Reversing Over Liberace Page 6

  “Are you falling in love with him?” Katie asked. She and Jazz had joyfully reclaimed me for after-work drinking sessions and were gaining any amount of vicarious pleasure from asking deeply personal questions such as this. “I mean, you haven’t really known him very long.”

  “And you haven’t shagged him yet,” pointed out Jazz. “No point in getting all droopy-eyed over the guy if he turns out to be hung like a vole.”

  “Oy, size isn’t everything. And, no, I’m not ‘falling in love’. I just miss him, that’s all.”

  “I read somewhere”—Jazz took a deep mouthful of his Guinness while we expressed shock and surprise at the fact that he could read—“that you can make someone fall in love with you, just by being in contact with them at the same time every day.”

  “In that case,” Katie retorted, “the barman in here must absolutely adore you.”

  “Maybe he does,” Jazz replied evenly. “I’m only saying, that’s all.”

  “You are so cynical. I think it’s lovely that Will has got herself a gorgeous bloke, and if I didn’t have Dan I know I’d be raving jealous. That Luke is a real ride.”

  Jazz and I stared at her. “Is there something you want to tell us?” I said, eventually.

  “About how you know he’s a good ride?” Jazz put in.

  “Oh, sorry. I was slipping into the Irish vernacular there, guys. I meant ride in the sense of being a shaggable bloke.”

  We forgave her for not being British and ordered more drinks. Despite my newfound wealth, Jazz and Katie shared the round-buying, which showed that the status quo was still exactly as it had been.

  “Have you told the others yet about the money?” Katie asked, over another bottle of white wine.

  “Um. No. Not yet.”

  “Don’t you think you ought to?”

  You see what I mean about the personal questions? “I’m still trying to think how to put it. OC should be fine. Paddy earns enough to buy Mexico. I don’t think Bree will be bothered, as long as no books were harmed in the making. Clay’s got bootloads of cash from doing whatever it is he does for foreign banks.”

  “And what about Ash?”

  “He’ll probably scratch your eyes out.” Jazz snorted. “Or ignore you very ostentatiously.”

  “I think Ash might have other things on his mind,” I said carefully. Ash had taken to coming round after I’d gone to bed, slamming doors and playing music far too loudly. I hoped he soon got over whatever bothered him because living with a thirty-two-year-old teenager was trying my patience.

  And then Friday night arrived and Luke turned up at the door in the Morgan, wearing a scrumptious blue shirt which made his eyes look purple. I Audrey-Hepburned down the front path (skipping slightly, swinging my bag in a girlish fashion in kitten heels) and Luke opened the car door for me.

  “Had a good week?”

  “You cannot imagine.” I grinned. “How was yours? How was New York?”

  “Big. Noisy. But I did some great deals, I hope. Fingers crossed everything will pan out all right, just as long as the cash flow holds up. Anyway, let’s not talk shop. We’re going to have a great weekend. Ever been to the Lakes?”

  I had, just once, on a family holiday when I was ten, and my memories of crowded streets with brief glimpses of water, torrential rain and Bree coming down with chicken pox had rather prejudiced me against returning. However, returning in a convertible next to a stunning man was altogether a different matter.

  It was dark, but I could sense a stupendous view and the hotel itself was worth the journey, crying out for the adornment of a couple of huge hairy dogs and a squire with a shotgun asserting his droit de seigneur with the housemaids.

  “Is this all right?” Luke asked, as our bags were carried into our room. Yes, our room.

  “It’s beautiful.” I walked over to the huge open fire flaming away in a stone grate.

  “No, I mean”—he waved an arm to take in the canopied double bed looming in the middle of the room like a small bungalow—“this.”

  “Oh. Um. Yes. I think…yes. It’s fine.”

  “I didn’t want you to think…if it’s not all right, there’s a couch, look, or I could book another room, I’m sure they’re not full.”

  “It’s fine, Luke. Wonderful.”

  “So, shall we go down to dinner? Or did you want to change?”

