by Exley Avis
“I’ve followed you career,” Erika admitted, glancing sideways to gauge Aiden’s reaction. “Seems I’m not the only one who’s a target for speculation and rumour these days.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read.” His eyes widened dangerously.
“What? The fact that you’re climbing up the Sunday Times Rich List, or the part about you falling out of nightclubs in the early hours and sleeping your way across Europe?”
“I never pretended to be a saint.”
Without thinking, Erika gave him a flirtatiously smile; the kind of smile the paparazzi would have killed for. “If I remember rightly, you were often very badly behaved.”
“I don’t recall you ever complaining.”
“Some men are at their best when they’re acting their very worst.”
She suddenly realised she was steering the conversation down a one way street that could only end in some very embarrassing reminiscences, so Erika reversed out of it and sympathised with Aiden instead.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t believe a word. I’ve been on the wrong end of more fabricated stories than I care to remember. If I had a dollar for every man I’ve been linked with, even Marty could retire.”
“How many have there been?”
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she snapped. His boldness astounded her. At least she’d waited until after they’d split up.
“It’s a simple enough question.”
“And you have even less right to know than some hack journalist. My private life is nothing to do with you any more.”
Erika leapt on the defensive, incensed by Aiden’s assumption that he had a right to ask, let alone expect an reply. However, she also wasn’t about to tell him that her famously public love life, with its high-profile romances and ultra-sexy image, was solely the creation of Marty’s publicity machine.
When she’d first run away to New York she’d recklessly involved herself with a succession of men, wanting to obliterate the memory of Aiden. But these loveless encounters had only driven home her sense of loss, and had left her feeling ashamed and even more lonely.
She’d therefore reclaimed her self respect and used the last of her savings to buy a plane ticket for Los Angeles where she’d thrown herself into her work, using her raw emotions to write some of her most poignant and successful love songs.
Since meeting Marty, she’d lived like a virtual nun, chaperoned at every turn and watched by an ever-increasing entourage. Erika would have liked the time, energy and opportunity for a love life – let alone, a discreet boyfriend who could be relied upon not to kiss and tell.
“Why did you never speak to the press about us?” she asked, suddenly curious.
“Because no one knows about us. Even my closest friends don’t know we dated.”
“Why not? Every other boyfriend’s crawled out of the woodwork.”
Aiden shoved his jaw forward and drew a deep breath, weighing the words to make sure he said exactly the right thing. “We had something very special together. Rare, even. I loved you. Even though I was stupid enough to drive you away. I didn’t want to share those five precious months with half the world.” Added to which, he needed neither the money nor further notoriety. “In any case, I figured I’d hurt you enough already.”
“I appreciated your discretion.”
Without warning, his thoughtful expression melted into a roguish smile. “Shame though. It would have made one hell of a story. We were hardly out of bed.”
Erika still couldn’t think of the entire weekends they’d spent in bed together without blushing. Two days without getting dressed and unable to get enough of one another, only dragging themselves apart when Erika needed to return to York or Aiden had work to do. What a reporter wouldn’t pay to hear all that.
“Are you with anyone now?” she asked
“No. No one long term.”
“Still too afraid of commitment?” A cheap shot, but Erika couldn’t help herself.
Aiden’s lips compressed and he waited a long time before answering. “Like I said, since you no one else has been worth it.”
“What about Sophie Byrne, the model? Or Anna Shaw? Or Cynthia Austen?” She could have gone on naming bit-part actresses, models and party girls for the rest of the day.
“Passing fancies. Unlike you and Ben Ridley.”
Playing for time, Erika reached into Aiden’s bag and took out a bar of chocolate, trying hard to ignore the strength of his thigh alongside hers as she leaned against him. She broke off a square of chocolate and offered it to him, asking herself whether he deserved an explanation at all, and wondering whether it would be an advantage to play along. No one but a fool would believe that Aiden had driven the length of the country only to clear his conscience.
Erika still suspected a deeper rooted plan to revive their relationship – or even to take her to bed for old times’ sake. A fabricated romance with the handsome actor might be enough to make Aiden think twice before making a move.
“Ben’s great,” she therefore told him enigmatically. “Funny, relaxed, intelligent.” She didn’t need to add that he was also good looking, sexy and with a body that women found irresistible. “We hit it off as soon as we were introduced. It’s impossible to make outsiders understand what it’s like to live in the glare of publicity twenty four hours a day, so Ben and I are kindred spirits. Two lonely individuals in an ocean of people and we gravitated toward one another.”
This, at least, was true but Erika deliberately left their relationship open to interpretation. Let Aiden work it out for himself, she thought.
“Is it serious?”
This took Erika too close to lying and she answered as vaguely as she could. “We’re taking it slowly. We both have very busy schedules and it’s hard to find time alone together.” Determined to leave the subject alone, she pointedly looked at her watch and wondered out loud where the morning had gone. “I’m starving,” she said. “Can we head back to the hotel for lunch?”
