What She Wants (48 page)

‘I thought you might be out,’ Matt said. Hope didn’t bother to tell him that it had been raining buckets all day. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘Tidying up the linen cupboard,’ Hope said with a twinge of guilt as she looked at the debris of her Christy-attracting clothes hunt. ‘Oh.’ Pause. ‘What did you do all day?’ Hope fingered a russet silken blouse speculatively. Now that could be nice with a black skirt. Left loose it would hide her waist. ‘Er … nothing,’ she said. ‘Millie has a mild cold so we stayed in. And you?’ ‘Went for lunch at the Meadows’ with Dan and Betsey. The au pair was looking after the children.’ ‘The au pair?’ demanded Hope. ‘Betsey and Dan have an au pair? Since when?’ ‘Since a week ago.’ ‘She always said she didn’t believe in farming her children out to other people,’ Hope raged. ‘So I suppose this au pair is seventeen and looks like a Britney Spears clone?’ Matt laughed. ‘Are you mad? You know what Betsey’s like. She’s far too jealous to have anyone like that in the house. This au pair is a twenty-three-year-old devout Christian girl from Strasbourg and she is a million miles away from Britney. She’s very prim and shy and calls Betsey “Madame”.’ Hope harrumphed. ‘Betsey would love that. She’ll have her in a maid’s outfit next, curtseying and bowing and asking if Madame would like tea in the drawing room. What was the Meadows’ like? Was it lunch or a party?’ ‘A party,’ Matt said unwisely. ‘It was their tenth anniversary and they wanted to renew their vows.’ Sitting on the bed in their cold little country cottage where nobody had called all day and where the main amusement had been watching The Sound of Music on the television in the afternoon with a box of chocolates on her lap, Hope simmered.

It didn’t matter that she and Matt barely knew the Meadows and that, if Matt hadn’t been staying with Dan and Betsey, he’d hardly have been invited. The fact of the matter was that he’d been enjoying himself without her and now he’d rung too late to speak to the children. ‘Well, we were here listening to the rain drumming off the shed roof while you were out at the Meadows’ having fun, and drinking cocktails,’ Hope said, knowing she was nagging but, in her jealousy, not able to stop herself. ‘It was dull as ditchwater,’ Matt lied. ‘You wouldn’t have enjoyed it.’ ‘That’s easy to say seeing as I wasn’t asked!’ ‘Don’t give me that,’ snapped Matt. ‘You’re not a child, Hope. You’re perfectly capable of going out and doing something for yourself. Stop the martyr act.’ She glared at the phone. Martyr! He’d dared to call her a martyr. While she was here looking after his children in a place he’d chosen, and he was off swanning around at vow-renewing parties. The cheek of it. And then Hope did something she’d never done before. She hung up without saying another word. He was annoying her too much. Let him suffer. It wasn’t as if he could come home in half an hour and be cross with her for hanging up. He wasn’t going to be back for weeks. She took the phone off the hook so he couldn’t ring back and then smiled at her reflection in the mirror. Bizarrely enough, she felt good. She picked up a slinky black body that Sam had bought her once for Christmas and that she’d never had either the nerve or the correct bra to wear. Hope tried it on now without a bra and admired the effect of the gathered silky fabric coming down to a deep V below the point where most bras crossed the chest. She tried on her grey skirt suit with it and did a bit of model-type twisting in front of the mirror. It was all way too sexy for a morning doing the accounts in an office where the other two members of staff dressed in sedate business outfits.

Well, this was a business suit, Hope convinced herself. It all depended on what sort of business you intended doing.

In the chintzy spare room in Dan and Betsey’s house, Matt sat with his mobile in his hand and felt miserable. Great. Hope had hung up on him. She’d never done that before. He hadn’t meant to needle her but she’d driven him to it. He just hated the way she expected him to make everything all right in life, as if it was his duty to direct all their lives like some great ruler. Do this, Hope, do that, Hope. Don’t take responsibility for anything. He lay back on the flowery duvet gloomily. That wasn’t totally true, he admitted. He’d wanted to be the great ruler. He’d liked being the one who told Hope what they’d do next, what video they’d watch, what sort of car they’d buy for her, where they’d go on holiday. If he was utterly honest, he’d liked the fact that Hope waived her right to make the big decisions and let him do it. He liked being in charge, so he could hardly fault Hope for not wishing to be in charge when she was left on her own. Even when she got those jobs in Redlion, she’d rushed to tell him, wanting him to approve of them. Hope wasn’t an independent type, not like her ball-breaking sister. Only it hadn’t been Sam who’d slammed the phone down on him and who had now left it off the hook in a gesture of defiance. It was Hope. ‘Matt,’ said a soft voice at the door. ‘I am making coffee. Would you like some?’ He hadn’t been entirely accurate in his description of the au pair, either. Chantal was prim, Christian and certainly not a hot babe. But he’d intentionally made her sound a bit plain. She was actually very pretty in a quiet way and she had undoubtedly got a massive crush on him, which was sweet. She wasn’t that unlike Hope, really. All huge eyes, eager to please and absolutely no hassle. Correction: like Hope used to be. But she wasn’t Hope. And Matt was

definitely a one-woman man. No matter how many women batted long eyelashes at him, he wasn’t interested. ‘I’d love a coffee, Chantal,’ he said warmly. ‘I’ll be right down.’

