Strings Attached (32 page)

‘Do you care?’ Quinn asked her.

‘No,’ George admitted.

‘Beer?’ Quinn offered and from behind his back he produced an ice bucket, filled with bottles of Spanish lager.

‘And here I was thinking it was bound to be champagne.’

‘You can have champagne if you want. I’ll order some.’

‘No! I’m just kidding. I’m not really keen on it,’ George said.

‘Me neither. Not since I had to try twelve different varieties before Taylor would make a decision on what to have with the speeches,’ Quinn replied.

George smiled, but inside her stomach contracted. He was getting married, she couldn’t forget that important fact. It was real, it was happening in a couple of days and there was no getting away from it. His comment spoiled her anticipation of the performance a little, took the shine off the dress and made the shoes pinch her toes that bit extra.

Sensing what she was thinking, Quinn put the cooler down, on the small table to the side of the box, and came over to her. He kissed her firmly, but with all the sensuality of someone who knew what she was thinking and knew what she needed.

She kissed him back, and tried to force any thoughts of Taylor to the very back of her mind. He was hers, for tonight at least. She was the one he ran to, she was the one he couldn’t get enough of. Taylor was just for show.

‘I won’t mention her or it again. Not one word. No talk about vows or seating plans, no mention of dove crap all over the priest, nothing about Pixie keeling over when the florist thought the wedding was next week. Nothing else,’ Quinn told her.

‘Dove crap all over the priest!’ George said with a laugh.

‘Yes, but I mean it - we are not going to talk or think about Saturday. We’re not going to think about what it means or what it doesn’t mean. Tonight we’re going to watch the performance and we’re going to talk, like there’s nothing in the world but us,’ Quinn continued.

‘Pretend you mean,’ George said with a sigh.

‘Temporarily forget there are strings attached,’ Quinn said.

‘Can you do that?’

‘Can you?’

‘I don’t know. Pass me a beer and we’ll find out,’ George spoke.

Quinn handed her a bottle and they sat down in their seats.

The opera was all in Spanish, but George was surprised how much you could pick up, just by watching the expressions on the faces of the performers and by the tempo and definition of the music. And the costumes also told a tale all of their own. They were
bold and elaborate for the well-
off and paupers’ rags for the destitute.

The tale was of Maria, a young Spanish girl, cast out from the family home when her teenage sweetheart got her pregnant.

Maria was forced to live on the streets, met wrong man after wrong man, until she met a Mr Right who loved her, but couldn’t love her child. So she had to decide what to do. Did she live a life of luxury with the man who loved her but couldn’t love her past mistake? Or carry on how she was, whoring herself out to keep a roof over her son’s head. And in the end, she chose neither. She did what everyone seemed to do so dramatically in opera, she killed herself. She slit her throat, rather too realistically, in the middle of the stage. And that was the end. Poor Maria, dead, no happy ending, no Mr Right and no child. Just death. The curtain came down.

Quinn looked over to George, as the orchestra performed their final notes and found her face completely awash with tears. Not just a trickle of emotion in appreciation of the performance, but big, fat, tears filled with sorrow. Her shoulders shook and she sobbed out loud. She looked up at him and he took her in his arms and held her as she cried.

‘Hey. Sshh, come on. The story’s bleak I admit, but then sometimes life is bleak isn’t it?’ Quinn spoke as he stroked her hair.

‘She turned her back on her child. She was selfish, right to the very bloody end,’ George replied,
wiping
at her eyes with her fingers.

She knew she was rubbing at her make-up, but she didn’t care. It felt like the floodgates of emotion had finally opened after all these years and there was nothing she could do to shut them up again.

‘She didn’t want to give him up, she had to. She didn’t want to live on the streets, she couldn’t live with Roberto, what choice did she have?’ Quinn asked.

‘She should have told Roberto if he couldn’t love her son then he didn’t really love her. She should have made her own way in life, with her son, not slit her throat open in the middle of the market square. She should have fought harder, but she was weak. She let other people tell her what she ought to do for the best,’ George spoke passionately.

‘Hey, it’s just fiction, it’s not real. Maria’s fine, her name’s Sophia, she’s a fantastic actress. I’ll introduce you if you like,’ Quinn suggested.

‘No, Maria isn’t fine. She’s damaged and she’s sad and she wants her son more than anything else, but she doesn’t know whether that’s really the right thing for him. What if she isn’t how a mother should be? What if knowing the truth isn’t the best for him?’ George questioned.

She was screwing her hands up into fists in her lap. She didn’t know what to do. She needed another drink. She wanted to shout and scream and tear at her hair. She wanted to break something.

‘Is there something you want to tell me?’ Quinn asked her.

The lid was off. It had been pressurised shut for so long but now, because of the opera, because of Quinn and how he made her feel it couldn’t be contained. Not any
more.

‘I’m Maria. I had a son and I gave him up and I’ve been letting him down ever since by not acknowledging him, by letting him believe a lie,’ George blurted out, looking back at Quin
n with her puffy, sore, mascara-
smudged eyes.

‘You have a son,’ Quinn repeated.

She saw him swallow, saw the shock in his eyes at what she’d said. She didn’t care; she needed to tell him, no matter what the news did to him.

‘I was young like her. I had nothing to offer him, but I wanted him. I wanted to be his mother but she told me not to. She told me it would ruin my life and I believed her,’ George carried on.

‘You believed who?’

‘My mother looked after him, brought him up as her own and kept me away from him. I was just close enough to be able to see him grow up, but far enough away not to be involved,’ George told him.

‘Adam,’ Quinn said, letting out a long, slow breath.

