The Bachelor

by Tilly Bagshawe

  Forget about Graydon, she told herself, pressing the lift call button in the Portland lobby. You’re here to see Eva and the baby. Focus on that.

  Incredibly, Flora had only seen Eva and Barney once since they’d got back to England, and then only for a quick coffee on the King’s Road between meetings. Eva was heavily pregnant, but still somehow managed to look utterly ravishing, her supermodel features as perfectly chiselled as ever and her long limbs still lithe, despite the enormous bump. Barney had sat beside her, beaming with pride, looking more svelte and healthier himself, and talking away nineteen to the dozen about the baby, their new farmhouse and his photographs, now evidently selling like hot cakes at Penny’s gallery.

  I wonder what the baby looks like? Flora thought, as the lift ground its slow way down to the lobby. Francesca.

  Would she take after Eva or Henry? Either way, she was bound to be beautiful. It was a bit like having the Jolie Pitts for parents, or Blake Lively and Ryan What’s-his-name.

  Flora was still trying to think of Blake Lively’s husband’s surname – not Gosling, the other one – when the lift doors opened and she found herself face to face with Henry.

  ‘Flora!’

  She tried to read his expression. Was he happy to see her, or horrified? It was hard to focus on his face while her own heart threatened to leap out of her chest and start jumping up and down on the ground between them like a crazed basketball.

  ‘Henry! I … Sorry, I didn’t know,’ she blurted.

  ‘Didn’t know what?’

  ‘That you’d be here.’

  They stood staring at one another in silence for so long, the lift doors started to close. Henry put a hand out to stop them, before stepping out into the lobby, so close to Flora she felt her knees turn to mush.

  ‘I came to see the baby.’ Flora held out the wilting bunch of peonies she was holding, along with a wrapped pink box from John Lewis with white storks printed on the ribbon.

  ‘So I see.’ Henry smiled, the same wolfish grin that Flora remembered, half teasing, half amused by her obvious discomfort. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m well.’ Flora attempted a smile of her own, but she couldn’t fully pull it off. Not after the day she’d had today.

  ‘How’s business?’ Henry asked, too frightened to stray onto other, more meaningful topics, but desperate to prolong their encounter. In a pale pink silk jacket over a businesslike pencil skirt and blouse, and with her longer blonde hair still tousled from the stiff January wind, Flora looked even sexier than he remembered her. The urge to reach out and just touch her, smell her, breathe her in, was almost overpowering. But he resisted.

  ‘Business is …’ She tried to think of something positive to say, but her mind went blank. Biting her lower lip she admitted, ‘Actually, it’s pretty awful.’

  ‘Really?’ Henry frowned. ‘But I keep reading things about you. About the houses you’ve done. Just the other day I saw a piece about a restaurant you’d designed in Mayfair. Wasn’t that in Vogue?’

  ‘Yes,’ Flora admitted. ‘But none of that matters if you’re bankrupt.’

  She filled Henry in briefly on Graydon’s ongoing vendetta and her expensive legal woes. Henry was no longer in business with Graydon, or George, so this was all news to him. After the humiliation of being jilted at the altar, and Eva’s subsequent marriage to Barney Griffith, he’d been forced to take stock of all aspects of his life, and had decided he needed a completely fresh start. A venture capital firm had relieved him of his remaining stake in Gigtix and the GJD joint venture for a more than fair price. At thirty-one years old Henry found himself cash rich, footloose and fancy free. It wasn’t a bad proposition. But listening to Flora he felt terrible and wracked with guilt. He might have escaped scot-free, but he’d left her behind, and the wolves were evidently tearing her to shreds.

  ‘I’m thinking of moving back to the States,’ she said, when she finished the whole sorry saga. ‘Starting a new business back home that’s not in interior design at all. Maybe event planning? I’m not sure yet. Something that Graydon can’t touch, anyway.’

  ‘Why?’ Henry looked stricken. He hadn’t seen or spoken to Flora in months. Yet somehow the idea of her leaving England felt terrible and wrong. The end of an era. The end of everything. ‘I mean, why America? Couldn’t you start a new venture here?’

