Friends & Rivals (37 page)

Catriona blushed, swatting away the compliment.

‘I'm serious,' said Ivan. ‘You're looking fantastic. Like a new woman.'

You're marrying a new woman
, thought Catriona stupidly. Aloud she said, ‘I'm trying to be healthier. Jack sort of got me into it, running and eating protein and whatnot.'

At the mention of Jack's name, all the congeniality drained from Ivan's face. ‘You and Jack still thick as thieves, eh?'

‘I wouldn't say that,' Catriona bridled. She thought of her last conversation with Jack, where she'd got upset with him about ‘stealing' Ava Bentley from Ivan, and they'd actually had rather an unpleasant row. ‘We have our differences, but he's an old friend.'

‘He looked like more than a friend in those
Daily Mail
pictures,' said Ivan grumpily. ‘You were all over each other.' He knew he was being ridiculous. That he had absolutely no right to say anything to Catriona about her friendships, love life, any of it. But he'd never been much good at controlling his emotions, and the jealousy welling up inside him needed an outlet.

Catriona was just about to get to her feet, a
how dare you
already half formed on her lips, when Hector's voice drifted in from the kitchen. ‘Mum? Are you home? MUM!'

‘In here,' Catriona called back nervously. ‘With Dad. He's come to pick up Rosie for the wedding.'

Hector stuck his head round the doorway. Ivan was shocked by how much older he looked.
Christ, he's matured.
They're growing up without me.
Blond and blue-eyed like his mother, but with his father's strong jaw and masculine bearing, Hector had recently lost the freckly,
Just William
-ish look of his boyhood and shot up several inches in height. He still needed to fill out a bit, to get past that gangly limbed teenage stage. But you could already see the handsome, intelligent, decent man he was going to become.

He met Ivan's eye without flinching, and nodded a curt ‘hello'. Not exactly a warm welcome, but a light year's improvement on his former rabid hostility.

‘Hi,' said Ivan warily. He didn't want to jinx the good start. ‘I wasn't expecting to see you.'

‘I didn't know if I'd make it back in time,' said Hector. ‘I wanted to see Rosie before she goes. I've got her a surprise.'

Catriona eyed her son distrustfully. ‘What sort of surprise?' Rosie was so excited about the wedding and her trip to London, the last thing she needed was one of her brother's practical jokes. However well intentioned, Hector's ‘tricks' had an alarming tendency for getting out of hand.

‘A brilliant one,' grinned Hector. ‘Come into the garden in five minutes and I'll show you.'

He dashed out of the room, leaving his parents looking at one another with raised eyebrows and an amused look on their faces. The earlier tension between them had evaporated like dew in an unexpected burst of sunshine.

‘I was just thinking how grown-up he seemed,' said Ivan with a smile, ‘but perhaps I spoke too soon?'

‘Do you remember when he was little, his “traps”?' said Catriona. ‘In the London house – how he used to drag us out into the garden where he'd tied all the plants and garden implements together with string?'

‘Wearing my father's old RAF cap and holding his cap gun? How could I forget?'

They both laughed at the memory. But when the laughter trailed off, the room felt heavy with silence. A million words formed in Ivan's head, most of them beginning with
I'm sorry
, but none of them coming near to conveying the regret that he actually felt. In the end, silence seemed more respectful. Catriona, who'd been fine up until this point, suddenly found herself having to use every ounce of energy not to cry. When Hector called ‘Ready!', she shot out of her seat like a racehorse at the sound of the starter's pistol, practically running into the garden.

‘What do you think?' Hector looked at his mother expectantly.

‘Oh!' Catriona gasped. ‘Oh my goodness gracious! He's
lovely
!'

A pathetically small brown and white puppy snuffled and tumbled its way over the cold stone path. It had too much skin for its tiny frame, like a bloodhound or a basset, but the longer legs and wiry coat suggested some sort of terrier. Gambolling over Catriona's flower beds, it threw itself at Ivan's feet, pressing itself into his trouser leg for warmth. Ivan crouched down to pet it, pulling it up onto his lap where it promptly peed.

Utterly charmed, he turned to Hector. ‘Where did you get him? He's a cross-breed, I presume?' In the delight of the moment, he had forgotten to edit himself around his son and just asked the question naturally. Hector responded in kind.

