Reunited: Marriage in a Million

CHAPTER SEVEN

SOMETHING hard and sharp was digging into Belle’s cheek. She turned her head, reaching up to grab the pillow, turn it to the cool side.

Her hand encountered something-warm, firm. Not smooth cotton, but soft to the touch. Cashmere…

She’d fallen asleep on the sofa?

There was a blank moment as she groped for memory, then, as she shifted to a more comfortable position and a dozen niggles from back, arm, neck brought the hideous events of the night back to her in a rush, she opened her eyes, only to be distracted by the thought that the pashmina she’d draped over her sofa to disguise its age was not grey.

But then, as the fog of sleep cleared, it became obvious that she was not alone on the sofa.

She raised her head. Ivo, unusually rumpled, with a shadow several hours past five o’clock darkening his chin, was regarding her with sleepy eyes and she felt herself blush.

She’d slept all night on the sofa with Ivo, her head on his chest, her arm around his waist, their limbs tangled together and somehow the fact that they were both covered from neck to ankle in several layers didn’t make it any less intimate.

Any less awkward.

She’d left him. She’d cut him out of this part of her life, had told him, more than once, that she didn’t need him. But last night, despite the cruel way she’d rejected his offer of friendship, had walked away from him, he hadn’t left her stranded without money or keys-which plainly she’d deserved-but had come to find her. Even when she’d turned on him, had blamed him when Daisy had run off, he’d spent hours patiently searching with her.

And when, finally, she’d told him the truth about her life, he’d stayed.

All night.

Of course the fact that she was lying on top of him, that he couldn’t escape without waking her, might account for that. But he hadn’t had to lie there and hold her as she’d finally succumbed to sleep. Hold her, whisper comfort in her ear. Call her ‘my love’…

No. She’d imagined that. He didn’t do those words. He was a minimalist husband. Beautiful to look at. Perfect in every detail. But cold…

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘What for?’

‘Everything.’

For the fact that she didn’t want to move, ever, but to stay pressed up against his warm body.

That she’d lied to him.

‘For falling asleep on you,’ she said, picking on the smallest reason. The one that wouldn’t embarrass either of them.

‘You’d have been more comfortable in bed, but I didn’t want to disturb you,’ he said, stroking a thumb beneath one of her eyes. Last night there had been dark smudges that it had taken some very expensive concealer to disguise. ‘How long is it since you really slept?’

‘I looked that bad?’

The phone rescued him-rescued both of them-jolting her out of a desperate longing to just stay where she was, in Ivo’s arms, to forget everything else.

‘What’s the time?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes.’

No…

She lifted Ivo’s fingers from her face and for a moment just held them. How easy it would be to turn his hand, trail her lips along his fingers, enticing a response, a touch, a kiss, the slow peeling back of her robe, Ivo’s mouth on her neck, his fingers trailing over her skin in a slow prelude to the closeness, the precious intimacy her body craved.

She’d missed him so much…

Realising that she was still holding his fingers, she twisted her head to look at his wristwatch. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That can’t be right. My alarm…’

‘You might have forgotten to set it.’

‘The studio! I should have been there hours ago. Why didn’t someone call? Where’s my BlackBerry?’ she wailed, attempting to disentangle arms, legs.

‘Still in your bag, switched off, I imagine.’ She stared at him blankly. ‘The award ceremony?’ he prompted.

She groaned and, finally free, she jerked away from him, only to find herself hurtling back into Ivo’s arms.

‘Let me go!’ she demanded.

He held up his hands. ‘I didn’t do a thing.’

‘What?’ She eased up, discovered it was her dressing gown trapped between Ivo and the sofa. ‘Well, move!’

‘My leg’s gone to sleep.’ He caught her arms, holding her. ‘Calm down; whoever it is will leave a message.’

‘No…’ Didn’t he see? Didn’t he understand? ‘It’s Daisy! It’s got to be Daisy-’

The machine picked up, her brief message played. The caller hung up.

‘She was always going to hang up,’ Ivo said as, not looking at him, she carefully extracted herself from the sofa.

She knew it, but it didn’t help.

‘It’s a game, Belle.’

‘No…’

A long, insistent peal on the front door-bell cut her off and, heedless of Ivo’s warning, ‘No!’, she didn’t stop to use the entry phone, but raced down the stairs in her bare feet, wrenching open the front door.

‘Good grief, Belle, you look as if you’ve had a rough night,’ Manda said, immaculate from the top of her sleek dark hair to the toes of the Manolos she was wearing on her narrow feet. ‘It’s just as well Ivo asked me to call the studio and warn them not to expect you this morning.’

