Irresistible You (5 page)

The paintbrush was knackered and Reuben was laying the blame squarely on Elena. If she hadn’t turned up at the studio in that red dress and danced around like some banshee then he would have cleaned it like a normal, conscientious artist. He couldn’t afford to lose brushes like that, but he really couldn’t afford to lose Elena either.

They’d argued just before she’d left for Venice and he felt bad about that now and, although he knew she’d be back in two weeks’, and they could make up then, it wasn’t helping him. Sometimes, he found conflict such as this helpful with his painting: it gave him a kind of nervous energy which would gnaw away at him until he put brush to canvas but, at other times, it would leave him as barren as an unprimed board. And, unfortunately, he was having an unprimed board moment.

He flicked through his sketchbook of Elena: Elena sitting, Elena standing, Elena clothed, Elena naked. His mouth felt dry and his palms felt wet as he looked at her. How cool she was and how hot she made him.

Reuben often wondered what had made him propose to Elena. He’d shocked the hell out of her when she’d presented her with that ruby ring. Her face was - well - a picture! He’d tried to paint it afterwards and it was rather reminiscent of Munch’s
The Scream
. He’d probably exaggerated reality but that was what the best artists did: they took a model, found an interesting feature and made that their focus. With Elena, it was her eyes. He’d been immediately drawn to them: they held such light and intensity, such depth and emotion. He still hadn’t worked out what she was thinking half the time, of course, and she never told him which always wound him up but he believed artists should have passion. A mate of his at art college used to annoy the hell out of him. He could never work up a sweat about anything. He was so bloody calm about everything he did, and his paintings, Reuben found, were always executed with the same bland brushstrokes. There was no vitality, no
lifeblood!
They were as listless and lifeless as he was. Well, Reuben was never going to let that happen to him.

He was Reuben Lord, an artist on his way up. His portfolio, even if he said so himself, was rather impressive, and he already had a client list that included an up-and-coming Hollywood actress and the latest It Girl. He was ambitious and obsessive about his art and poured all his time and energy into it. At least, he had done until he’d met Elena. She’d entered his world with the warm ease of a southern wind. He was sure she didn’t know how much she rattled and riled him and he was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on his work especially since their latest fight.

He’d decided that he really had to sort this mess out with Elena and that meant an impromptu trip to Venice. They were engaged, for God’s sake. How could she just run out on him like that? Well, he was going to show her that he wouldn’t stand for that sort of behaviour. Knowing Elena, that was probably the plan: to work him up into a jealous frenzy which would show him how much he loved her.

Anyway, even if he didn’t get things sorted with Elena, Venice might actually be good for the painting. He thought of Canaletto, Turner and Monet. Why not him? And, the beauty of it was that it would be tax-deductible.

Books.
Books. Books. Sometimes, there were just too many. Prof had been collecting books since being given his first pocket money over forty years ago, and not one had seen the inside of a charity bag: he’d kept every single one and, sometimes, it all became a bit too much. He was surrounded wherever he went. First of all, there were the books in his room at the university: floor to ceiling novels, dictionaries and critical appraisals; he was surrounded on all sides. It was a prison of print and there was no escaping it when he went home. His front door would never open to its full potential owing to the towers of paperbacks stacked along the length of the hallway, and it didn’t get any better in the living room.

This extended library didn’t stop downstairs. Oh no! The two flights of stairs were, themselves, furnished with a stack of paperbacks on each step, leading to the landing where his much-prized collection of travel guides lived. In the bathroom, there was always a selection of paperback novels, their spines cracked and their pages crinkled by wet thumbs after lengthy reading sessions in the bath. The bedroom was less indiscriminate: fiction from his boyhood years, through teenhood to early adulthood.

All in all, it was a bit of a fire hazard but he just couldn’t bear to part with any of them. Each was a photo album of thoughts and feelings, of memories and moods. Whichever volume he chose to flick through opened up a forgotten world to him. It was like time travelling into his own history and it wasn’t at all unusual for him to remember where he’d been when reading a particular volume. Every book held myriad memories and he’d never thought to get rid of any before but that was because it had only ever been him rattling around in this house. But wasn’t all that about to change? He was engaged now and that would mean getting married before too long which meant sharing, and what woman in her right mind would want to live in this place?

No, he thought, he should really do something about it. He didn’t want to give Elena any more reasons to postpone the wedding. It would only be a matter of time before there were even more than the two of them. That, he thought with a smile, would mean a whole new collection of books to begin, and the sooner they began that collection, the better. But they couldn’t possibly fit any more books in this place before he got rid of some first.

He walked through the house, grimacing at the task ahead. It wasn’t that he was particularly lazy, it was that he just didn’t know where to begin and, in his experience of these things, when you don’t know where to begin, there was only one woman to call: Betty Beaton. She’d been cleaning his mother’s house for the last thirty years but he hadn’t dared let her near his for fear of word getting back to his mother.

