Reunited: Marriage in a Million

CHAPTER FOUR

BELLE forced herself to eat. She had not been hungry. Cooking had been no more than a distraction, a focus for her eyes, something safe to do with her hands, but the horror of wasting food was too deeply ingrained to simply tip it into the bin and so she chewed food she could not taste, swallowing down a throat choked with pain.

Just because she knew what she was doing was right-right for her and right for Ivo-didn’t mean it was easy.

Even now his presence filled the small kitchen, marking her space, owning it with a faint trace of something that lingered in the air. The warmth of his skin, the clean scent of perfectly laundered clothes, something that she couldn’t name, but which left her weak with longing, hanging on to the edge of the worktop as if it were a lifeline.

In desperation she grabbed an air freshener from the cupboard beneath the sink and sprayed it around. What had been proved to eradicate the odour of sweaty socks, however, had no discernible effect on the subtler, pervasive essence of Ivo Grenville.

The scent, she realised, was in her head; she would have to live with it until it wore away under the attrition of everyday life. Fading like a bittersweet memory. Or a photograph left in the light.

On autopilot, she forced herself through the motions, rinsing the dishes, putting them in the dishwasher. She wiped down the work surfaces, counting to a hundred before she allowed herself to go to the computer and check the email. Appeasing the Fates with patience, so that the news was more likely to be good. Or maybe just afraid that it wasn’t the one she was waiting for.

The Fates clearly thought she needed a little more time.

It was not news about Daisy but an email from Simone, who was in a bit of a flap about losing the diary she’d been writing all through her trip. Confessing that towards the end it had become more an emotional than physical record of her journey, containing the secrets that had spilled out in the clear quiet of the mountains.

If anyone had found it they all risked exposure.

Maybe it was disappointment, or that she was still aching from the encounter with Ivo, but she couldn’t bring herself to get worked up about it. But Simone was anxious, full of remorse, and Belle responded with reassurance-the diary was undoubtedly in some airport trash compactor and on the way to landfill by now. Then, because the contact restored her, renewed her conviction in the rightness of what she was doing, she scanned one of the pictures from the strip she’d taken in the photo booth, adding:

I’m attaching a picture of the ‘new’ me. As you can see, I’m now a little less Monroe, rather more, well, me, I suppose. And not before time. I spent the weekend shopping for new clothes too and not an image consultant in sight. The combination had a blissfully jaw-dropping effect when I walked into the studio at the crack of dawn this morning, an effect that was considerably enhanced when I announced that I wouldn’t be renewing my contract.

Ivo dropped by and nearly had a conniption when I told him I’d bought a car…

On the point of telling them about how she’d teased him, she stopped herself. She’d told Claire and Simone that they were separated. To use them to talk about him would be self-indulgence of the worst kind. She had to excise him from her thoughts. Difficult. Maybe impossible. But she could excise him from her emails…She continued:

But that’s just the cosmetic stuff.

My big news is that I’ve registered with the Adoption Register. If Daisy has done the same, I should be in contact very quickly. If not…

If not, tracking her down could take weeks, months, years…

Simone had urged her to ask Ivo for help.

She glanced automatically towards the door, as if half expecting to see him still there, waiting for an answer to his question.

‘If you need anything…?’

A million things. Help her find Daisy. With his contacts he could probably do it in a second. But truly there was only one thing she wanted from him. His love. But that had never been on offer.

Turning back to the email, she deleted, If not…

She would not, must not, allow herself to be sucked in by negative thoughts. Or transmit them to Claire and Simone, who had their own demons to face. Instead she asked how their own plans were going, prompting Claire, in whom she sensed hesitation, not to delay her own search, before signing off, with love.

Then she returned to the adoption website, obsessively reading the stories of people who had been adopted with both wonderful and tragic results. Mothers who had parted with their children. Children hunting for their roots. Stories full of loss, joy, experiences that covered the entire spectrum of emotion. Looking for something that would give her hope, using it to stuff her mind against thoughts of Ivo that, no matter how hard she tried to block them, would seep in and fill her head.

Ivo, on the day they’d stood on a tropical beach, her hand in his as she’d repeated their not to be taken too literally till-death-us-do-part vows. Maybe her heart had known then what her brain had refused to admit.