  I put my head around the door to the ensuite bathroom, which had the largest shower I’d ever seen, a whirlpool bath, and towels the size of Manchester. “I think I’ll change first, if that’s all right.” Yeah, I’d bought enough clothes to spend the weekend with the Queen and I was bloody well going to wear all of them. God knows this was probably the only outing they’d get. Modestly I shut myself in the bathroom to strip off, leaving Luke changing in the bedroom. I couldn’t believe it, I was nervous. Ten years, more, of wishing for a sight of Luke Fry in his underpants, and I’m locking myself in the bathroom like a virgin on her wedding night. What was wrong with me? Apart from the obvious, I thought ruefully, as I dry-retched over the shell-shaped sink.

  Dinner was fabulous, although I drank rather more than I should have done, and we lingered happily over brandies in a sofa’d drawing room.

  “Okay?” Luke smiled at me, draining his glass and putting it decisively on the table.

  “Yes, thanks. Fantastic.”

  “Then, shall we?” He held out a hand and helped me to my feet, curling a protective arm around my waist. “I’m looking forward to that huge bed.”

  We rocked together, slightly drunk, up the stairs and into our room. The covers had been turned down on the bed, a handmade chocolate was carefully centred on each pillow and a small, atmospheric lamp glazed the room a light pink.

  I was suddenly shy. Caught by the reflections in the window, I went over and pretended to gaze out into the night, arms along the windowsill. I felt the hairs prickle on the back of my neck as Luke stood close behind me, his breath swirling the air warmly at my nape.

  “Willow,” he said, and I turned. Instantly he had me, lips on my mouth, hand entangled in my hair, fingers trembling over the buttons on my shirt. The air came chill against my body as first my shirt and then my skirt fell away, but I was almost unconscious of it. Luke’s heat drove any other thought from my head. His fingers traced my shoulders, then his lips did the same. He kissed me again so hard that the air fled from my lungs. Whispering to me all the time, things he wanted to do, things he had to do or die, teasing me and taunting me. Then, when he had me pinned beneath him, the embroidered canopy of the bed swinging over our heads like the roof of heaven, he began to undress himself.

  God, that man was sexy. His body was every bit as stupendous as I had imagined. In fact, it was probably better now than it had been ten years ago, muscled and taut where it had been spare and skinny, a raft of pale hairs drawn between his nipples and down the line of his stomach. As his hand went to his belt, he looked at me quizzically. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yes,” I breathed, a phrase I was to repeat quite frequently from then on, with variable punctuation. “Oh, yes.”

  There was a kind of frenzy about Luke in bed—oh, nothing kinky. You’re not getting any tales from me about handcuffs or spanking competitions. (Even if it did happen I wouldn’t tell you. We don’t know each other that well.) A very concentrated approach to sex, as though he was blocking out the whole of the rest of life while he made love to me. It made me feel as if I was the centre of the universe, the most desired, the hottest woman in the galaxy, watching the man I’d always wanted giving himself up to me on waves of pleasure and afterwards collapsing in my arms with sweat glazing his body.

  “So then.” I lay on my side and traced the outline of his ribs. “How was New York?”

  “Busy. Loud. Dirty.” Luke rested on his back with his arms behind his head. “Much as you’d expect. Have you ever been?”

  “No.” I waited for him to say “we’ll go together”, but he didn’t. “What did you get up t
o over there? Apart from work.”

  “Apart from work, nothing. I’d had the heads-up from James about a car, thought I might be interested in it, so I flew out to take a look, had a bit of a poke round some others while I was there, came back. End of story. So. How was your week?”

  He turned his head to look at me, his eyes lazily clouded with sex, and I gulped to prevent lunch reappearing. “Um. I…well, I had a good time, actually. I…” I’d been about to mention my legacy but when he looked at me like that my mind went a complete blank. “I…oh God, Luke…”

  Later, we tried conversation again. This time Luke initiated. “It’s a bloody shame I couldn’t buy that Caddy over in New York, you know. You would have looked absolutely amazing in it. You do have the most incredible breasts, by the way, did I mention?”

  “I think you did say something similar, yes,” I said, rather breathlessly. “Was it not for sale after all?”

  Luke began kissing me. “Yeah, but I’ve got a bit of a cash shortfall at the moment, until I get the business up and running this end. So I had to say ‘no’ to it. Pity, but there you go, that’s business. Can we just try…?”

