Love notes (2 page)

The news included an item from
the channel’s celebrity reporter, speculating whether Erika Fenn
had landed in England and she laughed. There followed rumours of a
private jet arriving at Leeds Airport and a helicopter bound for an
unknown destination, with a list of possible hotels in the
area.

Marty had been right after all.
Her arrival in Yorkshire was already an open secret and she had to
trust that the hotel was rather more discreet. Intense speculation
over her whereabouts was followed by excited interviews with fans,
as well as a report about her leaving behind a very handsome,
broken-hearted lover in L.A.

It was complete fiction, of
course. She and Ben Ridley were nothing more than very good
friends, thrown together by the Hollywood media circus when he’d
just landed his first starring role in a major action movie and
Erika’s second album had gone multi-platinum. In this rarefied
position at the top of the Hollywood A-list, it was hard to trust
anyone, so Erika had become increasingly close friends with Ben and
his brother, Richard. They were the only people Erika could kick
back and be herself with, each of them knowing that their secrets
were safe within their little circle and that they had somewhere to
escape the pressures of the movie and music industries.

As photographs of Erika and Ben
flashed up on her TV screen, Erika had to admit they made a great
couple and, had they met under different circumstances, or in a
different world, they might have been able to make a relationship
work. However, they had neither the time, nor the energy for
dating. Between performing, rehearsals and public appearances Erika
had little enough time for sleep, let alone the rumoured intimate
dinners or romantic trysts.

Despite being feted as one of
the most beautiful women in the world, fame and fortune had done
nothing for Erika’s love life and there were nights she couldn’t
bear the loneliness of her empty bed.

Determined not to brood on the
last time she’d actually kissed someone, Erika switched the TV to a
music channel and flung back the covers. One of her own videos came
on and she joined in, realising that it was the first time in
months she’d sung for the sheer joy of doing so. She danced part of
her stage routine on the way to the bathroom, although it had
considerably less effect in her pyjamas than in a clinging stage
outfit. She was glad that Marty couldn’t see her sloppy footwork –
he’d have been highly critical, as always.

When she slipped out of her
pyjamas she took a good look at herself and winced at how thin
she’d grown. Always tall and slender, the combination of her
punishing schedule, Marty’s enforced diets and athletic stage
routines had melted away every spare ounce of flesh, leaving her
body angular and fragile.

She’d ordered new jeans and warm
tops online and had had them delivered direct to the hotel, only to
find the jeans hung off her hips and the sweaters looked oversized
on her underweight limbs.

However, a long, untroubled
sleep, had made Erika’s dark eyes shine and her cheeks had lost
some of their pallor. She therefore left off her make-up and pulled
her shower-damp hair into an artfully-untidy top knot, suddenly
looking both extraordinary young and unusually inconspicuous.
Instead of having one of the most recognisable faces in the world,
she could have been any one of a hundred pretty girls blending in
with the crowd and barely drawing a second glance.

In fact, Erika felt so confident
about passing unnoticed she decided to eat breakfast in the main
restaurant. It was early so there were only a couple of walkers
around and she chose a table beside the window with a view out over
the gardens. The rain had stopped finally and a watery sun lit the
distant hills, promising a cold, clear, late-autumn day and she
couldn’t wait to get outside..

She ordered coffee while
deciding what to eat, her mouth watering at the thought of a huge
cooked breakfast after five years of starting every day with muesli
and fruit salad.

When her eyes drifted across to
the view, she sighed contentedly, slipping into a daydream and
imagining all the songs she could write with this landscape as her
inspiration. Snatches of melodies and lyrics snapped into her head
and she couldn’t resist humming to help her work out the next
musical phrase or rhyme. She wished she’d taken a notepad down to
the dining room and made a mental note to put one in her pocket
before she went out.

But as she let creativity filter
back into her, she became aware of a sound that separated itself
from the background noise and pierced her subconscious.

A man’s voice.

English, not American. Educated
and assertive. Immediately familiar and yet her mind fought against
believing what her heart was telling her. It couldn’t be, she
thought. Not here. Not now.

