Friends & Rivals (40 page)

Depressed, and with no real appetite, she started knocking back the sake instead. At eighteen, Ava was under the legal drinking age in California, but no one was going to say anything to the guest of honour at so important a table. After forty minutes or so, in which they discussed her upcoming video shoots and appearance singing live on Jay Leno, Ava got up to go to the loo looking distinctly wobbly on her six-inch heels.

‘I'll come with you,' said Lisa Marie, grabbing her under the elbow and steering her towards the Ladies. Over her shoulder she mouthed ‘
coffee
' to Jack.

As soon as Ava was out of earshot, Jack leaned forward excitedly, addressing the table as a whole. ‘OK. So I don't want to raise this in front of Ava yet. She's got enough on her plate with
Pure
coming out and I don't want to overstress her. But I had a great meeting with Don Lenner today about next steps.'

The Columbia staffers all pricked up their ears. Don Lenner was the label's CEO. Jack Messenger was basically telling them he'd had a direct dialogue with God.

‘We both feel that it makes sense to push Ava internationally the moment she's begun to make an impact here,' Jack went on. ‘Obviously the most crucial market to capture would be the UK. Our thought was to have her do a full-on UK PR assault in November, reintroduce her to the British public, then release the album mid-December and shoot for a Christmas number one.'

Jen, Liam and their colleagues all nodded enthusiastically, murmuring assent. It didn't pay to argue with God. Only Lex looked less than happy.

‘This was Don Lenner's idea, or yours?' he asked sceptic-ally.

Jack leaned back, folding his arms defensively. ‘It came up in conversation. I can't remember who raised it. But we both agreed.'

‘Oh really?' said Lex. ‘And did you mention to Don that your interest in going back to London has nothing to do with what's best for Ava's career, which is clearly to strengthen her presence in the domestic market, but everything to do with your bullshit personal vendetta against Ivan Charles?'

The Columbia staffers exchanged embarrassed glances. None of them wanted to be present for a JSM domestic. Lex Abraham's tone was overtly hostile and deeply provocative.

‘No,' said Jack coolly. ‘I didn't. Because what you've just said isn't true. I happen to genuinely believe—'

‘Oh spare me,' snapped Lex. ‘Tell it to someone who hasn't bought your bullshit before. When is this all gonna end, Jack? I mean, seriously, when? No one cares about Ivan but you.'

‘Funny,' said Jack, ‘that wasn't the impression I got a few months back when Kendall married him. Back then you seemed to think he was the devil incarnate.'

‘Who's the devil?' Ava, still leaning heavily on Lisa Marie for support, weaved her way back to the table. Even in her drunken state, she could see that all was not well. Jack's fists were clenched and his jaw rigid. Lex looked as if he'd just swallowed a wasp.

‘No one, honey,' said Jen Gomez soothingly.

‘But Jack said—'

‘Would anyone like dessert?'

No one, it seemed, was hungry any more, or in the party spirit. Jack asked for the check, and Lex offered to drive Ava home. She wanted to refuse. It was only a couple of blocks to her apartment, and Lex had been so off with her all evening she really should have walked. But the temptation to spend even another few minutes in his company was too great. Ten minutes later she found herself in the familiar passenger seat of Lex's Range Rover, playing nervously with her hair as they headed down Melrose.

‘You and Jack were fighting,' she said quietly, as much to break the awful silence as anything.

‘No we weren't.'

‘Was it about me?'

‘I told you,' said Lex curtly. ‘We weren't fighting.'

The silence resumed for the rest of the short drive to Ava's building on Alta Loma. Lex pulled over and was about to give her a kiss on the cheek goodbye when he noticed she was crying. ‘What's the matter?' he said gently.

‘You!' Ava sobbed. ‘You're the matter. OK, so you hate my hair. I get it,' she hiccupped. ‘But there's no need to be so mean to me and get so angry all the time.'

Lex winced. It was Jack he was mad at, not Ava. ‘I don't hate your hair. I was surprised, that's all.'

But Ava had already jumped out of the car, slamming the door behind her. After about four steps she stumbled, twisting her ankle and falling painfully onto her knees in the driveway, prompting renewed sobs. Lex opened the door and walked over to her.

‘Leave me alone,' she sniffed.

‘No can do, I'm afraid,' he said, scooping her up into his arms. ‘I told Jack I'd get you home safely. This isn't safely.'