  ‘I could,’ agreed Flora. ‘But the bankruptcy laws are much easier in the US. And I have to go home eventually.’

  Home. That was the second time today the word had offended Henry, and the second time he knew he was being ridiculous. America was Flora’s home, just as Eva and Barney’s rented farmhouse was Francesca’s home.

  It hit him then like a punch in the stomach.

  None of the people I love live with me.

  I’ve pushed them all away.

  ‘I’d better go,’ said Flora, looking down at her baby gifts. The woman standing next to her hit the call button for the lift and the doors opened immediately. Flora stepped inside. ‘It was nice to see you.’

  ‘And you,’ replied Henry, automatically.

  ‘Congratulations, by the way,’ said Flora.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Their eyes met just as the lift doors closed.

  Flora was gone.

  Feeling utterly desolate, Henry walked out into the street and hailed a cab. He was about to head home to his flat to change for dinner, but as they pulled away from the hospital he changed his mind.

  ‘The Boltons, please,’ he told the cabbie.

  He might have lost Flora. She might be returning to the States and he might never see her again. But there was one, last thing he could do for her. At the very least he could try.

  George Savile’s new house in The Boltons, a glamorous South Kensington enclave, stood behind grand electric gates set into a high stone wall. The joint venture with GJD, and in particular their new design app, Gridz, had catapulted George to the next level of wealth, and she’d wasted no time trading in her comfortable house in Fulham for this glitzy American-style new-build, complete with basement swimming-pool complex, media room and six-car garage. Security cameras swivelled from every corner. George was working out in her home gym when Henry’s cab approached the gates. Seeing his familiar, handsome face on the monitor she stepped off her elliptical.

  ‘Uh, uh, uh.’ Her trainer, Matt, wagged an admonishing finger. ‘Where do you think you’re going? Six more minutes.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Wiping the sweat off her forehead, George kissed him on the cheek, allowing her warm, perfectly toned body to press against his for a moment. ‘Something just came up.’

  Sex with Matt, which she indulged in from time to time, was a workout in itself: intense, animal and blissfully uncomplicated. Today, however, she had more important fish to fry.

  ‘I’ll make up for it on Friday, I promise,’ she cooed, allowing her fingers to brush lightly across the trainer’s bulging crotch before disappearing into the changing room. She contemplated showering and changing, making Henry wait while she beautified herself. But a quick glance in the mirror convinced her she looked more than sexy enough in her skintight workout pants and bra top, with her hair a mess and beads of sweat glistening enticingly on the skin of her arms and the rounded tops of her breasts. Besides, Henry abhorred waiting.

  Bounding up to the entrance hall, she got there just as the butler was showing Henry in.

  ‘Hello, stranger.’ She smiled sweetly, walking over and kissing him on the cheek. She smelled of sweat and sex and a perfume Henry dimly remembered. As always with George, he felt a strange mix of attraction and revulsion course through his body, like an alcoholic downing a shot of tequila while on Antabuse.

  ‘What brings you to my humble abode?’

  ‘Flora.’ Henry looked at her coldly. ‘I just ran into her at the hospital. She came to see Eva and Francesca.’

  George’s eyes narrowed. ‘How sweet of her.’

  ‘She told me about Graydon and these lawsuits. Did
you know she was going bankrupt? He’s forcing her business under.’

  George shrugged. ‘I didn’t know that, no. But I don’t see what it has to do with me. Or you, for that matter.’

  ‘Call him off,’ said Henry.

  George frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just what I say. Call Graydon off. Tell him to stop hounding Flora.’

  ‘You make him sound like my pet Rottweiler.’ George laughed, wandering into the drawing room, forcing Henry to follow her. Every step felt as if he was straying deeper into the Gorgon’s lair. But he had to help Flora, if he could. He had to at least try. ‘Graydon makes his own decisions.’

  Coiling herself onto one of the suede sofas, she patted the seat beside her for Henry.

  ‘You have influence,’ Henry said, declining the invitation and folding his arms defensively. ‘You could get him to leave her and Fitz alone.’