But it was and Erika’s pulse
arrested before beating treble time.

Aiden Thirstan.

The last man on earth she
expected – or wanted – to see. What the hell was he doing at her
hotel?

She didn’t dare turn in case he
saw her – not that she was capable of movement. Her fingers gripped
her coffee cup so tightly she was afraid it would shatter but, when
she put it down, it rattled loudly against the saucer.

Holding her breath, she prayed
she hadn’t drawn attention to herself and that she could slip out
unnoticed once he sat down.

Why had she been stupid enough
to risk eating breakfast downstairs? After five years of dodging
prying eyes she should have had more sense than to venture out
without first checking the guest list.

The voices by the dining room
door stopped and Erika exhaled in relief. But then she heard
muffled footsteps approaching across the thick carpet and her heart
beat louder than a drum solo on one of her raunchier hits. She put
her hand to the side of her face, blocking her view of the doorway
and wished that closing her eyes could make her disappear.

Erika sensed rather than saw
Aiden stop beside her table but she didn’t trust herself to raise
her eyes.

“Good morning, Erika,” he said
quietly. “It’s good to see you again.”

“I wish I could say the same.”
Her face burned with fury and her whole body tensed, ready to run.
“I told you I never wanted to see you again.”

Aiden sat down with the
confidence of an invited guest and beckoned to a waiter. “Is that
any way to talk to an old friend?” he asked.

“You’re no friend of mine.”

“No. We were once much more than
that.”

Erika longed to vent her anger
properly but the waiter had already reached the table and was
laying an extra place. Once too often, fragments of her
conversation had been relayed by hotel staff and distorted by the
press so she wasn’t going to give a hint of the animosity
underlying her relationship with Aiden Thirstan.

Not that five passionate months,
followed by a hideously acrimonious break-up could be considered a
relationship in Erika’s eyes.

As soon as the waiter moved out
of earshot, Erika leaned across the table. “As I said, what the
hell are you doing here?”

“Having breakfast.” Aiden helped
himself to her coffee and raised his cup in a mock toast. “It’s
been a long time.”

“Not long enough for my liking.
Never again, would have been too soon for me.”

He tutted and leaned back in his
chair. “That’s not very polite.”

“Funny, I don’t remember you
ever having a great deal of manners.”

Aiden held up a finger to
correct her. “Manners, yes. Morals, no. There’s a difference.”

“…and you never let a promise
come between you and the next notch on your bedpost,” Erika
reminded him, making it obvious the memory still smarted.

The merest flicker of his eyelid
told her she’d hit a nerve and she silently chalked up a minor
victory.

Aiden had seemed tall when
standing over her but, even seated, he still dwarfed Erika. She’d
forgotten the sheer breadth and power of him, the squareness of his
chest and the way his shoulders flexed beneath his heavy shirt.

Unsettled, she moved to leave.
“You can eat alone,” she told him, “because I refuse to share a
table with you.”

She pushed back her chair but
Aiden moved too quickly and caught her wrist. His grip encircled
her slender arm; insistent without being unnecessarily rough, but
no amount of twisting would release it.

“Sit down.” Aiden’s command came
as little more than a whisper. “You and I have a great deal to talk
about.”

Furious, Erika realised she had
no choice but to do as he said – she couldn’t leave without causing
a scene and, the last thing she needed right now was a brawl with
Aiden Thirstan making the front page of the tabloids. Marty would
have her on the first plane back to America.

She therefore sat down again,
raising her free hand to show she wouldn’t put up any further
resistance and his grip loosened.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and anyone
knowing him less well might have believed him. “I hope I didn’t
hurt you. But I need to talk to you.”

“I don’t think there’s anything
left to say, is there?”

“There’s plenty. You never heard
my side of the story, don’t forget.” He leaned closer to say more
but Erika’s eyes lost focus and she swayed slightly as if
light-headed. “Are you OK?” He spoke quickly and urgently, his
voice loaded with concern. “You look like ready to faint.”