“Good idea.” Aiden zipped up his bag and got to his feet. “Although I think we can do better than the hotel.”
He took Erika’s hand to help her up, holding on to it as he guided her across the rocks at the summit and out onto the stony path down the side of the hill. She expected him to let her go as soon as they hit level ground but his grip tightened and it would have taken a fight to release herself. Falling into step beside him, she therefore left her hand where it was, unexpectedly welcoming the feeling of him keeping her safe from falling. It had been a long time since anyone had looked out for her.
They didn’t speak all the way back down to the car, the wind so strong it whipped their words away, and occasionally Erika huddled against Aiden as a particularly fierce squall wrapped itself around them. Back in the car park, Aiden flicked the boot open and, without warning, pulled Erika into his arms, holding her tightly against him as he rubbed her back to chafe warmth into her.
“Cold?” His lips were so close to Erika’s forehead she felt them moving against her skin.
Not even thinking about it, she slipped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek on his chest, listening to his muffled heartbeat through layers of clothing. She swore she heard it quicken as his arms tightened around her and he held onto her as if he never wanted to let her go again. A sixth sense told her that if she pulled away slightly and looked up at him, he’d kiss her and for the briefest of moments she was tempted.
Until reason took over and she stepped back reluctantly.
“Where shall we eat?” she asked matter of factly, imagining she saw a disappointed downturn to his mouth. “Dare we go to a pub with a log fire and order something stodgy with chips?”
Aiden laughed, his whole body alight with pleasure at the prospect. “I know the perfect place,” he told her. “Although I doubt Marty would approve.”
“Who cares?” Erika shrugged and all the tension she’d felt earlier fell away. “For the first time in five years, I’m ha
ving a month off from being Erika Fenn. Jeans, no make-up and stuffing my face with meat pies.”
“Very glamorous.”
“Trust me, I’ve had enough glamour to last me three lifetimes. It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Erika pushed away her plate and thought she might burst if she moved too quickly. She’d eaten her way through the biggest steak and kidney pudding she’d ever seen and polished off half of Aiden’s chips before leaning back in her chair and admitting defeat.
“That was quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” she said, groaning slightly. “You’ll need to carry me out to the car.”
Aiden called over the waitress and suggested dessert but Erika felt sick at the thought so they ordered coffee instead. When they were alone, Aiden leaned in across the table, lacing his fingers together and looking serious.
“You’re right, I did have an ulterior motive for heading north,” he told her. “It wasn’t only about apologising.”
“I guessed as much.” She decided to set him straight. “But what we had died five years ago. There’s absolutely no chance of starting again.”
“What?” Aiden had a cleft in the centre of his chin that became more obvious when he was trying not to laugh, and it deepened considerably now. “Did you imagine I came here only to ask you back?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No. Although if you’re offering….” The idea appealed and he smiled wickedly, only deepening Erika’s embarrassment.
She back-pedalled wildly. “So why are you here?”
“To make amends. As you pointed out earlier, I wasn’t around to comfort you when we broke up five years ago. But I have it in my power now to make your life a whole lot easier.”
When Erika looked uncomprehendingly at him, he put his iPad on the table. She caught a fleeting glance of his screensaver – a montage of her publicity shots – and gave him full marks for attention to detail in his attempts to unsettle her.
“Before I show you what I have on here, I want you to know that there’s no hidden agenda,” he began, his earnestness making Erika uneasy. “But like it or not, you need my help.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“Absolutely nothing. Except the chance to repair some of the damage I did.”
She stared him out, searching his handsome face for some clue as to his motives or the first traces of a lie, but found nothing. “So what’s so important that you’d drive all this way?”
He moved to sit next to her and opened a document on his iPad, enlarging it until it was easy to read in the pub’s dark interior. It looked like a financial spreadsheet, and Erikabriefly wondered whether Aiden wanted her to invest in his company.
“You said you’d followed my career,” Aiden began. “Well for the past five years, I’ve followed yours.”
“You and a hundred celebrity websites.”
“Except I haven’t been looking at your dresses and hairstyles. It’s the money I’m interested in.”
So he was asking her to invest. “Don’t bother. Marty handles all that. Or rather, his people do.”
“I know. That’s what worries me.” He scrolled to the top of the document and showed her the company name, Dalvyn Investments. “Ever heard of them?”
Erika shook her head, not sure where the conversation was heading. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard warning bells and a sense of foreboding began to rise.
“Dalvyn is based in the Cayman Islands,” Aiden continued. “One of countless companies set up there to hide money offshore.”
“I still don’t see what it has to do with me?”
“Because, at the moment, it’s hiding over twenty-five million dollars of your money.”
“What?” Erika relaxed and actually laughed at such a ridiculous claim. “I’ve never had that much money in my life.”
Aiden moved the document up the screen so she could see the total at the foot of the spreadsheet – twenty-five million, just like he’d said.
