Fast Friends (76 page)

She pouted.
Once he had thought her pout adorable. Now he looked faintly disgusted.

‘I’m bored.’

‘You’re
spoiled.’

‘I wish I’d
never –’

‘
So do I,’
he flashed back at her, before she had even had a chance to regret her own
ill-chosen words. Then, guilty because he’d meant it, he weakened.

‘
I’m sorry. Cutting an
album isn’t easy. Why don’t you drive
up
to Plymouth and look around the town? Spend some
money . . . buy some
clothes . . .’ He was casting around in
desperation
for ideas. There was nothing so difficult to please
as a woman hell-bent
on discontent.

‘
Yeah,’ said Caroline,
turning on to her side to look at him
and trying to sound cheerful. She
knew she had pushed her luck and was grateful for the reprieve. ‘I’ll do that.
Find something to do, anyway. And I’m sorry too, OK?’

His heart turned to stone as he bent
to kiss her forehead.
Feeling like an impostor, he touched her tousled tortoiseshell
hair with the back of his hand. ‘OK.
Have a good time. And I’ll
see you
tonight. Got enough money for the trip?’

‘
Better leave me some
more,’ she said, half teasing, although
it came out sounding almost like a threat. ‘A wife can never
have
enough money, after all. Can she?’

Paddy Laharne watched Caroline from a
distance, his topaz
yellow
eyes taking in every detail, missing nothing. Some people were happy with their
own company; Caroline was definitely one of those who was not, he decided. She
wore
unhappy
solitude like a cloak. The drink she poured herself was
a large one, the cigarette a device with which to occupy
herself,
to pass lonely time. Several books
lay scattered in the sand
around her,
but remained untouched. Caroline was gazing
moodily out to sea, lost in
her own unhappy thoughts.

But that body, he reminded himself
with a quickening
of
interest, was still one of the most spectacular he had ever
seen.

Paddy Laharne had never been in love.
Wild since
childhood, adored by
hundreds, possibly thousands of girls throughout his tearaway teenage years, he
accepted what was
offered to him and made a
point of never promising anything
in
return. And the girls, sighing over his long mane of hair,
yellow eyes and proud, hawklike profile, were
thankful just to
be noticed. He was
one of those chosen few whose features
were so unusual, and so
miraculously fitted together, that he
transcended
the traditional description of good looks. Taken
piece by piece, the
result should have been plain ugly, yet
Paddy
had defied that, attaining instead an appearance so
intriguing that mere good looks became irrelevant
and
uninteresting. And he had exactly
the right kind of clever
mind to make the most of it.

‘
Doing your homework?’ he
asked, glancing at the cover of
the book now resting against her thighs.
Jackie Collins’
Lethal Seduction.

Caroline looked up, her expression behind her dark glasses
wary. Paddy had scarcely spoken more than a few words to her
before and his indifference hadn’t troubled her.
Now, however,
he squatted down on his
heels beside her and was showing
every sign of striking up a
conversation.

‘
The book makes it all
seem far more exciting than it really
is,’ she said, glad of the chance
to talk to someone even if it was
only Paddy
Laharne. ‘Why aren’t you over at the studios with
the rest of them?’

‘Day off.’ Paddy grinned at her, his small white teeth
startling
against the deep tan of his face. ‘Jake
and Susie have gone over
to Antigua. Shaun’s disappeared with one of the
chalet maids.
Nico’s running through some
new ideas with the sound tech
nicians
and Monty’s hovering over his shoulder getting on
everyone’s nerves. I’m
all alone,’ he concluded, shaking his windswept dark red hair away from his
face.

‘
Welcome to the club,’ she replied, sounding
disinterested. ‘Has Nico taken you to Plymouth yet?’

‘Nico,’
said Caroline slowly, ‘hasn’t so much as bought me a drink yet.’

Paddy gave her a naughty-boy wink and rose to his feet,
holding a
hand towards her. ‘In that case, why don’t I?’

‘Why don’t
you what?’ she parried, suspicion vying with reluctant interest.

‘
Buy you a
drink. In Plymouth. We can explore the town and have fun.’

‘
Fun,’ mused Caroline
thoughtfully, a smile playing on her
lips as she met his topaz eyes
properly for the first time. ‘Fun. You’ll have to remind me how it goes. I don’t
have all that much of it these days.’

Paddy had timed his act beautifully.
Since helping Caroline to
her feet on the beach that morning he had taken care not to
allow any physical contact between them whatsoever.

When, finally, they sank together on to a wooden seat
outside St Anthony’s church, hot and dusty in the dappled sunlight and
exhausted by the amount of walking they had done, he stretched
his arm across the back of the bench behind her,
then very lightly touched the curve of her neck, brushing away damp
strands
of her hair.

He watched her shiver in response and
pretended not to
notice.

‘This church was completely rebuilt in 1889,’ he remarked
lazily, admiring the curve of her shoulder and the
marvellous
swell of her breasts
beneath the fuchsia-pink T-shirt. ‘A
hurricane
destroyed the old building. Can you imagine a
hurricane, here?’

He had read this in Caroline’s guidebook whilst she had
disappeared to the loo after lunch, but spoke the
words as
naturally as if they were etched into his mind.

‘
You are amazing!’ she
said, shaking her head and laughing.
‘I had no idea you knew about
things like churches.’

