that much more depressing. I’m just not a casual person, Tess. Pretending that this stupid kind of relationship is what I want is seriously beginning to get to me.”
“Then finish it,” said Tessa, safe in the knowledge that such a suggestion would produce an instantaneous protest. Holly would wail: But I can’t, I can’t possibly do that. I love him!
The expected reaction, however, didn’t materialize. With a miserable shrug, Holly replied in subdued tones, “I know. I think that’s what I’m going to have to do.”
As they rounded the corner, the Marcus Devenish Gallery came into view. Occupying a prime position on one of Bath’s most elegant streets, its long windows glittered beneath their burgundy-and-white awnings. The paintings currently on show there were cleverly displayed, inviting closer inspection. By tomorrow afternoon, thought Tessa with a roller-coaster surge of pride, her own one-woman exhibition would have taken over the entire gallery. It was something of which she had always dreamt. And now at last the dream was about to come true.