‘And now she wants me to tell him, because she’s really sick and we don’t know how that’s going to go.’

‘So tell him,’ Quinn told her.

‘Oh yeah, because it’s so easy. He’s going to just say
“
oh great George, I thought you were my sister but now I know you’re my mum and everyone’s been lying to me for eighteen years I feel so much better
”
.’

‘Why don’t you want him to know? What are you scared of?’ Quinn enquired.

‘He looks up to me now. His big sister, owning a catering company and working for you on the wedding of the millennium. He respects me. All that will fall apart if I tell him the truth.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I’m scared,’ George admitted.

‘Come here,’ Quinn said, squeezing her tighter and drawing her into his body protectively. She felt like a child being wrapped up and looked after.

He held her, stroked her hair and kissed her forehead until her crying subsided. After a while she started to breathe almost normally again.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, raising her head and meeting his eyes.

‘What for?’

‘For laying all this on you. It was the opera. It was poor tragic Maria and her suicidal tendencies,’ George told him.

‘I’m having all the knives removed from your kitchen, first thing,’ Quinn said with half a smile.

‘That might make it difficult to prepare a wedding feast.’

Quinn smiled and smoothed away her remaining tears with his thumb.

‘And how do you feel? Now you know,’ George asked him.

‘What d’you mean?’ Quinn enquired.

‘Well, I have an eighteen year old son. I had him when I was sixteen. You know, bad, dirty, schoolgirl pregnancy. I’m stupid and irresponsible and not the person you thought I was,’ George spoke.

‘Why would any of that change how I feel about you?’ Quinn wanted to know.

‘Well, I’m not just the owner of a moderately successful catering business. I’m not like you thought I was. I’m someone who got herself pregnant at sixteen and gave her son to her control freak of a mother. I’
ve got issues and baggage and...
’

‘And your success in business is all I’m interested in is it? Because you have a past, I’m supposed to wash my hands of you. Maybe be shocked and disgusted and cast you out? Probably arrange to have you stoned or something?’ Quinn suggested.

‘Well, maybe not stoned.’

‘George, there’s nothing you could do, past, present or future that would change the way I feel about you. Nothing,’ Quinn said sincerely.

He looked into her eyes and touched her damp cheek with his fingers.

‘You don’t mean that,’ George told him.

‘I do. Here, look - I got you something,’ Quinn said, letting her go and reaching into the pocket of his jacket.

He took out a black leather box and handed it to her.

‘You have to stop buying me things. Marisa thinks Peacocks have started doing a line in designer swimwear - oh Quinn,’ George exclaimed when she saw what was inside.

It was an exquisite watch. It was beautiful and classic with a slim gold band. It had an oval face outlined in silver and it was heavily encrusted with diamonds.

‘I don’t know what to say. It’s gorgeous,’ George said, swallowing a knot of emotion in her throat.

‘I had it engraved.’

He took it out of the box and turned it over in his hand to show her the reverse.

G, I’m yours, Q x

She looked at the words and slowly traced them with her fingers.

‘I mean it George,’ he insisted.

‘I know you do,’ she answered, looking up at him.

‘If I could give you more, you know I would.’

‘I don’t want to give you up,’ George told him.

‘You don’t have to,’ Quinn said sincerely.

‘But I have to share you. We have to sneak about. We can’t kiss in the street or spend a whole day together. We can’t lie on the beach or go grocery shopping, or go out to dinner at the celebrity restaur
ant Marisa says does truffles...
’ George began.

‘Is that where you want to go?’

‘Well no, but if I did, we just couldn’t do it.’

‘It won’t be like that forever,’ Quinn told her.

‘Won’t it?’

‘No.’

‘Then for how long?’

‘I don’t know. Until I’ve done enough to pay back what I owe Roger,’ Quinn stated with a sigh.

‘Pay him back? Pay him back for what?’ George asked.

‘Just for helping me. When I really, desperately needed it,’ Quinn replied.

‘What did he do that’s worth giving up your whole life for?’

‘He saved it once,’ Quinn answered.

‘After the accident?’ George guessed.

‘Yeah - look, let me put this on. At least we can synchronise watches, make sure we don’t miss a second,’ Quinn said, changing the subject.

George unfastened her old watch and offered him her wrist. He paused.

‘I didn’t know you had a tattoo,’ he said, swallowing as he looked at the black initial inked on the inside of her wrist.

‘Yeah. Another stupid thing I did when I was sixteen,’ George said.

‘What does the ‘P’ stand for?’ Quinn asked.

‘Paul,’ George told him.

‘Is he Adam’s father?’

‘Yes.’

‘So where is he now? I guess he left you right, when the going got tough.’

‘Not like you think.’

‘There. It looks beautiful on you,’ Quinn said, admiring the watch.

‘It’s so elegant. Are you sure it’s going to go with jeans?’ George asked, admiring it.

‘It goes with you,’ Quinn replied, swallowing poignantly.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘What’s wrong? God, where do I start? I wish I could give you more. I wish I could just leave this stupid, dumb wedding fiasco and go somewhere where no one would find me,’ Quinn said, sighing.

‘That’s going to be a bit difficult when you’re one of the world’s most famous stars,’ George told him.

‘Maybe anonymity is what I need back. Maybe I need to go back to being John Doe,’ Quinn said, running his hands over his hair.

‘John Doe?’ George queried.

‘It doesn’t matter. I’m dwelling on what I’ve got to do on Saturday, when we said we weren’t going to talk about it.’

‘Everyone else has gone. We don’t have to go yet do we?’ George asked him, looking at the deserted theatre.