It was a miracle that Hope got out of the house the next morning without getting cereal, juice or some other bit of breakfast on her suit. With her deadly accurate radar sensing that Mummy was Up To Something and in a rush, Millie was wildly uncooperative at breakfast and managed to fire an entire bowl of Coco Pops across the floor with remarkable strength. Hope, keyed up and as nervous as a thoroughbred filly before a big race, shouted at her, with the result that Toby was sucking his thumb and Millie was sobbing as they finally piled into the car. ‘I want Daddy!’ wailed Millie, her cherubic little face bright pink with misery. ‘Daddy will be home soon,’ soothed Hope, doing up Millie’s car seat straps expertly as Millie drummed on the seat with her heels. ‘Now, now!’ screamed Millie, bouncing Barbie off her mother’s skull. ‘Ouch. That hurt. Behave, Millie,’ said Hope crossly. Cue more roars. By the time they got to Hunnybunnikins, Hope had a headache from the combination of Millie’s roars and the Singalonga Nursery Rhymes tape that both children normally loved. ‘My poor Millie. Have you had a bad morning?’ crooned Giselle as she welcomed them into the playgroup and immediately spotted Millie’s red eyes and trembling lower lip. Millie shot into Giselle’s arms, giving a heavily reproachful look at her mother, before leaning angelically against Giselle’s shoulder looking for all the world like a misunderstood flower fairy with her dark curls tumbling around her face.

‘Missing their father, I suppose,’ Giselle said gently to Hope. Hope nodded tight lipped. Then,’ she said grimly. ‘I know,’ Giselle said, taking both children by the hands. ‘Can’t live with them, can’t kill them.’

‘Don’t you look nice,’ said Una, admiring Hope’s outfit as she brewed them all a cup of coffee. ‘Oh, this old thing,’ said Hope, settling into her seat. ‘Now what’s first?’ ‘Horrible job, I’m afraid,’ Una said. ‘We’ve got a problem with the fishmonger’s invoices. The filing here’s gone to pot because I’ve had to take so much time off and there’s war over fish that’s apparently been delivered but was never signed for, so we haven’t paid - we only pay if there’s a signature from here - and they’re going to stop delivering. Poor Christy is going demented about it, so we’ve got to get it sorted out this week. Only thing is,’ she added, pointing to a big folder on the floor beside Hope’s desk, ‘there’s a lot to go through.’ ‘No problem,’ said Hope joyfully, imagining having lots of exciting meetings with Christy where he’d tell her what a pleasure it was working with someone so efficient. ‘Nobody could have handled it the way you did,’ he’d murmur as they stood with the haddock receipts between them. Unfortunately, her morning didn’t go as planned. Although the door from reception to the accounts office opened many times with the two receptionists looking for Una, there was no sign of Christy. Every time someone came in Hope looked up eagerly, fixing a smile on her face so she’d look welcoming as well as efficient. But it was always one of the two elegant French receptionists, Claude or Sophie, who both ignored Janet and Hope and spoke only to Una. As the morning passed with nothing more exciting than elevenses and proper shortbread biscuits from the hotel kitchens to enliven things, Hope began to agree with Una:

sorting out the fish dockets was a horrible job. She’d been meticulously entering all the payments and the numbers of the dockets relating to them into the computer all morning and she was still only ten per cent of the way there. And to add to her sense of anti-climax at not setting eyes on the delectable manager, she’d discovered that the lovely silky body got very hot and un-sexily sweaty in the centrally-heated office, which Una kept at boiling point. ‘My hands get so cold that I can’t work,’ Una had said apologetically. ‘Bad circulation, so I like it very hot.’ ‘That’s OK,’ said Hope kindly, from behind a film of sweat. She hoped she had deodorant with her. Otherwise she couldn’t dare raise her arms or she’d asphyxiate someone. There wasn’t much chit chat in the office. Not that Una and Janet weren’t friendly, but they had the radio on all morning listening to talk shows and the conversation ranged from the odd comment on the various radio guests, to discussions on whose go it was to make coffee. And of course, during the commercial breaks, they talked about food. Hope had never worked in an office with women where they didn’t talk about food. At Witherspoon’s, they’d discussed diets. Yvonne had tried them all, from ones where you only ate carrots, to ones where you could eat anything you wanted as long as you only ate half of it. Hope had tried that one diligently but it hadn’t worked. How did you define half a scoop of ice cream? Here, they talked about gourmet food. Una was trying to tempt her husband’s appetite because he was laid up with a broken hip and wasn’t eating. She kept bringing home little morsels of delicious food from the hotel in the hope of getting him to eat properly. ‘He loves duck a l’orange,’ she said, ‘but Luigi says it’s unlikely to be on the menu again for a couple of days.’ ‘That thing they do with the angel hair pasta and the Pernod sauce,’ drooled Janet. ‘I could eat that till it came out of my ears.’ Hope, who had that morning started the must-lose