Ivo, turning away from some close discussion about a major business deal to seek her out, find her at the far end of the dinner table.

Ivo, in a rare moment when he’d fallen asleep in her arms and was, for a brief, blissful moment, entirely hers.

It was late when Ivo finally got home.

‘Your secretary rang,’ Manda said, her irritation driven, he knew, by anxiety. ‘You missed a meeting.’

‘I know. I sent my apologies.’

‘That’s not the point! No one knew where you were.’

‘Will I get detention?’ he asked.

‘Ivo…’

Belle would have laughed. She might have been angry with him, but she wouldn’t have been able to help herself. He’d tried so hard not to take more than she had signed up for-the sex and security deal-but she’d drained the tension from him with a smile, a touch.

‘You’ve been to see her, haven’t you?’ Adding, ‘Belle.’ As if she could have meant anyone else.

‘There were things we needed to talk about.’

Not that they had. Talked. At least not about anything that mattered. But it had been informative, nonetheless. Belle hadn’t wanted him looking at her laptop. Had twitched to close it. Hide what she was doing. And she had positively jumped when an email had dropped into her inbox. She was hiding something-not another man, she wouldn’t have been able to hide that. Wouldn’t have tried to.

He wished he’d taken more notice of what had been on the screen…

‘Ivo?’

He realised that his sister was waiting, expecting more, but he shook his head. ‘Belle will be in touch about picking up her things.’

‘Oh, right, and I’m supposed to snap to attention, I suppose, and run around organising one of the staff to help her pack. Sort out transport to shift it all.’

‘I thought you’d relish the moment. Isn’t it what you’ve been waiting for?’

‘I…I always knew this would happen.’

‘Yes, well, I’m sure you weren’t alone.’

‘Ivo…’

He turned away from her sympathy, cutting in sharply with, ‘If Belle chooses to call ahead as a matter of courtesy it’s because she has the instincts of a lady, even if she didn’t have the benefit of the most expensive education money can buy.’ Then, ‘She is my wife, Manda. This is her home.’

‘So where is she, hmm?’ She made a single sweeping gesture to indicate her absence. As if he needed reminding. ‘What is it about her?’ she demanded. ‘How does she do it? Reduce everyone to drooling mush. She floats about on a cloud of sweetness and light doing absolutely nothing except look glamorous and yet she has the entire world at her feet.’

‘If that’s all you see, Miranda, then you’re not nearly as clever as you think you are,’ he said, too angry to use her childhood name.

‘Even now, when she’s walked out on you, you’re defending her.’

‘She doesn’t need me to defend her.’

Didn’t need him for anything. Was that what she’d learned on the mountains? That she was strong enough to stand alone?

‘As for the sweetness and light thing,’ he added, ‘you could, with benefit, try it yourself once in a while.’

His sister flamed, then shrugged, an oddly awkward gesture. ‘It’s not my style, Ivo.’ She lifted her hands in an out of character gesture of helplessness. ‘I can’t…’ Then, ‘She makes me feel so…inadequate. As a woman,’ she added quickly, in case he thought she meant in any way that was really important. ‘The minute she walks into a room I feel as if I’ve suddenly become invisible…’

‘Manda…’

She shook off the moment of weakness, straightened. ‘I’ll do whatever I can to help,’ she said, making an effort to be helpful, ‘but wouldn’t it be more sensible for Belle to wait until she’s moved before collecting more than her basic needs?’

‘Moved?’

‘You’re not going to let her stay in that poky little flat in Camden?’

‘I don’t appear to have a say in the matter.’

‘Oh, I see. She’s going to stay put and play poverty to jack up the settlement she’ll wring out of you.’

He sighed. That hadn’t lasted long.

‘Belle will have trouble pleading poverty,’ he pointed out. The one thing he had been able to do for her was ensure that her considerable earnings had been well-managed. Maybe that had been his mistake. If her investments had been bungled she would still need the security she craved. That he could offer. ‘Wringing will not be necessary, however. Everything I have is hers for the asking.’

‘Including this house?’

Unlikely. The one possession of his that Belle would not want, he suspected, would be this house. But he wasn’t feeling kind. ‘Maybe you’d better start house-hunting yourself,’ he advised. ‘Just in case. I’m told Camden is going up in the world. Maybe Belle will do a swap. Her flat isn’t that poky.’

