Читать книгу Tasmina Perry 3-Book Collection: Daddy’s Girls, Gold Diggers, Original Sin - Tasmina Perry, Tasmina Perry - Страница 28

Tom Archer stood by his kitchen window looking out into his garden and began to chop the carrots for his casserole. The renovations to his property had been completed exactly two months ago, and so Tom was back living in his Cotswold mansion, having returned from Dorothy Whetton’s seaside retreat. He laughed to himself at how absurd the change was from his life in London. What would I have been doing now if I was still there with Serena? he thought to himself. No doubt recovering from the Saturday night before, drinking Bloody Marys and debating whether to go round to some glamorous friend’s for dinner. Perhaps reading scripts over a cocktail or just talking shop. That’s what they usually did.

Things are very different now, he thought, staring out onto the lawns bursting with herds of daffodils. The birds were singing in the clear afternoon sky, there was no sound of traffic chasing through the streets and he was alone, enjoying his own company. And he was chopping carrots. He chuckled about his life now, researching and writing his script. The cricket season was beginning, too, and he had joined the local club, the Mitchenham Tennis and Cricket Club, which seemed to have caused much excitement in the village. Ah, the pressure to get in the first eleven, he smiled to himself.

He was mildly concerned at how easily he had slipped into this new routine. The turning heads and autograph hunters in the local pub had finally subsided, and now he was just Tom, one of the lads in the village who could enjoy a quiet pint and a chat about the council’s plans to move the bus stop from outside the bakery. His friends in London, his agent, his publicist – they had all said this country-living lark was just a passing fad, an inevitable result of his breakup with Serena. But two months in, he was still enjoying it, loving the freedom to do whatever he wanted in his own time without the say-so of the London crowd.

That wasn’t to say that he didn’t get a little bit lonely. In fact, he had actually begun to look forward to the visits from Edna, his cleaning lady, who came round three times a week to spruce up the house. Maybe I’m more sociable than I thought, he smiled. Which is why he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought to invite his old friend Nick Douglas over before. When Rebecca Willard, Nick’s girlfriend had insisted on coming down too, Nick had suggested that they also invite Cate for the weekend.

Tom stopped chopping and put the knife down. He had very mixed feelings about Cate’s imminent arrival. He looked at his watch and realized that she, Nick and Rebecca were due to arrive in forty minutes. Yes, he had always enjoyed Cate’s company; the two of them would always pair off at Oswald’s parties, huddled in a corner, guzzling Martinis and poking fun at the rest of the party guests. However, Tom hadn’t seen her since that day she had come down to persuade him into a reconciliation with Serena. It had been a fairly clean-cut break-up with Serena; but he had a nagging feeling that he should let any ties to the Balcon family go. After all, they were her family. They were her.

What the hell, he thought quickly, putting three bottles of Dom Pérignon 1983 into the fridge and filling some wooden bowls with crisps. He flung open the French windows that led onto the garden terrace and, deciding that it was warm enough for a late-afternoon gin and tonic out there, he struggled to put up the huge cream linen umbrella over the garden table and chairs before lighting the patio heater for extra warmth. Back in the kitchen, he tossed the carrots into a bright orange Le Creuset casserole along with thick chunks of pheasant, parsnips and onions and hoped that a casserole and mashed potato would suffice for his guests. If Serena had been here, she would have demanded he bring in Le Caprice’s outside catering for extravagant canapés and an elaborate five-course meal – just for a casual supper. He closed the oven with a thud. Why didn’t I think of this before? He smiled.

Cate had been having misgivings about attending Tom’s dinner party, too, almost from the moment she had impulsively accepted his invitation. Now that she was driving through the pretty Gloucestershire villages, getting closer and closer to his manor house, she was even less sure. Even though Tom had been a good friend over the last five years, she was still a little awkward and embarrassed about seeing him. After all, her loyalties were to her sister. She didn’t even know if Tom knew about Michael.

But most of all, she was seriously anxious about spending the weekend with Nick, especially when he had his girlfriend in tow. Ever since that night in Milan when they had shared that brief kiss, her relationship with Nick had noticeably cooled. The first week back in the office was intolerable for her. Her feelings for Nick seemed to explode overnight to the point where she could hardly concentrate with him working in the next office, but it was clear that their relationship – while still close – was now purely professional and much more guarded. No more long boozy nights in the pub, ostensibly talking about the magazine, but spilling over into laughter and flirtation. No more Sunday brunches and eleven-o’clock-in-the-evening telephone calls to discuss ‘ideas’ and share their excitement. Gosh, she thought to herself in retrospect: what must Rebecca have thought about all that?

