Love notes (5 page)

“I’ve followed you career,”
Erika admitted, glancing sideways to gauge Aiden’s reaction. “Seems
I’m not the only one who’s a target for speculation and rumour
these days.”

“You shouldn’t believe
everything you read.” His eyes widened dangerously.

“What? The fact that you’re
climbing up the Sunday Times Rich List, or the part about you
falling out of nightclubs in the early hours and sleeping your way
across Europe?”

“I never pretended to be a
saint.”

Without thinking, Erika gave him
a flirtatiously smile; the kind of smile the paparazzi would have
killed for. “If I remember rightly, you were often very badly
behaved.”

“I don’t recall you ever
complaining.”

“Some men are at their best when
they’re acting their very worst.”

She suddenly realised she was
steering the conversation down a one way street that could only end
in some very embarrassing reminiscences, so Erika reversed out of
it and sympathised with Aiden instead.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t believe a
word. I’ve been on the wrong end of more fabricated stories than I
care to remember. If I had a dollar for every man I’ve been linked
with, even Marty could retire.”

“How many have there been?”

“Not that it’s any of your
business,” she snapped. His boldness astounded her. At least she’d
waited until after they’d split up.

“It’s a simple enough
question.”

“And you have even less right to
know than some hack journalist. My private life is nothing to do
with you any more.”

Erika leapt on the defensive,
incensed by Aiden’s assumption that he had a right to ask, let
alone expect an reply. However, she also wasn’t about to tell him
that her famously public love life, with its high-profile romances
and ultra-sexy image, was solely the creation of Marty’s publicity
machine.

When she’d first run away to New
York she’d recklessly involved herself with a succession of men,
wanting to obliterate the memory of Aiden. But these loveless
encounters had only driven home her sense of loss, and had left her
feeling ashamed and even more lonely.

She’d therefore reclaimed her
self respect and used the last of her savings to buy a plane ticket
for Los Angeles where she’d thrown herself into her work, using her
raw emotions to write some of her most poignant and successful love
songs.

Since meeting Marty, she’d lived
like a virtual nun, chaperoned at every turn and watched by an
ever-increasing entourage. Erika would have liked the time, energy
and opportunity for a love life – let alone, a discreet boyfriend
who could be relied upon not to kiss and tell.

“Why did you never speak to the
press about us?” she asked, suddenly curious.

“Because no one knows about us.
Even my closest friends don’t know we dated.”

“Why not? Every other
boyfriend’s crawled out of the woodwork.”

Aiden shoved his jaw forward and
drew a deep breath, weighing the words to make sure he said exactly
the right thing. “We had something very special together. Rare,
even. I loved you. Even though I was stupid enough to drive you
away. I didn’t want to share those five precious months with half
the world.” Added to which, he needed neither the money nor further
notoriety. “In any case, I figured I’d hurt you enough
already.”

“I appreciated your
discretion.”

Without warning, his thoughtful
expression melted into a roguish smile. “Shame though. It would
have made one hell of a story. We were hardly out of bed.”

Erika still couldn’t think of
the entire weekends they’d spent in bed together without blushing.
Two days without getting dressed and unable to get enough of one
another, only dragging themselves apart when Erika needed to return
to York or Aiden had work to do. What a reporter wouldn’t pay to
hear all that.

“Are you with anyone now?” she
asked

“No. No one long term.”

“Still too afraid of
commitment?” A cheap shot, but Erika couldn’t help herself.

Aiden’s lips compressed and he
waited a long time before answering. “Like I said, since you no one
else has been worth it.”

“What about Sophie Byrne, the
model? Or Anna Shaw? Or Cynthia Austen?” She could have gone on
naming bit-part actresses, models and party girls for the rest of
the day.

“Passing fancies. Unlike you and
Ben Ridley.”

Playing for time, Erika reached
into Aiden’s bag and took out a bar of chocolate, trying hard to
ignore the strength of his thigh alongside hers as she leaned
against him. She broke off a square of chocolate and offered it to
him, asking herself whether he deserved an explanation at all, and
wondering whether it would be an advantage to play along. No one
but a fool would believe that Aiden had driven the length of the
country only to clear his conscience.

