‘I have to push!’ roared Imogen. She was kneeling on the floor in her green hospital gown, where she seemed to be most comfortable, resting her upper body against a chair.
The midwife checked her. ‘Yes, you’re fully dilated. It’s time. Now, with each contraction, you must push down as hard as you can!’
Imogen turned to Allegra. Her face was grey and sweaty, her eyes exhausted. ‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ she whispered.
Allegra knelt beside her. ‘Of course you can! The midwife says this is the last stage. You’re nearly there! You’re going to push out the baby.’
‘The baby?’ Imogen licked her dry lips and her eyes flickered with interest, as though she’d forgotten about the baby altogether in the last few hours. Another contraction gripped her. She put out her hand to Allegra, who took it between both of hers.
‘Push, Imogen!’ shouted the midwife. ‘Use the contraction … push down into it!’
‘You’re doing brilliantly, you’re amazing! You can do it,’ urged Allegra, holding her hand tightly. Imogen squeezed back forcefully, her eyes screwed shut and her teeth gritted as she pushed down hard, growling with the effort.
‘I can see the baby’s head!’ announced the midwife. ‘This
little
one is going to be born very soon. Just a few more pushes, Imogen.’
This promise seemed to galvanise her and, when the next contraction came, she pushed down with all her might.
‘Nearly there!’ cried the midwife.
‘Well done, Midge, you’re nearly done,’ Allegra whispered, clutching her hand.
With the next push, the midwife cried, ‘The head is out! Keep pushing, Imogen. On the next push, the shoulders will turn and the baby will be free. Come on, you’re almost finished!’
With a great cry, Imogen squeezed Allegra’s hand, gave one final push, and the next moment the midwife was holding a tiny slippery body in her hands, bluish-grey and red, the little face scrunched into an extraordinary frown.
‘You’ve done it!’ cried Allegra, overcome. ‘The baby’s here.’
Imogen turned round and the midwife held the baby close to her. ‘It’s a boy,’ Imogen said in a weak, wondering voice. ‘A little boy. Hello, my darling. Is he all right?’
‘He looks completely fine,’ the midwife replied with a smile.
A few moments later, the midwife had dealt with the cord, got Imogen on to her bed and put the baby on her chest. ‘We’ll check him in a moment and then you can start to feed. And I’m going to give you an injection to release the placenta, if that’s all right with you. Well done, young lady.’
‘You did it,’ Allegra said, awed by what she’d just witnessed. ‘He’s beautiful, Midge! Your son.’
‘Your nephew,’ Imogen said with a smile, and they looked at each other with tears in their eyes.
Chapter 50
‘ADAM?’
‘Hi.’ His voice was low and sweet. ‘I’m so glad you called me. I was just about to ring you.’
‘You’ll never guess what’s happened since I left you.’
‘What?’
‘I’m an aunt! It happened this afternoon.’
‘Oh, God, that’s fantastic! Is everything OK? Is Imogen all right?’
‘She’s fine. She’s coming home tomorrow morning after she’s had a chance to recover but it was all very straightforward. He’s a little boy – Alexander after his father. We’ll call him Alex, I think. There couldn’t be another Xander.’
‘That’s wonderful. I’m so happy for you.’ There was a pause. ‘So – will I see you tonight?’
‘Well, I’m kind of tired. It’s not every day I help out at a birth.’
‘But the house is empty, right? After tomorrow, there’ll be Imogen and the baby there. Let me come and see you. I can’t think about anything else except how desperate I am to touch you again.’
Her stomach filled with delightful butterfly sensations. ‘Me too. OK, come round. Come and see me.’
When Adam arrived an hour later, she’d changed into a Missoni stretch mini-dress in zigzag stripes.
Nothing too
formal
. But I want to look my best
… She couldn’t help the delicious sense of excitement that was giving an extra sparkle to her eyes and a flush to her cheeks.
‘You look gorgeous,’ he said appreciatively as he kissed her. Her pulse raced at the sight of him, lean and handsome in his dark suit and open-necked shirt.
‘Thank you. I’ve got us some supper. Are you hungry? Because I’m starving!’
Allegra led the way to the kitchen. She’d had the house redesigned so that she had a large eat-in kitchen in minimalist white, with a long table by the glass extension where a meal had been laid out.
