The Bachelor

by Tilly Bagshawe

  She’s right, Lucy thought, re-examining her complexion more closely in the mirror. I do look green.

  Dashing into Pippa’s minuscule bathroom, she rubbed some bronzer into her sallow cheeks and powdered the worst of the sickly shine off her nose and chin. She realized then that her hands were sweating.

  What am I doing? I’m not cut out for this. Maybe I should forget the whole thing and get the first train back to the country before I make a total fool of myself.

  The doorbell rang. Pippa had obviously forgotten something. She’d always been scatterbrained. All the weed she smoked didn’t help.

  ‘I thought you said you were late?’ Lucy shouted, running back to the front door and yanking it open, still brandishing the make-up brush in her hand like a magic wand.

  ‘Actually, I’m early.’ Henry Saxton Brae stood on the doorstep looking as relaxed and confident as Lucy did terrified. ‘Can I come in?’

  Barney Griffith was sitting at his usual table in the snug bar at The Fox, Fittlescombe’s finest (and only) village pub, enjoying a drink with Eva. The two of them had become good friends over the course of the summer, and Barney often hung out with Eva during Henry’s many absences. For a guy who worked for himself, it struck Barney that Henry Saxton Brae made a hell of a lot of business trips. But he kept this opinion to himself.

  Eva was looking ethereally lovely, drinking Perrier water and lime and turning over a single crisp in her fingertips without ever actually eating it. Barney, meanwhile, was looking as cheerfully dishevelled as ever, indulging himself in a delicious pint of stout (his second) and a packet of pork scratchings (his third). There had to be some advantages to being an unemployed writer over a world-famous model and sex symbol. Whatever La Perla actually was, Barney was confident it didn’t involve a lot of pork scratchings.

  Barney was halfway through asking Eva’s advice on a problem with his plotting when the front door swung open and a wildly flustered-looking Flora Fitzwilliam burst in.

  ‘Vodka and tonic, please. Double,’ she announced, marching straight up to the bar. She hadn’t seen Barney or Eva, but Barney had seen her. In a tight New York Yankees T-shirt and frayed denim miniskirt, with her hair freshly streaked blonde and her skin tanned to a light caramel from all the long days on site up at the castle, Flora looked even sexier than usual.

  Barney brightened visibly. ‘Did you ask her down here?’ he asked Eva. ‘I haven’t seen her in weeks.’

  Eva shook her head. ‘I would have, if I’d have thought she’d come. I did tell her to take the day off though, try to decompress. She’s been working like a maniac on these new designs.’

  ‘She looks amazing,’ Barney sighed. Eva looked at him pityingly. It was sweet the way he blushed and went all self-conscious whenever Flora was around. Sweet, but dangerous. Eva had become extremely fond of Barney. He needed to fall in love with someone single, not waste his time mooning over a girl who was already engaged to a rich and handsome New York banker.

  Eva beckoned Flora over.

  ‘We didn’t expect to see you here.’ She smiled beatifically. ‘Your hair looks lovely, by the way.’

  ‘Lovely,’ Barney agreed.

  ‘Never mind my damned hair,’ Flora seethed. ‘Take a look at this!’

  Disgusted, she hurled the copy of Vanity Fair that she’d ‘borrowed’ from the salon down on the table.

  ‘“Young Hollywood Comes of Age”,’ Barney read the cover headline. ‘Is that so terrible?’

  ‘Page twenty-two,’ said Flora. ‘And twenty-three, -four and -five. Graydon, my asshole of a boss and so called fucking mentor just sold me down the river. Again!’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Eva. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘Only gone and given some puff piece of an interview taking all the credit for Baxter Road. I sweated blood over that job!’

  Barney and Eva turned to the offending article. It took them a few moments to piece together what had happened, flitting between the text and Flora’s expletive-laden rant about her boss. Apparently Graydon James had taken all the credit for a house Flora had designed and built for one of GJD’s clients, a rich Manhattan socialite by the name of Lisa Kent, giving an interview to Vanity Fair about the project without so much as informing Flora.

  ‘Five months of my life,’ Flora fumed. ‘Five months away from Mason; five months dealing with Lisa’s neuroses and meltdowns on that godforsaken island. And he doesn’t even mention my name. Neither of them do! I mean, listen to Lisa, right here,’ she grabbed the magazine back. ‘“I’m so grateful for Graydon’s vision. He truly is the best in the world and this house is a testament to that.” I’m sorry, what? Graydon’s vision? I designed that house! I picked out every bloody throw pillow, and every last nail.’

