by Susan Lewis
Laughing, Rhiannon said, ‘Does Sharon know that’s what you call her?’ she said.
‘I expect so,’ Lizzy answered. ‘Did you see her on the Late Show last night, by the way? She was hysterical.’
‘Wasn’t she?’ Rhiannon chuckled, frowning as she tried to recognize the name on the envelope she’d just sealed. ‘And guess what, she’s in Hello next week, chezelle at her new warehouse in Wapping. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that warehouses were a bit passé these days, she’s so proud of it.’
Lizzy was laughing. ‘And what about you? What features are they running on you?’
‘Nothing on me,’ Rhiannon answered. ‘I’ve turned it all down.’
‘But you’re your own best publicity,’ Lizzy protested.
‘I’ve seen enough of myself in the papers for one lifetime,’ Rhiannon responded. ‘You weren’t here six months ago when it was all going on. It was hell, let me tell you, and I have no desire to court that sort of attention again.’
‘It’s hardly the same,’ Lizzy objected. ‘This is the launch of a new programme – that was . . .’ She screwed up her nose. ‘What would you call that?’ she said.
‘As near as you can get to an accusation of murder without it actually being one,’ Rhiannon provided, glancing up as an explosion of laughter erupted in the researcher’s office outside. ‘Plus harassment in its grossest form. No, I’ll consider doing a couple of interviews on the night, but other than that, my doors are very firmly closed.’
Lizzy sucked in her bottom lip and looked as though she was going to say more, but instead leaned over to check on Nick. ‘What about Max?’ she said casually. ‘Are you going to invite him to the launch?’
Despite the way Rhiannon’s heart fluttered she laughed. ‘Are you kidding?’ she said. ‘I mean I’d love to, but he’d never come to something like that, not with all those journos around.’
‘Have you asked him?’
‘No, of course I haven’t.’
Their eyes met across the leather-topped desk and knowing exactly what was going on in Lizzy’s mind, Rhiannon said, ‘This isn’t something you can push, Lizzy. Marina’s got to come first and . . .’
‘I’m not suggesting you push it,’ Lizzy interrupted. ‘I’m just suggesting you invite him. That’s all.’
Rhiannon sighed and pursing her lips, started to shake her head. ‘If I could, I would,’ she said. ‘But he hasn’t called me in over two weeks.’ She looked at Lizzy, knowing that to no one else in the world would she show how worried she was about that.
‘Have you tried calling him?’ Lizzy said.
‘Of course I have. He’s never there and he hasn’t returned any of my messages either.’
Lizzy frowned as she thought. ‘How are things going with Marina?’ she asked. ‘Does he ever talk about it?’
Rhiannon nodded. ‘Yes, we talk about it quite a bit and I’d say from what he tells me that she’s coming along just fine. She talks quite openly with the counsellors about what happened now, she doesn’t appear to be blocking anything, but she still gets upset and afraid and the visit to the house in New York, you know, where it all happened, was pretty traumatic from what he told me.’
‘I should think it was,’ Lizzy commented. ‘When did that happen?’
‘A couple of months ago. Max was really nervous about it. Right up to the last minute he was going to call it off, but then, I don’t know, something must have persuaded him it was the right thing to do, so they went. She was OK while they were there, he said, it was after that it really seemed to hit her.’
Lizzy inhaled deeply. ‘I guess she has to go through it, though, in order to come out the other side. How was she the last time you spoke to him?’
‘Calmer, he said. She’d had a good report at school, which he was particularly pleased about.’
‘But no news since?’
‘Not from him. Ula says things are improving all the time – which they must be for Max to be away as much as he is.’ She shook her head. ‘I just don’t understand the silence,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’ Then closing her eyes tightly, she pressed her fingers into the sockets and said, ‘Tell me, how did I manage to fall in love with a man who lives an entire ocean and continent away, whose life is as complicated as a medieval mystery and as deeply entrenched in the United States as mine is in England? And while you’re at it, perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me how the hell we’re going to resolve it? I mean, who’s going to give up what? Or maybe we’re destined to live apart for the rest of our lives, with just the occasional telephone call and postcard to keep it all going. Or maybe he’s realized how impossible it all is and he’s working on breaking us up gently.’ She gave a short, angry laugh. ‘Breaking us up,’ she said, ‘that’s a joke when I haven’t even seen him since March.’