Erika closed her eyes, feeling
cold and sick as the blood pooled in her feet and the colour
drained from her face. “Jet lag,” she croaked, her voice weak. “We
only arrived last night. I’m going back to my room to lie down.”
She tried to leave for a second time but her legs wouldn’t support
her and she sat back down quickly.

Aiden beckoned urgently to a
waiter, demanding that he bring some toast straight away. He spread
a slice thickly with butter and raspberry jam – always her
favourite – and held it out to her. “Here. Eat this. Your blood
sugar’s dropped and you need something sweet.”

Faced with food for the first
time in hours, Erika found herself ravenous and ate the toast
quickly whilst Aiden buttered another slice for himself.

“You look like a good meal would
kill you,” he said bluntly. “What the hell happened?”

“It’s been a gruelling
year.”

She wished she’d taken more care
over her appearance. After her break up with Aiden she’d imagined
seeing him again; fantasised about making him regret breaking her
heart because she looked so drop dead gorgeous. Yet here she sat,
face scrubbed clean, hair pulled back and seriously underweight,
looking exhausted.

“The first half of my stadium
tour lost money,” she went on, having no idea why she was telling
him because he didn’t deserve an explanation. “We were forced to
tag on extra dates to recoup our losses,”

“You lost money?” Aiden couldn’t
believe what he was hearing. “Is everything all right with
you?”

“Fine. Not that it’s any of your
business.”

“But you were the biggest
selling artiste last year. How can your tour be losing money?”

“Like I said, it’s none of your
business.” She picked up the menu and half hid behind it,
pretending to read. “You lost the right to meddle in my affairs
five years ago. You’re not getting a second chance.”

Aiden hooked a finger over the
top of the menu so he could see her face. “That’s why we need to
talk.”

“So? You have my attention.” She
stared back at him, butter still glistening on her lips. “If it’s
so urgent, talk to me.”

“Not here. Somewhere more
private.” He looked around at the now half-full dining room. “With
your reputation and my loud voice, it’d be an eavesdropper’s
delight. Front page news by tomorrow.”

It was a faint attempt at humour
but it broke the ice and Erika thawed slightly, largely because she
lacked the energy to argue. Letting his betrayal still eat away at
her put the power back into his hands, and she wouldn’t let him
continue controlling her life five years down the line.

She wouldn’t exactly forgive and
forget how he’d broken her heart, but she could at least make him
understand she’d moved on and that she was completely indifferent
to him.

“I’m sorry. I’m not used to
company.” She sounded cool and detached. “When you’re with Marty
all day, you lose your social graces. It’s a defence
mechanism.”

“We’re both out of practice.”
Aiden shrugged it off. “Why don’t we start again? Let’s pretend
we’re strangers sharing a table.”

“There’s too much history to
ever be that.”

As if to prove this, the waiter
reappeared and Aiden ordered a full breakfast for each of them,
being very specific over Erika’s order and remembering every one of
her preferences, even though it had been years. She felt touched
until she remembered that attention to detail had always been
Aiden’s trademark. It had been what made him so credible.

And so dangerous.

“When the reports said you were
back in England, I knew you’d head here,” Aiden said when the
waiter left them alone. “This is where you were happiest.”

“And anonymous,” Erika reminded
him. “No one pays attention to the chambermaid.”

“I did.” Aiden allowed himself a
smile at the memory of returning to his hotel room one morning to
find a younger Erika cleaning his bathroom and changing the towels.
“I couldn’t help but notice you.”

“That was a long time ago.” She
refused to follow Aiden down Memory Lane to a time when she’d been
a student earning money in the university holidays by working at
the hotel. “A great deal has changed.”

“For a start, you can afford to
stay here now. Back then you were cleaning during the day, singing
in pub gigs most evenings and sharing a room in the attic.”

“I thought I worked hard back
then,” Erika admitted ruefully, “but it was nothing compared with
my schedule now.” She sat back in her chair as the waiter laid a
plate of sausage, eggs and bacon in front of her and she inhaled
the heavenly aroma of fried food. “You don’t get breakfasts like
this in California.” She let her guard slip momentarily, catching
her breath at the way Aiden smiled in response.