Not poky at all. It was small in comparison with this house-anything would be small in comparison with it-and shabby, but it had a welcoming warmth which, despite every imaginable luxury, was totally absent from the pile of masonry he called home whenever Belle was absent. And of course that was the point. It was Belle who made the difference.

‘Once it’s redecorated,’ he added, recalling the colour cards and fabric swatches he’d seen lying on the table beside her laptop…

Adoption.

It had been a website about adoption. And suddenly everything fell into place.

‘…it’ll be fine,’ he finished.

The email she’d been waiting for came the next day. Daisy Porter had registered with the agency and had been informed that a family member was looking for her. If she wanted to send a letter they would forward it…

Belle wrote a dozen letters. Long. Short. Every length in between. Finally she summoned a courier-she couldn’t wait an extra day for the post-and sent one that contained the bare essentials. No excuses. No apologies. Asking her to write or ring. Giving her address. Her phone number. Her mobile phone number. And, at the last moment, she clipped one of the photographs from the strip she had taken at the photo booth and enclosed that too.

And, because the waiting was unbearable, because she had to do something, she stripped the wallpaper from the living room walls.

By the weekend she wasn’t stripping the walls, she was climbing them, so she bought a stepladder and started painting the ceiling. She was working on a fiddly bit of the cornice that decorated her high ceiling when the phone rang, shatteringly loud in a room stripped of curtains and carpet.

She grabbed the handle at the top of the ladder and steadied herself.

She’d expected an instant response from Daisy but, after days of rushing to answer every call, she forced herself to ignore it. Racing up and down a stepladder was just asking for trouble.

It was more likely to be someone from the media who’d finally tracked her down, she told herself, still doing her best to appease the Fates.

So far the studio had managed to keep a lid on the fact that she wasn’t renewing her contract. That two weeks from now-unless they could persuade her to change her mind-there would be a new face to go with the cornflakes. And the newspapers and gossip magazines, totally obsessed with her new look-her face ached with smiling at photo sessions-had somehow missed the really big story, that she’d moved out of the marital home. That the smile was not the real thing, but something she had to coax her muscles to do. That it had taken all the make-up artist’s skill to cover the dark hollows under her eyes. That her mascara had to be waterproof.

It couldn’t last and when the story broke the phone would be her enemy, not her friend.

She should have just given Daisy her cellphone number. Bought a special phone with a number that only she would know. Too late…

The machine picked up, the message played. She’d left the pre-recorded response until she’d heard that Daisy had registered to look for her. Once she’d given her the number, she’d recorded a message in her own voice. Probably a mistake. If it was some gossip columnist hoping to confirm a suspicion, he’d just done it.

She glanced out of the curtainless window, but there were no photographers with long lenses pointed in her direction. No, well-easing her aching shoulder while the message played, hoping against hope that it would be the one call she was waiting for-she still didn’t really believe it herself.

The caller hung up without leaving a message.

She dipped her brush into the paint. Her nails, her fingers, were coated in the stuff. More work for her manicurist who had taken to joking that she was going to finance a Christmas holiday in the Caribbean with all the extra money she was making.

The phone began to ring again. She dropped the brush, slid down the stepladder, grabbed the phone before the machine could pick up.

‘Yes?’ she gasped breathlessly. ‘I’m here.’ There was the briefest silence. Then once again the caller hung up.

Fingers shaking, she punched in 1471. Listened to the recording telling her that ‘…we do not have the caller’s number…’

She rubbed briskly at her arms, stippled with gooseflesh. Of course she was cold. She’d opened the windows…What she needed was a warm drink, a hot mug to wrap her fingers around.

She’d just reached the kettle when the phone rang again. She grabbed the receiver fastened to the kitchen wall and said, ‘Please don’t hang up!’

‘Belle?’

Ivo.

‘Oh…’

‘Not who you were expecting, evidently.’

‘No…Yes…’ She shook her head, which was pretty pointless since he couldn’t see.

She should have guessed he’d ring.

He’d called at the flat earlier: she’d looked out of the window and seen his car-not the work day Rolls with Paul at the wheel, but the big BMW he drove himself-and had resolutely ignored the doorbell.