‘You cooked this?’ he said admiringly, looking at the food beautifully arranged on white crockery.
‘Um, no.’ Allegra laughed. ‘Cooking is a skill I have yet to acquire. I had the chef at Colette’s send it round. It seemed like a day to celebrate and be a little indulgent.’
‘And I’ve brought champagne.’ Adam put a bottle of chilled Tattinger on the table. ‘To wet the baby’s head.’
It doesn’t feel as though anything has changed
, Allegra thought with relief. She’d worried they would be awkward with each other, unable to face each other as freely as before now that their relationship had moved on to something different, but it didn’t feel like that at all. Adam still seemed to be what he’d been before: her best friend. Any change in that was for the good: a delightful undercurrent of anticipation of what would happen after they’d eaten.
‘So Imogen is going to live here with the baby for the foreseeable future?’ he asked, as they sat down to their food. The chef had sent Allegra’s favourite black cod glazed in honey and ginger with a miso and soy dressing and crushed peas. ‘This is delicious, by the way.’
Allegra nodded. ‘She’s on maternity leave but she didn’t want to go back to Scotland and live with her parents, so I
decided
that she would move in with me. This house is plenty big enough for both of us and we’ve got a gorgeous little nursery all ready upstairs.’
‘It sounds like a wonderful arrangement.’
‘We’ve always been best friends. Now we’re family as well. Little Alex is my nephew. He’s all we’ve got left of Xander. He’s the most precious thing in the world to both of us.’
After they’d finished their dinner, they went through to the drawing room where a Mozart piano concerto played on the sound system and a fire glowed in the grate of the marble fireplace. Instead of the raging passion of the night before, they moved almost unbearably slowly, kissing for minutes on end before undressing each other. They lay down together in front of the fire. Allegra kissed Adam’s chest, moving down his body until she took his cock in her mouth, licking and sucking it as she caressed his balls, until he could bear it no more. Then she slid upwards and lowered herself back down on the stiff rod of his penis, sighing with pleasure as he pushed inside her. She rode him like that for a long time, sometimes slowing down and nipping his cock with her inner muscles, sometimes sliding right to his tip and then engulfing him again with exquisite patience. Then she let him grasp her hips and thrust hard into her, when he couldn’t restrain himself any longer.
No voice!
she thought joyfully.
I’m free, for the first time in my life. It’s … it’s just beautiful!
Adam put an arm round her waist, rolled her over and began to push hard inside her. ‘Oh, fuck,’ he gasped, ‘I can’t take this. You’re so beautiful, your pussy is the most incredible thing in the world, I can’t stop myself …’
She surrendered to the pressure of his body on her mound, opening up to him, urging him forward with the
movement
of her hips. When he gasped and reared back as his orgasm gripped him, she felt a great surge of excitement and release, as though she’d just been whisked on to an amazing helter-skelter, and, to her astonishment, a fierce climax possessed her: her limbs stiffened and her head thrashed as she cried out, and she and Adam came together in a rush of pleasure.
Afterwards she lay in his arms, kissing his shoulder and chest as he stroked her hair.
‘That’s never happened to me before,’ she said at last, savouring the warmth of their naked bodies pressed together.
‘It’s not exactly an everyday occurrence for me either,’ he said with a laugh, and looked into her eyes. ‘We’ve got something special here, Allegra. You’re the most amazing thing there’s ever been in my life.’
‘I feel it too,’ she said softly, put her cheek against his chest and sighed contentedly.
Imogen came home the next day, still a little fragile and tired but happy. In his new car seat was baby Alex, now pink and sleeping peacefully, wrapped in a baby-blue cashmere blanket that was a present from his aunt Allegra.
They cooed over him together, settling him into his nursery although he’d be sleeping in a Moses basket next to Imogen’s bed for the time being. Bouquets, presents and cards were already arriving, and Imogen’s parents were on their way down to stay for a few days until she had settled, grown used to her baby and learnt to feed him.
‘It’s not as easy as I thought,’ she said, sitting in the large and very comfortable feeding chair, a present from the Earl and Countess of Crachmore. She stroked the baby’s soft downy head; a light blond fuzz covered the tiny skull. ‘But I expect we’ll both get used to it, won’t we, little man?’