‘Mmm,’ Lizzy remarked. ‘Do you hear that, you little fiend?’ she said looking at her son whose wide blue eyes were staring up at her. ‘She hasn’t seen him since March. He hasn’t called her in two weeks and she thinks it’s probably all over. You’re a man, you tell us, is she drawing the right conclusion?’
In reply, Nick emitted a prize-winning burp and waved his arms about in prideful joy.
‘Just like his father,’ Lizzy commented, scooping him up and starting to unbutton her shirt.
With her chin resting on her hand Rhiannon watched as Lizzy fed a hugely distended nipple into his mouth. ‘Does it hurt?’ she said.
‘What, this?’ Lizzy said in surprise. ‘Not really.’
‘What about the birth?’
Lizzy’s eyebrows rose in a manner Rhiannon knew so well that she burst out laughing. God, how she missed those looks!
‘Was Andy there?’ she asked.
‘Was he there?’ Lizzy echoed. ‘He was on the bed with me screaming for God. Of course, it could have had something to do with the fact that I was squeezing his balls at the time. I mean, if I was going through it I didn’t see why he shouldn’t too.’
Laughing, Rhiannon watched the baby for a while longer, then leaning back in her chair, she said, ‘You know, I was just thinking the other day that if Max and I do make it, if by some miracle we manage to work out a way of being together, then how are we going to bring the children to you and Andy for holidays when Perlatonga has all the associations it has now?’
Lizzy looked at her in exasperation. ‘Rhiannon, why don’t you try worrying about traffic jams in time-travel?’ she suggested.
Rhiannon screwed up her nose in confusion.
‘Why are you giving yourself a hard time over that now,’ Lizzy said, ‘when you’ve got a whole stack of other things to sort out between you before you even get close to dealing with that?’
Rhiannon grimaced. ‘You’re right,’ she said. A few seconds ticked by. ‘Do I remember you telling me you destroyed the chalet?’ she said.
Lizzy nodded. ‘Yes, we did,’ she answered.
‘Do you still have people coming just to see where it all happened?’ Rhiannon asked.
‘Not so often now, thank God. Anyway, let’s get off this subject shall we? I want to hear about George.’
Rhiannon blinked. ‘George? My father, George?’ she responded. ‘I’m afraid Sharon’s the one you’ll have to ask about George. All I know is the bimbo’s gone, he’s sold his milk round and he’s starting back to school the week after next.’
Lizzy’s eyes rounded. ‘Are you serious?’ she laughed. ‘I didn’t know about the school bit. What’s he studying?’
‘Egyptology. The man doesn’t know a pyramid from a pint of gold top, but apparently he wants to find out. What’s more, he and Sharon have booked themselves on a cruise down the Nile for some time next spring. And they want me to go with them.’
‘With Sharon and George!’ Lizzy cried. ‘Oh go, Rhiannon. Please, please go. It’s the only way we’ll get to find out what they’re like together.’
‘You go,’ Rhiannon retorted.
‘Believe me, i
f I could I would,’ Lizzy vowed. ‘So now, remind me what happened to Moira and the kids.’
‘Moira and the kids are living with a twenty-year-old disc-jockey from Bedminster Down,’ Rhiannon answered. ‘That’s how this whole thing got started between George and Sharon. He rang me up when Moira left him – the first time he’d spoken to me in months, I might add – and he still hasn’t forgiven me for getting myself in the papers again, because of course I do it deliberately to annoy him! Anyway, he rang me up in a dreadful state, so I went down to see him. Sharon happened to call me while I was there, he answered, the two of them got talking and the next thing you know Sharon the Samaritan was in her little pope-mobile beetling down the M4 to the rescue.’