The Mini rattled across a lonely level crossing and past a herd of cattle peeking curiously over a hedge. Thank God she’d been so busy at work she hadn’t had time to dwell on any lost love, thought Cate, turning a CD on. She was big enough to admit she missed him – his humour, his cleverness, his friendship. She banged the steering wheel with her fist. Over the years her sisters had often teased her, laughing about how useless she was at interpreting signals, but she was sure she had read the signs right with Nick. The little things he said, the way he looked at her, his willingness to spend every available second with her. The reason must be Rebecca.

In anticipation of their meeting, Cate had spent hours that afternoon deciding what to wear. Every outfit that made her feel special also made her look ridiculously overdressed for a relaxed dinner at Tom’s. She had finally chosen a pair of her favourite jeans, a red, cowl-neck cashmere sweater and some high black Louboutin boots; the dark-red flash of the soles never failed to make her feel sexy. She had scooped her hair up into a high ponytail so it swished from side to side when she walked and had added a pair of large diamond earrings that had once been her mother’s. In all her hurry this afternoon, she had forgotten to pick up a nice bottle of wine to bring along for the evening. Spotting an off-licence ahead, she pulled up outside and hurried in to get a last-minute gift, having to settle on a cheap Bordeaux from a poor selection.

Nick and Rebecca were already there by the time Cate drew up outside Tom’s, Rebecca’s silver TVR sitting triumphantly outside the house. Cate felt slightly sick as she knocked on the front door. This could be awful, she thought. Moments later, the door opened to reveal Tom carrying two gin and tonics. ‘Here she is!’ smiled Tom, ‘the international business-woman of the year. Watch out Rupert Murdoch!’ He stepped forward, kissed her on the cheek and thrust a glass into Cate’s hand, instantly wiping out her butterflies. He turned and led her down the long corridor towards the light-filled kitchen.

As soon as she stepped into the room, she spotted Rebecca. Not what she was expecting, she quickly decided. She knew Rebecca would be glamorous, of course. The few times she had been to his flat, Cate had spotted Manolos on the carpet and Marni coats flung over a chair, but she hadn’t been expecting her to be quite this glamorous. God knew Nick was attractive, but he was definitely punching above his weight here. Poker-straight honey-blonde hair framed a perfectly oval face. Her eyes were a startling green, her cheekbones were high and angular, her mouth large and highly glossed. There was no getting around it, Rebecca was beautiful. If she hadn’t been sitting in a Cotswolds manor house, you’d have said her natural habitat was in LA, draped over a Hollywood star, with her wasp-like waist, tiny hips and her large round breasts hidden by an expensive Gucci jacket. But there was definitely a hardness about her face, Cate thought, something too smooth, too polished.

Cate turned her attention to Nick. She knew him well enough by now to see that the smile on his face did not mask the anxiety in his eyes. ‘Hi partner,’ he smiled gently, subtly removing his arm from the back of the chair in which Rebecca was sitting. ‘Did it take you hours to get here? It took us ages.’

‘That’s what you get for living in London,’ laughed Tom, moving towards the terrace doors, ‘too much time wasted in traffic jams. Talking of which, shall we go outside?’ he asked. ‘It’s too nice to be stuck in the kitchen and the chef needs to get some air,’ he grinned.

They moved out onto the enormous terrace which stood above the lawns. It was hardly a balmy evening, but for April there was a surprisingly warm and fuzzy glow to the evening. The shrill, lazy sound of birds singing high in the trees filled the garden, the cherry blossom had just burst into bloom and there was a hazy early dusk light that made the whole scene feel vaguely continental. Knocking back a big gulp of gin and tonic, Cate lifted her face to the sun, letting it warm her for the first time that year.

‘So we finally meet the famous Cate,’ said Rebecca, sidling up to her, sipping from a kir royale. ‘Although it’s amazing we’ve never met before, isn’t it? You being in magazines, me being in PR and all that,’ she added. Rebecca’s voice had a knowing, confident undercurrent, over-friendly in that insincere PR-executive way that Cate had witnessed a thousand times over in her job.

