Christmas at Tiffany's (55 page)

But it wasn’t. It was a replica, but one size up and scarlet. Cassie gasped as she pulled it out.

‘I’m afraid Maddy didn’t have any green leather left. I hope you like it?’

Cassie looked at her. ‘I
love
it! But you didn’t have to do this. Honestly, I was perfectly happy to . . .’ She kicked the Top Shop bag beneath the sofa with her foot.

‘I know. That’s what made your gesture all the more generous.’

Cassie gave a small, embarrassed shrug. ‘I can’t believe you’ve come out of your way like this to find me.’

‘It was the very least I could do, Cassie. You don’t understand how devastating that incident could have been for me. For my reputation. The press would have had a field day. I would have been humiliated, and most probably libelled.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘You are very discreet.’

‘Soft and wimpish is usually how my friends describe me,’ she grimaced.

‘Well, I came today because I wanted to know how I can thank you properly.’

‘Oh no, really!’ Cassie said. ‘This is
more
than enough. There’s honestly no need—’

‘Ah, but there is.’ Katrina’s gaze was firm and insistent. ‘I insist. There must be something I can do – a little influence I could wield for you?’

Huh, if only. Cassie gave a polite smile, trying to deflect the offer, but Katrina’s gaze was firm. Cassie held her palms up, vainly searching for something to offer. ‘Well, uh . . . maybe . . .’ An idea came to her. ‘Maybe you could buy one of Maddy’s bags for yourself? She’s found it difficult to get any publicity since her alliance with Oscar de la Renta . . . broke off, and you always get photographed such a lot.’

‘Done,’ Katrina said without missing a beat. ‘And what else?’

Cassie’s eyes widened. Wasn’t that enough?

‘Really Katrina, I’m not—’

But Katrina was still staring at her expectantly, insistently.

The favour Cassie had done her obviously carried more weight than she’d realized.

Katrina leaned in. ‘I’ll cut to the chase. I thought that there was probably one way I could
really
help you.’ She flicked her eyes down at the floor and then back up at Cassie. ‘It’s to do with Paris.’

‘The Dîner en Blanc?’

‘
I
sent you the invitation, on Claude’s behalf.’

Cassie’s eyes grew wide. ‘You knew him?’

‘Very well. We had grown very close.’

Cassie couldn’t hide the shock on her face – Claude had been sleeping with Katrina?

‘I’m his backer,’ Katrina smiled, reading her mind. ‘A package arrived at my home the day after his death. One of the things it contained was your invitation to the Dîner. He implored me to make sure you attended.’

‘But . . . why?’ This was so much to take in. ‘Because of my list?’

List? Now it was Katrina’s turn to look baffled. ‘I think he wanted us to meet. He knew I could help you.’

Cassie sat back, blowing out through her cheeks. ‘Katrina, I’m sorry, but you’ve completely lost me.’

‘I was there the night Luke Laidlaw threw him out into the street.’

‘At the exhibition?’

Katrina nodded. ‘He told me all about what Luke was threatening to do to you – giving the pictures to
Vogue
.’

Cassie nodded, looking away. ‘I see.’

‘He loved you, Cassie. You were a dear friend to him. He wanted to protect you. So I’ve done what I think he would have wanted.’

Cassie looked at her in alarm. ‘What’s that?’

‘I had lunch with Alexa Bourton. She’s agreed to pull the pictures. They’re not going to be a problem for you any more.’

Cassie sank back into her chair as if she’d been pushed. But her overwhelming relief was mingled with suspicion. ‘How did you convince her?’

‘Partly because her boss is a . . .
friend
of mine, and partly because I pointed out that you probably aren’t the only former girlfriend he’s photographed nude.’ She gave Cassie a pointed look.

‘He has photos of her too?’

‘Most likely.’ Katrina nodded. ‘It’s in Alexa’s best long-term interests not to give him too much power.’

‘I should say.’

‘But it’s left something of a hole in the magazine, which is why I’m here. They’re going to press next week and Luke’s exhibition pictures were the holding piece for the issue. They need a muse.’