‘Oh God, this is wonderful!’ Lizzy gasped, holding her sides laughing. ‘So how often do you see George these days?’
‘Much too often,’ Rhiannon responded. ‘Just thank God I don’t have a second bedroom or I swear he’d move in. Sharon, of course, has suggested that we all move into her place. Can you imagine it, me living with those two? And he, traitor and fraud that he is, thinks it’s a good idea, because I obviously need keeping an eye on so I don’t get up to any more daft business that’ll get me face in the papers.’
Rhiannon could give such a perfect imitation of her father’s West Country accent that Lizzy was breathless with laughter. ‘What did he say about the last time?’ she asked. ‘You know, about Max and everything?’ She braced herself. ‘It’s going to be priceless, I know it.’
Rhiannon laughed. ‘Actually you’re wrong, because it was so obviously beyond his milkman’s rhetoric that it rendered him speechless. Which is a let-down to you, I know, but was a God-sent mercy to me.’
‘Is he coming to the launch?’
Rhiannon shuddered. ‘I’m not thinking about it,’ she answered. ‘Sharon invited him and I can hardly turn round and say no, can I? After all, he is my father. And I just know that this is God’s way of punishing me for all my sins, because the man will do something to show me up, he always does. But I’m not thinking about it, because however bad I imagine it to be, it’s bound to turn out a thousand times worse.’
Six days later Max was walking into his office in New York, having just left a Group Planning Meeting where he’d spent most of the morning. Sitting at his desk, he quickly checked through his E-mail, dealt with a couple of things that couldn’t wait, then doing a swift calculation of the time difference, he picked up the phone to call Rhiannon. It would be seven thirty in London, so there was a chance she might have left the office by now, which as it turned out she had, so ringing off he dialled the number of her apartment. She answered on the fourth ring.
‘Hi,’ he said, sitting back in his chair and propping his feet on the desk.
‘Max?’
‘Were you expecting someone else?’ he smiled.
‘No. But I was expecting you three weeks ago. Did you get my messages?’
‘Sure I did.’
‘So why didn’t you call back?’
‘Well, I’ve been kind of busy and . . .’ He paused, ‘Well, I’ve been working on something that’s kept me pretty tied up these past few weeks.’
There were several beats of silence before she said, ‘Then please don’t untie yourself for me,’ and the line went dead.
At the other end Rhiannon was shaking with anger. He’d call back, she knew that, but she was damned if she was going to answer just because it suited him to speak to her now. Tied up, indeed! She’d show him tied up and wrenching the phone line out of the wall, she went to run herself a bath.
She was just about to start undressing when she realized that with the line disconnected she wouldn’t have the satisfaction of knowing he was trying to get through. So, padding back through to the sitting-room, she replugged the phone and switched on the answering machine.
It was eleven o’clock by the time he finally called back and because he’d made her wait so long, she stubbornly refused to pick up as she sat, pressed into a corner of the sofa, listening to his message.
‘Hi,’ he said, ‘I guess you’re probably there, but you’re too mad at me to pick up right now. I don’t blame you, but I’ll explain everything when I see you. I just wanted to say that I’ve heard the launch of your programme’s been brought forward, that you’re doing it on Thursday and well, I was wondering if there was an invitation going spare . . .’
Rhiannon snatched up the phone. ‘Would you say that again?’ she said. ‘That last bit. I’m not sure I heard right.’
‘Sure,’ he said, the smile audible in his voice. ‘I was asking if I could come to the party.’
Rhiannon’s disbelief was fluttering in her heart. ‘You mean here, in London?’ she said.
‘Well, that is where it’s happening, isn’t it?’ he said, sounding confused.
‘Yes, that’s where it’s happening,’ she confirmed, still not entirely sure she believed this.
‘I can be there by Thursday afternoon,’ he said. ‘I know it’s going to be a busy time for you, but can you meet me at the flat?’
‘I can meet you at the airport if you like,’ she offered, thinking what an insufferable push-over she was and not really caring.