  ‘Isn’t that what happens, though, when it’s someone else’s business?’ Barney said bravely.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Flora’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Only that, at the end of the day, it is Graydon’s name on the door, not yours. It’s his brand that got you the commission in the first place, and that’s going to add value to this lady’s property. The house wouldn’t be featured in Vanity Fair if it weren’t for Graydon James. Would it?’

  Flora looked at him, incredulous. ‘So that makes it OK to lie? To take credit for something you didn’t do?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Barney, thinking how utterly magnificent Flora looked when she was angry, and trying hard not to picture her naked while he was trying to string a sentence together. ‘I’m just saying—’

  ‘What? What are you saying?’ Flora demanded.

  ‘That if you want control, you need to work for yourself.’

  Flora leaned back and exhaled. She didn’t want to hear it. But Barney was right.

  ‘You say Graydon’s done this before?’ Barney went on.

  Flora nodded.

  ‘What happened then? Did you call him on it?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Flora. ‘I was furious. We had a screaming row.’

  ‘And what happened after that?’

  ‘Well, nothing,’ admitted Flora. ‘He pretty much used the same argument you just did. That it was his name on the door and he could do what he liked.’

  ‘And you accepted that?’ asked Barney.

  ‘I had no choice!’ Flora’s voice was rising again in frustration. ‘He holds all the cards and he knows it.’

  ‘Not true,’ said Barney. ‘You hold some cards. You’re just too scared to play them. No one’s going to give you control of your own life, Flora. You have to take it. That’s why I left my law firm,’ he added, taking another long, slow sip of his stout. ‘One of the reasons, anyway. Pork scratching?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Flora, emptying the entire remnants of the packet into her mouth and swallowing the lot. ‘Wow, those are good.’

  ‘Aren’t they?’ Barney beamed. A girl after his own heart.

  ‘This is different though,’ said Flora, washing down the salty pork with a hefty slug of vodka. ‘I can’t just set up on my own.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Yes, why not?’ Eva seconded Barney. ‘Henry and I would hire you in a heartbeat, with or without Graydon.’

  ‘That’s sweet.’ Flora smiled gratefully. ‘But if you did that, Graydon would sue me. Fire me, and then sue me.’

  ‘How?’ Barney asked. ‘The man doesn’t own you.’

  ‘Professionally, he sorta does,’ said Flora. ‘He may not hold all the cards, but he holds enough. My contract is very clear on non-competes. I cannot work for a rival firm, or set up on my own, within three years of leaving GJD. And I can never solicit former GJD clients, or work for anyone introduced to me by a GJD client, past or present.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Barney. ‘That wouldn’t be legal here.’

  Flora shrugged. ‘It’s legal in the US.’

  Eva’s phone buzzed loudly.

  ‘It’s a text from Henry.’ She beamed, showing the screen to Flora.
>
  All he had written was a cursory: ‘Love you. Miss you. Back tmrrow.’ But it was enough to light Eva up like a firework. She wandered outside to text him back, leaving Flora alone with Barney.

  ‘Why don’t you start a business here?’ said Barney, returning to their earlier conversation. ‘If it really is impossible in America?’

  ‘Because.’ Flora drained the last of her vodka. ‘My whole life’s in New York. Remember?’

  She waved her engagement ring at Barney.

  ‘That’s not your whole life, I hope,’ he said, frowning. ‘There’s more to you than who you marry, surely?’

  ‘Oh, well, of course,’ said Flora, sounding more irritated than she’d meant to. ‘That’s not what I meant. I just mean I have commitments. Back home.’

  But Barney wasn’t listening. Instead he was waving at Penny de la Cruz, who was sitting a few tables away with a girlfriend. ‘Pen!’ he shouted across the bar. ‘Come and meet a friend of mine.’

  Penny floated over, a vision in a long, tie-dye skirt with bells on the bottom and a series of layered vests and shirts, the effect of which was to make her look like a wafting, human-sized feather.

  ‘Penny’s a local artist. Local legend, really,’ Barney explained to Flora. ‘She’s about to open a new gallery in London.’