‘He's from Middle Farm in Icomb. Fifty quid. The bitch is a Jack Russell with a bit of spaniel in her, I think. Maisie, Jonas Lyon's dog.'

‘My God,' laughed Ivan. ‘I remember that dog. Hasn't Jonas had her since prep school? I'd have thought she was a bit long in the tooth for puppies.'

‘That's what the Lyons all thought. They've got no idea who fathered the litter, but I reckon it was a pedigree something. Look at the way Byron holds his head up. He knows he's something special.'

‘Byron?' Catriona giggled, watching the scruffy little dog worrying at the sleeve of Ivan's cashmere Aquascutum Jacket. ‘As in the poet?'

‘As in Lord Byron,' said Hector firmly. ‘Was he a poet? I thought he was just a cool dude. Anyway, he's a present for Rosie, a sort of sorry-for-being-such-a-tosser-last-year slash Christmas present. Do you think she'll like him?'

The question was addressed to Catriona, but Ivan answered, with Byron still hanging off his arm, legs flailing and tail wagging wildly. ‘She'll love him, mate,' he grinned. ‘He's a fucking inspiration.'

‘Thanks, Dad,' said Hector. And quite without thinking, the two of them hugged.

Upstairs at her bedroom window, Rosie had watched the whole scene play out. The puppy, her parents' obvious affection, Hector and Ivan laughing and joking with one another, like the old days. It should have made her happy. Everybody getting along at last. But instead she locked her bedroom door, sank down on the bed, put her head in her hands and wept.

Two days before her wedding to Ivan, Kendall booked herself into a suite of rooms at The Connaught Hotel in London. Tucked away in a quiet corner of Mayfair, The Connaught was less flashy and brash than The Dorchester or The Berkeley, yet every bit as exclusive. Downstairs the lobby and formal rooms were decorated in classic English upper-class style, with eighteenth-century portraits and landscapes on the walls, antique but unfussy mahogany furniture and exquisite red and blue Persian rugs thrown over wide, walnut floorboards. Upstairs, Kendall's ‘apartment suite' was more sleek and modern in design, a smart mixture of dark blues and greys contrasting with the crisp white linens and gleaming silver fixtures. At over three thousand square feet, the suite was vast, comprising of three bedrooms, each with their own bathroom, a living room, study, library, butler's pantry and two terraces. Rosie, Ivan's daughter, and Stella Bayley, Kendall's bridesmaid and maid of honour respectively, would spend the night before the wedding in the two spare bedrooms. Then, on the morning itself, the reception rooms and terraces would be flooded with stylists, hairdressers, dress designers, make-up artists, florists and the rest of the seemingly never-ending entourage considered essential for a modern celebrity wedding. It would, Kendall told herself, be fun.

So far, since the first heady days of her engagement, there'd been little time for fun.
Flame
's success, and the furore surrounding her and Ivan's marriage, meant that Kendall had been on a pretty much ceaseless round of publicity. Every day she had at least four ‘official' work engagements, CD signings, appearances on TV or radio shows, photoshoots for fashion magazines or for commercial sponsors. But, beyond that, every time she stepped outside her door she was ‘on', playing the role of the returning mega-star, or the ecstatic fiancée, smiling till her jaw ached and waving till her wrists felt limp. She had no idea how Kate Middleton did it. As exciting and rewarding as it was to be the centre of so much attention, it could not fairly be categorized as ‘fun'.

It also meant that she had almost no time to think about the personal side of what was happening to her. Marrying Ivan was more than just a wedding. It was a marriage, a commitment to forge a life together, to have children, to grow old. How did she feel about that? She told herself she was happy, that she loved Ivan. If she was confused and anxious, it was because it had all happened so suddenly, the proposal, the media frenzy, the sudden career success. Even so, for someone who'd just been given everything she ever wanted wrapped up in a big red bow, Kendall felt a pronounced lack of elation. For some reason she found herself longing to speak to Lex Abrahams. In past emotional crises he'd always made sense of things for her in a way that no one else since had been able to. Twice since she'd checked in to the Connaught, she'd dialled Lex's number, only to hang up the phone at the first ring.

When the morning of the wedding finally dawned, Kendall woke feeling much brighter. She'd gone to bed early, at Stella and Rosie's insistence, and slept for eleven straight hours thanks to the Ambien that Stella had crushed into her hot chocolate.

