The Inheritance (26 page)

‘It’s lovely here,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Max nodded.
You’re lovely
,
he wanted to add, but he was too old to make a fool of himself over a woman. Especially a woman a dozen years younger than he was, who was already encumbered with both a husband and, apparently, a lover.

‘I know what it looks like,’ Angela blurted, feeling silly and shy and a little sick. ‘But I’m not having an affair.’

‘Right,’ said Max. He hadn’t expected such a forthright declaration, and wasn’t sure how to respond. ‘I see.’

‘Didier’s just a friend.’

Didier. A Frenchman.
Max didn’t know why, but somehow it irritated him even more that a Frenchman should have been responsible for the look of pure, unadulterated happiness on Angela’s face a few moments ago.

‘It’s the court case this week,’ Angela continued, ‘up in London.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Max. ‘Tatiana’s challenge to her father’s will. That must be stressful for you.’

‘It has been,’ said Angela. ‘But it also means Brett’s been staying up in town for a few days. Didier’s a friend but he’s …’ she hesitated, searching for the right word … ‘he’s not a friend Brett would be comfortable about me meeting. That’s why I agreed to meet today, and why we came here. I love Fittlescombe, but people do tend to gossip.’

Max laughed loudly. ‘That’s quite an understatement. Listen,’ he said, keeping his tone friendly, ‘you have nothing to explain to me. Your private life is absolutely none of my business.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Angela. ‘But I … I care what you think.’

Max was touched.

‘
I
think that you’re a very nice woman who’s put up with a lot and who deserves some happiness of her own,’ he said, truthfully.

‘Really?’ Angela brightened. ‘It’s just that you looked so shocked when you saw us just now.’

‘Not shocked. Surprised,’ corrected Max.

‘And disappointed,’ added Angela.

Max smiled. ‘That’s only because it was another man and not me.’

‘We’re not having an affair, you know. That’s the God’s honest truth. I think he wants to. But I can’t.’

‘Why not?’ said Max.

Angela seemed floored by the question.

‘Well I, er … I mean …’

‘Because of the children?’ Max prompted.

‘Partly,’ Angela admitted. ‘I had a tough time this summer and Didier, well, he was there. He helped. I should have cut off contact when we got home, but I didn’t. I suppose part of me liked the attention.’ She gave another small, self-deprecating smile. ‘Perhaps I’m having a mid-life crisis?’

‘Well, all I can say is, you look very well on it,’ said Max kindly, raising his glass to hers.
In another life
, he thought,
other circumstances, I could have been happy with this woman. I could have made her happy with me.
‘Now please, we must both forget this afternoon ever happened. I never saw you, and you never saw me. Agreed?’

‘Agreed,’ said Angela. ‘Thank you.’

She’d always liked Max Bingley. But, as of today, she decided, he was a friend indeed.

She’d decided something else too. She wouldn’t see Didier Lemprière again.

Tatiana Flint-Hamilton stood on the pavement in a daze. Her lawyer stood uselessly next to her, unsure what to do.

‘Will you be all right to get home?’ Raymond Baines asked. ‘I’m getting a taxi back to Victoria. We could take the train together if you like.’

Home.
Tatiana let the word tumble through her mind. Where was home now? Not Furlings. Judge Sir William McGyver QC had been brutally clear about that. ‘Frivolous’ was how he’d described Tatiana’s challenge to her father’s will. ‘Wholly without merit.’ Even Raymond Baines, who’d always been bearish about their chances, had thought that the hearing would run to two days. Instead the judge had dismissed their arguments out of hand, showing a partiality towards Brett Cranley and an utter lack of compassion for Tati from the very beginning that quite took her breath away.

There could be no further appeal from here. A ‘no’ from the High Court was binding and final. Winded with disappointment and grief, Tati felt as if her father had died all over again.

Baines was still standing next to her. ‘I don’t like to leave you here alone, Tatiana,’ he said, looking anxiously at his watch. Raymond Baines badly wanted to get home to his wife, his sausage and mash supper and the latest episode of
DCI Banks
that he’d recorded on Sky Plus last night. The Flint-Hamilton case had been more stress than it was worth from day one, and though he hadn’t expected the outcome to be quite so swift, he
had
expected it. Everyone had. Except his client.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Tati said numbly. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Baines, but do go home. I’ll make my own way.’