This was hard enough without these constant reminders of everything she was missing. Not just the scent of him that nothing seemed to eradicate, but the way he loosened his tie, undid the top button of his shirt, without even realising what he was doing. The way his hair slid across his forehead, evoking memories of it damp, tousled from the shower…

‘Are you still there?’

‘Yes. Sorry. I’m waiting for someone to ring,’ she said helplessly.

‘I got that bit.’ He didn’t wait for her to reply but said, ‘You sound as if you’ve just run a marathon.’

‘Nothing that easy,’ she said. Then, a touch desperately, ‘Can this wait?’

‘It’s okay, I won’t stop you working. If you’ll just buzz me up…’

Buzz him up? She looked at the phone, then put it back to her ear. ‘Where exactly are you?’

‘Right this minute? Standing on your doorstep.’

She crossed to the tall French windows, standing open to the small balcony to let out the smell of paint, and looked down. There was no BMW parked at the kerb behind her own smart little convertible. Only a van.

Clearly he’d guessed she was lying doggo earlier so this time he’d stopped further down the street and used his cellphone to establish that they both knew she was in before he revealed his presence. Smart.

‘I’m really busy,’ she said. ‘Can’t you just push the post through the letterbox?’

‘The stuff I’ve got here won’t go through the slot.’

Which was why he’d had to come back. Now she just felt bad and, out of excuses, she buzzed him up, but, having left the flat door open, she abandoned all thoughts of making a hot drink and retired to the top of the stepladder, ensuring a safe distance between them. If he saw she was working, he’d get the message and wouldn’t linger.

She heard him walking across the bare boards in the hall. ‘Just dump it there,’ she called, hoping he’d take the hint.

‘One more load.’

What?

She frowned, turned, too late. She could hear him taking the stairs two at a time.

One more load of what?

Had he got tired of waiting for her to pick up her belongings and decided to bring them over?

She swallowed down the painful lump in her throat. This was her decision. She should be grateful, she thought, jabbing at the cornice with her paintbrush. He was saving her a job.

She heard him put something down. ‘That’s it.’

‘Could you leave it in the hall?’ she said, aware that he was watching her but resolute in her determination not to get drawn into conversation. To even look at him.

‘It won’t be much use there.’

And he had her. Curiosity…

Ivo had a weekend wardrobe to go with his weekend car. Expensive casuals, cashmere sweaters. He might carry on working at the weekend, but he didn’t consider it necessary to wear a suit when he was at home. Mostly.

Today he was wearing stuff she’d never seen before.

Really old form-hugging jeans that clung to his thighs and sent a whisper of heat whiffling down her spine. And, under a rubbed to the nap leather bomber jacket, a T-shirt that had once been black but was now so faded that even the logo promoting some eighties’ rock group was barely discernible.

She tore her gaze away from his body to look at the box he’d set on the floor. It contained not post, not clothes, but paintbrushes, brush cleaners, sandpaper-tools a decorator might use.

Startled, she said, ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

‘The ceiling will take half the time with two of us doing it. I’ve brought my own stepladder,’ he added, before she could tell him that he wasn’t sharing hers.

While she balanced, open-mouthed, inches from the ceiling, he fetched it from the hall and set it up in the far corner of the room. Then he took a paint kettle from the box, helped himself to paint from the tin she was using and, without waiting for her to thank him, or tell him to get lost, he set to work.

‘No,’ she said, when her mouth and brain finally reconnected. ‘Stop.’

He paused. Glanced across at her.

This was too weird. Ivo didn’t do this stuff. If something needed fixing, Miranda summoned someone from her list of ‘reliable little men’ to deal with it.

‘Haven’t you got more important things to organise? A takeover, a company launch or something,’ she added a little desperately.

He almost smiled. ‘All of the above, but I can spare a couple of hours to give you a hand with this,’ he said, then carried on with what he was doing.

No doubt. Leaving some CEO to sweat out his future while he calmly painted her ceiling as if he had nothing more on his mind than…painting her ceiling.

‘No,’ she repeated, putting down her paintbrush and climbing down the ladder. If he had time to spare he could go ‘spare’ it somewhere else.

She didn’t want him turning up, taking over. This was like the thing with the car. Treating her as if she didn’t know what she was doing. This was her life and she could handle it.

