by Jill Mansell
‘Andrew should have warned you,’ said Izzy. While he was otherwise occupied she seized the opportunity to observe this startlingly attractive ‘friend of the family’ about whom she had hitherto heard nothing at all. The tan, for a start, coupled with those mesmerizing grey-green eyes, would alone have been enough to seriously impress. But Sam Sheridan didn’t stop there; his hair, streaky and sun-bleached, was just long enough to be interesting while the eyebrows were contrastingly dark and wonderfully expressive. His mouth was perfect. And as for the rest of the body . . . Having found herself in something of a sexual limbo recently, it made a nice change to be able to sit and admire such spectacular good looks. They might have got off to an unpromising start, she thought cheerfully, but who knew what might happen if Sam Sheridan were to move into what Kat had taken to calling ‘The Nunnery’?
‘I’ve been in Hawaii for the past month,’ he said. ‘Maybe he tried to contact me, and couldn’t.’ Then he glanced once more at Izzy and said, ‘But I still don’t know who you are.’
This was more like it, decided Izzy, running the fingers of her free hand through her rumpled curls in a casual manner. She grinned, suddenly.
‘I live here. We’re Gina’s new lodgers.’
‘We?’
‘My daughter, Katerina. But we’re almost completely housetrained,’ she added, catching his look of alarm. ‘And there’s no need to panic, I’m sure this house is big enough to cope with one more.’
She was older than he’d first thought, a woman rather than a girl. Sam, guessing her to be around thirty, nevertheless found it extraordinarily difficult to imagine her as a mother. She didn’t look like one. Furthermore, much as he liked children - in measured doses - he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to share a house with some screaming toddler who doubtless would be up at unearthly hours of the morning just when he most needed to be asleep.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘Now that the situation’s changed I really think it might be better if I book into an hotel.’
At that moment they heard the front door open and close and Gina’s high heels clicking across the hall.
‘You talk to her,’ said Izzy, martialling her crutches and manoeuvring herself to her feet. ‘I’m sure she’d want you to stay. If you want me,’ she added with a provocative smile over her shoulder, ‘I’ll be in the kitchen. You aren’t a vegetarian, are you?’
‘No.’ She was weird, decided Sam. Beautiful, but definitely weird. ‘Why?’
‘I’m making a Stroganoff,’ explained Izzy patiently. ‘And since it’s your fault that it’s going to be late, the very least you can do is shoulder the blame and stay for dinner.’
Chapter 8
‘Oh Sam, how could he have done it to me?’ sniffed Gina over an hour later, dabbing at her mascara-smudged eyes with a sodden handkerchief, but knowing that the worst of the tears were over. Embarrassed at having broken down in front of him, but at the same time immensely comforted by his presence, she realised afresh what a good friend he had been to them both over the years. She’d always enjoyed his visits but this time his arrival was just what she needed. Sam, who could cheer anyone up more effectively than anybody else she knew, was on her side. And that knowledge strengthened her more than she’d imagined possible.
‘Men,’ said Sam, getting to his feet, ‘are notorious for not knowing what’s best for them. Sweetheart, I’m just going to see how Izzy’s getting on. That Stroganoff smells great and I’m starving.’
‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ said Gina waspishly. ‘Izzy’s cooking isn’t her strong point. The most ambitious meal she’s conjured up so far is fish-finger sandwiches.’
‘You aren’t Izzy,’ said Sam, entering the steam-filled kitchen and beginning to feel somewhat surreal. A tall girl with swinging, shoulder-length, sherry-brown hair was standing at the table, carefully tipping sautéd potatoes from a frying pan into a shallow blue dish. She looked up, unsurprised by the intrusion.
‘I’m Kat. Mum’s upstairs trying to have a bath. Dinner will be ready in five minutes.’ She paused, then added kindly, ‘You look confused.’
‘I am confused,’ said Sam, running a hand through his hair, then shaking his head. ‘I was expecting you to be about five years old. At the very most.’
She smiled, covered the dish of sautéd potatoes and put them into the oven. ‘I’m mature for my age. How’s Gina?’
‘Damp, but she’ll live. Did you make all this?’ Deeply appreciative of good home cooking, he leaned forward to take a closer look at the Stroganoff into which she was now stirring double cream.
‘It isn’t difficult,’ said Katerina. Then she added wryly, ‘Unless you’re my mother.’
‘Well, I’m impressed. I’d planned on taking Gina out to dinner this evening, but I’m glad now that I didn’t. What are you, a professional chef?’
‘She’s a professional schoolgirl,’ said Izzy, who had been watching them from the doorway. Pink-cheeked from her bath and now wearing a white tracksuit, her glossy dark hair cascaded past her shoulders. Apart from the fact that the tracksuit top was unzipped to display a distinctly adult amount of cleavage, she looked absurdly young. ‘So, what’s the verdict?’ she continued, her tone light but her eyes bright with challenge. ‘Are you going to stay or is the thought of sharing a house with three neurotic females too much to cope with?’
‘Objection,’ put in Katerina calmly. ‘Two neurotic females and an extremely staid schoolgirl.’