‘I know,’ smiled Cate. ‘Being editor at Class meant that I was pretty much chained to my desk, so I didn’t get out half as much as I should have. I’m sure you must know everyone from the fashion department, though?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Rebecca, putting an over-familiar hand on Cate’s arm, ‘Lucy, Cheryl, Susie – lovely girls. Terribly sorry about what happened with you, though. Just awful. Although you must be glad that your job went to Nicole Valentine and that they didn’t bring in an outsider.’

‘Yes, delighted,’ smiled Cate thinly, trying not to show her annoyance. She could tell it was going to be a night of backhanded compliments and endless chat about Rebecca and what Rebecca did. Nick had always been very sparing in his descriptions of Rebecca, but in the five minutes it took for Rebecca to introduce herself properly, she found out more about her than she had heard from Nick in two months. They had met in New York where Nick was in publishing and Rebecca was working for a PR company. She had returned the summer before and set up her own fashion PR company, which had become, according to Rebecca, instantly successful. After ten months they had already secured accounts for three major fashion labels including Roman LeFey and Clerc, the international jewellers, not to mention several luxury and beauty clients. She had a staff of ten at her Bond Street offices and business was going from strength to strength. Cate was surprised she hadn’t offered her details about the size of her house and how wonderful her sex life was.

As if reading her thoughts, Tom appeared with a bowl of crisps; when he knew Rebecca wasn’t looking, he grimaced at Cate in sympathy.

‘Of course, I will do whatever I can to help your little project,’ said Rebecca as Tom moved back into the house. ‘Nick and I are so close, it’s almost as if it’s my project too. What’s his is mine and all that,’ she said, looking over to where Nick was sifting through a pile of CDs. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, flicking back a strand of hair and pouring herself a glass of Dom Pérignon from the bottle on the wrought-iron garden table, ‘how was Milan?’ She moved out of Nick’s earshot and lowered her voice. ‘I couldn’t bear to come out and meet Nick there, however much he tried to insist. I spend so much time in the damn place, it would have been more torture than treat!’

Cate’s stomach contracted. ‘Oh, I didn’t know Nick invited you to come and join him …’

‘Oh yes,’ smiled Rebecca, her jade eyes opening wide, her voice still low. ‘We love going on little mini-breaks, but they had stopped since you two had been knocking heads together every weekend. But you must remember I will do anything I can to get Sand off the ground. Just give me a nudge. Nick never likes to ask, he’s so sweet.’

Cate reached for a handful of pistachio nuts and watched Rebecca as she drifted off to join Tom and Nick, who were laughing loudly at a private joke. In a funny way Cate was almost disappointed by Rebecca. She’d met a thousand girls like her before. Pretty, yes, beautiful even, but not particularly witty or clever. Just a very self-confident PR girl who could talk and smile and fill the silences with chit-chat about herself. She looked at Nick exchanging smiles with Rebecca and wondered what she had been expecting.

Dinner was a noisy, calorie-laden and haphazard affair. Nick and Tom were both on great form. The two men had not seen each other in a while, so the gossip came thick and fast and the banter swelled between them. The food was delicious: the meat had been cooked in thick game gravy that Tom ladled over the plates. OK, so the mustard mash came ten minutes later, but Tom took it all in his stride, laughing about his lack of coordination and quaking at the thought of cooking a Christmas dinner. The champagne and red wine flowed, and Cate cringed when she saw her bottle of off-licence plonk sitting on the table next to the Château Lafite that Rebecca had brought.

After dinner it was too cold and too dark to carry on drinking outside, so they filed into Tom’s enormous living room where he lit a fire and turned on the lamps around the room, which spilt a saffron glow up the walls and across the cream carpet. It’s a beautiful space, thought Cate, looking around the room – old, traditional, yet sophisticated and modern. When they all stopped talking, they could hear nothing but the crackling of the embers. Cate wondered how lonely it must be for Tom when the visitors had gone, the fire had died down and the birds had stopped singing. Maybe that was why he still had a sideboard full of photographs to remind him of the life that was still out there. One large black-and-white photograph in a tawny leather frame stood out from the rest of the happy smiling shots of friends and family. It was a shot of Tom and Serena laughing on a boat. Cate felt embarrassed to be looking at them, almost as if she was intruding; she turned her head away, conscious of the fact that Serena’s name had not been brought up all evening.