‘Oh my God!
I’ve never had such an experience as your son’s house, Mrs Mortimer. I got through twenty-eight dusters and my vacuum cleaner broke –
actually broke!
’

Prof shook his head. He’d avoided her for as long as he could but he just couldn’t think of another way out of this mess.

*

‘You should have called me sooner, Professor Mortimer,’ Betty Beaton admonished as soon as she walked through the door – or rather squashed through the door. She was a rather portly woman and didn’t thank him for the fact that the door wasn’t able to accommodate her.

‘Sorry, Mrs B,’ he said. ‘But, as you can see, I need your help.’

She nodded and ran a tentative finger along the spines of some of the books in the hallway and then tutted.

‘I’ll pay you double what you’re used to, of course.’

‘It’s not a question of money, Professor,’ she said. ‘What about my poor back? I’m not as young as he used to be, you know.’

‘But you’re only a girl!’ he said, ashamed of himself for stooping to flattery.

She shook her head again and, for one terrible moment, he thought she was going to leave but she looked up at him, her mouth pursed so tightly that it was just a pink full stop, and her eyes narrowed as if to prevent herself from seeing even more unpleasantness.

‘Where’s your vacuum, Professor?’ she asked sternly and he breathed a sigh of relief.

*

It took nearly a whole day before Mrs B was satisfied with the place. Prof looked around in wonder at her work

‘You’re a true miracle worker,’ he said. ‘What would he have done without you?’

‘You’d have probably drowned in your own dust,’ she said.

‘I kept thinking you were going to uncover Stig,’ he laughed.

‘What?’

‘Stig!
Stig of the Dump
,’ he explained. ‘It’s a book where –’

‘I don’t have time to read,’ she said.

‘No. Of course not,’ he said. ‘Too busy keeping the nation spick and span, I dare say.’

She glared at him as if he’d insulted her rather than given her a compliment.

‘Well, here’s your money,’ he said hastily, keen to get the house back to himself again.

‘And when do you want me to come again?’ she asked.

He was on the verge of saying
four years next Saturday
, but resisted. He hadn’t planned on having a weekly cleaner but it looked as if he was stuck with her now and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

‘How about Thursday morning?’

‘Busy.’

‘Tuesday?’

‘Busy.’

‘Er
- ’ he scratched his head. ‘What about -’

‘I can fit you in on Monday afternoons between four and six,’ she said, folding her money into a voluminous purse. ‘You’ll need to get some new cloths and bath cleaner. I can’t work with the ones you use.’

Prof nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘And you might think of investing in a new vacuum cleaner. Your one’s had it.’

He bit his lip in an attempt to stop himself from laughing. ‘I’ll have a look this weekend,’ he said, opening the front door and trying desperately not to push her through it. ‘Thanks again, Mrs B.’

‘Beaton,’ she said, and he felt as if he had been.

‘You’re
engaged?
’ Rosanna exclaimed, her eyes doubling in size with what looked like horror rather than happiness. ‘But you’ve only known him for - how long is it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Elena lied.
‘A few months. Anyway, it’s long enough. I feel like I’ve known him all her life.’ At least that part was true, she thought.

‘But do you really know him? Trust him? Have you met his family yet?’

Elena sighed wearily. Of course, they were only talking about Mark. She hadn’t dared break the news about the Reuben or Prof yet. One fiancé at a time, she thought.

‘No. I haven’t met his family but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. I mean, what if he turns out to have a mother like Irma Taccani?’

‘Good point,’ Rosanna conceded. ‘But you have to go through these things – if you’re making a lifelong commitment to someone, you can’t get away with not meeting his family.’

‘I just don’t see the point in rushing. We just want to be us at the moment - is that so dreadful?’

Rosanna chewed her lip. ‘Is he Catholic?’

‘Rosanna!’

‘Well, is he?’

‘No! But neither am I.’

Rosanna tutted. ‘What a way to talk! You show such little respect.’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

Rosanna shifted uneasily on the sofa. She didn’t look at all pleased; she looked as if she’d just discovered a porcupine in her knickers.

‘Look!’ she said, ‘I have to go and meet a client and, when I come back, I want you to have thought long and hard about this, Elena. This is a life-changing decision, you know? You don’t just get engaged on a whim. I know you! I know what you’re like with men but you can’t treat them just as you want. There has to be respect and truth and love.’

Elena sat perfectly still and perfectly silent. She didn’t dare say anything, not when Rosanna was this worked up, but, boy, was Rosanna going to be furious with her when she found out the truth - that she had not only committed herself to one man but to
three
. What would she say then? Elena wondered, dread filling her heart.