‘All this,’ murmured Sam, running his fingers through his hair once more, ‘and jet lag too.’
Sam Sheridan hadn’t got where he was by ignoring or underestimating women. Having grown up quietly observing his brother Marcus - a useful four years older than himself - plough through school and university, causing havoc with his flashing smile and superlative seduction techniques and provoking equally dramatic showdowns whenever he tired of his girlfriends and unceremoniously dumped them, Sam had gradually come to realise that his brother didn’t even like the opposite sex all that much. Girls were for sleeping with. They were what one talked about rather than to. They were, as far as Marcus was concerned, nothing more than appendages. And, like cigarettes, when he’d finished with them he stubbed them out. Sam, on the other hand, had never found girls a bother, and as he grew older he found his brother’s attitude towards them even harder to understand. He genuinely enjoyed their company and found them every bit as interesting to talk to as males. Then, of course, there was also the added attraction of sexual chemistry . . .
But Sam miraculously never encountered the problems which had so complicated Marcus’s own life. For although there were many girls who were friends as opposed to actual girlfriends, such was his easygoing charm and immense popularity during those growing-up years that the amount of kudos attached to being one of Sam’s girls-who-were-friends had almost outranked the other kind, simply because girlfriends were par for the course, whereas friendship without sex indicated that you had a personality really worth getting to know.
And since Sam had always made a point of remaining on good terms with his ex-girlfriends, he engendered virtually no bitterness. He enjoyed instead a riotously happy three years at university, ending up with a better-than-expected 2:1 in economics and a vast circle of friends of both sexes, none of whom could for the life of them envisage Sam Sheridan holding down a job in any kind of financial institution where his degree might be of any practical use at all.
But Sam, despite his easygoing nature, had - unbeknown to his peers - already hit on the answer to his needs, which were access to a good standard of living coupled with the indescribable pleasure of non-stop socializing. The weekend parties he had thrown in the crumbling Victorian house he had rented with three other students had been legendary. Naturally a night person, Sam revelled in them; they made weekdays bearable and the thrill of never knowing who might turn up at the next party - the Swiss penfriend of somebody’s sister or the actress aunt of somebody else’s flatmate - never ceased t
o send the adrenalin pumping through his veins. In three years he’d never held an unsuccessful party. In three years he’d become renowned for throwing great parties where people met, argued, debated, laughed and fell in love with each other. Some had even gone completely over the top and subsequently married each other.
But it was the art of creating the perfect atmosphere in which any or all of these events could be achieved that had really captured Sam’s imagination. People enjoyed themselves and he was the one who had made it happen. And he couldn’t help wondering whether there was possibly a nicer way of spending the rest of his so far happy and ridiculously charmed life.
It had not, however, been easy. Persuading the banks to lend him money had required far more intellectual agility than finals; some of his financial arrangements had been frankly dubious and, when he had taken over the lease on the first less-than-desirable premises in Manchester, weekly juggling acts had ensued between the demands of the finance companies and his own staff. Then, as news of the latest night-club began to spread, sustaining the necessary balance between a desirable clientele and money-waving non-desirables occasionally taxed even Sam’s determined mind. But, above all else, he knew that his very own club must maintain an impeccable image from the outset. It wasn’t necessary for his clientele to be mind-bogglingly wealthy; it was simply imperative that they be the right kind of people, people who would contribute to the very particular ambience he needed in order to ensure that The Steps became and remained the ultimately desirable place to go and to be seen having fun in.
And - although not without a serious struggle at first - it did. Sam’s reputation grew and within two years he had bought the premises. Eighteen months after that, he had sold it at a staggering profit, moved to London, and found to his relief that if the streets weren’t paved with gold, they nevertheless held more than enough people desperate for his particular brand of night-club to make The Chelsea Steps more successful than even he had imagined possible.
His circle of friends had widened. The number of women in love with him - secretly or otherwise - increased. Men, aware of Sam Sheridan’s reputation, prepared to dislike him and, having met him, promptly failed to do so. Sam was genial, charming, easygoing, able to talk about any subject under the sun with enthusiasm, and he never pursued other men’s wives or girlfriends.
This in particular reassured the men immensely. It cheered the single girls even more. And the irresistible challenge he presented to the women who were attached - and with whom Sam steadfastly refused to become involved - was indescribably exhilarating and only made them want him even more.
The formula had been a winning one and Sam had wisely stuck to it. When, six years ago now, he had announced his plans to set up a new club in New York, his friends had been horrified. Everyone had warned him of the financial riskiness of such a venture, but he had done it anyway, handing over the reins of The Chelsea Steps to his under-manager, Toby Madison, and allowing himself a year in which to either make or break his long-cherished American dream.
And, being Sam, he had succeeded where everyone had feared he would fail. The New York Steps, founded at precisely the right time and in exactly the right location, had worked from the start. Sam’s international circle of friends expanded still further and his success, seemingly effortlessly achieved, followed suit. No one knew quite how Sam Sheridan did it, but it worked. And Sam himself, treating the whole thing as a huge private joke, lived life to the full, never seemed to sleep and made sure he extracted as much fun as possible from his extended American holiday.