She let him carry her into the building, too exhausted and emotional to protest. Once they reached her apartment, Lex sat her down gently on the sofa, produced a bag of ice from the freezer which he wrapped in a tea towel and told her to press against her bruised knees, and started brewing some coffee.

‘I don't need any coffee.' She hiccupped again, wondering at exactly what point the gods would decide she'd been humiliated enough.

‘I do,' said Lex. ‘I had too many sakes myself. Plus I have to get all the way back to Malibu after this and I'm exhausted.'

In the end she took the proffered mug without complaint, along with the accompanying slices of toast and peanut butter. After a few bites and gulps of the strong, comforting Colombian blend, she began to feel more herself.

‘I made a fool of myself, didn't I?' Ava could hardly bring herself to look at Lex.

‘You had a bit too much to drink,' he said kindly. ‘It's not like you were taking your clothes off or dancing on tables. Besides, it was your party. Nobody minded.'

‘But that isn't what you and Jack were angry about?'

‘No.' Scooching along next to her on the sofa, Lex stroked her strange new hair. It was as soft as rabbit's fur and felt oddly erotic. He stopped instantly.

‘Well what then?' said Ava. ‘And please don't tell me “nothing” again. I'm not a child and I wasn't
that
drunk. I know what I saw.'

‘If you must know, it was about Ivan Charles,' said Lex. He didn't want to say anything to her about the UK Christmas number one plan, he still hoped Jack would eventually see sense on that score, but he did owe her some sort of an explanation. ‘Jack said something about my reaction to Ivan and Kendall's wedding that ticked me off, OK? It was nothing to do with you.'

‘It was to do with Kendall,' said Ava bleakly. ‘I understand. You're still in love with her, aren't you?'

‘I … what? No!' Lex shook his head vehemently. ‘Why would you say something like that?'

‘It's OK,' Ava went on. She'd drunk enough to lose her inhibitions and watched her hand stroking Lex's thigh as if it belonged to somebody else entirely. ‘Kendall's incredibly beautiful. Why wouldn't you be in love with her?'

‘I'm not in love with her,' repeated Lex. Ava's hand was making it hard to concentrate. She looked so different tonight, so adult and sensual, so close to him. ‘Maybe once, a long time ago, I had feelings for—'

Ava's hand had slipped under his shirt. She nuzzled her face against his neck. ‘I could make you happy,' she whispered, her warm breath caressing his skin like a kiss. It felt so good, Lex struggled to suppress a moan of pleasure. ‘I'd appreciate you like Kendall never did.'

He tried to pull away, but when he did Ava's dewy eyes were gazing into his, her pupils dilated and pale lips parted in a look of purest desire. Before he knew it, he was kissing her. Pulling off her T-shirt and unfastening her bra, he ran his hands over her beautiful body, the tiny apple breasts and narrow waist. For a second the cold jolted him back to sanity. ‘We shouldn't be doing this,' he murmured, as Ava's fingers fumbled with the buttons on his fly.

‘Why not?'

His jeans were open now, his erection straining at his Calvin Klein boxer shorts. Ava stroked it gently through the fabric and the last vestiges of Lex's willpower melted away. He couldn't remember why not. Something to do with Kendall, or Jack, or work or …
God, that felt good.
Closing his eyes he surrendered to the pleasure of the moment. He was with a girl who wanted him. Really wanted him.

It had been a long time.

Across town in Brentwood, Jack brushed his teeth angrily, scrubbing away till his gums bled. Just thinking about tonight's conversation made him furious. When would
he
let it go? The barefaced cheek of it! When would Lex let it go?, that was the question. Lex was the one who brought everything back to Ivan and, by extension, Kendall. Not him.

Marching into the bedroom in a sulk he picked up Sonya's photograph. It was one of his favourite pictures of his wife, taken on holiday in St Paul de Vence the year they'd got engaged. Technically, it wasn't a great shot. Sonya's face was turned half away from the camera and her hair was blowing everywhere. But somehow it captured her spirit perfectly. Her laugh that lit up her face like a beacon; her easy, natural beauty, the exact opposite of the contrived, high-
maintenance perfection of the LA girls; her intelligence, so different to the laboured intellectualism of the women Jack had dated at Oxford.