With a sigh the north wind would have been proud of, Rosanna got up.

‘Right. I’m going now. I want you to sit here and think about what you’ve just told me.
Really think!
’ she said, waving her hand just like their mama used to wave her wooden spoon at her.

Elena’s mouth dropped at her words as she watched Rosanna spring up from the sofa, and she couldn’t think of anything to say in response so she simply watched as Rosanna swung her handbag over her shoulder and left the house. What a nightmare, she thought. Who did she think she was to talk to her like that? She’d forgotten how completely overbearing her sister could be.

Elena got up from the sofa and walked through to the kitchen. It was a relief to have the apartment to herself for a while. She looked out of the kitchen window onto a communal garden which was overlooked by other apartments where washing hung out of windows to dry in the bright spring sunshine. An old woman’s hand shook a duster out into the garden but, other than her and cat-child, who Rosanna had let outside, there wasn’t a soul around. It was so unlike her flat in London which looked out onto a high street that never slept. She loved the peace of Venice. The water seemed to absorb sound and some of the back streets seemed to be in a permanent siesta. It was just what she needed.

Elena closed her eyes to absorb the silence around her. There hadn’t been many moments like this for a while. Life had been rather noisy. Her head had slowly been filled up with so
much stuff that her thoughts had had nowhere to go but round and round in circles. Mark. Reuben. Prof. Three very special men who deserved nothing but one hundred percent of her attention. But they weren’t getting that, were they?

There has to be respect and truth and love.

Rosanna’s words swam in front of her again. She was right, wasn’t she? Elena hadn’t really thought this through at all. There was love, of course - her own interpretation of it which was obviously something different from her sister’s - but respect and truth? Her three engagement rings showed nothing but her contempt for each of her fiancés. She had taken their tokens of love knowing that they were pledging themselves to her and her alone and, now that she thought about it, she could see how wrong it all was.

The funny thing was
, it hadn’t seemed wrong at the time. She’d thought that, by having three fiancés, she was giving more love and not less but she was sure Mark, Prof and Reuben wouldn’t see it like that. But that was getting far too philosophical for her first day in Venice. She could allow herself at least one day off before she got down to the serious business of decision making.

She was just pouring herself a nice big apricot juice when the door bell rang. It was probably Rosanna, she thought, coming to say, ‘and another thing …’ and Elena was ready to give her a piece of her mind this time. But it wasn’t Rosanna. It was Reuben.

At once, Elena’s mind somersaulted into action. Reuben was in Venice. The man who wouldn’t put his brush down to make her a cup of coffee after three hours’ of her sitting for him had got on a plane and travelled a thousand miles to see her. If
he
had done that, then Mark and Prof were even more capable of turning up unannounced.

Elena looked nervously passed Reuben’s shoulder in case all her fiancés were travelling together. What a horrendous thought!
Elena’s Fiancés Tour Group. Discounts when three or more travel together.

‘Aren’t you going to welcome me?’ Reuben asked, obviously put out by Elena’s puzzled expression.

‘Of course!’ she said, kissing him quickly. ‘I’m just so amazed to see you! How did you find me?’

‘You told me where you were staying,’ he said, frowning. ‘It wasn’t that hard to find.’

Elena’s eyes widened. So she had and, for once, he’d actually been listening to her.

He held her tight for a moment before he came into the entrance hall and followed her up the stairs.

‘Bloody hell!’ he said, his eyes taking in the sweeping splendour of the apartment. ‘I mean – good grief! Does all this belong to one guy?’

Elena nodded. ‘Sandro Constantini.’

‘Never heard of him. Can’t be that good if I haven’t heard of him,’ Reuben said, walking right into the room as if he owned it.

‘Jealously will get you nowhere,’ she chided.

‘I’m not jealous,’ he said, his eyes scanning the canvasses on display with the cautious scrutiny of a fellow artist. ‘They’re all pretty average, anyway. He must have a benefactor or something.’

Elena smiled. ‘Reuben?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why are you here?’

He turned around and grinned, walking towards her and folding his arms around her waist. ‘I came to see you,’ he said, pushing his tongue into her ear.

She pushed him away. ‘I know.’

He sighed. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I felt bad about before - you know?’

She nodded, but already her mind was racing ahead to what Rosanna would say when she came back and found she’d smuggled a man into the apartment. ‘But you didn’t have to come all this way, you know. You could have just called me.’

‘It’s not the same though, is it? Anyway, I thought I could get a bit of painting in.’

Ah! Elena thought. The truth was coming out.

‘This place is brilliant!’ he continued. ‘Do you think this Sandro guy would mind if I used his easels?’

‘You can’t stay, Reuben!’

‘What? Why the hell not?’

‘It’s not my place!
I’m
not even meant to be here.’

