“Are you saying I’m a cheap
date?”
From a man who’d cost her
dearly, this was rich. “You might be worth a better dinner if you
hadn’t been so easy. Perhaps you should learn to keep your clothes
on longer if you want to eat well.”
“I promise I’ll play hard to get
next time.”
“What makes you so sure there’ll
be a next time?”
He frowned slightly, trying to
work out if she were serious. “Because the sex was mind-blowing.
And no matter how much we kid ourselves, it’s only a matter of time
before it happens again.”
Erika persuaded Marty to eat
lunch with her before he drove back to London. She made sure they
had a table overlooking the front driveway so Marty would see Aiden
leave.
She’d called Aiden from the
ladies’, telling him to check out within the next hour, expecting
him to simply walk out to his car but he made a point of finding
them both in the restaurant. Marty tensed when Aiden
approached.
“I came to apologise for the way
I acted the other day,” Aiden said, extending his hand toward
Marty. “No hard feelings, I hope.”
Marty shook his hand
reluctantly, keeping one eye on Erika as he searched for
confirmation that there might be something between them. “Erika
said you were leaving today.”
“I’m off to Glasgow to check on
a project we have running there.”
“The new concert venue at
Pacific Quay,” Marty guessed, making it obvious he’d Googled Aiden,
as Erika had suggested.
“You’ve done your homework.”
“I like to know who I’m dealing
with.”
“Well it seems like a lot of
work for a very short acquaintance.”
Without waiting for Marty to
reply, Aiden then turned to Erika. “It’s been great seeing you
again. Good luck with the new album.” Before she could stop him, he
leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, his stubble grazing her
skin, and it was all she could do to stop herself turning and
kissing him full on the lips. He seemed to sense this and pulled
away quickly. “I’ll watch out for you on MTV. Bye.”
Aiden turned sharply and walked
back out into reception. Two minutes later they saw him load his
suitcase into the car boot without a backward glance. Erika
realised she’d wanted him to turn round one more time and her heart
fell in disappointment. She forced the feeling away and pulled her
face into an expression of relief before turning back to Marty.
“Thank heaven we’ve seen the
back of him,” she said, pretending she couldn’t care less if she
never saw Aiden again. “I can relax now he’s gone.”
“I still don’t trust the guy.
And I’m not convinced I should leave you here.”
“Well you don’t have much
choice. You can’t miss your meetings and, in any case, your car’s
here.” She nodded toward the window where an ostentatious limousine
had just pulled up looking totally incongruous amidst the Yorkshire
countryside.
The prospect of London’s buzz,
and the opening of negotiations on a European tour, erased Marty’s
last remaining doubts and he got up from the table. “Don’t forget
you promised to stay in the hotel. And I’ll have a car here to
collect you first thing Monday.”
“I’d prefer something less
obvious,” she said, nodding toward the limousine. Marty enjoyed the
showy trappings of fame far more than Erika ever had and went out
of his way to surround himself with them, taking no account of the
expense. No wonder the paparazzi find us so easily, Erika thought.
Marty makes us a sitting target. “If I’m coming to London to see a
doctor about my voice, I’d rather slip in more discreetly.”
Even Marty saw the sense in this
and agreed. “OK. I’ll call you. Behave yourself.”
Erika waited by the window until
she’d actually seen him walk out of the front door, something
inside her wanting to make sure he’d really left, and still not
daring to believe she’d be spending the next three days without
him. In the five years since they’d met, she could hardly remember
three hours alone. Instead, she been shadowed everywhere by Marty,
his bodyguards or half a dozen of his entourage, not to mention
fans and photographers. Three days alone felt like a lifetime and
she intended making the most of every second.
Even though she’d promised not
to leave the hotel, she wanted to throw on her coat and run all the
way down to the village but didn’t dare take the risk. Maybe she’d
feel braver in the morning but, in the meantime, she went to the
hotel gift shop where she picked up a couple of paperbacks and the
largest bar of chocolate they stocked. On her way back to her room,
she called Aiden.