‘Is it really corny if I go and make some egg-nog?’ asked Tom, shoving a poker into the fire. ‘It’s a big house and it’s a spooky night outside,’ he said, looking at the full moon shining down through the windows. ‘But we’ve got friends and a roaring fire; it’s just crying out for some egg-nog! Hang on, what is egg-nog?’ he asked, looking at Cate, his brow furrowed. ‘Milk, whisky and cinnamon?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ replied Cate, laughing. ‘I’m more of a Martini girl.’

‘Uh-oh, prepare for an alcoholic disaster,’ smiled Nick lazily.

‘Well, I lived in New York for three years,’ announced Rebecca, walking towards the kitchen. ‘I know how to make a great egg-nog. I’ll come and help you.’

Cate and Nick settled into two big red armchairs at either side of the fireplace, Cate curling her feet up into the squishy cushions contentedly. ‘What would you do for a place like this?’ said Nick softly, looking around the room and up into the high-beamed ceiling. ‘Oh sorry!’ he said, teasing a little, ‘I forgot: you do have a house like this.’

‘Oh stop it,’ grinned Cate, ‘it’s the family house – and anyway, you obviously haven’t been. It’s not half as cosy and delicious as this place.’

‘Are you staying over?’ he asked, immediately looking embarrassed. ‘I mean, it’s a great house, you just want to stay in it as long as possible,’ he added quickly. ‘You should see my room, it’s got a bloody Jacuzzi at the bottom of the bed!’

‘My room?’ queried Cate. ‘Sleeping solo tonight then?’

‘Well, no …’ mumbled Nick.

‘Well, you’ll enjoy that then,’ said Cate, instantly regretting sounding as peevish as she felt. ‘Make up for not being with Rebecca in Milan.’

Nick looked at her, confused. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Anyway …’ gushed Cate, suddenly nervous to be alone with him.

He looked at her as if he was examining her face and she felt her heart lurch.

‘… at least I haven’t been put in the stables,’ she blustered nervously. ‘I’m up in the attic, it’s absolutely gorgeous – loads of beams, wooden floors, and the view is fantastic: you can see all the way over to Stow on the Wold.’

‘Cate –’

Tom and Rebecca came back into the room, Tom carrying a huge terracotta pitcher of steaming drink. ‘Is egg-nog supposed to be hot?’ asked Tom. ‘Seemed like it would be better if it was hot, anyway.’

Cate glanced up at Rebecca and noted that somewhere between the living room and the kitchen, Rebecca had lost her jacket. She was now just wearing a tiny, spaghetti-strapped vest.

‘Come on, Tom, confess,’ laughed Nick, who didn’t seem to have noticed the change. ‘How are you enjoying it out here in the wilds all on your own?’

Tom perched on the edge of Cate’s armchair and lay his arm along the back of the headrest. Cate was surprised to find herself enjoying Tom’s protective presence, but she also noted that Rebecca was now looking over at her with a questioning expression.

‘Actually, I love it,’ said Tom. ‘I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that it gets a bit lonely at times, but I just love having some time to myself to do the things I want to do. Can you believe that the Women’s Institute even invited me to give them a talk on creative writing?’

‘Does your agent know about this?’ said Rebecca in a voice so serious that nobody in the room knew whether she was joking or not.

‘I suspect the fee will be in pots of gooseberry jam,’ said Tom, sipping his egg-nog. ‘I’m not sure my agent will be interested in a percentage of that. But no, I love it. And I don’t think I’ll be coming back any time soon.’

‘But what about your acting career? How can you give that up?’ asked Rebecca solemnly.

There was an awkward silence as Tom looked at Cate again, one eyebrow slightly raised. ‘Oh, I think Hollywood will wait,’ said Tom finally. ‘At least until I finish this egg-nog.’

As the evening wore on, they talked and laughed and played Pictionary, after which Tom took them on a torch-lit tour of the house, telling them tales of ghosts and spirits that he’d heard from the village gossips over the past few weeks. ‘Apparently there’s a ghost of a one-armed servant that lives down here,’ he said as they stumbled around the dusty wine cellar. ‘Oh my God!’ squealed Rebecca. ‘Aren’t you terrified?’