‘But who’s going to know? Who’s going to tell on us?’

‘Rosanna! She’s really strict about these things.’

‘Elena, she’s not even met me yet. I’m sure I can persuade her,’ he said, his voice dark and silky.

Elena sighed, knowing it was going to be hard trying to convince him. ‘She’s not the sort of woman who can be wound round your little finger, you know.’

‘But there’s loads of bloody room here! I really don’t see what the problem is.’

She looked at him. How could she tell him that her real worry was Prof and Mark turning up as well?

‘The thing is,’ she began, ‘Rosanna doesn’t know when Sandro will be back. He could turn up any day and I don’t think he’s the sort to welcome a group of strangers in his home.’

Reuben grimaced.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but why don’t you book into a hotel somewhere?’

‘You’ll come with me, then?’

She bit her lip. ‘Reuben, I came here to see Rosanna. I don’t get to spend much time with her.’

‘You’re staying
here
?’

‘Yes. You don’t mind, do you? You’ll get more work done without me hanging around, you know you will. And we can always meet up for lunch or dinner,’ she said, trying to be as persuasive as possible.

‘God!’ he sighed. ‘I don’t know why I bothered coming!’

‘Yes you do,’ she said, aware that she had to change his mood pretty quickly or else they’d have another scene on their hands and Rosanna was bound to walk in right in the middle of it. ‘It’s because you love me.’

His frown eased a fraction and she wound her fingers through his hair.

‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll book a hotel.
But
, I want to see you every day. I don’t want you disappearing on me like you do back at home.’

‘Whatever you say, Lord Reuben!’ she smiled. His name was Reuben Lord but, with his slightly pompous nature, she’d always thought Lord Reuben far more suitable.

‘All right if I have a shower?’ he asked. ‘Mr high and mighty wouldn’t begrudge me that, would he?’

‘As long as you’re quick.
There are towels under the sink, but only take one. I don’t want Rosanna having an excuse to get worked up.’

Reuben groaned. ‘God, I’m only having a shower. I’m not throwing a wild party!’

‘I know. I know! It’s just – well – you don’t know what Rosanna can be like.’

He bent down to give her a kiss. ‘And you’ll get into something slightly more attractive, okay? I’m going to take you out to dinner.’

Elena hadn’t really brought anything suitable for dining out in as she hadn’t planned to do anything but eat pizza. She went upstairs and opened the wardrobe, whistling as she saw the collection of clothes. Rosanna had moved in good and proper.

Elena’s hand pushed through the rich velvets and sumptuous silks. She was spoilt for choice. Besides, she reasoned, Rosanna hardly ever wore any of it which was a great shame because she could look like a movie star when she put her mind to it, but she chose to wear nothing but neutrals during the day. Elena had lost count of the number of black skirts and white shirts Rosanna owned. Occasionally, she’d break out into blue but nothing got more exciting than that, which was why Elena was so surprised to find crimsons, amethysts and golds in the wardrobe.

She pulled out a long velvet indigo dress and held it up for inspection. It was lucky that they were the same size because Elena didn’t have the sort of money to buy such nice things at the moment.

She was just pulling the dress over her head when she heard voices downstairs. Rosanna was back. And she was talking to Reuben.

Elena rushed out of the room and ran down the stairs as quickly as was possible in the tight dress.

‘Rosanna?’ she called. ‘Is that you?’ It was a silly question but she just wanted to stop her from talking to Reuben.

‘Yes! Of course it’s me! Who else could it possibly be?’

Rosanna was standing in the middle of the living room, her hands on her hips and a deep frown etched across her forehead. She was staring at Reuben who was wearing nothing but a towel.
And a scowl.

He turned and glared at her, his eyes dark and full of anger.

‘Elena –
who the hell is Mark?
’

Elena’s heart beat faster than was healthy as she stared at Reuben. ‘What’s she been saying to you?’ she asked.

‘Does it matter what Rosanna’s said? I want to hear what
you
have to say, Elena!’

‘He says he’s not Mark, Elena, yet he’s engaged to you!’ Rosanna cried. ‘How can this be? I don’t understand!’

‘Shut up a minute, Rosanna!’

‘Don’t you tell me to shut
up! I go out for five minutes and come back to find a naked man in the apartment. A naked man who says he’s your fiancé but who says his name’s Reuben! I need to know what’s going on here!’

‘So do
I!’ Reuben shouted, his arms folded across his bare chest and his dark hair dripping down his shoulders.

‘Reuben! I think you should put some clothes on,’ Elena said, her voice incredibly calm considering she had no idea what she was going to say. ‘Put some clothes on and I’ll explain everything to you.’

‘Talking of clothes,’ Rosanna shouted, ‘what the hell are you doing wearing my dress?’