Friends & Rivals (30 page)

Catriona blushed. ‘Sexy? Ha! I don't think so.'

‘I do,' said Jack, deadly seriously. ‘You've never had any idea how beautiful you are.'

For a few seconds, a crackle of sexual tension hung in the air between them. Catriona had always thought Jack madly good-looking – you couldn't not; but she'd only ever known him with Ivan and had never viewed him as anything other than a friend.

‘I suspect that's another reason you drink,' said Jack. ‘Insecurity. Believe it or not, Kendall's the same.'

Catriona snatched her hands away. ‘My God, Jack. I don't want to talk about Kendall, OK? If it weren't for that girl, none of this would have happened. She destroyed my marriage.'

‘You don't really believe that, do you?' said Jack. ‘It was Ivan who destroyed your marriage, Cat. He's the one who seduced Kendall, not the other way around.'

‘How do you know that?' Catriona said hotly.

‘Because I know Kendall. Yes, she can be selfish and sexually impetuous and all of that. But she was just a kid when she came to England, a kid who wanted to hit back at
me.
She didn't stand a chance against a shrewd manipulator like Ivan.'

Catriona said nothing. It was easier to blame Kendall than to blame Ivan. Less painful. Why was Jack trying to take that one small comfort away from her?

‘You know at Ivan's fortieth birthday party, at The Rookery? I walked in on him and Joyce Wu in the bathroom.'

‘At his party?' Catriona shook his head. ‘No, no, that's not possible. I was there. Ivan was actually very sweet to me that night, I remember.'

‘Cat, I was there. He was fucking that girl over a bathtub. She was only nineteen, for goodness' sake. And you know what? After I caught him, he didn't even care. He practically laughed in my face when I challenged him about it.'

Tears poured down Catriona's cheeks. Even after all this time, what Jack was telling her was like a knife in the heart, the wound as fresh and raw as if it had happened yesterday. ‘Why didn't you tell me at the time?'

‘Come on,' said Jack. ‘How could I?'

‘Well, why are you telling me now then?' she shouted at him. ‘I don't understand. Why are you trying to hurt me?'

Other diners had turned to look at them. What had begun as a quiet dinner had rapidly taken a turn for the dramatic. Jack did his best to calm things down. ‘I'm not trying to hurt you. I want you to see Ivan for what he was, what he is, so that maybe you won't feel so much loss. You know, after Sonya died, I started drinking a lot. At one point it got really bad. I was easily finishing two bottles of red on my own every night, on top of spirits at lunch.'

‘So what stopped you?' sniffed Catriona.

‘She did. Sonya did. I thought about her looking down at me, how sad and disappointed she'd be … That and the fact I felt like crap.'

Catriona risked a small smile.

‘You're a beautiful woman, Cat, inside and out. Don't let Ivan, or some false image of Ivan that was never even true in the first place, ruin the rest of your life.'

Sensing a lull in hostilities, the waitress brought over Catriona's red wine.

‘I changed my mind,' she said. ‘I'm happy to pay for it but I'm not going to drink it. Just a green tea, please. And the check.'

‘I'm paying,' said Jack.

‘No you're not. I am. It's the least I owe you after tonight. After everything.'

She leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek, but somehow, intentionally or otherwise, Jack moved his head and their lips ended up meeting. Catriona froze, like a deer in the headlights, waiting for Jack to jerk away. But instead he reached a hand around the back of her neck and kissed her. It was more tender than passionate, but it was so unexpected, and it had been so long since Catriona had been kissed by anyone, she felt a rush of longing shoot down her body from her heart to her groin. When Jack finally pulled away she was speechless, gasping for air like a fish in a net.

‘Let's go home,' said Jack.

When they got back to the Brentwood house, Lex Abrahams was in the kitchen, contemplatively sipping a hot chocolate with Hector.

‘What are you doing here?' Jack looked at his watch. ‘Isn't Leila expecting you?'

‘I drove Hector home,' said Lex. ‘And no, actually, she's not expecting me. We broke up.'

Jack's eyes widened. ‘What? When?'

‘Last night,' said Lex. He sounded dispirited rather than heartbroken. Catriona, who'd only met Lex once before years ago and whose mental image was of the tired, dark-haired boy being mauled by Kendall Bryce in the newspaper pictures, thought he looked remarkably handsome in a white T-shirt and vintage leather jacket from American Classics. Far better looking in the flesh than he was in the
Daily Mail
.