He had?

‘He did?’

When?

‘Didn’t he tell you?’ Manda shrugged. ‘He is here? I’ve brought him a change of clothes,’ she said, lifting one hand, in which she was carrying a suit carrier and a document case. ‘I’m sure your problems are much more pressing, but I’ve been apologising for cancelled engagements ever since you arrived home and since this one is with the PM-’

‘I didn’t ask him to stay,’ Belle snapped, disappointment sharpening her tongue. Then, ‘What are you talking about? What cancelled engagements?’

‘Nothing important,’ Ivo said, placing his hand on her shoulder, ‘but you’re right, Manda, I can’t expect the PM to reschedule.’ Then, regarding the paper carrier she was holding in the other hand, ‘Please tell me that’s coffee you’ve got in that bag.’

‘Coffee and a muffin,’ she said. ‘Less messy than a croissant. You can eat while I’m briefing you on the way to Downing Street. I’ll wait in the car.’

‘There’s no need,’ he said, relieving her of the bag and the suit carrier. ‘Save time and tell the PM yourself.’

‘Ivo…’ Miranda was, for once, the one left doing an impression of a goldfish.

‘Do you have a problem with that?’

‘You want me to go to Downing Street in your place?’

‘He wants my help with some overseas aid project. If it goes ahead you’ll be doing all the work. I’m just cutting out the middle man.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘I need you to do this for me, Manda.’

Belle sensed that this was important. That this kind of trust was something major. Something new.

‘But…’ Manda struggled for a moment with the idea, then said, ‘Right…’ She took a step back and Belle could almost see her giving herself a mental shake. ‘I’d better, um, go, then.’ Miranda glanced at her, then back at Ivo and said, ‘I’ll see you later?’

‘Later,’ he agreed.

She nodded once, turned, then, as she ducked into the back of the car Belle instinctively followed, stepping out on to the path to look up and down the street, hoping against hope to catch a glimpse of her sister loitering somewhere near.

‘Don’t,’ Ivo said, taking her arm, drawing her back inside so that he could close the door. Then, presumably to distract her, he lifted the hand holding both his suit and the paper carrier and said, ‘Coffee?’

‘I don’t think Miranda included me in the breakfast invitation,’ she said, taking the carrier, looking inside. ‘No, I thought not.’

‘We can share.’

‘The only thing we’ve ever shared is a shower and a bed.’ And, last night, a sofa…

She turned away to run back up the stairs, into her flat, into the kitchen.

Damn, damn, damn!

Why hadn’t he just gone with Miranda?

She’d left him. Didn’t he understand? This wasn’t his concern. And even when they’d lived together they didn’t do this cosy breakfast stuff.

Then, as he followed, favouring his left leg, she forgot that and said, ‘How is it? Can I do anything?’

For a moment their eyes locked and her mouth dried at the rush of memory. His thigh beneath her fingers. The warmth of his skin. The power-packed muscles beneath it.

‘No,’ he said abruptly. ‘It’s fine.’

‘Right.’ Then, as the silence stretched to snapping-point, ‘I can’t believe you just did that.’

‘What?’

‘Sent Miranda to see the PM in your place. You do realise that you’ve probably just thrown away a knighthood? Maybe even a seat in the Lords.’

‘Do you think I give a damn?’ he asked, taking the lid off the coffee, reaching for a couple of mugs, sharing the contents between them.

‘To be honest, Ivo, beyond the bedroom I haven’t a clue what you think.’

‘About a knighthood?’

‘About anything.’

‘Then let me enlighten you about one thing. A couple of days ago I told Manda that she underestimated you.’

He did? No, no…‘I won’t embarrass you by asking what she said in reply to that.’

‘It wouldn’t embarrass me, but I suspect Manda would never forgive me for telling you that you make her feel inadequate.’

Inadequate? ‘I don’t believe that.’

‘As a woman.’

‘They can do wonders with silicone these days.’

‘It has nothing to do with the way you look. It’s the way people respond to you. Your natural empathy,’ he said. ‘Which is why I did you the courtesy of assuming you wouldn’t make the same mistake about her.’

It took a moment for Belle, momentarily floundering, to backtrack. ‘Oh, I don’t underestimate her. I just think she’ll scare the pants off the man.’

He looked up. Ivo was a man so contained that she sometimes thought she must have imagined the passionate midnight lover who came to her bed, who haunted her dreams. But here, in her tiny kitchen, unshaven, his hair, his collar, rumpled, the suspicion of a smile creasing the skin around his eyes, she caught a glimpse of the man who had laid siege to her, who had refused to take no for an answer and had flown her away to his paradise island for a sunset wedding for two at the edge of the sea.