  ‘And why would I do that?’ asked George, bristling at his attitude.

  ‘Because it’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘Says who?’ George flicked back her hair defiantly. ‘Flora blatantly plagiarized Graydon’s work.’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  Getting up (if Muhammad wouldn’t come to the mountain, after all), George slid slowly over to Henry. Snaking her arms around his neck, she pressed herself against him, tilting her beautiful, spiteful face up towards his so that their lips were inches apart.

  ‘What is it, darling?’ Her fingers expertly caressed the back of his neck, making the hairs on his skin stand on end. ‘Why do you care so much about Flora? Are you still in love with her, Henry?’ she taunted. ‘Is that it? Is poor little easy-to-spread Flora Fitzwilliam the one who got away?’

  Henry peeled off her arms like leeches.

  ‘Yes,’ he said matter-of-factly, knowing that the truth would hurt George more than anything else he could tell her. ‘I am in love with Flora. And she is the one who got away. But you know what? That’s OK. Because I know I’m not good enough for her. I know I couldn’t make her happy. So I’m glad she got away. Just like I’m glad that I finally got away from you, and everything you stand for. Goodbye, George.’

  He started walking away. Furious, George stormed after him.

  ‘Everything I stand for? Who do you think you are, Henry? Fucking Gandhi? It takes two to have an affair you know. Or, in your case, multiple affairs. Henry! I’m talking to you!’

  But Henry wasn’t listening. He would never listen to Georgina Savile again. He couldn’t force her to stop Graydon suing Flora. But he could cut her poison out of his life once and for all.

  Flora would survive. She would recover. Rebuild.

  And so would he.

  George was still shouting as Henry climbed into his waiting cab and drove away. A free man, at last.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Sixteen months later …

  ‘What do you mean, “it wasn’t on the plane”?’

  Flora Fitzwilliam ran her hand through her long hair and forced herself to take a long, calming breath.

  The young man in front of her – was it Thomas? – looked perplexed. They were both standing in the gardens of one of Nantucket Island’s grandest and oldest mansions, one of the ‘Three Bricks’ at the top of Main Street, staring at an empty trestle table and the spot where an intricate, six-tier wedding cake ought to be standing.

  Mason Parker and his bride-to-be, Catherine Coffin, had ordered the twelve-thousand-dollar cake specially from Frederic James, Boston’s world-famous patisserie. The wedding party was already at the church and would be returning for the reception at Catherine’s parents’ house within the hour. But when Flora summoned the cake to be brought out from the kitchens, the caterer had responded with a doom-laden, ‘What cake?’

  ‘Well, there was a plane from Boston,’ Thomas explained to Flora patiently.

  ‘Ri-i-i-ght.’

  ‘I went to the airport to meet it.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘But the cake wasn’t on the plane.’

  ‘So you …?’ Flora prompted him, hoping for ‘called the bakery’ or ‘got it on the next flight out’ or ‘sent someone to Boston to pick it up in person’.

  ‘Came back here?’ the boy offered, innocently.

  Flora’s head started to throb. She had a flashback to the last time she’d worked in Nantucket, doing up Lisa Kent’s house in Siasconset (for which Graydon later took all the credit). She remembered the lazy workmen; entire crews failing to turn up from Boston; city planners who made it their life’s mission to cause as much delay and throw up as many obstacles as possible. And then, of course, the weather: unpredictable and all-powerful. The fogs as thick as whipped cream, which descended out of nowhere and made escape from the island impossible. Storms that blew in from the Cape and literally knocked posts and beams out of the ground and sent them flying through the air like twigs. Summer rain that beat down so violently the drops could leave bruises on your skin. But nothing, nothing, could beat this level of incompetence.

  Flora was organizing the Parker/Coffin wedding, the society nuptials of the summer – and there was no goddamned cake?

  ‘This was last night, right?’ she asked the hapless boy, trying to stay calm.

  ‘Last night? No. This morning.’

  A ray of hope flickered through the gloom.

  ‘This morning? But the cake should have been flown in last night. Call the airport. See if they’re holding any packages. On second thoughts, I’ll do it myself.’