‘It's not fair, Son,' he told the picture. ‘When I signed all Jester's acts, everyone said I was crazy, but I proved them all wrong. JSM's more profitable now than ever. So why can't the kid give me a break and let me manage this girl without second-guessing my every decision? Would I like to get back at Ivan? Sure. But that doesn't mean a UK number one wouldn't be the right thing for Ava, does it?'

He stared at Sonya's image, waiting to feel a connection. Not an answer, as such, but a sense of her presence, of companionship, of not being completely alone. In the first year after her death that connection had come so easily. There were times when he closed his eyes that Jack almost felt as if he could touch her, hear her voice, smell her skin. But not now. Now there was nothing but a photo in a frame. Was this what people meant by time being a healer, Jack wondered bitterly? That as the months and years passed, what little you had left of the person you loved would be taken from you too? It struck him forcefully that he could no longer remember the sound of Sonya's voice. She had slipped away from him, slipped to a place he couldn't follow.

Replacing the picture on the dressing table, he sat down on the end of the bed. At first the sadness was overwhelming. But then he had another thought. What if the silence was an answer in itself? What if Sonya was telling him to let go, to move on, to take his comfort from those who
could
still comfort him – from the living?

He thought about Lisa Marie. She'd have spent the night with him tonight if he'd asked her to. They'd been dating casually for over a year now and Jack enjoyed her company. She was smart, perceptive, beautiful and completely undemanding, never suggesting that they go on long vacations together or swap keys to one another's places. It was an easy relationship that never got in the way at work or caused Jack any anxiety. But that was the problem. He wasn't anxious because he wasn't in love. Neither was Lisa Marie. And they never would be. He hadn't asked her home tonight because he knew in his heart she couldn't comfort him, couldn't support him in the way he needed.

The one woman who could was six thousand miles away, fast asleep in her bed in a sleepy Cotswold town, as unreachable as the stars. Catriona had been so cross with him about signing Ava, he hadn't called for a few months after that. When he did pick up the phone again, the closeness he'd thought had been developing between them last year had gone. She was happy to hear from him, polite, friendly, full of news about Hector and Rosie and village life. But the window for something more between them – if there had ever really been such a window – seemed irrevocably to have closed. Since then work had sucked Jack back into his own life, his own world in LA. And really, what did Catriona know of that world, of the stresses of dealing with a suspicious partner whilst trying to butter up the likes of Don Lenner? How could she help him, if he did pick up the phone and call her?

Even so, the urge to hear Catriona's voice was so strong, Jack found himself dialling her number anyway, getting three-quarters of the way through before he finally came to his senses. At last, restless and depressed, he slipped under the bedclothes, turned out the light and went to sleep.

Lex Abrahams woke the next morning with a dry mouth, a pounding head and a sinking feeling in his stomach that he couldn't quite account for. Then he opened his eyes and blearily took in his surroundings. That was definitely not his ceiling. Or his wardrobe. Or his discarded leather trousers lying casually strewn over the chair by the bed.

Oh shit.

Ava slept peacefully beside him, face down and with the duvet pulled up only as far as her waist. Lex stared at her bare back and short, silken crop of hair for a long time. She was beautiful. No doubt about that. And funny and smart and great company. But she was also eighteen and vulnerable and his client. What was Jack gonna say?

In Ava's shower a few minutes later, he scrubbed himself off, as if the Kiehl's lime body wash could make him feel less like a dirty old man. More of last night's events drifted back to him: the restaurant, the sake, Jack's plan for Ava to make a UK comeback this Christmas. What he'd experienced last night as anger now felt more like anxiety. But what was he anxious about? Losing Ava, the way he'd lost Kendall? Certainly the whole concept of ‘trips to England' didn't fill him with happiness and confidence.

I'm over
thinking it
, he told himself, wrapping a pink Victoria's Secret towel around his waist and hunting through Ava's kitchen cupboards for some Alka-Seltzer. This UK trip might never even happen. They'd all have to see what happened with Ava's album here first. In the meantime, would a relationship with Ava really be the worst thing in the world? After all, she'd made all the moves last night. It wasn't as though he'd tried to seduce her, or tricked her into anything she didn't want to do. In Lex's job, with the hours he worked, it was tough to find time to date, period. Being with someone who understood, who operated in the same world, made sense. Jack was dating a colleague, after all. Was Ava really so different?