He took no notice, carrying on as if she hadn’t spoken. For a moment she stood beneath him, watching as he stretched to stroke the brush across the ceiling, apparently hypnotised by the bunching and lengthening of the muscles in his arm. The low autumn sun slanting in through the window gilding the fine sprinkling of dark hairs on his forearm.

‘If you’ve got an hour or two to spare,’ she said, dragging herself back to reality, ‘world peace could do with some attention.’

‘I can do a lot more with ethical company practice than I could ever manage with political hot air.’

‘Can you?’ Then, because getting into a debate with him was not her intention, ‘How did you know I’d be decorating?’

He stopped, looked down at her.

‘I noticed the colour cards on Monday and when I came by earlier you’d taken down the curtains.’ He dipped the brush into the paint. ‘It seemed like a reasonable assumption.’

‘I might have had decorators in.’

‘You have,’ he agreed. ‘Grenville and Davenport. No job too small.’

How easy it would be to let that go. Just shut up and let him get on with it. Working towards each other. A team. This was, after all, what she had always wanted. The two of them getting close over the ordinary things that other people did.

People, courtesy of the gossip magazines, thought she had the perfect life with Ivo, but she would have willingly surrendered the luxury just to fall into bed with him at the end of a hard day, too tired to do anything but sleep.

‘If you want to set up in the decorating business, Ivo, you’re going to have to find another partner. And somewhere else to practise.’

Ivo, who had relied on speed and determination-skills that had served him well in the past-to override her initial objections, certain that in retrospect she’d be glad of his help, stopped what he was doing, finally listened to her.

‘You really mean that, don’t you?’

‘I really mean it.’

‘You don’t want my help?’

‘I don’t want anyone’s help. I want…I need to do this myself.’

He didn’t just listen to her, but heard what she was saying. Understood that she wasn’t rejecting him. She just wanted to do it herself. To prove something to both of them.

It was a light bulb moment.

‘You’ll be sorry,’ he said. He was sorry too, but only for himself. There was something about Belle’s new determination, new independence that made him intensely proud of her.

He climbed down the ladder, looked around. ‘This is a lovely room. Good proportions.’

‘It will be when I’ve finished. When the new carpet is down.’

He looked at the tacks and staples, the junk left behind by earlier floor coverings. ‘These should come up.’

‘It’s on the list.’

‘Do you want me to leave the tools?’

Belle, looking down, caught a glimmer of something in Ivo’s grey eyes. Need? Could it really be need? It was so swift that she couldn’t be sure, only that it made her regret her swift rejection. To be needed by him was all she had ever really wanted.

And she’d made her point, she rationalised.

That if he stayed it would be on her terms, not because she couldn’t cope. Not even because he thought she couldn’t cope. And, as he sorted out pliers, a small hammer, a screwdriver, she said, ‘On the other hand, I suspect it’s going to be a tedious and painful job. Nail hell.’

‘Painting a ceiling isn’t much fun,’ he pointed out. But he left her to it while he began to tackle the floor.

The phone rang three more times while they were working.

The first time Ivo looked, but made no effort to get up. The caller hung up without leaving a message.

The second time it rang he said, ‘Do you want me to get that?’

‘No, thanks,’ she said. It was another hang-up.

The third time they both studiously ignored it.

When she was done, she climbed down the ladder, her fingers so stiff she could barely move them. He didn’t say a word, simply took her brush and the one he’d briefly used and washed them out under the tap. She didn’t protest since the alternative was standing shoulder to shoulder with him at the sink. That was when the phone rang for the fourth time.

‘Do you get a lot of hang-ups?’ he asked, turning to her. ‘This is an unlisted number?’

‘It’s nothing. One of those computer things,’ she said. ‘A silent call. I’ll contact the phone people. You can register to put a stop to them.’

‘Silent calls don’t listen to the answering machine message,’ he pointed out. ‘They hang up as soon as the phone is answered.’

‘Do they?’

‘It sounds to me as if someone likes listening to your voice.’

‘What?’ Then, blushing, ‘What are you suggesting?’ she demanded.

‘Nothing.’ He squished more soap on to the bristles. ‘Only that you might consider changing your number.’

‘I can’t…’ she began. Too vehemently. ‘I can’t be bothered. It’s too much trouble to let everyone know.’

