How to explain it to Gemma? Impossible when she wasn’t entirely sure what it was herself. It had all seemed so simple…
‘This “thing”?’ Gemma prompted, making quote marks that suggested scepticism, if not downright sarcasm.
No, it was simple.
‘It’s not serious. Really,’ she stressed when her PA, who knew her far too well to be easily fooled, did not look convinced. ‘It’s just unfinished business, that’s all. Something that’s been simmering away since we were adolescents. It should have happened a long time ago. Would have if we’d known the truth, that I was adopted. That there was no impediment to a relationship.’
‘So all that snapping and snarling at one another was no more than repressed lust and now, what, you’re just getting it-getting him-out of your system?’
‘You see? Easy,’ she said, with more conviction than she actually felt. It had been so heart-stoppingly special to look up, see him there. ‘It’s no more than a bit of fun,’ she insisted.
Gemma was looking at her a little oddly and even as she said the words she knew, deep down, that it had gone way beyond that.
But it was a temporary madness. It had to be. She’d given herself until the fourteenth. On that day all debts would be paid and by then Max Valentine would be out of her system, as Gemma had so neatly put it.
‘So why be coy?’ her PA persisted. ‘It’s not as if either of you are involved with anyone else. Max is apparently wedded to his job and it’s been nearly three years since you split up with-’
Louise stopped her with an impatient gesture. She didn’t want to think about James, let alone talk about him.
‘Dad’s had enough shocks lately, don’t you think? You know the history.’
She’d spilled it all to Gemma, needing someone completely neutral to talk to after her father had blurted out that she was adopted. It was Gemma who’d held the tissues, poured the brandy, found out how to trace her real mother.
‘I can see that your dad wouldn’t be exactly thrilled by the idea of you and Max as an item,’ Gemma admitted, ‘but neither of you are kids…’
‘No. We’re not. I told you, it’s no more than a…’ Louise made a vague gesture, unable to say the words again.
‘A bit of fun,’ Gemma said, obligingly filling in the blanks for her.
‘So,’ she said. ‘You must see why we’re not broadcasting it.’
‘And Max feels that way too?’
Her PA was nothing if not persistent. ‘You were the one who pointed out his commitment problem.’
‘So I did.’ Then, brightly, ‘And actually I do understand, boss. If I was having “a bit of fun” with a man who put an urgent appointment with his accountant ahead of some hot lunchtime sex, I wouldn’t want anyone to know, either.’
‘Gemma!’
‘No, honestly, your secret is safe with me,’ she said, grinning wickedly, ‘although next time you might try-’
‘Enough!’
‘Only trying to help,’ she said, turning to go. Then, turning back, ‘Just do yourself a favour, Lou, and remember that while Max Valentine is undoubtedly having fun-’ She held up her hands ‘-okay, okay, you’re both having fun,’ she went on quickly before Louise could interrupt. ‘But when it’s all over, when he’s got you out of his system, he’ll be able to walk away without a backward glance.’
Once she would have believed that, before he’d opened up to her about his mother, his childhood. Not just that painfully cryptic moment on the plane but in the quiet moments of intimacy he’d somehow been able to respond to her queries about how things had gone with a frankness that had shown her a new side of his character. She knew that the charming, untouchable, totally in control Max Valentine had a vulnerability that she suspected no one else had ever seen.
But she was vulnerable, too, hiding inside her own shell, and with an archness she was far from feeling she said, ‘Are you suggesting that I won’t?’
‘All I’m saying, Louise, is that it’s taken you three years to get over James Cadogan. I very much doubt that you’re a woman who can do detached “fun”.’
‘Gem-’
‘It’s okay, lecture over,’ Gemma said, backing off. ‘I’m going to get a sandwich. Can I bring anything for you?’
‘Please,’ she said, relieved to be moving into safer territory. ‘Salmon,’ she said. ‘And a blueberry yoghurt.’
‘Anything else?’
A chance to do things again, perhaps. Max had been casual enough about her need for secrecy, but he didn’t like it. It wasn’t as if they were doing anything wrong, anything they need be ashamed of. They were together and, no matter how temporary their affair was intended to be, in some deep, hidden recess of her soul, she knew she wanted the world to know, to see what they had.
‘Lou?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ Nothing anyone could give her.
‘I’ve got confirmation of an article in a heavyweight international financial journal today, Max. The package I put together of the Qu’Arim restaurant sold it to them.’
‘Mmm?’
He was engrossed in a booking list and only gave Louise half his attention.
She reached over and removed the sheet of paper he was working on and when he looked up, she kissed him. Only when he was kissing her back did she pull away. ‘It’s half past six, Max. My time.’
He leaned back, squeezed the space between his eyes. Smiled at her. ‘You look good enough to eat.’
‘That is not out of the question. First, business.’
‘A financial journal?’ he said, just to demonstrate that he’d been listening. ‘Why would they be interested in us?’’
‘The first new Bella Lucia in twenty-five years may only be of passing interest to the kind of people who make their global deals over lunch at the Mayfair restaurant,’ she began. ‘Something to note for the next time they’re in Qu’Arim-’
‘Only of passing interest?’
Question the interest quotient of his precious restaurants and suddenly she had his attention.
‘So what’s the big deal?’ he asked.
‘The big deal is not a single restaurant, but that it’s the first in a new era of expansion. This magazine is read by people who know us, trust us, show it by coming here to make their deals in the discreet atmosphere of the Mayfair restaurant. They can smooth our path overseas, Max. They’ll come to us with partnership proposals, finance.’ Then, when he didn’t immediately congratulate her for being brilliant, ‘Tell me if you think I’m stepping on your toes again, Max.’ Then, more concerned at how tired he looked than that he wasn’t interested in what she had to say, ‘If you’re really too busy to spare me half an hour this evening?’
‘No, no…’He dragged his fingers through hair that already bore the evidence of previous abuse. ‘Really. Tell me about it.’
‘I’ll make an appointment for you to meet with their features writer,’ she continued. ‘In the meantime they want pictures, not just of you but of Dad and your father, too. I’ve organised that for tomorrow. Here. The Mayfair restaurant will be familiar-’
‘For goodness sake, Lou, we’ve only just managed to shoehorn the pair of them out to pasture. Give them an inch-’
‘Relax. You’ll be front and centre, but the features writer will want some background on William Valentine, personal memories. How he built his empire from scratch after the war, when there was still rationing.’ She smiled. ‘They like men who can overcome apparently insurmountable obstacles to make things happen. And three generations of Valentines make us look solid.’
‘We are solid.’
‘I know, but trust me on this, Max. It’ll look good.’
‘Yes, of course it will. Sorry.’ Then, ‘You’ve spoken to your father?’