  The man was insatiable.

  Chapter Nine

  When Luke dropped me off at home on Sunday, I flopped down on the sofa feeling slightly guilty at how thankful I was to be able to lie down without being leaped upon. Lack of sleep had left me a little bit cranky and six months worth of sex in two days had left me with what Katie would have called “a fanny like a nail file” so when the phone rang I didn’t exactly leap to answer it.

  “Hello.”

  “Oh dear. I thought you were away for the weekend?”

  “Cal, if you thought I was away, why did you ring me?”

  “I mean, I thought you’d been away and would therefore be all sparkly and rejuvenated.”

  “Yeah, I’m sparkly. That’s me, sparkly. Like Barbie’s party frock.”

  “Barbie is an alien invader from the planet Busty. Now, do you want to know why I’m ringing?”

  I smiled down the phone, suddenly less tired. “All right. Why are you ringing?”

  There was an answering smile in Cal’s voice. “Because I’m very bored. Oh, and to tell you that I’ve fixed your laptop.”

  “Well, that’s good. Can I still pick it up tomorrow?”

  “Of course. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve descaled the kettle in honour of your visit and built a rather nice little gazebo out of the limey bits.”

  “I thought you had to have a garden to have a gazebo.”

  “Windowbox gazebos are in this year, you know. So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be there.” I was still smiling when I put the phone down. Cal really was the weirdest creature, but he did make me laugh. That was the one thing lacking in Luke, I thought, starting to unpack, wondering whether these expensive clothes could be machine-washed. It would be unfair to say that Luke didn’t have a sense of humour, although he was the kind of man who thinks off-the-wall refers to a dado rail. But then—I winced as I sat down too quickly—Luke had many other compensations, some of which more than made up for a lack of chuckles.

  The telephone rang again and for some reason I expected it to be Cal. “Hello,” I answered cheerily. “Still bored?”

  The line whistled and shrieked like a haunting. “Hello?” said a distant voice, eventually.

  “Hi, Clay. What’s up?” Clay never rang unless there was a problem.

  “I’m coming back, Will. Can I stay with you again?”

  A minor twitch of irritation. “I suppose. Why?”

  The line wailed as my words twanged off the satellite and bounced back down in China. “Fed up,” I made out, as the reply floated back. “Decided to take time off, find out what”—crackle crackle—“really want to do.”

  Sod. So not even a flying visit then. Good job I hadn’t bothered changing the sheets from his last visit. And, a large plus, Clay’s room was in the attic, with its own bathroom. That put three doors and a well-insulated ceiling between us, should I decide to, ahem, entertain. Whilst I hadn’t actually been planning nights of noisy debauchery with Luke, I wasn’t going to let the presence of an older brother in the house put me off. “Of course, it’ll be fine.”

  But the line was dead, he’d gone. Whisked back into the world of the merchant bank, which was clearly not all it was cracked up to be. It would be exactly like the old days, brothers hanging out of windows watching my every romantic move. But this was his home as much as it was mine. I could hardly come over all Lady of the Manor and deny my siblings shelter, could I? Bugger it.

  Monday morning. Katie and I huddled in my office with a supply of chocolate biscuits, the phone on divert and a sign on the door warning Neil and Clive what happened to the last man to interrupt us.

  “So? What did he say about the fifty grand?”

  “I didn’t get to tell him. Every time I started to say something… Let’s just say, we didn’t really do much talking this weekend.”

  “Was he any good?”

  I thought. “Oh, Katie, he was fabulous.”

  “Lucky cow. And you got the Lake District. I only got a Saturday night in Blackpool out of Dan.”

  “Could have been worse.” I got up to boil the kettle again. “Could have been Bognor.”

  “Yeah, but I came back pregnant with twins.” Katie sighed and stood up. “Better get on with what we laughingly call ‘work’ then.” She walked to the door and stopped. “Will, can I be nosy?”

  “Why break the habit of a lifetime?”

  “No, it’s…what is it with you and Luke? Is it a casual thing, or something else? Are you falling for him?”