‘Well, so long as it stops at hang-ups. Nuisance calls can get nasty. Who knows you’re living here on your own?’

She shrugged. ‘Not many people. My agent. You.’

Daisy…

Could it be Daisy calling just to listen to her voice? Building up courage to get in touch…

‘And someone else,’ he suggested, working the soap into the bristles with his long fingers, although the brush looked pretty clean to her. ‘I’ve been expecting to read all about this…’ he made a gesture with his head that indicated the flat ‘…in the newspapers.’

‘Have you? Yes, well, it’s a smoke and mirrors thing. The new image has distracted them for the moment.’

That and the fact that the split had all been so unbelievably civilised. There had been no drama. No tears. No sordid triangle spilling out into the public arena. Nothing to draw attention to what had happened.

The flat below her was between tenants and her ground floor neighbours, if they had actually noticed her comings and goings, presumably thought she was just doing some work on her empty flat.

It was almost as if the idea of her leaving Ivo was so unbelievable that while the world, if it looked, must plainly see what had happened, it collectively refused to believe its own eyes.

‘Better make the most of the breathing space,’ she advised him. ‘It’ll happen soon enough.’ Then, because he had to find out sooner or later, ‘With luck my other news will save you from the worst of it.’

He stilled.

‘Other news?’

‘My departure from breakfast television.’

‘What?’

‘Welcome to the club.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘The “What?” club,’ she said, making little quote marks with her fingers, although he’d sounded surprised rather than shocked, which had been the standard response. As if he’d been anticipating something different, although if he really thought she was having an affair why would he be here today, helping her decorate? Presumably that would be the ‘lover’s’ prerogative. ‘So far the membership is pretty exclusive. The network executives. My agent. When the news breaks I imagine it’ll be standing room only.’

‘Undoubtedly. Breakfast will never be the same again. Have they got anyone else lined up?’

Was that it? Mild surprise and who’s taking over from you?

‘For the moment they’re refusing to believe it,’ she said. Rather like his response to the fact that she’d left him. ‘They think I’m angling for more money.’

‘And are they offering it?’

‘I’m getting the impression that I can pretty much fill in the blank, which is ridiculous. No one is irreplaceable.’

‘You think?’ For a moment she thought he was going to say more, but he let it go. ‘Do you have anything else lined up?’

‘I’m taking a break. It’s not for the want of offers,’ she added. Pride talking. ‘Including a six-figure advance for my biography.’ It would be ghost-written, Jace Sutton, her agent, had assured her, assuming that her horrified response was due to the thought of having to put pen to paper herself.

‘I’d save that one for the pension fund.’

‘Don’t panic; I have no intention of washing my dirty linen in public.’

‘What dirty linen would that be?’

‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s just an expression. Neither do I see myself as the host of a daytime game show.’

‘What about that project you’re working on?’

‘Project?’

‘Something about adoption?’ he prompted, regarding her with a look that left her floundering.

How did he know?

‘You were researching the subject the other day.’

‘Oh, right. Yes.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s in the very early stages.’

Actually not such a bad idea, she thought, recalling some of the stories she’d read. The desperate searches. The joyful reunions. The heartbreak of a second rejection. Maybe she could put together something that would really help people like her, like Daisy.

Realising that Ivo was expecting more, she said, ‘Perhaps I should make producing my own documentary a condition of staying on. That would really test the network’s resolve.’

He frowned. ‘You’re joking, surely?’

‘Well, yes, obviously…’

‘Unless they’re complete fools, they’d jump at it.’

He thought that? Really?

‘But why bother?’ he went on.

Obviously not.

‘If it’s something that you’re passionate about, you should set up your own production company.’

She stared at him.

‘My own company?’

‘If you’re moving on, it’s the next logical step. You could do what you wanted without the bean counters pulling the strings. If you’re interested I’m sure Jace would know who to approach for finance.’

‘No.’

She wasn’t one of those high-flying women with a first from Oxford.

‘Making television programmes is expensive,’ he said, misunderstanding her response.

‘I know, but who on earth would risk money on me?’

‘People trust you, Belle. The public love you. I…’

His voice faltered and in a second the atmosphere had slipped from a relaxed working relationship to something else as heat, like the opening of an oven door, flared between them.

‘You?’

‘I should be going.’