‘Isn't that kinda sudden?' asked Jack.

‘Women,' said Hector knowingly, taking a slug of his own hot chocolate. ‘They're so unpredictable.'

Lex laughed. He'd grown fond of his eager-beaver assistant in the last two weeks. Hector had inherited all his father's social skills, humour and
joie de vivre
, but none of Ivan's legendary ego. He was fun to have around.

‘Not really,' he told Jack. ‘It's been coming for a while. There's no big drama; it was a mutual thing. We just knew we weren't going to get married so at a certain point it didn't make sense to go on.'

Jack frowned. He wasn't buying this version of the story, and couldn't help but feel that the bomb Kendall had lobbed into Lex and Leila's relationship back in June must have had something to do with it. But now wasn't the time to go into it. ‘You know Catriona Charles, Hector's mother?'

‘Sure.' Lex shook her hand. ‘How are you enjoying LA?'

‘It's been wonderful, thanks,' said Catriona. ‘A real breath of fresh air.'

Lex noticed that she looked at Jack when she said this and that he returned the look with a warm smile.
Now that would be something,
he thought,
if those two got together.

‘Oh, Jack, by the way Lisa Marie came round earlier,' said Hector. ‘She said you left these at her place and she's looking forward to seeing you Saturday night.' He handed Jack a pair of jade cufflinks.

Jack snatched up the cufflinks, blushing furiously. ‘OK, thanks.'

‘You're dating Lisa Marie?' Lex nudged his partner in the ribs. ‘You old dog! You never said anything.'

‘There's nothing to say,' muttered Jack.

‘Who's Lisa Marie?' asked Catriona, wishing that she didn't care so much about the answer.

‘Oh my God, Mum, she's
gorgeous
,' said Hector. ‘She's the new senior account manager at JSM and she looks exactly like Jennifer Garner, except less wholesome and a bit more, you know, slutty.'

‘Hector!' said Catriona, Lex and Jack in unison.

‘Well, she does,' muttered Hector. ‘Are you really shagging her, Uncle Jack?'

Lex laughed loudly. Poor Jack looked as if he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him. ‘I think you'd better get upstairs, buddy, before you find yourself out of a job. And a home. Go on, scram.'

A few minutes later, Lex left too, before Jack could quiz him any more about Leila. Catriona faked a yawn. She wasn't remotely tired, her mind and body were both racing, but she needed to be on her own. ‘I think I'll head up too.'

‘Are you sure?' Jack looked disappointed. ‘I could make us hot chocolates too. Or a chamomile tea?'

He's so handsome
, thought Catriona.
And lovely and kind.
It would be terrifyingly easy to fall in love with him.

‘No thanks,' she said, forcing herself to be sensible. ‘I'm honestly shattered. I'll see you in the morning.' Turning her back on him, she traipsed up the wide wooden stairs to bed.

Alone in the kitchen, Jack realized with a sinking heart how empty the house was going to feel when she left. A few weeks later Hector would be gone too.
They're Ivan's family, not mine.
The thought filled him with a bitterness that was very close to hate. JSM were already more profitable than Jester, and going from strength to strength, but he was still nowhere near exacting the vengeance he longed for and that consumed him day and night. Perhaps the time had come to walk into the lion's den? To take the fight to Ivan on his own home turf and destroy his business, the way that Ivan had so callously set about destroying Jack's?

Upstairs, in her princess-and-the-pea four-poster, Catriona stared at the ceiling, her mind whirring like a Magimix. The kiss with Jack earlier already felt like a dream, but perhaps no more so than this entire trip to LA.
He's with Lisa Marie, the gorgeous account manager. That's reality. He probably only kissed me out of pity.

Her thoughts turned to Ivan, how close they'd suddenly become in the days after Hector disappeared. Would any of that closeness still be there when she returned? Did she want it to be, after everything he'd put her through?

She fell asleep dreaming of Joyce Wu and Jack Messenger's lips and the Windrush Valley, calling her home.