‘And your problem with that is?’ he asked.

She shook her head and, ambushed by the need to respond with a smile of her own, ducked her head. ‘No. You’ve got me.’

He took her chin in his hand, lifted her face and backed her up against the kitchen island, there was no escape. ‘Have I?’ he asked.

His fingers were cool against her skin. She shivered and somewhere deep in her throat a sound struggled to escape. She didn’t know what it was. Yes or no, it would be wrong and she swallowed it down, shook her head, keeping her lashes lowered so that he should not see her eyes, read there what she could not disguise.

If he saw them, he’d know, as he’d known before when, across a room packed with people, he’d somehow forced her to turn and look at him.

Then his weapons had been flowers, tiny treasures, glimpses into his world.

But a man did not reach his heights without being intelligent, adaptable.

He’d seemed to accept her decision, but she should have known he would not, could not let her go that easily. This was now about much more than an unquenchable passion; his pride demanded that he win her back, restore his life to its ordered routine. Tempt her back in the gilded cage she’d stepped into so willingly. And he was prepared to go to any lengths to make that happen. Even using the infinitely more precious gift of his time, if that was what it took.

Even as she held her breath, there was a touch to her mouth so light that she thought she might have imagined it, that her lips, of their own volition, sought to confirm.

They met nothing but air and her eyes flew open but Ivo had already turned away to retrieve the muffin from the bag. He broke it in two, offered her half. Eve’s apple, she thought. Persephone’s pomegranate seeds. Like the touch of his lips, irresistibly sweet temptation…

‘No…’ Then, ‘Thank you. I need to get dressed. I have to call the studio, make my apologies. Call my PR people.’ She pulled a face. ‘Heaven alone knows what the redtops will make of my rather sudden exit…’

‘I’m sure Jace fed them some plausible story that will hold them off for the time being.’

‘No doubt. It’s what they’ll do with it that bothers me.’ Then, ‘You asked Miranda to call the studio last night? What did she tell them?’

‘That you had a family crisis. Jace and I both thought it would be better coming from her.’

‘Of course. Who would dare question Miranda?’ Before he could answer, she said, ‘My life is about to get very messy, Ivo. You should step back.’

‘On the contrary. You should come home so that you’ll get some peace.’ Then, with a frown, ‘Is that what this is all about?’ He made a circular gesture with half a muffin, taking in the apartment. ‘Protecting me from tabloid splatter?’

‘No.’

‘You said that too quickly.’

‘It wasn’t something I had to think about.’ If they’d had a real marriage there would have been no secrets and they could have taken ‘messy’ in their stride. ‘You signed up for “perfect”, Ivo.’ For as long as perfect lasted. ‘This was never going to be for ever.’

‘No?’

She managed to pick up her coffee-it was a good thing that it was only half a mug or she’d have been in trouble-and tried to think of something to say. Nothing came and she had a momentary flash of sympathy with Ivo when, faced with her bald announcement that she was leaving him, he’d been monosyllabic.

Like him, she discovered, she didn’t have the vocabulary to cover this situation, so she said, ‘Help yourself to the shower in the guest room,’ before retreating to the bathroom.

Ivo, left alone in the tiny kitchen, looked at the muffin he’d torn in half. It was in much the same state as his marriage. He fitted the two pieces back together, but there were bits missing and the join wasn’t perfect; it jarred the eye.

But perfection was an illusion. Life had to be lived as it came with all its flaws and risks. Without the grit, there could be no pearl.

Belle was right. This marriage-this perfect marriage-was over. It was time to stop trying to fix it back together. What he had to do was work on rebuilding it from the foundations up.

Belle briefly recoiled from her puffy-eyed, bird’s-nest-hair reflection, but had no time to worry about it. She certainly didn’t waste time blow-drying her hair into her new style, just fingered it into place and left it to look after itself.

Her evening bag was on her bed where she’d thrown it last night when she’d stripped off her dress. She dug out her BlackBerry and switched it on, scrolling swiftly through a load of texts, all of them congratulations on her award. There were voice mails too. And a couple of emails.

Nothing from Daisy.

Well, what had she expected?

She opened the next best thing, an email from Claire. They’d had a lively exchange of text messages at the weekend; Claire had been putting off the moment when she faced her own demons and Belle had applied the cyber equivalent of a boot to her backside. She was hoping this would be good news.

