“Listen,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, “my shift ends at eleven. If you want”—she bent down and lightly brushed the back of his neck with her long fingers, making his hair stand on end—“we could go somewhere afterward. To talk.”
“Great.” Max smiled wolfishly, throwing caution to the wind.
That was a conversation he was definitely looking forward to.
Back at the beach house, Siena sat miserably on the sofa and scraped out the last dregs of a huge tub of rum-and-raisin ice cream. She was wearing an old pair of gray sweat pants, a big Aran sweater of Hunter’s, and a pair of Max’s hiking socks. Her hair was scraped back in a messy bun, and what little makeup she’d had on had long since been cried away, leaving her usually porcelain-white complexion red and swollen.
“You look terrible,” said Hunter, not unkindly, emerging from the kitchen still holding the portable phone. He’d been on the phone to Vancouver for almost two hours, chatting with Tiffany. “And what’s this crap you’re watching?”
Siena moved over on the sofa to make a space for him and he dutifully sat down and put a brotherly arm around her.
“It’s not crap, it’s HBO,” she said, not taking her eyes off the screen. “Anyway, you can talk about making crappy television!” she joked, then instantly regretted it when she saw his face cloud over. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that,” she backtracked. “I just wanted to try and distract myself, that’s all. I mean, it’s past midnight. Wouldn’t you have thought he’d be back by now?”
Hunter took the empty ice-cream bucket and spoon out of her hands and pulled her tightly into his embrace. He hated seeing her so upset, but it wasn’t as if this were the first time Siena and Max had had a humdinger of a fight. Every time it happened, she convinced herself that this was it, that it was over—a bit like the way he used to be with Tiffany—and every time she took solace in a vat of Ben & Jerry’s. For someone so crazy and spirited and strong-willed, she could be very predictable at times.
“Not necessarily.” He tried to sound reassuring. “You know Max. He’s proud and stubborn to a fault. He’s probably spending the night holed up in some horrid motel, wishing he hadn’t been such an idiot but too pigheaded to pick up the phone and call you.”
“I hope so,” said Siena, but she wasn’t convinced. Hunter hadn’t seen Max’s face when he’d stormed out. He was angrier than she’d ever seen him.
“And I really don’t think overdosing on ice cream is gonna make you feel any better.”
Siena managed a weak smile. “That’s because you’re a man and you don’t know anything.”
“Oh,” said Hunter indulgently, stroking back a stray strand of her hair. “I see.”
“How is Tiffany, anyway?” she asked, trying to muster some interest in anything other than Max and his whereabouts. “Still having fun up there?”
“Yeah,” said Hunter, a huge grin bursting across his face at the thought of his girlfriend. “She’s loving it. Not so much Vancouver; she says the city’s kinda dead. But the show, all the guys she’s working with, that’s going great.” He sighed. “I miss her, though.”
“I know you do,” said Siena who, despite herself, still wished he didn’t.
“I’m off to bed anyway, sweetheart,” he announced. “I’m beat. And if you’ve got any sense, you’ll turn in, too. Trust me, Max will be back with his tail between his legs before you open your eyes.”
He stood up and held out his hand to pull her to her feet. She let him help her, glad as always of his physical presence and the closeness and comfort it never failed to bring her.
“Okay,” she said, turning off the TV and throwing the remote down on the couch. “You’re probably right.”
He bent down and kissed her tenderly on her forehead, nose, and dimpled chin, just as he used to when they were kids.
“Of course I am,” he said. “You just wait and see.”
Across town in East Hollywood, Max sat bolt upright in Camille’s bed, stone-cold sober.
Jesus Christ. What had he done?
Bleakly, he ran back over the evening’s events in his mind. He’d kept on drinking at the Sky Bar till she’d finished her shift. By then he’d been far, far too smashed to drive, which gave him a perfect excuse not to have to show Camille his battered old car. This was particularly important, since by the time they left together, he had managed to convince her that he was a super-rich producer and director, and the only reason he didn’t want to take her home to his palatial pad was that it was at the far end of Malibu, he needed to pick up his car in the morning, and didn’t it make more sense to go back to her place instead?