‘You’ll make a brilliant mother,’ Allegra said, watching as little Alex’s jaws moved rhythmically with his sucking. ‘You’re a natural.’
She felt a rush of pure joy at the sight. For the first time since Xander’s death, Allegra knew what it was like to feel happy. She loved the baby with a fierceness that was rivalled only by Imogen’s adoration of her son. She was also falling in love with Adam, and her body seemed to glow with the rapture of the sexual pleasure they were sharing. Oscar’s was buzzing with new members and more people were clamouring to join: features on the most glamorous club in London were in every paper and magazine, and Allegra herself had been profiled in
Vogue
and asked if she would do a
Tatler
cover. She’d been listed as one of the most influential women in London and there was talk of her being nominated for the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year Award. Colette’s was still running as smoothly as ever. It felt as though the dark days were behind them now. At last, she could begin to enjoy some happiness.
Chapter 51
Colette’s
November 2009
THIS MIGHT BE
the best Martini I ever tasted
, Mitch thought as he sat at the bar in Colette’s. The rotund barman in the dove-grey jacket had mixed it for him in a few seconds and yet it was sublime.
It’s got to be up there, anyway
.
He looked around discreetly at the comfortable room behind him; the line of racing prints on the wall above the well-polished bar. He’d come here twice over the last year, visiting under his pseudonym, wearing unremarkable suits and dark glasses and keeping a low profile. It had taken a few pulled strings and favours called in, but he had managed to get a membership arranged, that meant he could scout out this, the glittering prize of London’s nightclubs, and he’d loved it immediately and passionately. He wanted it to be his, he hungered for it. He would have it, he’d promised himself that. And he would do anything it took to get it.
I have a few tricks up my sleeve after all
, he thought wryly.
I just hope no one recognises me
.
A beautiful girl came striding towards him, elegant in a black cocktail dress and towering heels. Her golden hair fell about her face in a long bob and she had striking dark blue eyes and red-glossed lips.
A real looker
, Mitch thought.
You
can
see the breeding, I guess. I’ve not seen cheekbones like those for a while
.
‘Mr Mitchell?’ Her voice was cool, in that clipped, drawling and very sexy British upper-class accent. ‘I’m Allegra. How do you do?’
‘Lady Allegra.’ He smiled at her, took her outstretched hand and bowed over it. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ When he looked up again, she was smiling with a touch of amusement at his old-fashioned courtesy.
‘Plain Allegra is fine, thanks.’ She noted his glass. ‘You have a drink, I see. Shall we sit here or would you like to go straight through for dinner?’
‘Let’s go through. And you can call me Ted, by the way.’
She inclined her head in a half nod, and then led him to the dining room. There was a mildly anxious moment as the maître d’ scrutinised him as they passed, and Mitch thought he caught the faintest flicker of a frown, but nothing was said.
When they’d settled at one of the tables, Allegra said, ‘You’re not at all what I expected.’
‘Oh?’ He gave her his most charming smile.
She raised an eyebrow at him. ‘I thought you’d be older. A man with your business portfolio.’
‘I guess I’m a bit of a prodigy,’ he drawled in his best corn-fed American Boy accent. ‘Let’s get our order out of the way, Allegra, and then we can talk.’
When the waiter had taken it, Mitch glanced around the room, admiring the cunning use of space which maximised the number of tables and the opulence of the decor which was luxurious without being gaudy or cluttered. ‘This is everything I’d hoped, I must say. The atmosphere here is something special. Why should that be?’
‘It’s thanks to my Uncle David,’ Allegra said with a smile that showed her perfect teeth and heightened her beauty.
‘His
personality and taste are stamped everywhere. That’s why this nightclub has something nowhere else can match. They might attempt to define luxury but something will always let them down – there’ll always be something mediocre about the spirit of the place. Here, you can never be let down.’
Mitch nodded. She had put her finger on it. It sounded easy and yet he knew from experience how difficult it was to achieve and easy to lose. ‘I see that.’
‘Your wine, sir.’ The waiter produced the bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild 1996 that Mitch had ordered.
‘Your list here is superb,’ he said in heartfelt appreciation when the wine had been tasted, approved and poured out. ‘Some of the best wines in the world are on that list.’