‘Chicken, red pepper, baby sweetcorn, onion, mushroom in a white sauce with tagliatelle,’ he told her.
‘You can cook,’ Autumn said. She internally cursed herself for stating the obvious. How stupid must he think she is.
‘I can cook this. Don’t be expecting cordon blue every night.’
‘Cordon bleu,’ she corrected.
‘Yeah, that, too. So, are you going to eat it?’
‘Of course.’
‘All of it?’
‘Well, I don’t know. I mean, I couldn’t promise that. I don’t have a very big appetite and…’ She drifted off.
He said nothing. He picked up the glass of wine he had offered her and drank it all down in one gulp. Autumn swallowed and tried not to react. She had come to the conclusion that he thrived on her reaction to things.
‘Nice wine, that. I’ll have to congratulate that Teo guy on his choice,’ Nathan said.
‘I’ll eat it. I’ll eat it all,’ Autumn stated in a rush. She didn’t just need a glass of wine right now; she craved it like a junkie.
Nathan moved to the fridge, opened it up, and retrieved the bottle. He poured some into another glass and held it out. She hesitated, gauging whether she should try and reach for it again or not.
‘Take it,’ he urged.
She took the glass, her fingers nudging his as she took her grip.
‘Sorry,’ she apologized as her cheeks colored up.
‘You want to lay the table?’ he suggested then turned his attention back to the food.
‘Okay.’ She looked for the table then the drawers she thought housed what she would need.
‘So, tell me about your career. How does a girl from Essex become one of the most well-known singers in the world?’ he inquired.
‘I’m not from Essex. I’m from London,’ she stated, easing the drawer open and taking out two seagrass mats.
‘You were brought up in Chigwell. Chigwell’s in Essex.’
Autumn sniffed at his attention to detail. ‘My bio says London.’ A detail that didn’t really matter.
‘Your bio. Yeah, I don’t go much on “bios”. I like the facts. So, Chigwell to Chelsea and all those bestselling records. How did it happen?’
‘Why do you want to know?’ Autumn queried.
‘For fuck’s sake, Autumn. It’s called conversation. You know, two people in a room, talking with each other. Shit, you’re hard work,’ Nathan said, opening the fridge for more wine.
‘I don’t know how it happened. I love to sing, that’s all,’ she responded tentatively.
‘Lots of people like to sing. Half of those idiots on The X Factor think they can sing. You don’t get made into a star overnight unless you’re pretty special,’ he said.
She looked over at him as she put cutlery down beside the tablemats. It sounded like he was being sincere, but, any second now, he could turn it all around and be making fun of her again. She just didn’t know how to take him.
‘I played about, wrote songs when I was a kid, but nothing came of it. Probably because, despite her now using the information to thrill her friends, back then, my mother hated the fact I wanted to be in the music industry. She tried to discourage me at every opportunity. But then, when I was a teenager, I sang in a vocal group in Chigwell. One day, Eric Foster came to rehearsals. You know who Eric Foster is, right?’
‘No idea.’
‘Well, he’s the biggest music mogul in the UK. He formed Bad Nation Boys and Visual. He was looking for girls to form a new girl band to rival Girls Aloud. Mother didn’t want me to audition. In fact, she refused to drive me to rehearsals that day, so I snuck out and walked two miles.’
She paused and took a breath.
‘I love to sing, but I never really wanted to sing in a group. There’s less room for personal expression in the songs, and that’s the bit I love. You know, taking something and making it your own. I only joined the group in Chigwell to see if I could sing with other people, but truthfully, I only enjoyed the solo sections.’
She stopped, surprised she was telling him all this. He was still looking at her though, paying attention to her words.
‘Anyway, Eric Foster only gave one girl his business card that day, and that was me. The girl band never materialized. He put all his time and effort into creating me, and I guess we never looked back,’ Autumn concluded.
Nathan nodded his head and took a drink of his wine.
‘Plus, I was absolutely crap at everything at school. So, making music was the only way I was going to get out of Chigwell,’ she added with half a smile.
‘What about your mother?’
‘She can’t hold a note, not even at karaoke.’
‘No, I meant Chigwell. She’s self-made with her career, too. Owns a house in Mayfair, another in Spain. Wouldn’t she have helped with your career if the singing hadn’t paid off?’
‘You’ve met my mother. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself. Do you think I want to be in financial or emotional debt to someone like that?’ Autumn responded.
She threw down the last fork and spoon and walked back over to the stove.
Eleven
He’d watched her push the meal around her plate over the last twenty minutes or so, and he knew she was counting every mouthful. He didn’t understand it. How did someone get that way? Was it a nervous habit she had picked up because of all the scrutiny she had to endure in her work, or was this constant anxiety borne out of her fucked up relationship with her parents? Or was it a result of her relationship with that dipshit of a boyfriend? Juan—the bald-headed, sunglasses-wearing rapper who called himself Rockweiler. He’d seen how that bloke operated. Juan talked out of his arse and wouldn’t know reality if it came up and shot him in the head. Now, that idea was tempting.
*
Autumn took a large mouthful of wine and put a strand of tagliatelle into her mouth. Nathan had finished his meal ages ago but