Cassie wondered why Katrina was looking at her so intently. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know any muses.’

‘I’ve offered them Claude’s.’

‘Claude had a muse?’ Jealousy reared up in her.

‘You, Cassie.’

Cassie laughed suddenly, shaking her head. ‘No! No! I’m not. For a short while I was going to be the pastry chef, but he never interviewed me for the muse position. No.’

Katrina paused for a second, then reached into her bag, looking for something. ‘The restaurant already has an eighteen-month waiting list. And we’ve pushed the opening back by three weeks to coincide with the date
Vogue
hits the stands.’ She pulled out a proof of the wine menu and handed it to Cassie. ‘Now do you believe me?’

Cassie stared at it, the hairs on her neck standing on end as she read the name for the first time. ‘I thought it was an acronym,’ she frowned, staring at the name written in pistachio script across the top and realizing her schoolgirl error. ‘I heard it in French but translated it in English.’

‘“
C et C”
? Yes. It stands for Claude and—’

‘Cassie.’

‘There you go,’ Dean said, loading the last of the flowers into the back of the car.

‘It’s beyond me why Suzy didn’t get a minivan, or at least an estate,’ Cassie said as she fiddled with the catches to drop the back seats down. She was fairly expert now, having done little else for the past month. ‘I’m getting RSI constantly pulling these seats up and down.’

Dean clapped his hands together. ‘Well, another weekend, another wedding,’ he said. ‘How many more to dispatch before the hatch?’

Cassie blinked at him for a moment before she got his meaning. He was always falling into rhyming slang and confusing her. ‘Oh, you mean . . . uh, well, it’s Kelly’s wedding next weekend. And the baby’s due a fortnight after that. It’s all planned like a military procedure.’

‘Yeah? Well I hope everything goes according to plan. Never work with animals or children, innit? I’m sticking to flowers.’ He shut the door firmly. ‘Righty-ho. I’ll see you Wednesday, then, and we can go through the checklist. Ranunculus roses, right?’

‘Yes, but in that particular colour—’

‘The one that only two growers in the world produce? Yeah, yeah, yeah, got it,’ he said, shaking his head as he walked off.

Cassie was just opening the door when she saw the Post-it she’d stuck to the glove compartment, reminding her of what she’d been meaning to show him for weeks.

‘Hey, Dean!’ she called, jumping back out. ‘Before you go, you couldn’t have a look at this for me, could you?’

Dean turned back, amused. ‘What’s that, then?’

She showed him the picture on her phone. ‘Any idea what that is?’

Dean raised a cocky eyebrow. ‘It’s a rose, innit? I’d have thought even you could tell that.’

‘Ha-ha,’ Cassie said, rolling her eyes. ‘I mean what type of rose is it?’

The buds had opened two weeks earlier into multilayered heads of a dusky powder pink. Even to her untrained eye she could tell it was a show specimen.

‘Hmmmm, looks like an alba to me,’ he murmured, holding the phone to the light to get a better picture. ‘Oh, yeah – yeah, it is, definitely. It’s what we call an “old rose”. The type you used to find before they imported all them china roses and cross-bred them all. You can tell because of the frothy petals and the scent. I bet it smells gorgeous, dunnit?’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’

‘Where’d you get it? That’s a beauty.’

‘A gift. D’you know the name of it?’

‘Do I kno—
Please!
’ He puffed out his chest. ‘
That
is the Cuisse de Nymph.’ He said it with a slightly camp, lispy accent and Cassie tried not to smile. Dean was sweet, but always hopelessly showing off in front of her.

‘Thigh of the Nymph?’ Cassie translated.

Dean’s face fell as his moment of glory was stolen from him. ‘Yeah. You speak French, then?’

‘Oh, you know . . . a bit. Well, that’s great, Dean. Thanks so much. There are so many different types of roses—’

‘Over two thousand and counting,’ he said, quickly restoring his pride.

‘Right, yes. Two thousand – no wonder I didn’t know how to start identifying it. I should have just come to you in the first place.’