After a delicious breakfast of pains au chocolat and almond pancakes, washed down with freshly pressed orange juice and multiple cappuccinos (for some reason she felt ravenously hungry), she jumped in the shower while Stella and Rosie dealt with the arriving army of people.

‘Where should I go first?' Emerging from the bathroom in a bathrobe with a white towel tied turban-style around her head and her face scrubbed clean of make-up, Kendall looked incredibly young and vulnerable. As the matron of honour, Stella immediately took control.

‘Hair and nails,' she said briskly. ‘Anthony's set up in the study.'

‘Is my dress back from downstairs?' Kendall asked anxiously. ‘I sent it to be pressed last night and I haven't—'

‘The dress is fine. Everything's fine,' said Stella, ushering her through to where the hairdresser was waiting.

‘Yes, but I didn't see it this morning and the concierge said—'

‘Stop worrying,' said Stella firmly, ‘and leave everything to me.'

Sometimes, thought Kendall, it paid to have a bossy friend.

No sooner had she sat down in Anthony's styling chair than Rosie wandered in carrying a portable telephone. ‘It's your mother.' Kendall opened her mouth to protest. She hadn't spoken to Lorna in months, and what with the whirlwind of the last few weeks, realized she had forgotten to reply to her last two emails. She couldn't face a haranguing this morning. But Rosie had already thrust the phone into her hand, and before she knew it, Kendall was listening to the familiar voice from five thousand miles across the ocean. Not berating her, as it happened, but wishing her joy.

‘I hope my flowers got there in time, honey.' Lorna's voice was loaded with love. ‘Coals to Newcastle, I expect, but I wanted you to have something natural and beautiful from all of us at home. We miss you.'

Guilt and homesickness hit Kendall like a double punch to the stomach. She burst into tears. ‘I miss you too, Mom, and the twins. Once the promotional tour's over, I promise I'll come out to visit.'

‘With your new husband, I hope,' said Lorna. ‘You'll have to get used to saying “we” now, not “I”. You're about to be a married woman. Kendall.'

Kendall started howling again. ‘I knooooow!'

By the time she hung up, her nose was clown-red, her eyes puffy and her cheeks blotched and tear-streaked. Karen, the chief make-up artist, walked in and gasped in horror. ‘No more phone calls!' she said imperiously. ‘Who gave her this phone?'

‘I did,' said Rosie meekly. ‘It was her mother and—'

‘I don't care if it was Jesus fucking Christ.' Karen glared at Rosie. ‘In two hours' time half the world's press are gonna be zooming in for close-ups on that face. Kendall is
not
to be upset, she is
not
to be disturbed, she is
not
—'

‘I am here, you know,' said Kendall, winking encouragingly at Rosie, who looked as if she might be about to cry herself. ‘Come on, guys. Lighten up.'

‘Lighten up?' said Karen and Anthony in horrified unison.

‘Sweetie,' Karen explained patiently, ‘this is your wedding day. Probably the single biggest PR opportunity of your career. It doesn't get any more serious than this. Now,' she clapped her hands loudly, like Mary Poppins, ‘bridesmaid and MOH. I need both of you in the chair right now.'

Bizarrely, everybody else's nerves and stress had a calming effect on Kendall. When Stella and her stylist, Sasha, came in with the dress, carefully helping her into it before slipping on her cream satin Manolo Blahnik heels, she felt happier and more peaceful than she had in days.

‘How do I look?' she said, twirling in front of the full-length mirror in the master bedroom. But she already knew the answer. In a clinging silk and lace column from Amanda Wakeley, with her dark hair piled luxuriantly on top of her head and fixed in place with an array of diamond and platinum pins that twinkled like stars when they caught the light, she looked like a goddess of the night. Her make-up was understated, making the most of her luminous skin, with only her extraordinary green cat's eyes played up by a subtle, smoky shadow. As usual, Karen had worked wonders, although with a face as perfectly formed as Kendall's, you could hardly go wrong.

‘Daddy's going to die of pride when he sees you,' said Rosie, hugging her before scurrying off to adjust her own dress.

‘I just hope Ivan's hard-on doesn't spoil the ceremony,' said Stella once she'd gone. ‘No one likes to see a groom with a boner.'