‘No, it’s OK. I’ve got some business to see to beforehand. I should be able to get to the flat around four, though. How does that suit?’
‘I’ll be here,’ she said. ‘But Max, you do realize that the party is going to be full of reporters, don’t you?’
‘I sure hope it is,’ he responded. ‘It’s not going to be much of a launch if it’s not.’
‘Max!’ she cried. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
‘That I love you?’ he guessed. ‘Yeah, I should have told you that before. I love you, Rhiannon. I’m god-damned crazy about you and I’ve missed you more than I’ll ever be able to tell you . . . How about I save the rest until I see you?’
Rhiannon was laughing. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she told him. ‘I haven’t seen you in seven months, I don’t hear from you for three weeks and now suddenly you’re going to be here.’
‘You could always tell me you love me too,’ he said.
‘You know I do.’
‘It’s still good to hear.’
‘OK, I love you,’ she said. ‘And I miss you too.’ She paused. ‘Especially right now.’
She heard him chuckle and felt an answering heat starting to spread right the way through her. ‘Are you in the office?’ she asked.
‘Yes, but the door’s closed.’
She hesitated, strangely embarrassed to go on. ‘Shall we save it for Thursday?’ she said.
‘OK,’ he answered, his voice as intimate as the desire pulsing between them. ‘Will you do me a favour?’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
As he told her she started to laugh. ‘If I do that,’ she said, ‘we’ll never get to the party. Or maybe that’s the idea.’
He laughed. ‘No, we’ll be going to the party,’ he said. ‘There’s just a few things we’ve got to catch up on first.’
He arrived ten minutes early with a bunch of red roses and a bottle of vintage champagne. Rhiannon led him through to the sitting-room, put the flowers in water while he opened the bottle, then touched her glass to his before drinking. She wore nothing except a pair of high-heeled shoes. It was the favour he’d asked for and one she had no problem granting.
They made love for over an hour, unable to get enough of each other, doing everything they could to make up for lost time and by the time they went back for a second glass of champagne Rhiannon felt bruised, almost satiated and very deeply loved.
Laughing at the way she was looking at him, Max cupped her face gently in his hand and brought her reddened and tender mouth back to his. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he told her softly, ‘and I don’t want to live another minute without you in my life. In fact I don’t intend to live another minute without you in my life. We’ve just got to sort out how we’re going to work it.’
‘I wish I did,’ he told her, taking a sip of champagne. ‘All I know is that things are working out our end. Marina asks about you a lot, she knows I’m here and she’s feeling OK about it. But there’s only so far you can go asking the permission of a nine-year-old and as far as Marina and I are concerned we reckon I’ve gone that distance. She understands that I love you and that I want you to be a part of our lives and she says she’s willing to give it a go if you are.’
Rhiannon gave a splutter of laughter. ‘She said that?’ she choked, wiping the spilt champagne from her lips.
‘Her words exactly,’ he confirmed. ‘Were it left to me I’d probably put it a different way.’
Rhiannon thought about that, then eyeing him steadily she issued the challenge. ‘Which way would you put it?’ she said.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘before I start committing myself here, I want to know what your plans are.’
‘Plans?’
He looked at his watch. ‘In just over an hour you’re going to be launching a new programme,’ he reminded her.
Rhiannon leapt up. ‘Just over an hour!’ she cried.
‘And there’s Check It Out too,’ he continued. ‘And did I hear something about a new channel?’
Rhiannon gaped at him. ‘You know about that?’ she gasped. ‘How do you know about that?’
He grinned. ‘Because I got a call from one of the backers asking me if I thought you were a good risk,’ he told her.
Rhiannon was so stunned she couldn’t speak. She hadn’t told anyone about this, not even Lizzy, for the offer of running her own satellite TV channel had only come two weeks ago and she still didn’t quite know what to make of it. Then suddenly her eyebrows came down. ‘What did you tell them?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘I said I thought you were a great risk,’ he laughed.