‘Always come to me first,’ Dean beamed, punching himself on the chest and marching off proudly. ‘Dean’s your man.’

Cassie was just packing the last of her things into a blue plastic Ikea bag to stack behind the sofa when she heard Henry’s triumphal return – the thump of bags and kit hitting the floor, a ballyhoo cry that sounded like the love-child of a hunting horn and a rugby song, and the pounding of feet down the hall as Suzy ran like a baby elephant towards him, her tummy acting as a rebounder between them.

Cassie peered nervously round the doorway. Archie was tossing the car keys on to the hall table and Henry was bending forwards in a comical manner to accommodate Cupcake as he hugged his sister.

‘Someone’s come between us,’ Henry laughed, rubbing her tummy affectionately. ‘I can’t believe how much Cupcake’s grown!’ Suzy pushed it out even further.

He pushed his hair back from his eyes – it was so long now – and looked up. He saw Cassie leaning awkwardly against the door jamb and just for a fraction of a second she saw her own hesitation mirrored in his face. But only for a moment.

‘Hey!’ he said with an easy smile. Except for the vast white patches left by his goggles, his face was nut brown, making his teeth look glaringly white. But that wasn’t the biggest change. Apart from the long hair, he must have lost nearly a stone in weight and had grown a beard. He looked older than when he’d left.

‘Hi, Henry,’ she said tentatively, walking down the hall and greeting him with a brief hug. ‘You made it back safely, then.’

‘Yes.’

‘Arch, cava!’ Suzy ordered, walking back to the kitchen. Archie followed obediently, a giggle in his eyes.

‘So . . . how was it?’ Cassie asked him stiffly, wishing Suzy hadn’t left her alone with him like that. Henry shrugged off his massive red quilted jacket to reveal yet more layers – a navy polo neck, thermal waterproof trousers and heavy boots. She felt awkward and tongue-tied. The last time they’d been together, they’d listened to Claude’s messages together, his hand on hers, just hours after a near-miss seduction, and then he’d been gone for two months and . . . well, what was normal now? Did they talk about the things that had happened – and hadn’t? Or just carry on like they’d never been to Venice?

From his easy body language, Henry was clearly taking the latter option.

‘Chilly. But good,’ he said, bending down to unlace his heavy boots. ‘We got some really good data. The Russians were putting flags down everywhere we stopped, of course – trying to expand their continental-shelf claims.’

He pulled off his boots and straightened up, staring down at her, his eyes all the more piercing thanks to the Grizzly Adams beard. There was a short pause between them as they took in the changes in each other’s appearance. ‘And so you made it here after all,’ he said finally.

‘Yup. Paris was . . . too much . . .’ Her voice trailed off. She realized he didn’t know about everything that had happened with Anouk. But then he didn’t need to; what had happened with Claude would have been enough to make most people run.

‘And you’re back to looking like you again.’

‘Finally.’ She primped her hair self-consciously.

‘And are you going to stay as you now? Or have you got some other versions you want to debut this year?’

Cassie narrowed her eyes at the humour in his. ‘No. I think I’m done.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ he said, pulling off the polo neck. He was wearing a navy Helly Hansen thermal grandad shirt underneath, which did a fine job of tracing his muscles. She tried not to look. ‘Did it work?’ he continued.

‘What?’

‘Your search for the real you. Were you supposed to be a brunette living in Paris and working as a chef? Or a man-eating fashion bunny in Manhattan? Or are you really a blonde wedding-planner in London?’

‘I’m a little bit of all those girls, I guess. Brunette, no; Paris, not any more; chef, ideally; man-eating? I don’t
think
so; fashion bunny – never; blonde – definitely; London, New York – perhaps.’

He nodded. ‘A process of elimination, huh?’

‘That seems to be the way it’s working. But I’m getting there.’

‘And how are you finding London?’

‘You mean, without a list?’ She shrugged. ‘Okay. I’m travelling all over sourcing churches, reception venues, bands, caterers . . . It’s been a baptism of fire, really, but I’m trying to take as much pressure off Suzy as possible. She’s getting really tired.’