“Are you eating again?” he asked
when he heard her muffled voice, his laughter trickling down the
line.
“Chocolate,” she admitted. “And
I’ve had a massive lunch too. None of my stage outfits will fit
after this month.”
“Good. I’ve always preferred
curves to bones.”
Erika didn’t want to think about
Aiden’s preferences at that precise moment because she knew exactly
where that conversation would lead and anyway, she’d recently had a
very graphic reminder of exactly what Aiden liked. She changed the
subject.
“I’m calling to say Marty’s left
for London.”
“Do you want to go out
somewhere?”
“No, thanks. I plan to lie on
the bed, watch a film and eat the rest of this chocolate.”
“Sounds tempting.”
“I had no idea you were a film
fan.”
“No. I meant the lying on the
bed part. Do you want company?”
She laughed again at his
predictability and let herself into her suite. “No, to that too.
But full marks for trying. I’ll see you here at seven.”
Erika laughed so much she
couldn’t get her breath and gripped the edge of the table. “I don’t
believe a word,” she gasped, tears streaming down her face. “You’re
making it up.”
“I swear it’s true,” Aiden
promised, his hand on his heart. Like everything, he gave himself
over completely to the laughter and his face erupted into the
broadest smile Erika had ever seen, as he clenched his ribs and
struggled to speak. “You couldn’t invent something like that.”
“You probably could.” She wiped
away the tears with her fingertips and gulped down air. “I’d
forgotten how truly terrible some of your stories are. I haven’t
laughed like this in…” She paused and found she couldn’t
remember.
“…in too long,” Aiden finished
for her as he poured them both more wine. “It was the first thing I
noticed when I saw you again. You had sad eyes.”
“I had jet lag,” Erika corrected
him, determined not to be psychoanalysed. “No one could sparkle
after a whole day on planes with Marty.”
Aiden’s expression told her he
wasn’t so sure but the laughter wasn’t far away. “When I think back
five years, I remember you laughing all the time. We had a lot of
fun, you and I.”
“We certainly did. I didn’t
deserve to pass my degree, the amount of time we spent
together.”
“And yet you got a first.”
“Back when I played real music.”
Erika dismissed her current work carelessly but couldn’t help
sounding wistful. “These days, I hardly pick up an instrument. It’s
quicker to use session musicians for the albums and it’s impossible
to perform Marty’s sexy stage routines sitting at a piano.”
“So you miss it.”
“More than I can say.” She took
a sip of wine and thought back longingly to her student days. “Do
you remember when I used to sing in pubs and at weddings?”
“Some of the best nights I’ve
ever had,” he told her honestly.
“Banging out cover versions on a
tuneless piano and singing into bad mics.”
“Too much to drink and dancing
on the tables. And usually there was a fight to round off the
evening.”
He pointed to a scar above his
right eye where he hadn’t been quick enough to dodge a punch.
Without thinking, Erika leaned across the table, took his face in
her hands and kissed it better, taking them both by surprise.
“Isn’t it ridiculous?” she said,
laughing again at his expression. “I play concerts to audiences of
fifty thousand, my music videos reach a worldwide audience and
millions download my songs, but I still miss singing to a hundred
people in a grotty pub in the middle of nowhere.”
“Is that what you want to do
when this is all over? Go back to pub singing?”
The thought tipped Erika over
into helpless giggles again and she covered her face, unable to
control herself. Aiden moved around the booth to sit next to her
and rubbed her back, laughing as hard as she was and imagining
Marty’s expression if she ever put the idea to him.
“The man would have a heart
attack,” he said, struggling for breath. “I almost feel sorry for
him.”
“Well don’t.” The image of
Marty’s face cleared Erika’s head immediately and the laughter
dropped away. “If you’re right, and he has been defrauding me, he
deserves everything he gets.”
She leaned back, conscious that
Aiden’s arm was still around her but enjoying the closeness. She’d
been deprived of these simple pleasures in her ivory tower –
sharing a meal with a handsome man; laughing to the point of tears;
reminiscing about the time when she’d been as unrecognisable as any
other girl in the street.