The fat little lawyer scuttled off, leaving Tati staring at the traffic in the fading afternoon light. All around her the world continued to come and go. Horns blared, rush hour rushed. But Tatiana felt frozen in time, stranded on the Strand like a lost puppy, bereft.

‘Get in.’

A black cab had pulled up to the kerb beside her. Brett Cranley was in the back seat, holding the door open. Half hidden in the shadows, his dark hair and eyes looked blacker than usual, mirroring his dark suit.
And dark nature
,
thought Tati.
Bastard.
When he smiled his teeth shone, like a wolf’s.

‘What do you mean “get in”?’ she asked. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’

‘Yes you are,’ said Brett. ‘Don’t be a sore loser. Come and have a drink with me.’

Tati almost laughed. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Deadly,’ said Brett. ‘Why? What else are you doing? If you stand there much longer the pigeons’ll start to crap on you.’

Despite herself, Tatiana laughed. He was right about her having nothing better to do, and nowhere she wanted to go. Marco was expecting her call. She’d already arranged to stay at his place tonight, assuming that the case would run until tomorrow at the very least. But she couldn’t face talking to him now, explaining the humiliation of today’s proceedings, listening to his sympathy. At least with Brett Cranley she could be what she wanted to be – angry. She got into the cab.

‘Where are we drinking?’ she asked.

‘The Ritz,’ said Brett. ‘Where else?’

The shock still hadn’t worn off as they walked into the Rivoli Bar. The place was full of suits, almost none of them English, and busy, given that it wasn’t yet six. Every man in the room turned to look at Tati, most of them because she was such a stunning girl, although one or two clearly recognized her from the newspapers. Nobody recognized Brett, which suited him perfectly. He steered Tatiana to a quiet corner table and ordered a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon 1990.

‘No champagne for me,’ said Tati. ‘I’m not celebrating.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said Brett.

‘I’ll have a bourbon on the rocks,’ Tati told the waiter, who nodded and left.

Brett looked at her appraisingly across the table.

‘You know, you could look on today’s verdict as an opportunity,’ he said.

‘For what? Penury?’ Tati said witheringly.

‘No. For moving on with your life. You’ve been clinging to the past for a year now. Let go.’

‘I’ve been fighting for my birthright,’ Tati said furiously. ‘Fuck. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Not if I knew I couldn’t win,’ said Brett.

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Tati.

‘Yes you did.’

She glared at him in furious silence. The drinks arrived. Brett barely sipped at his champagne. He watched as Tatiana downed her Jack Daniel’s in one, immediately ordering another. She’d kicked off her shoes under the table and untucked the camel silk shirt from the cream woollen waistband of her suit skirt. Little by little, the armour was coming off, but not the fighting spirit. There was something belligerent, almost violent in her self-destructive tendencies. Disastrous relationships. Court cases she couldn’t win. Taking herself out with hard liquor, as if the answer to her problems lay at the bottom of a cut-crystal glass.

‘I saw a lot of Jason while you were away,’ she said, deliberately baiting him. ‘He’s such a sweet boy.’

‘He is,’ Brett agreed. Tati gave him a surprised look.

‘If you really think so, why are you such a cunt to him all the time?’

Brett winced. He didn’t like to hear women using that word. It made them sound hard and ugly. He didn’t want Tatiana to sound hard and ugly. But he answered the question nonetheless.

‘He’s too sensitive. He needs to toughen up.’

‘Says who?’ said Tati, knocking back another huge slug of bourbon.

‘Says me.’

‘And who made you the expert on everyone else’s lives?’

‘I don’t know. Who made my
son
’s life any of your business?’ retorted Brett.

‘He’s my friend,’ said Tati.

‘Bullshit. He’s just a kid. He fancies you rotten and you enjoy the attention.’

‘Do I?’ Tati was toying with Brett now, playing suggestively with an ice cube from her drink while she maintained eye contact.

‘If you really cared about him, you’d stop encouraging him,’ said Brett, unable to tear his eyes away from Tati’s lips.

‘Well
you
should let him be himself,’ said Tati. ‘Stop trying to turn him into a miniature version of you. Not everyone’s cut out to be a heartless bastard, you know.’