He didn’t know if he was a frighteningly good liar, or if Camille was just particularly gullible. Either way, he felt an avalanche of guilt crushing him mercilessly when he thought about it.
She lay beside him now, her tousled head resting on a makeup-smeared pillow, her naked body still glistening with sweat, and her face flushed with drowsy post-orgasmic delight. Seeing Max’s pained expression, she reached up and rested her hand gently on his bare back. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Oh God,” he wailed, staggering out of bed and pulling on his boxer shorts and shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, sweetheart. But I have to go home.”
“Now?” she said, her brow furrowing in disappointment. “But what about your car? I thought you were going to stay here and pick it up in the morning? You don’t want to get a cab all the way to Malibu at this time of night.”
“I’m not going to Malibu,” he said simply, too caught up in his own guilt and panic to spare much of a thought for her feelings. Buttoning up his jeans, he began scanning the room for his socks and shoes.
“What do you mean?” demanded Camille. She had sat up in bed now, and Max noticed that her enormous silicone boobs didn’t fall so much as a millimeter but remained fixed ridiculously in front of her, like glued-on beach balls. He thought of Siena’s beautiful, natural breasts and wanted to cry. What was he doing here?
“Look, like I said, I’m sorry,” he repeated harshly. “I lied to you. I’m not a producer or a millionaire, and there is no house in Malibu.”
Camille’s mouth dropped open, and she glared at him. That, he supposed, was where the L.A. girls’ “hard” look came from. From being used and lied to and taken advantage of by guys like him.
“I’ve been a total jerk, and you didn’t deserve it,” he admitted, slipping on his shoes and grabbing his wallet from the bedside table. “But the truth is, I have someone at home. Someone I love more than anything.”
He forced himself to look at her. Her eyes were ablaze with hatred. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”
She looked back at him with utter contempt. “Fuck you,” she said quietly, and rolling over, she pulled the covers up over her head to block him out.
There were a few seconds of silence, then she heard the door creak open and close with a soft, guilty click. Under the covers, she could feel her rage bubbling up to breaking point, and bit down on her lower lip so hard it bled.
The fucking bastard. The fucking, fucking bastard.
Outside Camille’s apartment, the cold night air was like a slap in Max’s face, jolting him out of his hangover and any residual drunkenness and bringing starkly home to him the enormity of what he had just done.
He began walking aimlessly down Vine toward Hollywood Boulevard, where he supposed he could get a cab. But to go where? Back to Siena, poor, darling, lovely Siena who right now was probably lying innocently asleep in their bed, trusting him and loving him and waiting for him to come home?
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t pollute her with what had happened tonight. Dammit, he was such a fucking fool! And all because of his stupid pride, his insane jealousy, his terrible, uncontrollable temper.
Why couldn’t he be a decent, honest, faithful guy like Henry? No wonder he didn’t have a happy family or a successful career. He didn’t deserve to. He felt like he wanted to cry, but he was
so out of practice, the tears refused to flow. Instead, he glanced around for a cab. He wanted to get as far away from Camille as he possibly could.
“Taxi!” he shouted as a weary-looking Mexican cabbie slowed down to pick him up. Max clambered into the back of the cab, which was filthy and smelled of stale Taco Bell. “Take me to the beach,” he said. “Venice.”
He would swim in the icy salt water and scrub at himself until all traces of the girl were gone from his body. Then maybe he could sleep down there on the sand for a couple of hours until dawn, clear his head, and get his story straight before he went home to face the music.
He had already decided he wasn’t going to come clean with Siena. He couldn’t face losing her or hurting her more than he already had. She would never know he had betrayed her. And he swore to himself, by everything he held dear in this life: He would spend the rest of his days making it up to her.