Erika still suspected a deeper
rooted plan to revive their relationship – or even to take her to
bed for old times’ sake. A fabricated romance with the handsome
actor might be enough to make Aiden think twice before making a
move.

“Ben’s great,” she therefore
told him enigmatically. “Funny, relaxed, intelligent.” She didn’t
need to add that he was also good looking, sexy and with a body
that women found irresistible. “We hit it off as soon as we were
introduced. It’s impossible to make outsiders understand what it’s
like to live in the glare of publicity twenty four hours a day, so
Ben and I are kindred spirits. Two lonely individuals in an ocean
of people and we gravitated toward one another.”

This, at least, was true but
Erika deliberately left their relationship open to interpretation.
Let Aiden work it out for himself, she thought.

“Is it serious?”

This took Erika too close to
lying and she answered as vaguely as she could. “We’re taking it
slowly. We both have very busy schedules and it’s hard to find time
alone together.” Determined to leave the subject alone, she
pointedly looked at her watch and wondered out loud where the
morning had gone. “I’m starving,” she said. “Can we head back to
the hotel for lunch?”

“Good idea.” Aiden zipped up his
bag and got to his feet. “Although I think we can do better than
the hotel.”

He took Erika’s hand to help her
up, holding on to it as he guided her across the rocks at the
summit and out onto the stony path down the side of the hill. She
expected him to let her go as soon as they hit level ground but his
grip tightened and it would have taken a fight to release herself.
Falling into step beside him, she therefore left her hand where it
was, unexpectedly welcoming the feeling of him keeping her safe
from falling. It had been a long time since anyone had looked out
for her.

They didn’t speak all the way
back down to the car, the wind so strong it whipped their words
away, and occasionally Erika huddled against Aiden as a
particularly fierce squall wrapped itself around them. Back in the
car park, Aiden flicked the boot open and, without warning, pulled
Erika into his arms, holding her tightly against him as he rubbed
her back to chafe warmth into her.

“Cold?” His lips were so close
to Erika’s forehead she felt them moving against her skin.

Not even thinking about it, she
slipped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek on his chest,
listening to his muffled heartbeat through layers of clothing. She
swore she heard it quicken as his arms tightened around her and he
held onto her as if he never wanted to let her go again. A sixth
sense told her that if she pulled away slightly and looked up at
him, he’d kiss her and for the briefest of moments she was
tempted.

Until reason took over and she
stepped back reluctantly.

“Where shall we eat?” she asked
matter of factly, imagining she saw a disappointed downturn to his
mouth. “Dare we go to a pub with a log fire and order something
stodgy with chips?”

Aiden laughed, his whole body
alight with pleasure at the prospect. “I know the perfect place,”
he told her. “Although I doubt Marty would approve.”

“Who cares?” Erika shrugged and
all the tension she’d felt earlier fell away. “For the first time
in five years, I’m having a month off from being Erika Fenn. Jeans,
no make-up and stuffing my face with meat pies.”

“Very glamorous.”

“Trust me, I’ve had enough
glamour to last me three lifetimes. It isn’t all it’s cracked up to
be.”

Erika pushed away her plate and
thought she might burst if she moved too quickly. She’d eaten her
way through the biggest steak and kidney pudding she’d ever seen
and polished off half of Aiden’s chips before leaning back in her
chair and admitting defeat.

“That was quite possibly the
best thing I’ve ever eaten,” she said, groaning slightly. “You’ll
need to carry me out to the car.”

Aiden called over the waitress
and suggested dessert but Erika felt sick at the thought so they
ordered coffee instead. When they were alone, Aiden leaned in
across the table, lacing his fingers together and looking
serious.

“You’re right, I did have an
ulterior motive for heading north,” he told her. “It wasn’t only
about apologising.”

“I guessed as much.” She decided
to set him straight. “But what we had died five years ago. There’s
absolutely no chance of starting again.”