a-stone-for-Christy-De-Lacy diet, was nearly weak with hunger listening to them. She took another low-calorie mint from her handbag and crunched in desperation. Claude marched in from reception, cross after an altercation with a guest who was demanding to see Christy. ‘I have to see Mr De Lacy,’ Claude said angrily, waving his arms in temper. ‘Well, he’s not here,’ Una said tartly. ‘You know this is his day off. Frederick’s on instead.’ Both Claude and Hope’s faces fell. Hope sighed. They could have bloody told her and she would have saved this outfit for another day. By ten to one, Hope was squinting from keying numbers into the computer. ‘You’ve been wonderful,’ Una said gratefully. ‘The last person we had here helping out didn’t fit in at all but you do. I don’t suppose you could do more than two mornings a week? It would be such a great help until my husband’s better. In fact, it would be such a great help permanently. We really could do with another pair of hands, couldn’t we, Janet?’ Hope was absurdly pleased. It was nice to be needed and appreciated. ‘Shouldn’t you check with Mr De Lacy first?’ she asked. Giselle had already offered her another day for the children at Hunnybunnikins. ‘No need, he thinks you’re great,’ Una said, thereby making Hope’s stomach do one of its flips. He thought she was great. In what way, exactly? Great in a good-for-the-accounts-office type of great, or great in a wildly-attracted-to sort of great? ‘Do you want to come to lunch with us?’ Una asked. ‘One of the perks of the job is amazing food.’ ‘I better not,’ Hope said, thinking of the long-term effects of angel hair pasta in Pernod sauce on her waistline. ‘I have to do the shopping before I pick my children up from playgroup.’

‘You must bring in photos on Thursday,’ insisted Una. ‘They sound like such little sweethearts.’ Hope’s face softened and she felt utterly guilty about being cross with poor Millie that morning. ‘They are,’ she said. She hurried out the back door to the staff car park, writing a shopping list in her head, totally oblivious to the world around her. ‘Hello Hope,’ said a familiar purring voice. She whirled around to find Christy grinning wolfishly at her from the driver’s seat of a silver sports car. His hair was wet and slicked back and he was wearing a cream sweater instead of his manager’s suit. He looked even more attractive in casual clothes than he had in formal ones. His hair made him look vulnerable slicked back like that. It was like seeing him naked, she thought, then bit her lip at the very idea. He must live at the hotel, it came to her suddenly, and he’d just hopped out of the shower. ‘Oh er, hello,’ she said lamely. Trust her to meet him now, when she was flushed and un-lipsticked, and not earlier when she’d been looking her best waiting for him. ‘Not staying for lunch?’ he asked. ‘No,’ she said, hoping she wasn’t blushing. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ ‘Well, yes but I don’t have time …’ she began. ‘Nonsense. You should always take time to eat. I’m going to have lunch myself in the Pigeon Club. Want to join me?’ The Pigeon Club was an elegant restaurant ten miles away and completely in the other direction to Redlion. Hope had never been there although she’d heard enough about it from Finula, who raved about the food and the decor and the fact that only the very best people - meaning herself - went there. Up till now, Hope had never had any desire to go there. But suddenly it sounded utterly alluring. And she was, after all, hungry. ‘I’ve got to pick up the kids this afternoon,’ Hope said anxiously. ‘I said I’d be there by half three.’

‘Loads of time. Why don’t you bring your car and follow me. When you’re ready to go, you can drive off to get your children,’ Christy said, as if it was simple. ‘OK.’ She felt her face flush for definite this time. Lunch with Christy De Lacy. What was she doing? He rolled up his window and Hope scurried off to her car. Christy wasted no time roaring down the drive, tyres scattering gravel like confetti. Hope did her best to roar after him, wondering how she was going to drive and apply a bit of make-up if he kept taking corners at this speed. She’d managed to drench herself in White Linen, powder down the shiny bits of her nose and slick on some coral lipstick when Christy’s silver bullet of a car took a sharp right and belted up a tree-lined drive. He was already out of the car when Hope pulled up beside him, got out and stared at the Pigeon Club. A long, secretive looking house with a thatched roof and small windows peering out, it looked as if it was made for assignations. Inside, a man shook Christy’s hand enthusiastically, introduced himself to Hope as Liam, the owner, and then found them a table in a window recess where they were practically hidden from the rest of the room. Hope was pleased at this on the grounds that nobody could see her having an illicit lunch while her husband was away. But when she realized that she and Christy could strip down to their underwear and begin to have sex on the linen tablecloth and nobody would see that either, she began to be nervous. This wasn’t her scene. Christy excused himself when he’d settled Hope in her seat. ‘I’ve got to talk to Liam for a moment,’ he said. While he was gone, Hope panicked. She loved Matt, she’d never had an affair in her life. She’d tried to be sophisticated with Christy and it had backfired. He couldn’t just be bringing her to lunch for the good of his health. He had to be looking for something, something Hope couldn’t give him. He probably thought she’d take him back to her cottage and bonk him senseless; that she