‘Is that what you think I am?’

Tati looked deep into Brett’s dark eyes. She recognized something fragile there – she knew from their encounter back at Logan’s parent-teacher day that Brett Cranley wasn’t without weaknesses – but he masked them with so much aggression and ambition and testosterone that they were all but completely buried most of the time. Brett wasn’t handsome in any classical sense. Not like Marco. But he was the most masculine man Tatiana had ever met, as strong and unyielding as a wall of flint.

‘It’s not what I think you are,’ she said boldly. ‘It’s what you are.’

Brett’s hand shot out across the table, like a spider lurching suddenly for its prey. He firmly held her wrist. Tatiana’s heart rate shot up, a mixture of fear and desire taking over her body.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Brett.

The cab ride was almost unbearable. Aware of his body next to hers, the rock-hard thigh beneath his trouser leg bumping occasionally against her skirt as they sped through the cobbled streets, Tatiana sat rigid and alert. It was as if she were preparing herself to react to danger, to a threat. And yet it was she who’d invited the danger in, she who wanted it like an addict craving a hit. She could stop the car at any time. Get out. Go back to Marco’s place, end the madness. But the electrical sexual tension between her and Brett kept her rooted to the spot like an erotic force field.

Brett’s flat was in Mayfair, so close they could almost have walked it. He paid the driver, then wordlessly took Tatiana’s hand and led her first into the lobby, then the lift. His hands felt warm, his palms surprisingly rough, like a labourer’s. The lift was of the old-fashioned type that closed with a metal cage.

I’m trapped
, thought Tatiana.
Locked in with the tiger.
But when Brett increased the pressure with his fingers she returned it instantly, so wracked with desire she was half surprised that her clothes hadn’t already melted off her.

They got out at the top floor. ‘The penthouse,’ said Tati wryly. ‘Of course.’

They were the first words either of them had spoken since they left the bar at the Ritz. Brett made no answer, other than to open the door to his flat and pull her inside. The moment the door was closed he kissed her, pinning her back against the wall, his hands grabbing at her hair, then sweeping down over her breasts to settle on her waist. It was tiny, like a doll’s. For some reason that excited him even more. Tati closed her eyes as he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, dropping her onto the bed. When she opened them again she found herself in a luxurious but utterly masculine room. The walls were lined with taupe silk paper, there were black and white photographs of old racing cars and some bizarre, red-tasselled piece of chinoiserie above the fireplace. All the furniture was in heavy dark wood, and even the silk quilted bedspread was brown. It was like lying on melted chocolate.

It’s like a hotel
,
thought Tati.
Completely impersonal. There’s nothing of Brett in here, nothing real, nothing revealing.

As she thought it, suddenly all of Brett was on top of her, naked and demanding and as strong as an ox.
When had he got undressed?
Other than her shoes and jacket, which she’d somehow lost en route to the bedroom, Tati was still fully clothed. It was a shock to see Brett without his armour, exposed like an animal. But the bare skin of his broad boxer’s back beneath her palms felt wonderful, and the sensation of his powerful legs and chest bearing down on her was wildly exciting, like being pulled into a riptide of pleasure. Reaching behind her, Tati started to unbutton her skirt, but Brett grabbed her hands impatiently, pulling them down to his simply enormous erection. Then he pushed her skirt up around her hips, tore off her underwear and launched himself inside her so suddenly and violently that Tati gasped. He let out a loud cry of relief, like a tortured prisoner finally breaking his chains. Then he relaxed, settling into a slower rhythm as she arched her back against him, tuning in to her responses and exploring her glorious body.

Somehow Tatiana managed to wriggle out of her blouse and bra. Marco was a good lover, inventive and patient and technically proficient. But he couldn’t match Brett for raw desire. Brett wasn’t making love to her, or even fucking her. He was devouring her; sating himself on her body like a bee gorging on nectar. For Tatiana, the release was incredible. Here, in Brett Cranley’s bed, there was no room for grief or rage or pain or loss. There was nothing but the delicious sensations sweeping through her body, the bliss of knowing that in this moment she both owned Brett completely, and belonged to him completely.

Slipping off her skirt at last and running his hands languorously over her bare buttocks, Brett rolled her onto her stomach and took her from behind.