“What?” Aiden had a cleft in the
centre of his chin that became more obvious when he was trying not
to laugh, and it deepened considerably now. “Did you imagine I came
here only to ask you back?”

“Didn’t you?”

“No. Although if you’re
offering….” The idea appealed and he smiled wickedly, only
deepening Erika’s embarrassment.

She back-pedalled wildly. “So
why are you here?”

“To make amends. As you pointed
out earlier, I wasn’t around to comfort you when we broke up five
years ago. But I have it in my power now to make your life a whole
lot easier.”

When Erika looked
uncomprehendingly at him, he put his iPad on the table. She caught
a fleeting glance of his screensaver – a montage of her publicity
shots – and gave him full marks for attention to detail in his
attempts to unsettle her.

“Before I show you what I have
on here, I want you to know that there’s no hidden agenda,” he
began, his earnestness making Erika uneasy. “But like it or not,
you need my help.”

“What’s in it for you?”

“Absolutely nothing. Except the
chance to repair some of the damage I did.”

She stared him out, searching
his handsome face for some clue as to his motives or the first
traces of a lie, but found nothing. “So what’s so important that
you’d drive all this way?”

He moved to sit next to her and
opened a document on his iPad, enlarging it until it was easy to
read in the pub’s dark interior. It looked like a financial
spreadsheet, and Erikabriefly wondered whether Aiden wanted her to
invest in his company.

“You said you’d followed my
career,” Aiden began. “Well for the past five years, I’ve followed
yours.”

“You and a hundred celebrity
websites.”

“Except I haven’t been looking
at your dresses and hairstyles. It’s the money I’m interested
in.”

So he was asking her to invest.
“Don’t bother. Marty handles all that. Or rather, his people
do.”

“I know. That’s what worries
me.” He scrolled to the top of the document and showed her the
company name, Dalvyn Investments. “Ever heard of them?”

Erika shook her head, not sure
where the conversation was heading. Somewhere in the back of her
mind, she heard warning bells and a sense of foreboding began to
rise.

“Dalvyn is based in the Cayman
Islands,” Aiden continued. “One of countless companies set up there
to hide money offshore.”

“I still don’t see what it has
to do with me?”

“Because, at the moment, it’s
hiding over twenty-five million dollars of your money.”

“What?” Erika relaxed and
actually laughed at such a ridiculous claim. “I’ve never had that
much money in my life.”

Aiden moved the document up the
screen so she could see the total at the foot of the spreadsheet –
twenty-five million, just like he’d said.

“How can it be mine?” she asked,
still laughing. “It’s not even in my name.”

“Marty formed Dalvyn four years
ago and has been making regular deposits ever since. Following the
paper trail backwards, the payments come from money you’ve earned
since your career took off.”

At the risk of sounding dense,
Erika asked what he meant by paper trail.

“Very cleverly, Marty diverts
your money through shell companies, false charity projects and
Swiss bank accounts until it ends up here. By the time it’s gone
through three sets of hands, the American tax authorities have lost
sight of it. As have you.”

Erika still found this
impossible to believe. “Marty’s loud and brash but he’s no
financial mastermind. How would he know to do all this?”

“He pays people to do it for him
– the best in the business.”

“So how did you find out?”

“Because I paid people too.” He
gave her a hard stare. “And like Marty’s, they didn’t exactly stay
the right side of the law.”

“You mean you’ve hacked into my
bank account?”

“Yours wasn’t worth the effort,”
he told her with a significant stare. “A couple of million invested
here and there, all above board. But Marty’s accounts got really
interesting.”

Luckily the waitress arrived
with coffee, forcing Erika to take a breath as she struggled to
make sense of the information. Before she had chance to leap in
with questions, Aiden pressed on.

“Adding everything together, my
people found around four million dollars in your name. Marty has
something approaching forty million.”

“In which case, your people made
a mistake.” Erika’s heartbeat returned to normal when she heard
these figures. “My house in Bel Air is worth three times that. Then
there’s my apartment in New York and the beach house in The
Hamptons.”