But although New York was magical, over-the-top and indeed his kind of town, it wasn’t home. For the past couple of years his trips back to England had become not long enough, had gradually increased in importance. When he had begun to dream - seriously dream - about English rain and girls without shoulder pads, Marmite on toast and people who’d never been psychoanalyzed in their life, he knew that the time had come to return home.
Meanwhile, back in Gina’s dining room, Izzy’s steadily increasing interest in Sam was being monitored by Gina with anxiety bordering on dismay. Dinner wasn’t even over yet and already they had achieved an easy, mutual rapport.
Sipping her wine, she gazed across the candlelit table at Izzy, who was so obviously enjoying herself. And she made it look so effortless too, thought Gina with resentment. Why, she was positively glowing. It would have taken years for her to get to know someone well enough to ask them the kind of questions Izzy was asking after just a couple of hours.
‘But how can you possibly have spent six years in New York and not got married?’ Izzy was demanding now, pushing up her sleeves and resting her brown arms on the table. Idly, she picked a slice of courgette from the vegetable dish and paused to admire it before popping it into her mouth. ‘Everyone gets married in New York.’
‘Maybe I’m gay.’ Sam’s dark eyebrows arched with amusement.
‘But you aren’t.’
‘Mum,’ said Kat warningly. ‘You don’t know that. Stop being embarrassing.’
‘Of course he isn’t gay,’ said Izzy with an impatient gesture. ‘So, come on, Sam, tell us everything. Did you leave New York because of a woman? Was it true love? Was it sordid? Was she too rich or too poor? Was she—’
About to say married, she stopped herself just in time, out of deference to Gina’s feelings. Sam, second-guessing her and stepping effortlessly into the breach, said, ‘She was certainly persistent. Every fisherman’s dream, in fact. The one who wouldn’t go away.’
‘Pushy,’ observed Izzy, helping herself to another slice of courgette. Then she grinned. ‘I couldn’t be like it myself.’
‘My mother,’ sighed Katerina. ‘The original pre-shrunk violet.’
‘I don’t want this to sound funny,’ Gina began, lacing her fingers together and looking decidedly ill at ease.
‘In that case,’ replied Izzy, deadpan, ‘I won’t laugh.’
Having known Sam for as long as she had, Gina was only too well aware of his reputation where women were concerned. In his apparently irresistible presence they simply forgot how to say no. And now she could see it about to start happening all over again, right here in her very own home.
But inveigling Izzy into the kitchen in order to talk to her alone had been the easy part. Finding the right words for what she knew she had to say wasn’t easy at all.
‘Look, this might not sound very fair,’ she began, then paused and took a deep breath. Her fingers, of their own accord, were reducing a paper serviette to shreds.
‘It’s certainly frustrating,’ observed Izzy good-humouredly, ‘waiting to hear what “this” is all about.’
‘Sam’s a very attractive man,’ Gina blurted out, and Izzy’s eyebrows shot up.
‘My God, I don’t believe it,’ she laughed. ‘You’re secretly crazy about him and you want me to put in a few words on your behalf. Well, say no more . . . I shall be the soul of discretion and before you know it you’ll be—’
‘No!’
Izzy was still smiling. Gina was so easily shocked. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘if it isn’t that, what is it?’
‘I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at him and the way he looks at you.’ In her distress, the words fell out in a rush. ‘And I couldn’t bear it if you and Sam were to—’
‘Were to what?’
‘Have an affair,’ said Gina unhappily. ‘In my house. My husband’s left me for another woman, I’ve never been so miserable in my life and I absolutely couldn’t cope with it.’ She paused once more, then went on in a low voice. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I did warn you that what I had to say wasn’t fair.’
Izzy tried and failed to conceal her dismay. Fixing her gaze upon the little pots of chocolate mousse lined up on the kitchen table and realizing that she was no longer hungry, she said, ‘You want Kat and myself to leave.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’ Gina, more embarrassed than ever, shook her head. ‘And no, of course I don’t want
you to leave. I just don’t want you and Sam to . . . start something. I don’t want to feel like a gooseberry in my own home.’
‘And if I promise to leave him alone you’ll be happy?’ This time Izzy had to hide her smile. Did Gina think she was a complete nymphomaniac?
‘I’ve forgotten how to be happy,’ said Gina, immeasurably relieved. Since Izzy’s amusement hadn’t escaped her she shrugged and managed a small smile of her own. ‘Let’s just say I’ll be bearable.’
Chapter 9
‘What a cheek,’ Katerina protested the following morning. Polishing off the last of the chocolate mousse, she scraped the dish with vigour. ‘That’s emotional blackmail.’
‘Financial blackmail,’ corrected Izzy, who had unearthed a tube of glitter and was sprinkling it liberally over her hair and shoulders. ‘She knows we can’t afford to move out.’
Katerina gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘He is rather gorgeous, though. Has this blighted your plans? Are you going to sink into a Victorian decline?’