It wasn’t.

It was an email to Simone, copied to her:

I can’t say I’m happy that my dirty laundry will soon be hanging out to dry in public…

What?

She flipped to Simone’s email and she let slip a word she hadn’t used in years. The lost diary had been picked up by a Sydney-based journalist who’d had no trouble in identifying all of them and had called Simone, inviting her to meet him. No chance that he hadn’t read it, then. Every word.

She sat down, quickly thumbed in:

Simone, I’ve just picked up your email and can scarcely comprehend how difficult this must be for you. I’m with Claire-you can tell Mr Tanner from me that Belle Davenport thinks he’s lower than a worm’s belly-as if he’d care! As for me, Ivo knows pretty much everything so, as far as I’m concerned, you can tell him to publish and be damned. Not so easy for you…

She thought about mentioning Daisy. Decided against it.

Then she returned the call from her agent. She owed him for taking the trouble to leave the celebrations to deliver her bag to Belgravia.

‘Babe!’ He was mellow. ‘Anything for my favourite client. I had a couple of calls from the diarists, but they bought the family crisis. One of the benefits of being a good-living girl. If anyone else had pulled a stunt like that, the press would be staking out The Priory even as we speak. You might want to think up something credible for public consumption, though. The press being what they are.’

‘I’ve got credible. Whether you’ll like it is something else.’

‘Well, that depends. If it’s something really shocking, I could squeeze the publishers for another one hundred advance on your biography,’ he offered hopefully, ‘and the papers would be fighting for serial rights.’

‘My financial adviser said I should keep that as the pension plan,’ she said.

‘What about my pension? Thirty years from now I’ll probably be pushing up daisies. And celebrity biographies might not be big business then. In fact, thirty years from now, if you don’t make a decision on some of these offers I’ve got lined up-or, better still, sign that lovely new contract for your breakfast show-no one will remember your name.’

‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later to fix up a meeting-’

‘Come over now and we’ll have lunch at The Ivy. Celebrate the award. Better still, bring your financial adviser. He can pay.’

She laughed. ‘I’ll call you later, Jace.’

She was still smiling when she walked into the living room. Ivo, hair damp, was standing back from the window, looking down into the street.

‘You’re still here? Haven’t you got a corporation to run?’

‘The shower was on a go slow.’

‘Sorry. It’s on my list of improvements.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t suppose it will collapse if I miss a morning.’ Then, ‘You might want to get your car keys.’

‘What?’

He indicated the street below and she crossed to the window, standing beside him. Below her, on the pavement, standing next to her convertible, stood Daisy.

‘Purple hair today. Oh, right, here we go,’ he said as she looked up, and realising that she was being watched, took hold of the door handle and gave it a shake.

Belle was already running for the door when the klaxon sound of the car alarm rent the air. Was at the bottom of the stairs when Ivo caught up with her.

‘Don’t!’ she warned, arm extended, palm face up as she held him off. ‘Stay away. I want to do this.’

‘You forgot the car keys,’ he said, taking her hand, turning it over and placing them in her palm, wrapping her shaking fingers around them so that she wouldn’t drop them.

‘Oh…’

‘She came back, Belle. She wants to see you. Needs to talk to you.’

‘I…Yes…’

‘Do you need me to stay?’

‘I…’ Despite her warning for him to stay away, she was suddenly scared.

He laid his hand briefly on her arm, then leaned forward, touched his lips to hers. Barely a kiss and yet it fizzed through her like electricity-pure energy-and for a moment all she wanted to do was reach out and grab him by the lapels of his jacket, pull him close, bury herself in his warmth until the world outside went away. ‘You’ll be fine.’

‘Yes. Of course I will.’

‘Call me if you need anything. You’ll need someone to talk to. Someone you can trust.’

‘Ivo, about last night…’ As he opened the door, her words were drowned out by the car alarm and he turned to look at her. ‘Thank you,’ she said. He nodded once, stepped out on to the footpath, left her.

Goodbye…she thought.

Then, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath, she followed him out into the street where Daisy was leaning on the car, all aggressive angles as she watched Ivo remove a parking ticket from his windscreen-he’d overstayed the night-time parking limit-climb into his car and drive away.

The noise from the car alarm was deafening and Belle didn’t attempt to speak above it, but unlocked the car, turned off the alarm, then relocked it.

‘Neat car,’ Daisy said. ‘Can I drive it?’

‘Have you got a licence?’

‘Oh, forget it,’ she said, stuffing her hands deep into her pockets and turning to walk away.