“Thank you,” she said, worn out
and letting her head fall against Aiden’s shoulder. “Thank you for
reminding me that our relationship wasn’t all about the broken
heart at the end.”
“Far from it.” Aiden’s arm
tightened around her shoulders and he shifted to tuck her closer in
beside him. “When I look back, all I remember is the laughter. And
singing, and dancing. And sex.” He sighed. “A lot of sex.”
“Was it really that easy?” Erika
asked. Compared with the heartbreak that had marked the end of
their relationship, she found it difficult to believe their time
together could have been so idyllic.
“You were the original low
maintenance girlfriend. Always happy, undemanding, never jealous
and I can’t once remember you asking me to buy you something.”
“And your relationships since
have been the opposite?” Unsubtle, she knew, but she was
curious.
“None of them has lasted as long
as five months, if that answers your question.”
It didn’t exactly but Google
would fill in the gaps for her. “If our relationship really was
that perfect, you have to ask whether it could have gone on
indefinitely.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Well, there was Little Miss
Naked for a start.”
“Ouch!”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t
deserve that.” Erika sat up and looked at him, expecting him to be
irritated but Aiden was shaking his head as the last remnants of
laughter seeped from his face.
“I won’t make excuses for what I
did because I was so far in the wrong it was a very long walk
back.” This time his smile was grim. “But you weren’t the only one
with a broken heart.”
Forty-eight hours ago, Erika
would have found this a comfort and thought he’d deserved every bad
thing that had happened to him. But now, she felt the first glimmer
of sympathy.
“So you’ll have to think of me
as the one that got away,” she joked, trying to lighten the
atmosphere.
“Perhaps I wouldn’t have been so
stupid had I known you were going to turn into Erika Fenn,
worldwide superstar and darling of the red carpet.”
“And maybe I would have been a
bit more forgiving had I known you’d quadruple your fortune and
could keep me in designer shoes.”
Aiden grinned and held out his
hand to Erika. “No hard feelings then?”
“Life’s too short.”
Erika shook his hand but didn’t
let go of it, and stared down at the broad, strong fingers she’d
once known as well as her own. She turned his hand over and looked
at his palm, running her thumb along the deeply-carved heart
line.
“I’ve missed you, Aiden,” she
admitted, never once believing she’d hear herself say the words but
feeling that her world had shifted so far on its axis over the last
three days she no longer knew which way she was facing. “I want you
to know that, for me, it wasn’t just a student romance. I probably
met you at the wrong time, or in the wrong circumstances, but I
don’t think you were ever the wrong man.”
She reached up and cupped his
cheek, his stubble attractively rough beneath her fingertips. He
held her hand there and turned his head to kiss her pulse, his lips
warm against her wrist, and she felt she was absorbing him into her
veins. After so many years of feeling numb, and of being separated
from the world, Erika drank in every sensation. Her whole being
opened up to the pure physical pleasure of human contact that had
been denied her in the solitary confinement imposed by Marty and
her fame.
“I should go,” Aiden said, his
voice barely audible above the noise in the restaurant.
“Must you?”
“It’s late.” His reluctance was
unmistakable however and he hesitated. “I’ll call a cab.”
For a moment, Erika’s instincts
rebelled and she almost asked him to stay the night but her natural
sense of caution held her back. It would be all too easy to forget
herself around Aiden and to involve herself too quickly with him
again. Seducing him had been a mistake – she saw that now – but it
had also been an instinctive reaction to an intense physical need,
and her first taste of freedom in five years had made her reckless.
Now, with time and space to think, she needed to pull back and take
things slowly while she still had the chance.
Once upon a time, Aiden’s
infidelity had destroyed Erika’s soul and she was in no rush to
revisit such a dark, desolate and lonely place.
She stood up. “Goodnight, then,”
she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll walk you to your
room.”
“Really, there’s no need.”
“There’s every need. I want to
know you’re safe before I leave.”