  Penny made a face. ‘Well, it might be a bit too soon to say that! We haven’t even exchanged on the space yet,’ she told Flora.

  ‘Yes, but you will,’ said Barney. ‘And when you do you’re going to need a kick-arse designer to get the place looking as amazing as your paintings. Right?’

  ‘In an ideal world, yes,’ admitted Penny.

  ‘Well, Flora here just happens to be a kick-arse designer.’

  ‘Who works for someone else,’ Flora reminded him.

  ‘Who’s thinking about setting up on her own,’ Barney told Penny firmly. ‘She designed this house.’ He shoved the Vanity Fair article under Penny’s nose.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ said Penny, marvelling at the light-filled opulence of Lisa Kent’s beach house, captured in page after page of glossy, beautifully shot pictures. ‘Did you really?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ said Barney. ‘Her boss has her on some ridiculous American contract saying she can never ever do her own projects, but no English court would uphold it. You can trust me on that,’ he looked authoratively at Flora. ‘I’m a lawyer.’

  ‘Ex-lawyer,’ piped up Eva, who’d just walked back in.

  ‘And didn’t you tell me you used to specialize in tax cases?’ Penny added.

  Barney waved a hand breezily at both these objections. ‘The point is, the two of you should get to know each other.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Penny. ‘Any friend of Barney’s is a friend of mine. And, really, this house is divine. You must be so proud.’ She handed the magazine back to Flora.

  ‘Thanks.’ Flora smiled back. She liked Penny. It was impossible not to. ‘I worked hard on it actually.’

  ‘Well, it shows. Anyway, lovely to meet you.’

  ‘And you.’

  ‘I’d better get back. I’m afraid I’m being rather rude to my friend.’

  ‘See?’ said Barney, as Penny drifted back to her table.

  ‘See what?’ said Flora.

  ‘How easy it is! I just got you your first client.’

  Later that night, in bed at Peony Cottage, Flora stared at the ceiling, her mind racing as usual.

  Of course, Barney Griffith’s idea had been ridiculous. So ridiculous that she hadn’t bothered to mention it to Mason when they Skyped an hour ago. What was she going to do, move to England and start a design house? First stop, Penny de la Cruz’s not-even-bought-yet gallery, next stop global domination? I mean, please. The whole thing was obviously just bar talk. Bravado, designed to cheer her up.

  And it had cheered her up. Barney was good at that. Eva, too, and Penny. They were all such nice people.

  Unlike the treacherous Graydon James.

  Just thinking about Graydon sent the tension flooding back into Flora’s body like an intravenous shot of resentment. Only two weeks ago she’d lied to Henry, shamelessly used Eva, and sold out her own artistic integrity to rush through the new plans for Hanborough that Graydon hoped would win them the International Designer of the Year award.

  But what if it wasn’t ‘them’? What if it was ‘him’?

  What was to stop Graydon taking all the credit for Hanborough Castle, the way he had with Lisa Kent’s project on Baxter Road? Flora wouldn’t put it past him. She wouldn’t put anything past him.

  Barney’s words floated back to her. ‘No one’s going to give you control of your own life, Flora. You have to take it.’

  Yes, but how?

  Manipulating clients was one thing. Lisa Kent, Henry and Eva, none of them held the same life-or-death power over Flora that Graydon had. Graydon James had made her, professionally. And he could also destroy her.

  But it wasn’t just fear that made it so hard for Flora to stand up to Graydon. It went deeper than that, deep into parts of her psyche Flora would rather not look at. Flora’s feelings towards her boss were deeply tangled, she now realized, and probably said as much about her as they did about Graydon. He was part father figure, part tyrant, part idol and part oppressor – a Jekyll and Hyde character, darkness and light all rolled into one.

  Graydon could be so stubborn and selfish and unreasonable, it took your breath away. And yet, Flora reminded herself, he could also be generous. A bit like Henry – the thought flashed through her mind, quickly dismissed. Graydon had been the most influential force in her adult life – he had plucked her from utter obscurity, after all, and spoon-fed her commissions that most of her RISD contemporaries could only dream of. At the end of the day, if it weren’t for Graydon James and the faith he’d shown in her talent and potential, Flora wouldn’t be here. It was thanks to Graydon that she was lying in this antique walnut bed in this beautiful cottage, in this idyllic valley, working on Hanborough Castle, her dream job. The fact that Flora knew all this but was still cursing his name just went with the territory. Graydon protected her, but at the same time he kept her where he wanted her: trapped.