Siena was so deeply asleep that she barely registered at first when he slipped into bed beside her. He must have already been to the bathroom and brushed his teeth, because she could smell mint, combined with seawater, sweat, and stale alcohol fumes that no amount of toothpaste could fully disguise. Opening her eyes a fraction, she glanced at the bedside clock. It was five-thirty in the morning.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, cuddling in to her back and wrapping his arms around her tightly. “Please forgive me.”
She was so overwhelmed with joy and relief that she swiveled around and smothered his face in kisses. Reaching up to put her hands in his hair, she stroked his back lovingly, touching his skin in wonder as though checking he was actually real.
“I’m sorry too,” she said between kisses. “I love you so much, Max.”
“I know you do, honey,” he said, his voice cracking. “I know you do.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Henry Arkell had spent the best part of a thoroughly miserable day at Pablo Ruiz Picasso Airport in Málaga, where a baggage handlers’ strike had left thousands of British tourists stranded after their holidays. The terminal was heaving with exhausted, overweight mothers bawling at their bored and unruly offspring, or struggling to snatch a few hours’ sleep on the hard red plastic chairs. Henry watched their depressed-looking husbands in silent sympathy as they packed into the one small bar upstairs, a swarm of beer bellies covered in shiny red soccer shirts, hoping to drown their sorrows with warm Spanish beer.
Like them, he longed to get home, although in his case, the marital strife would not begin until he landed in England. There could be no more putting it off now. He’d have to tell Muffy everything.
“Sorry for the wait, sir,” said the briskly polite young stewardess as he handed her his boarding pass, having finally been shown through to the plane. At least he was flying business class at Gary Ellis’s expense. “Would you like me to hang up your jacket for you?”
“Sure,” he said, easing his big shoulders out of his ancient tweed. “Thanks.”
Sinking down into the spacious seat, he accepted an immediately proffered glass of champagne, not that he had the slightest reason to celebrate, but at least he’d be able to get drunk with that bastard Ellis’s money.
He’d flown out to Spain yesterday, feeding Muffy an unlikely story about going to some conference on a new EU directive for dairy quotas, and driven straight up into the hills for a meeting with Gary at his pink monstrosity of a villa.
“’Enry. Good to see you, mate.” The developer had greeted him warmly, pumping his hand between his own clammy palms and leading him out to the poolside bar.
Gary was topless and barefoot, sporting a lurid lime-green pair of Bermuda shorts over which his big sunburned stomach spilled unashamedly. He had an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth and could not have looked more like a criminal on the run if he’d put on a striped suit and a black eye mask. Henry instantly regretted having worn a suit.
“’Ere, let me tike your jacket, you must be roasting.” Henry gladly complied and sat down on one of the bubblegum-pink poolside chairs. A maid immediately arrived with a tray of iced water. The cool liquid tasted delicious, but he couldn’t seem to keep the ice from clinking noisily against the side of the glass as his hands shook. He felt guilty, out of place, and unaccountably nervous. Gary, on the other hand, looked relaxed and in control.
“So, Mr. Ellis,” Henry began stiffly. “What was this offer you wanted to discuss with me?”
“Gary, please,” said the developer, with another confident smile.
If Henry had never really liked Ellis, the feeling was entirely mutual. Gary had never forgotten the way he had been frozen out by the elitist, upper-class Cotswold social set in Batcombe when he first moved into the village. That buffoon Christopher Wellesley and his stuck-up cronies had made sure that he was never admitted to their inner circle, the glamorous world of hunt balls and private dinner parties to which he had secretly longed to belong. He remembered the patronizing way Henry had looked at him at that dinner party at Thatchers, when he’d first admired the Manor Farm estate. He’d made Gary feel like a bit of dog shit stuck on the bottom of his shoe, the snooty little wanker. But the shoe was well and truly on the other foot now.
He’d first gotten wind of Henry’s financial troubles about a month ago and decided to make a move almost immediately. It wasn’t just the social slight that had been burned on his memory. He also remembered how prime that land had been, how perfectly ripe for development. And then there was the lovely Mrs. Arkell. How satisfying it would be, he thought, to take the bastard’s farm and his wife, if the opportunity should present itself. Heavy debts, he knew from experience, could put a big strain on a marriage.