Kendall Bryce sat down on the squashy red sofa in the Vivement Dimanche studio and smiled dazzlingly at the host. In a close-fitting white Chloé trouser suit, teamed with a black silk Gucci shirt and sky-high Zanotti platforms, she looked sexy, chic and radiantly confident. The bright lights of the TV studio and the rapturous applause of the audience brought her to life like the first rays of spring sunshine rousing a hibernating animal. From backstage, Ivan watched her with a combination of nerves and pride as she laughed and joked coquettishly with Pascal Dubonnet, the handsome presenter of France's most-watched chat show.

‘Tell us about
Flame,
' Dubonnet was asking. ‘There's been so much secrecy about this album. Is that because you've taken your sound in a different direction?'

‘In some ways,' said Kendall, crossing her legs to give Dubonnet and camera one a better view of her spectacular cleavage. ‘Hopefully you'll get a sense from the track I'm going to perform today, “Liar, Liar”
.
'

‘Now is this the song you've released free on iTunes as a “teaser”, before the album's release next week?'

‘That's right.'

‘So tell me, Kendall, do you like to tease?'

And they were off, flirting and exchanging banter like old friends, their ‘chemistry' delighting the audience and Ivan in equal measure.
She's such a fucking pro
, he thought proudly. He knew how scared she was about tonight's show. So much rested on this album's success, for both of them, and Kendall's French, though fluent, was rusty. But as ever, when the pressure was really on, she hit the ball out of the park. Ten million viewers, most of them music buyers, would be glued to their screens right now, eating out of Kendall's perfectly manicured hands.

Ivan reached into the pocket of his Paul Smith jacket, pulled out a Xanax and swallowed it. His doctor had warned him that he couldn't go on living his life at this pitch of stress, good advice if only he'd had some suggestions as to how, exactly, Ivan was supposed to reduce the pressure. Hector's disappearance had shaken Ivan to his core. The few days he'd spent in Burford with Catriona had been awful and wonderful at the same time, but they'd destabilized him, offering him a glimpse of the calmer, more peaceful life he'd once had and might perhaps have again, if only he could somehow find his way back there. Then Hector had turned up, and relief and joy had swiftly turned to anger as Jack Messenger stepped into the picture, setting himself up as some sort of alternative father figure and even luring Catriona into his meddlesome net.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Ivan had had little time to brood on Jack's insidiously worming his way into his family. With
Flame
just weeks from official release, and
Talent Quest
still having six episodes to run before the season finale, he was sucked immediately back into a ceaseless vortex of work. The maths was simple.
Flame
had to shift at least 200,000 copies in the European market within a month of its release, or Polydor would drop Kendall from its books. Cheryl Cole's last album had struggled to top 170,000 domestically, so those numbers were a big ask.

Meanwhile the situation with Ava Bentley was becoming like walking a tightrope through a minefield. In between promotional commitments with Kendall and his
Talent Quest
duties, Ivan had somehow found time to spirit Ava into a privately rented recording studio and lay down some new material by Ingrid Michaelson, one of the best pop writers in the business and known for her discretion. The plan, based on a handshake agreement with Ava's father, Dave, was for Ava to pull out of the
Talent Quest
competition due to ill-health, thus releasing her from her ITV contract. During her ‘recuperation' in a private location, Jester would officially sign her as a client, and Ivan would broker a behind-the-scenes deal for her first two albums, based on the already recorded material, including her duet with Kendall. By tying Ava's star and Kendall's together, he hoped to have enough leverage at Polydor to extract killer deals for both girls.

Still, until he had Dave Bentley signed on the dotted line, he was jumpy. Ava's spurious illness would be fraud, pure and simple, if it were discovered, and though Ivan had left no paper or email trail that could link him to the plot, the recordings he'd made with Ava were hard evidence of his intent to break the terms of his own contract with
Talent Quest
.

Meanwhile, things with Jester went from bad to worse. Over the summer, the last vestiges of Ivan's classical list had all deserted to other managers, and the grumblings of dissent from his remaining clients were beginning to grow deafening. Ivan had been pulled in too many different directions for a long time, but he was starting to feel like Stretch Armstrong on a mission impossible. He'd already had to go back to the bank twice for bridge loans, until the Kendall and Ava deals came good. But if some serious money didn't hit Jester's corporate account by Christmas, there was a real chance Ivan would have to file for bankruptcy.