  Pacing through the perfectly dressed tables, Flora punched out the number for ACK baggage claim and spoke to the girl at Cape Air. Yes, they had a large box. Yes, she could open it, could Flora hold on? Yes, it was a cake. It looked gorgeous! Should they have someone drive it into town?

  Flora contemplated going herself – at this point she didn’t trust anybody on the island to perform even the simplest of tasks properly – but, deciding it was too late for her to leave and get back in time, opted to give Thomas a chance to redeem himself. Cake or no cake, it wouldn’t do for the wedding planner not to be there when the bride and groom returned from the church.

  The wedding planner. Flora was the wedding planner for Mason Parker’s wedding. It should have felt weird, ridiculous, awful – only two years ago, she was supposed to be the bride, after all. But actually it felt oddly wonderful, the closing of a circle and a testament to what truly good friends they had become. She’d run into Mason about a year ago in New York, shortly after she’d moved back and launched her events company, Phoenix.

  ‘It’s a little cheesy,’ she told him sheepishly. ‘But I figured as it’s sort of “rising from the ashes” of my last company …’

  Fitz had folded a few months before, driven under by Graydon James’s relentless lawsuits. But Flora hadn’t let the grass grow under her feet. Event planning still allowed her to indulge her creative side, and it was a world in which Graydon couldn’t touch her. Rather wonderfully, the same week that Fitz filed for bankruptcy, one of Graydon’s ex-toy-boy lovers published a salacious take-down of the great designer in Vanity Fair. As well as shamelessly exposing his vanity, meanness and sexual peccadilloes, the piece specifically mentioned Graydon’s ‘raging jealousy’ about Flora and his paranoia that her work would eclipse his own.

  ‘No one suffered more from Graydon’s spite and caprice than Flora Fitzwilliam, whose reputation he systematically set out to destroy,’ the author wrote. ‘Ninety per cent of Graydon’s best work in the last decade was down to Flora’s designs.’

  Of course, Graydon was suing the toy boy, too. And it wasn’t an ‘official’ vindication. But the tide of public opinion – and industry opinion, which mattered far more to Flora – had definitely turned after the Vanity Fair piece. It had come too late to save Fitz, but it had been more than a small comfort to Flora. GJD would never again be the design powerhouse it once had been, and Graydon’s own reputation was the one in tatters now.

  ‘That is cheesy!’ Mason laughed,
when she told him her new company name. ‘But I like it anyway, and the logo’s great. Say, I don’t suppose you do weddings, do you?’

  At first, Flora declined. So many of their old friends would be there. Other people would think it weird, even if they didn’t. But a number of factors had swayed her. Mason’s genuine enthusiasm was one. His fiancée being literally the sweetest, kindest, least jealous girl on planet earth was another. For the only daughter of one of Nantucket’s oldest and wealthiest families to have turned out so down-to-earth and unaffected was little short of a miracle.

  Then finally there was the publicity – Mason’s wedding would be splashed all over every lifestyle magazine, celebrity gossip rag and fashion blog in New York and beyond – and, perhaps most beguilingly, the fee. Phoenix charged a flat 15 per cent of each event’s total budget, and Mason and Catherine’s budget was eye-popping. For that sort of money, Flora could suffer a few raised eyebrows.

  Not long after Thomas was dispatched to the airport, the bridal car arrived back at the house, swiftly followed by the first of the guests who had followed on foot up Nantucket’s cobbled main street. The string quartet began playing, and Flora darted into the kitchen to make sure all was going smoothly with the canapés and champagne, which it was. Exhaling for the first time all day, she took a glass herself and wandered back outside to greet the bride and groom.

  ‘Flora!’

  Chuck Branston, Mason’s best man, swooped down on her the moment she stepped outside. In a Ralph Lauren tuxedo jacket paired with Nantucket red pants and a bow tie with lobsters on it, Chuck couldn’t have looked more preppy if he’d had a Brooks Brothers bar code printed on the back of his neck.

  ‘How are you?’ He beamed. ‘I couldn’t believe it when Mase told me you were doing the wedding. You look phenomenal, by the way.’