Today, however, he hid his inner resentment and made sure he was charm personified. On his own home ground, and holding all the cards, he could afford to play a waiting game.
“All right then,” he grinned. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I wanna buy you aht.”
“Buy me out? Do you mean the whole farm?” The color had drained from Henry’s face. Despite the heat, he looked white as a sheet. “I assumed . . . I mean, when we’d met before, you’d only seen the lower pastures.”
“Everyfink.” Gary lapped up his discomfiture.
“I’m sorry,” said Henry quietly. “It’s not for sale.”
“No?” Gary raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing sitting ’ere then?”
Henry was silent.
“It’d make a lovely golf club,” said Gary viciously. “Two point six. Tike it or leave it.”
Two point six million pounds. It was more than the farm was worth. A good 30 percent more. That sort of money would solve all their financial problems in one stroke. But a golf club? His father and grandfather would be turning in their graves at the very thought of it. Henry could feel himself sweating and looked miserably down at his feet. Why couldn’t the slimy bastard have offered less? If he’d come up with some stupid, greedy, lowball figure, it would have been easy to tell him to stick it, to fly back home with his conscience clear, if not his balance sheet. But this was a more than generous offer. By any rational standards, he’d be crazy to refuse.
“I’ll need to talk to my wife.”
“Fair enough,” said Ellis briskly. “But the offer only stands for forty-eight hours. It’s nuffink personal,” he explained, suppressing his inner glee at Henry’s panic-stricken features. “Just business. I’m about to exchange on annuver bit o’ land a coupla valleys over from you. I’d rather ’ave yours, but I need to know.”
That conversation was almost six hours ago. As he sat on the plane, miserably knocking back one drink after another, Henry still had no idea what he was going to do or how he was going to begin to break the news to Muffy.
She was there to greet him at Luton, looking adorable as ever in her blue gardening cords and one of his ancient, tattered Guernsey sweaters. She almost never bought anything new for herself—not that she’d ever been terribly into clothes, but since their money troubles she had gone to ex
tra lengths to cut back on even the smallest unnecessary expenditure. Last week she’d proudly told him that she’d started reusing tea bags and saving torn wrapping paper. Henry could have wept with guilt.
Looking at her across the airport, he felt his heart bursting anew with love for her and with shame for himself. How could he have let her down like this? Mercifully, none of the children was with her. He couldn’t have coped with Maddie’s endless questions or the boys’ demands for presents all the way home. Not today.
“So, how was the conference?” she asked him, ignoring his protests and taking the lighter of his bags from him. “Was it worth it?” At first, when he didn’t answer, she assumed he hadn’t heard her. But as soon as she turned and looked at his ashen face, she knew something was seriously wrong.
“Henry,” she said, her voice full of concern. “What is it? What on earth’s the matter?”
And right there in arrivals, he told her.
The drive back to Batcombe was one of the longest of Henry’s life. His wife was not given to hysteria, and there had been no screaming fits at the airport as he’d recounted every painful detail of their spiraling debts, his desperate attempts to rectify things with Nick Frankl, and finally, Gary Ellis’s offer. Muffy, in fact, had listened in complete silence while he miserably unpicked every thread of her security. She calmly paid for the parking and loaded his bags into the trunk without so much as a word of interruption or reproach. It wasn’t until they’d been driving for twenty minutes, with Muffy insisting on taking the wheel, and he’d come to the end of his desperate stream of explanations and apologies, that she had finally allowed herself any sort of reaction.
“What I don’t understand, Henry,” she said quietly, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, “is why you didn’t tell me about all this months ago.”
“Oh God, I don’t know.” He ground his fists against his temples in frustration with himself, not her. “I mean, I do know. I should have. But I suppose I hoped you’d never have to know. I thought I’d be able to sort it out on my own.”