by Exley Avis
“You have no idea,” she said eventually. “The bed’s felt very empty without him.”
The waitress returned for their order and Ben gave her his best Hollywood smile whilst signing an autograph on her order pad. Erika watched in admiration, never before realising how much of an act his real life must be. Playing a role every minute of every day. Pretending to be the ultimate Romeo. Flirting shamelessly with every woman who crossed his path.
Erika knew that maintaining an image for two or three hours on stage was exhausting enough, but playing a role every waking minute must have put an intolerable strain on Ben, and she came to appreciate fully his strength of character.
As soon as the waitress left, Ben’s smile faded and he turned his entire attention back to Erika. “So this Aiden’s a keeper, is he?” he guessed.
Erika shook her head in bewilderment. “You tell me. I only know I can’t get him out of my head. I’ve spent five years hating him, and trying to forget him, but now I can’t stop thinking about him. How stupid is that?”
“It’s not stupid. It’s love.” Ben sounded so certain he had to be speaking from bitter experience. “I’ve spent years denying my true feelings and it only ends in heartache. Take my advice. Don’t fight it.”
After two blissful nights in Aiden’s bed it would have been all too tempting to follow this suggestion but Erika remained uncertain. “It’s not that easy. When I first saw Aiden again, the ground shifted under my feet and I found myself falling for him harder than ever. Everything I ever felt for him is still there, but he hurt me so much last time I’m afraid to open my heart. I daren’t make that leap of faith.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Yes. And he says he’ll wait until I’m ready.”
“So how does he feel about you?” Ben asked. “Is it love for him this time, or will it all end in tears again?”
Erika thought hard before she answered, remembering Aiden naked beside her in bed, his body enfolding hers as he told her over and over that he loved her and would never leave.
“He’s different now,” she said at last. “Far more vulnerable. Five years ago he obviously didn’t take our relationship seriously enough. Now he says that letting me go was the worst mistake he’s ever made. He wants to spend the rest of his life making it up me.”
“Will you let him?” It was a simple enough question but the answer didn’t come quite as easily.
“I don’t know. Not only am I frightened to get involved again, I’m also terrified I’m only falling into his arms because he’s promised to rescue me from Marty. I need to be sure it’s him I want, not the freedom he represents.”
“What makes you doubt it?”
“Because when I’m with him, the edges of reality are blurred and I can’t think straight. It’s impossible to imagine my future without him but, if I go straight from Marty to Aiden, I’ll be swapping one kind of dependency for another. What happens if I wake up in his bed six months from now and realise I’ve made a mistake?” She paused for Ben’s answer but it didn’t come. “For Aiden’s sake, as well as mine, I need to be sure I really love him.”
“Trust me, you’re sure.” Ben rolled his eyes as if it were obvious. “You can’t say his name without blushing. When you talk about him you hug yourself. You don’t need me to tell you you’re in love with him.”
No she probably didn’t.
But loving Aiden and staking her future happiness upon him were two completely different things.
“Not seeing him for a couple of days has let my head clear,” she went on, thinking out loud about their whirlwind reunion. “And not only about my feelings for him. I’m wondering whether, once all this is over, I’ll need some time alone to take stock.”
“Sounds reasonable to me.”
“So how do I explain it to Aiden without him feeling rejected?”
Ben moved into the chair next to Erika and put his arm around her shoulders, for once not caring whether the photographers had a good shot of them.
“Firstly, Aiden already knows how you feel about him,” he said. “If I can see you’re in love with him, so must he.”
“And second?”
“If he loves you as much as you say, he’ll understand you need time to find yourself again.”
Erika rested her head on Ben’s shoulder and struggled to convince herself. “Right now, I’d be glad of any kind of conversation with him. I’m worried he’ll see pictures of us together and jump to the wrong conclusions. He might even think I only used him to make you jealous. I can’t wait to see him and tell him how I really feel.”
Tears threatened, but conscious they had an audience, Erika blinked them away and kissed Ben’s cheek, relaxing into his embrace.
“When they talk about falling in love, that’s exactly what it is,” she said eventually, sitting up again. “We don’t intend to do it. We simply trip up somewhere along the way and plunge headlong, not having a clue where we’ll land.”
Ben sighed at the truth of this. “In which case, let’s do everything we can to make sure you don’t skin your knees.”
Aiden tried his utmost to concentrate on whatever his surveyor was telling him but the information simply wouldn’t sink in. The winds whipping around the construction site in east London must have come straight from Siberia because their icy fingers found their way into every gap in his clothing, chilling him to the bone. Unusually for Aiden, he felt shivery and listless and he wondered whether he might be coming down with the flu.
Then common sense told him the only thing ailing him was Erika Fenn and, from past experience, that illness needed a much longer recovery period.
“Let’s call it a day,” he suggested eventually, taking the surveyor completely by surprise. Aiden never gave the business less than his full attention but his mind was running at half speed and was totally preoccupied. Unable to make a decision on even the smallest point, he’d be better off at home.
“In fact, close the whole site down early for the weekend,” he said. “The snow’s coming in and everyone will be glad to get home today.”