“How can it be mine?” she asked, still laughing. “It’s not even in my name.”
“Marty formed Dalvyn four years ago and has been making regular deposits ever since. Following the paper trail backwards, the payments come from money you’ve earned since your career took off.”
At the risk of sounding dense, Erika asked what he meant by paper trail.
“Very cleverly, Marty diverts your money through shell companies, false charity projects and Swiss bank accounts until it ends up here. By the time it’s gone through three sets of hands, the American tax authorities have lost sight of it. As have you.”
Erika still found this impossible to believe. “Marty’s loud and brash but he’s no financial mastermind. How would he know to do all this?”
“He pays people to do it for him – the best in the business.”
“So how did you find out?”
“Because I paid people too.” He gave her a hard stare. “And like Marty’s, they didn’t exactly stay the right side of the law.”
“You mean you’ve hacked into my bank account?”
“Yours wasn’t worth the effort,” he told her with a significant stare. “A couple of million invested here and there, all above board. But Marty’s accounts got really interesting.”
Luckily the waitress arrived with coffee, forcing Erika to take a breath as she struggled to make sense of the information. Before she had chance to leap in with questions, Aiden pressed on.
“Adding everything together, my people found around four million dollars in your name. Marty has something approaching forty million.”
“In which case, your people made a mistake.” Erika’s heartbeat returned to normal when she heard these figures. “My house in Bel Air is worth three times that. Then there’s my apartment in New York and the beach house in The Hamptons.”
Something about Aiden’s expression warned her to stop. Her blood chilled as it dawned on her that he might actually be telling the truth. She swallowed hard.
“All of your properties are owned by a real estate company which, in turn, is owned by one of Marty’s bogus investment firms,” Aiden went on, pulling up another document to show a chain of companies leading back to Dalvyn Investments.
“Maybe you’re wrong. It could be a perfectly legitimate way of investing.”
“So why did Marty let you believe they were in your name?”
“I…” There was no simple answer and Erika searched for excuses. “Perhaps I misunderstood. Or you might not have all the information.”
“Trust me – I know everything.”
Erika knew instantly that the problem lay right there.
Trust.
“How do I know you’re not lying?” she asked, starting to panic. “You might have made all this up to cause trouble between Marty and me.” Fear made her irrational and she hit him unfairly below the belt. “You don’t exactly have a great track record with the truth.”
To his credit, Aiden kept his patience. “Then ask yourself when was the last time you saw a bank statement? Or why did your tour lose money and you had to add on extra dates? Why does Marty surround himself with an increasing number of advisors?” He looked at her expectantly, waiting for an answer but, when she couldn’t come up with one, he gave it for her. “Erika Fenn Incorporated is a multi-million dollar, worldwide business and Marty Cooper is systematically stripping you of every asset.”
“You’re lying,” her mouth said but her mind was telling her something else.
Erika couldn’t bring herself to believe Aiden’s terrifying version of events but so much of it made sense. Marty’s refusal to let her out of his sight. Her increasing separation from the world. The arduous work schedule that allowed her less and less downtime until she’d reached the point of collapse.
And for what? She hadn’t paid a bill or signed a cheque in three years and had been too exhausted to worry where her money went. The world began spinning.
“Take me back to the hotel,�
� she demanded, suddenly claustrophobic and needing to get out into the fresh air. “I need to get out of here.”
Without waiting for Aiden, she hurried outside, leaving him to throw some money down onto the table and follow her into the car park. He found her leaning against his car, bent double and drawing in deep breaths of icy air, shaking so violently he put his arms around her to steady her.
“Don’t touch me,” she warned, pushing him away with a strength born out of fear. “How could you do this to me?”
“I’m sorry. There was no easy way to tell you.”
“Then why tell me at all? Why turn up out of the blue and blow my life apart?”
“Because you need to know. And you also need my help – whether you like it or not.”
Erika pushed him squarely in the chest, almost knocking him off balance. “You have no idea what I need. You lost the right to interfere in my life a long time ago.”
“Listen to me.” Aiden shouted, catching her wrists to stop her struggling and forcing her to regain some control. “We may have broken up a long time ago but that doesn’t stop me caring about you. Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
“So?” She didn’t need Aiden Almighty telling her she looked terrible.
“You’re exhausted. Seriously underweight and fit to drop. You’re even in danger of losing your voice.”
“Touring’s tough.”
“Marty’s working you to death and you need to stop before it’s too late.” He raked his hand through is hair in frustration and reached to pull her into his arms, but stopped himself. “I’m worried sick about you. I can see the way you’re heading and I don’t even want to think about where you’ll end up.”
“I don’t see what you can do about it.”
“I can break your contract.” He made it sound inevitable. “I’ll make Marty hand back your money. Give you the freedom to choose your own work.”
It was too tempting a prospect to hold out in front of someone on the point of exhaustion. But then Aiden would have considered that and used it to his advantage.