Belle, instinctively taking a step after her, was brought up short by Ivo’s voice in her head.

It’s a game. She wants you to chase her…

‘I’m going to make breakfast,’ she said and, hard as it was, she turned around and walked back inside, holding the door open. Then, ‘A bacon sandwich.’

Bacon sandwiches had been dream food. Thick white bread, layers of bacon, ketchup…She’d been drawn by the scent to a small café that made sandwiches for office workers. Her mother wouldn’t beg, but Daisy had been hungry and she’d picked a place, just out of sight of the café staff where she could lie in wait for customers, carriers stuffed with expensive calorie-laden sandwiches, coffee or hot chocolate in cartons with lids, huge muffins. Had learned to hit them for change while they still had it in their hands.

Guilt had done the rest.

It had been a great pitch, but it hadn’t lasted long.

Someone had called Social Services. Or complained to the café staff. Only her street-sharpened survival instincts had stopped them from being picked up but, even now, when she caught the scent of bacon cooking she felt something very close to pain in the pit of her stomach.

After a pause that felt like a lifetime, Daisy turned around and walked right by her and up the stairs without a word and was already standing in the centre of the living room looking around by the time her own shaky legs had carried her up.

‘This is a mess,’ Daisy said, looking around.

‘I’m decorating.’ The ceiling, one wall and the French windows so far-she’d needed to get the curtains back up-but all her own work. ‘It’ll look better when the new curtains and carpet arrive.’

‘Are they beige and white too?’

‘Please! The walls, when they’re finished, will be Velvet Latte, the paintwork Silk Frost,’ Belle said, hoping to raise a smile. Light, uncluttered after three years living in the Grenville family museum. ‘It’s minimalist.’

Like her marriage. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good choice of look.

‘It’s boring. And no one has carpets now. It’s all hardwood floors.’

‘Not exactly neighbour friendly when you’re in the top floor apartment.’

‘I suppose.’ Then, ‘Your furniture is junk.’

‘I’m going shopping for a new sofa this afternoon.’ She’d picked out something ultra-modern in brown suede but she’d suddenly gone right off it. ‘Do you want to come with me? Clearly I could do with some help.’

Daisy shrugged her skinny shoulders without taking her hands out of her pockets. ‘Like I care what sofa you buy. You said you’d help me look for my dad.’

‘We can do both. If that’s really what you want.’

‘You knew your father,’ Daisy said, picking up the negativity of the question in her voice, turning on her. ‘I never…’ She broke off. Then, ‘I never had anyone.’

‘Mum loved you, Daisy.’

‘She died.’

Belle swallowed down the words that leapt to her lips. Blaming Daisy’s father for what had happened to them wouldn’t help. They’d all abandoned her, one way or another.

‘What about the people who adopted you? Didn’t they love you?’

‘They lied to me! I waited and waited and they said you’d come but you didn’t. I wanted you, Bella, and you weren’t there!’

Bella.

Daisy, only Daisy, unable to manage ‘Belinda’ had ever called her that.

‘Where did you go?’ she demanded and Belle, jolted out of memory, shook her head. ‘Nowhere. A care home. Nowhere…’ She shook her head. There was nothing to be gained from telling Daisy that her new family had only wanted her. That everyone had said it would be easier for her to settle down without disturbing memories of her previous life. She had known they were wrong, but no one would listen to her. And she’d been hurt and angry and grieving too.

She knew what Daisy was feeling now because she’d lived it.

‘What happened to you, Daisy? Why are you living like this?’

‘Like what?’ Then, abruptly, ‘I thought you were going to make breakfast.’

‘I am. Do you want to come through to the kitchen while I cook?’

If she’d ever imagined this was going to be a joyful reunion, then last night had crushed that hope beyond recovery, but this was more difficult than anything she could have imagined.

Simone, Claire, she thought, I really hope, wherever you are, it’s going better for you.

She took a pack of bacon from the fridge, turned just as Daisy swept something into her pocket. What? There was nothing on the counter top but a couple of mugs, the empty carton of coffee.

The muffin…

She bit down hard to keep the pain in, began to lay strips of bacon on the grill. ‘Do you want to take off your coat?’ Daisy’s only response was to wrap it around her more tightly and Belle didn’t press it, but it took her a moment to compose herself. ‘I’ll find your father, Daisy.’

She just hoped the reality wouldn’t hurt her sister too badly.

‘Whatever. Can I use your bathroom?’

‘Of course. Use the en suite in my bedroom.’ The one in the spare bedroom was a bit bleak. Definitely on her list of improvements. ‘First door on the left.’