  Barney’s voice again:

  ‘It is Graydon’s name on the door.’

  ‘If you want control, you need to work for yourself.’

  Flora tried to focus but she soon lost her mental thread. She was very tired. Ideas, words and images were beginning to blur into one.

  Flora thought again about the two gossiping women at the hairdresser’s, and what they’d said about Henry having multiple mistresses, possibly including George. It was a testament to how deeply Graydon’s Vanity Fair betrayal had affected her that this toxic piece of news had entirely slipped Flora’s mind earlier when she ran into Eva and Barney in the pub. She still wasn’t sure what to believe. She pictured Eva’s face when she’d got Henry’s text tonight, transformed with love by just a few typed words. Mason’s texts never had anything near that effect on Flora. Was that weird? She was pleased to get them, of course. But was she supposed to look all luminous and transfixed at his every word? Was that what ‘true love’ really was?

  What had Barney said, when she’d shown him her ring?

  ‘That’s not your whole life, I hope. There’s more to you than who you marry.’

  More to me than who I marry, thought Flora.

  More to me …

  Sleep overwhelmed her at last.

  Lucy Smart lay in her sister’s bed, naked and exhausted in Henry Saxton Brae’s arms.

  ‘You are so. Incredibly. Beautiful,’ Henry told her, planting kisses slowly from her shoulder along her collarbone to the tops of her breasts.

  Lucy stroked his thick black hair and stared at the ceiling.

  ‘You only want me because you can’t have me.’

  ‘Au contraire,’ said Henry, his lips moving agonizingly slowly towards her left nipple. ‘I just had you. And I still wan
t you.’

  His hand was wandering lower now, the backs of his fingers grazing her taut stomach before burrowing back beneath the silky mound of her pubic hair. Henry loved that Lucy still had hair down there. Eva only had the tiniest of landing strips, which he’d always thought he preferred. But somehow, on Lucy, the more natural look felt wildly erotic.

  Closing her eyes, Lucy let the pleasure crash over her, washing away the guilt, at least for this moment. She knew it was wrong to be with Henry. Desperately wrong. But his desire and persistence had overwhelmed her. This beautiful, sexual, incredibly desirable man might be the last person ever to want her like this. That was too much temptation for Lucy to resist.

  ‘I’ll never leave Richard,’ she murmured, her excitement building despite herself.

  ‘I’ll never ask you to,’ said Henry, grabbing her hand and placing it on his rock-hard cock.

  ‘This is just sex.’

  Henry grinned. ‘The four most beautiful words in the English language.’

  ‘I mean it,’ Lucy blurted, suddenly panicked. ‘I love him.’

  Henry stopped smiling and looked her deep in the eye. ‘So do I,’ he said truthfully. ‘You have my word. Richard will never, ever know.’

  As he eased inside her, it suddenly dawned on Lucy that he hadn’t mentioned Eva.

  Not once.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Flora quickened her pace as the music on her headphones reached a crescendo, turning her jog into a full-on sprint as she approached the top of the ridge.

  It was a stunning day, warm and clear and blue-skied. The Downs spread out beneath her like an emerald quilt, shot through with the bright blue thread of the River Swell snaking its way along the base of the valley. Bending over, Flora stopped to catch her breath, allowing the clean country air to fill her overworked lungs.

  She’d started running again a few days earlier, at Mason’s suggestion. ‘It always used to de-stress you in New York. You used to put in close to half-marathons after a bad day with Graydon, doing laps of Central Park, remember?’

  Flora had forgotten. But he was right. Back in New York she made it a point of honour never to miss her Tuesday and Thursday SoulCycle classes. She usually found time to squeeze in at least one Tracy Anderson at the weekend too. But since she’d come to England, the combination of her long working hours, the lack of any form of gym for miles around, and now the colder weather meant she’d barely exercised in months. Thanks to her fondness for Tesco Finest sticky-toffee pudding, Flora had been more horrified than surprised when she’d stepped on the scales at Peony Cottage to discover that the ten pounds she’d lost over the hot, exhausting summer, running around the site at Hanborough like a blue arsed-fly, had all been gained back, with a few to spare.