Hardly able to believe what he’d just heard, the surveyor went off to spread the good news, leaving Aiden to trudge back to his car, hands deep in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the cold. He flung his hard hat onto the back seat and shut the door on the wind, only then daring to remove his gloves.
Chafing his hands together and breathing on them to bring them back to life, he promised himself he wouldn’t look at the Internet news services again and stuck his phone deep in his pocket.
Every new photograph of Erika and Ben only reopened the wound the first picture had inflicted, doubling the ache that encased the centre of his chest until he could no longer breathe without effort.
Aiden didn’t need to see Erika stealing kisses from Ben Ridley in the street to realise she’d gone for good this time. He had a cold bed to remind him, and a mobile phone that hadn’t managed to connect with hers in four days. The letter he’d sent to Claridges had been ripped open and returned, and lay on his desk, telling him time and again what a fool he’d been to make himself so vulnerable.
Photographs of Erika sharing lunch with Ben, or leaving an exclusive jeweller’s after choosing an engagement ring, only amplified the pain and very public humiliation that had now driven out every other sensation.
He could spare himself any more of that at least.
Before he headed home to thaw out, he checked with his office in case he needed to deal with anything urgent before the weekend. He saw he’d missed four calls from his secretary in the last hour and dialled, expecting progress on a deal he’d been trying to put together in Zurich. When she came on the line she had very different news.
“A Richard Edmonds has called three times this afternoon but wouldn’t leave much of a message.”
“Probably another contractor wanting work on one of the sites,” Aiden guessed because he received at least a dozen similar calls each week.
/> “That’s what I thought at first but he’s American. He said a friend’s unable to contact you. Does that mean anything to you?”
Potentially it meant a great deal but Aiden played it cautiously. “It doesn’t ring any bells,” he pretended, “but I’d take his name again in case I remember over the weekend.”
He scribbled down the mobile number, wondering if he’d find Marty Cooper on the other end of it. His fingers itched to dial straight away but he told himself to wait and call from his apartment. Good news or bad, he needed a hot shower and some privacy before he could face dealing with a cryptic American who may, or may not, have news of Erika.
Less than an hour later, Aiden emerged from his bathroom, showered and dressed in jeans and a heavy sweater, although still shivery. The note of Richard Edmonds’ telephone number lay on the kitchen worktop next to his keys, goading him into calling, and yet he hesitated.
He wanted to speak to Erika direct – either face to face or on the phone – and he didn’t relish the idea of conducting his private life through a third party.
However, as Richard represented the only probable connection with her, he had no choice but to ring.
The call was answered immediately but, before Aiden could say a word, an American voice warned him to be careful. “I can’t guarantee this line is secure. Don’t mention names or specifics. We need to talk in person.”
At least it’s not Marty Cooper, Aiden thought. “Who are you and how do I know I can trust you?”
“I’ll introduce myself when we meet. And as soon as you hear what I have to say, you’ll know I’m the real deal.”
“If this is an attempt to blackmail me…” Aiden left the threat hanging in the air but Richard Edmonds didn’t rise to the bait.
“Relax. It ain’t personal. I’m doing this for our friend. So will you meet me or not?”
Every instinct told Aiden to steer well clear of meeting someone he couldn’t identify but he didn’t have much choice. He already knew how impossible it was to get anywhere close to Erika and this might be his last chance before she returned to Los Angeles.
Even if she told him she never wanted to see him again, he needed to hear it from her own lips. All he had at the moment were disappointments built from snippets of gossip that told him she was engaged to Ben Ridley.
Erika at least owed him the truth, even an unpalatable one.
“Where do you want to meet?” Aiden asked eventually, thinking he might be handing a journalist the scoop of his life. “There’s a bar in the West End…”
“No.” Richard was adamant. “For reasons that will become plain, it has to be somewhere more discreet.”
“Will our friend be with you?”
“That’s not possible.”
The seeds of Aiden’s doubt took root and flourished in an instant. He wouldn’t be played for a fool “In that case, no deal,” he said, preparing to hang up but Richard rushed to stop him.
“Look, I don’t blame you for being suspicious. But you gotta trust me.”
“Why? I have no proof you even know my friend.”
Richard swore under his breath in frustration. “I can’t give you proof over the phone because this line may have been hacked and I don’t know who’s listening. I daren’t even describe exactly where we’re meeting.”
“So how will I find you?” Aiden felt the situation growing more bizarre by the minute.
“Drive to your old apartment block at nine tonight and park in the service road out back.”
“Which apartment? I’ve owned half a dozen.”
Richard laughed before he delivered the next instruction. “If you asked, I’m to say it’s the apartment where our friend met Little Miss Naked.”
Erika!
Aiden only just stopped himself blurting out her name. She wouldn’t have shared that piece of information with anyone, least of all a journalist. A woman who spent every waking minute protecting her privacy wouldn’t have let slip one of her most closely-guarded secrets. If Richard Edmonds knew something this private, Erika must have trusted him with it.