  I gave a rather superficial smile. “Why the interest? I’ve only known the man a couple of weeks.”

  “Just wondering whether I should be buying a hat or a huge stack of Kleenex, that’s all. Do you want it to be a relationship? Because if you do, then it’s about time you did a bit of talking, Will. If he finds out that you’ve been sitting on all this cash and not saying a word about it, it might give him the wrong impression about you, don’t you think?”

  After Katie had gone out and I’d put the phone back, I thought about what she’d said. Not about the talking part, talking could wait as far as I was concerned, but the falling-in-love part. Was I falling for Luke Fry? Casually, I let the memory of him wash through my mind. An image of him sitting on the grass as we picnicked, head thrown back as he laughed at my impersonation of a duck, shirt slightly untucked, collar open to show golden skin.

  Phew. I fanned at my face until the hot blush receded. So there was no doubt I was in lust with the man, but love? Did I love him? Could I love him? Was I even capable of loving someone? After all, with my little—well, we decided we’d call it my little problem, didn’t we?—I’d not had a lot of practice at loving men. I loved my parents, wherever they were, and my siblings—sort of. As long as they didn’t interfere, or patronise me, or poke holes in my posters of Duran Duran, the bastards. But falling in love with a man was something else entirely, territory not exactly uncharted, but one with a map drawn on the back of a Mills & Boon cover in purple crayon.

  I walked from work to Cal’s to pick up the laptop. At last the sky was the pure blue of a boiled sweet. Tulip and daffodil stems were pregnant with blooms and birds were beginning the annual round of gang warfare in the hedges, so my step was jaunty as I bounced my way up to the flat and leaned on the doorbell.

  Cal must have been waiting, because the door swung inwards as soon as I rang. “Hey, Willow, good to see you.”

  “Hi.” I went in. “Is Ash not here then?”

  For a second his face clouded. “No, not at the moment. Come on through. Hungry? I just made a mushroom stroganoff. Yeah, it looks like puke on a plate but, hell, it tastes good.”

  “Sounds great. Yes, I’d love some, thanks, Cal.” I hadn’t intended to stay. I was going to grab the laptop, maybe have a cup of tea and rush off home for an ea
rly night to try to refill some of the bags under my eyes. But there was something about the combination of the sun slanting in through the long windows, the creamy smell of cooking and the general air of stillness in the flat that made me think “sod it”. “Ash has been a bit weird lately. Did you and he have a tiff or something?”

  Cal paused, mid-stride. “You’ll have to ask Ash, okay?”

  “If you say so. I usually avoid asking Ash anything.” I looked out of the window, for some reason struggling for something to say. “It’s a beautiful evening.”

  “Thank you.” Cal gave me a mischievous half-smile. “Do you have any idea how hard it is winching the sun into that particular spot in the sky? I was at it all morning.”

  “What with that and the gazebo I’m surprised you found time to cook.” We were standing in the kitchen area now, a bare-floored room with exposed brick walls and a surprisingly large and professional-looking stainless steel cooker on one wall. Seating consisted of a big sofa with a low table in front, angled by one of the tall windows.

  “Yeah, I had to invite a tiny vicar to tea, to justify building it. Anyway, he fell off the window box, and it’s two storeys down. We haven’t found him yet.” Cal gave me another grin. “Do you like red wine?”

  “Um, yes.”

  He took two glasses from a shelf and put them on the table, then grabbed a bottle and corkscrew. “Do the honours then.”

  I set to opening the bottle as Cal competently moved from stove to fridge and back, adding, stirring, his limp hardly noticeable in this confined space. I wondered exactly what my feral brother had in common with this gentle, domesticated man. But then attraction, I guess, moves in mysterious ways. I mean, look at Luke and me. I knew precisely what I saw in him, but what did he see in me? Apart from my more obvious charms, which I stared at, then jiggled.

  “What on earth are you doing?” I looked up and saw Cal watching me, a newly poured glass of wine in each hand.

  “Only, um, looking at my breasts.”

  “Puberty caught up with you, did it? Nasty that. I once got an attack of adolescence, but I just drank until it went away. Cheers.” He handed me my glass and drank from his own. There was a bit of a pause.