‘Not quite sure I want to be all the way up in the attic tonight,’ laughed Cate.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Tom, putting a hand on Cate’s arm. ‘I haven’t seen anything since I’ve been here. The only spirits in this house are in that drink.’

That wasn’t so painful, thought Cate, climbing into her cotton pyjamas and creeping in between the Pratesi sheets and thick down duvet – a relic from his old life with Serena, thought Cate with a smile. As long as they had not been left alone, Nick was not awkward and shy; in fact he had been totally on form. It had been great to see Tom too. She still wasn’t sure whether he was genuinely happy out here in the country, or whether he was trying to convince himself that the sadness he felt was not there. It must be so hard, she thought, moving from a whirlwind life of nonstop parties and socializing – and she knew from her teenage years that Serena was a loud and domineering person to live with – to Tom’s splendid isolation with just a few rumoured ghosts for company. But no, her worries about the men had been unfounded.

And she had met Rebecca and in some ways she was relieved. Now she was real at least and she could no longer just dismiss the idea of Nick having a girlfriend. After Milan she had still harboured a glimmer of hope that there was something between her and Nick, but now she had seen him as half of a couple, she knew that there was nothing there. The cocktail of gin and tonic, red wine and egg-nog was making her drowsy now. Feeling just a little scared about the ghosts, she pulled the duvet right up to her chin, tucked her head deep into the pillows so they surrounded her ears, and tried her best to fall asleep.

The Cotswold countryside is full of noises at night: barn owls hooting in the distance, leaves swooshing as the evening wind tickles their branches and the clanking of pipes and cisterns throughout the ancient brickwork. It was something Tom had learnt to sleep through. But at three o’clock in the morning, he was suddenly disturbed by a sound he didn’t quite recognize: a long creak coming from the dark area over by his bedroom door. Still semi-conscious, he dismissed it, turning over and flinging the duvet away from him as he turned. Suddenly he froze. No, this time there was someone else there. The covers moved and he felt another body slip under the sheets beside him.

‘What the –?’

Feeling a dart of terror shoot up his spine, he slowly turned to face the intruder. A long French-manicured finger brushed the hair from his forehead. ‘Shhh,’ whispered a voice. As Tom’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, the shape beside him began to take on a form he recognized.

‘Rebecca,’ he hissed, as she pushed herself up against him and he realized in the dark-greyness that she was naked.

‘Rebecca, what the hell –?’

‘Shhhh …’ she repeated, putting her finger to his lips. Suddenly his mind leapt back to earlier in the evening when she had followed him into the kitchen to help him with the egg-nog. He remembered how she had suggestively slipped off her jacket and brushed up against him, her bare arms against his. At the time, it had seemed accidental, but now her friendliness had taken on a whole other perspective. Now, as she shifted beside him, the firm curve of her breasts and nipples were silhouetted against a shaft of moonlight coming through a crack in the curtains. Frozen in terror, his mind searching for a way to escape, he was struck by how much Rebecca’s outline looked like Serena’s. The long blonde hair falling onto her bare shoulders, the firm, slim, smooth body, pushing up against his. She was so warm, so soft, he thought drowsily. But no.

Desperately, springing to his senses, Tom shook his head and moved his body away from her. ‘Look, Rebecca, what are you doing?’ he hissed urgently. ‘Don’t, no, don’t –’

Before he had time to object further, Rebecca’s head had moved under the covers, her hair brushing against his navel as she went down. Tom groaned as he felt her ripe lips surround his cock, her whole mouth going down the shaft of his penis until its tip touched the back of her throat. Up down, up, down. For a second he moaned with pleasure: it had been over three months since he had had any physical contact with a woman – and he missed it. Suddenly he came to his senses.

‘Fuck, Rebecca. Get off me. Now.’

Her head came up for air and she slid out of his bed as smoothly as she had entered it.

He turned to watch her, wretched with embarrassment, as her naked body walked away from him. Completely unaffected by what had just happened, she picked up a silk dressing gown that she had discarded on the floor seconds earlier and looked over her shoulder to smile at him.

‘Any time,’ she purred seductively. ‘Remember, Tom, any time.’