‘
I know about lots of
things,’ confided Paddy, leaning fraction
ally closer. ‘And I know you
and Nico aren’t as happy as you
should be.
He neglects you. It’s a bloody disgrace, if you ask me.’

Caroline said, ‘Mmm,’ tilting her head back and closing
her eyes. Bathed in sunlight and new happiness, she had forgotten what it was
like to have an attractive, attentive man around her. Having always thought of
Paddy Laharne as a Beano-reading,
ape-like
macho-man completely lacking in the social graces
she felt vaguely guilty and very pleased to
discover that there
was so much more to him than she had imagined. This
morning
he had driven her up into the lime
plantations, shown her
Galway’s
Soufriere, the spectacular but dreadfully smelly
sulphur crater and
taken her to the equally beautiful waterfall at Runaway Ghaut, persuading her
to drink the water in his cupped
hands
because the legend of the waterfall was that those who
drank from it
would one day return to the island.

Then, despite the blistering heat, he had insisted on
escorting
her around all the touristy shops
in Wapping Village. Nico’s
eyes
always glazed over within minutes of a shopping expedition
and Caroline had proceeded with caution, terrified
of frighten
ing Paddy away. But he had
been brilliant, bursting with
knowledge
and enthusiasm, persuading her to try on the Sea
Island cotton outfits in tropical colours and haggling expertly
with
the shopkeepers on her behalf when she decided to buy.

Now, at six o’clock, she realized two
things. She had gone
an entire
day without alcohol, and she was starving.

Paddy, seeming to read her thoughts, consulted his watch. ‘Maybe
we should be heading back.’

‘Oh no,’ begged Caroline, suppressing another shiver of
excitement as his hand accidentally brushed against
her bare
thigh. ‘I’m having fun. Do we have to leave?’

Bingo,
thought Paddy, and grinned.

‘
We could have dinner here,’ she rattled on, adding
stupidly
– desperately – ‘I’ll pay.’

And now for the first time he made his
contact a deliberate
one. Taking
her hand and raising it to his lips, he slowly kissed the palm, fixing her all
the time with his relentless, irresistible gaze.

‘
You
have
been
neglected,’ he murmured. ‘Poor Caroline.
Don’t you know that any woman
who spends an entire day with me gets dinner on the house, just for putting up
with me?’

‘Putting up with you,’ echoed Caroline wonderingly. ‘I was
beginning to think that every man was like Nico. Today, Paddy, you’ve saved my
life.’

It was hard
– harder than he’d expected – but he managed it.

Dropping
her in the jeep outside the elegant whitewashed bungalow she shared with Nico,
he allowed several seconds to
elapse before
dropping a chaste kiss upon her sun-warmed
cheek.

‘Thank you,
Caroline. I won’t forget today.’

In the tropical semi-darkness he saw the panic and longing
in her eyes
and realized that he very probably could, after all,
spend the night with her. But it was too soon. He who waits
wins,
he told himself with the slow, uncurling pleasure of a true
craftsman. Besides, if she were to turn him down
now, the
entire day would be spoiled.

‘You could
come in for a drink,’ whispered Caroline breath
lessly, wriggling down in the passenger seat so that her short
white
skirt edged further up her thighs. All of a sudden she
desperately needed Paddy to stay with her. He was kind,
attentive, and so ludicrously attractive that she
couldn’t
understand why she had never noticed it before. ‘Nico won’t be
home for hours yet.’

He gestured
regret. ‘I’d love to, but I really can’t. We’re working in the studio all day
tomorrow. And if I stayed for even one drink now, who knows what sort of state
I’d be in then?’

The words lingered in the balmy
night, and Caroline knew
what lay
behind them. Rejection mingled with gratitude; Paddy
was turning her down because he had to and not because he
wanted
to. He was a real gentleman and she liked him for it, no matter how much she
wished they could continue.

‘
All day?’ she said, her tone registering
disappointment.

‘
Until about
seven, I guess.’ He paused. ‘If you don’t have
anything else laid on, you could come over to my bungalow
after that, if you’d like to.’ He preferred home
matches,
particularly when the women concerned had husbands. Less
harrowing all round.

‘
I’d like to,’ said
Caroline helplessly, shifting in her seat so
that she was properly
facing him and still half-wishing he would change his mind about tonight.

‘Then it’s a date. Don’t forget now,’ Paddy warned her as
he restarted the jeep’s engine.

‘
I won’t forget. I’m looking forward to it
already.’

‘
Tomorrow,’
he said, smiling into the darkness at her unintentional
double entendre.
‘I’ll
see you at around seven.’

He drove off, leaving Caroline standing alone in the
darkness
in front of the bungalow. It was
practically Jane Eyre, she thought, lost in admiration and unfulfilled desire.
What an
incredible man Paddy Laharne
was. And he hadn’t even
kissed
her yet.

Chapter 54

It was bewildering, thought Camilla,
in fact almost disorienta
ting to
have one’s thoughts so abruptly redirected.

Until now, although she had scarcely
realized it, almost all
her spare
thoughts had been occupied by Matt. Whenever she
wasn’t concentrating upon more immediate matters such as
what the
children should eat, what she should be wearing and
whom she should be meeting that day, her thoughts had
automatically flown back to Matt. The accompanying
sadness
had become part of her life.