Aiden’s assessment of Richard shifted in a moment. “I’ll be there,” he promised, although still praying he wasn’t being taken for a fool
However, by nine thirty that evening Aiden half believed he was on a wild goose chase after all. He sat shivering in an unlit car park behind his old apartment, still waiting for Richard Edmonds to appear. He’d tried the American’s mobile a couple of times but it had clicked to voicemail and he’d hung up, wondering whether the meeting had simply been a ruse to get him out of his apartment.
He laughed at himself. All this secrecy and talk of hacked phone lines had made him so paranoid he’d started believing someone might be bugging his flat right now.
He had to get a grip.
After waiting for another ten minutes, Aiden was on the verge of driving away when a second car pulled into the bay opposite and switched off its lights, plunging the car park into darkness again. He made out two shadowy figures so he flicked on his headlights. He recognised Ben Ridley with a jolt.
He was impressed. Men like him usually got someone else to do their dirty work.
Ben turned away as the light flashed in his eyes and said something to the smaller man beside him, who shook his head as if he didn’t have the answer. Aiden wondered what kind of situation he’d put himself into but reasoned the only way to find out was to get out of his car.
Richard introduced himself first. “Good to meet you, Aiden. Perhaps now you appreciate the need for secrecy.”
Ben held out his hand in greeting but Aiden pointedly ignored the gesture, wanting to hear what Ben had to say. Ben shoved his hand back in his pocket and burrowed down inside his coat.
“I guess you’re not too pleased to see me,” he said, the master of understatement.
“If you’ve come to rub my nose in your success, don’t bother,” Aiden warned, raising his voice more than he’d intended.
“Success?”
“I saw you and Erika outside Claridges. I only wish she’d had the courage to tell me herself that it’s over.”
Aiden waited for his anger to rise but it didn’t come. Instead a excruciating sense of humiliation swelled inside him as he stood facing the man who’d walked away with the woman he loved and now flaunted his victory to every passing photographer.
“It’s not the way it looks,” Ben said but Aiden laughed in his face.
“I’m many things but I’m not a fool, Ridley. Tell Erika that, if this was all about revenge, we’re even now. I finally understand how betrayed she felt five years ago. Job done.”
He made to get back into the car, wanting to escape before he either lost his temper or his dignity in front of Ben. He’d come out of this badly enough without Erika hearing he was falling apart without her.
“You’re not a fool, Aiden. Erika’s told me that. In fact, she’d told me everything except the part about you being stubborn and bone headed. The man Erika described would have given me a fair hearing, at least.”
Stung by the accusation of unfairness, Aiden let go of the car door and turned back to Ben, curious but unconvinced. “What more is there to say? Erika’s made her choice and I have to respect that.”
“Even so, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Ben warned, anger flaring. “You’ve been on the wrong end of the paparazzi often enough to know they can invent a story from the flimsiest evidence.”
“I saw the way you kissed Erika,” Aiden growled. “There was nothing flimsy about it.”
Ben tipped his head on one side as if he’d been paid a huge compliment. “We all play to our strengths – that’s what makes us so successful. You build. Erika sings. And I act.”
“So?”
“What you saw the other morning was nothing more than a performance staged for the photographers’ benefit. If we had you convinced, we must have played our parts to perfection.”
Aiden’s mind raced to make sense of the informa
tion. “What are you saying? That you’re not together?”
“Erika tells me you’re a man of honour. Someone who can keep a secret. So I’m about to trust you with information the press would kill for.”
Aiden braced himself, expecting to hear Ben had married Erika secretly, or that their engagement was more than just a rumour.
“I love Erika,” Ben admitted, knocking the wind out of Aiden. “She’s beautiful, funny, talented and sexy. But you don’t need me to tell you that.”
“No I don’t.” Aiden tensed, not knowing whether to punch Ben or get in his car and drive off. “I hope you’ll be very happy together.”
“I doubt it.” Ben laughed grimly. “You see, I’m gay.”
“Gay?” Aiden took a step back in astonishment, wanting to laugh in relief but feeling it inappropriate. “If this got out, your career would be over.”
“Duh!” Ben pulled a face and, this time, Aiden did laugh.
“So Erika was only pretending.”
“To great effect apparently.” Ben smiled and held out his hand again toward Aiden. “Shall we start afresh? I’m Ben. And a good friend of mine is apparently very much in love with you.”
Aiden grinned in relief and shook Ben’s hand. “Forgive me. How is she? I’ve missed her.”
“Miserable,” Ben laughed. “And she never stops talking about you. In fact, I’m bored to death with hearing how wonderful you are.”
“So why hasn’t she called? When I saw the pictures of you both, I thought…”
“I know what you thought.” Ben rebuked him silently for jumping to conclusions. “But when Marty saw your photo and the YouTube videos he went crazy and smashed her phone. She has a bodyguard outside her door 24/7.”
“Bastard. I should have laid him out when I had the chance.”
“Good job you didn’t. He also has the CCTV footage from the hotel car park and is threatening an assault charge if Erika contacts you.”
The curses Aiden now uttered made Ben and Richard laugh. Ben took off his coat and handed it to Aiden.
“Here, put this on. There’s a hat in the pocket too. You’re going to Claridges so I’m hoping you can do a good enough impersonation of me.”