Always and Forever (29 page)

Colin’s mind might have been on more primal things, but he got the hint. ‘Sorry, wel , just …’ he mumbled, gaze suddenly up but too embarrassed to look her in the eye.

Mel caught Adrian’s eye across the table and pushed back her chair with vigour. ‘Astrid, Mike, wonderful party,’ she said brightly. ‘The food was fantastic, but it’s eleven and we’ve got to go. Babysitters, you know!’

‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Adrian, who could read Mel’s face like a book ‘Thanks. The beef was lovely.’

After a flurry of thank yous, they were out on the street again and Mel recounted the whole sorry tale.

‘I don’t know why I didn’t hit him,’ she raged as they walked home.

‘You should have,’ agreed Adrian, holding her hand. ‘He was so rude. As soon as he heard that I stayed at home with the girls, badda-bing! I was a boring housewife and he had nothing to say to me.’

‘Probably has a smal wil y,’ Adrian added.

‘Don’t try and distract me! He was just plain rude and he deserved to be humiliated in front of the whole party. And I don’t know why I didn’t do it!’ Mel was walking at high speed, as she did when she was angry, despite her heels.

‘And if I’d lied and said I stil worked at Lorimar, he’d have been flirting with me al night. I know the type. Turned on by women in business.’

‘I wouldn’t have liked it if he’d flirted with you al night,’

Adrian pointed out. ‘Not that I’m the jealous type, but I prefer men not to flirt with you under my nose. It goes back to the cavemen, I think,’ he said thoughtful y. ‘Man no like other man messing with his woman sort of thing. I’d have had to bash him over the head with my club or chal enge him to a duel out on the plain with the dinosaurs ready to charge.’

‘Dinosaurs and men were not around at the same time,’

Mel interrupted.

‘Real y?’ said Adrian, faking surprise.

She put an arm round his waist. ‘You know wel there weren’t but it was the right answer. At times like this, I know why I married you.’

‘Thank you for that vote of confidence, Mrs Redmond. And I love you too.’

The problem with big weddings, Cleo decided as she stood, stil smiling, behind the vast ormolu reception desk of McArthur’s Hotel in Dublin’s wealthy embassy belt at nearly two o’clock in the morning, was that there was always a row. Always. Even in a top-class hotel where bottles of Chateau Petrus flew out of the cel ar and where the room rate was 300 euro for a bog standard double with no fril s. She supposed families al had the same things to argue about, no matter how grand or how modest the arrangements were.

‘When’s the fight starting?’ asked Jean-Paul, the doorman, one of the few people awake with Cleo. It often amazed Cleo how great big hotels were so empty at night - upstairs, the guests slept, while downstairs, a skeleton staff kept things going and the cleaning staff drifted through the sweaty bowels of the hotel like ghosts.

‘Fists wil fly any minute now,’ said Cleo brightly, as if she wasn’t half dead with exhaustion. ‘Luigi’s just phoned from the bar to say there’s a big argument going on between the bride’s father and the groom’s uncle, and he can’t manage on his own because Vincent is in the cel ar again. They want Napoleon Brandy, he says. One for everyone in the audience.’

At four in the afternoon, the stylish nuptials of the Smiths and the O’Haras had been perfect for the society magazines lots of gleaming happy faces, held-in stomachs, exquisite outfits in bright flower colours and gold Rolexes rattling on Riviera tanned wrists. Ten hours later, the hard core of partygoers stil at it in the bar were looking the worse for wear. Faces, stomachs and outfits were al somewhat creased, and although everybody kept looking at their Rolexes to check the time and show people how carelessly wealthy they were because they had one, nobody wanted to admit defeat and go to bed.

The bride’s parents had paid a fortune to have the wedding of the season in McArthur’s, and they were damned if they weren’t going to get their money’s worth. Throwing them out of the bar would be a bit difficult, especial y since the bar bil had yet to be settled.

‘Two-hundred-year-old brandy?’Jean-Paul snorted. ‘We could serve them homebrew at this point and they wouldn’t know the difference.’

Three wealthy Arab businessmen walked into the lobby, suave in Western suits, perfectly alert even at this hour of the morning. They’d breakfasted at noon, had a light lunch at four, fol owed by dinner at a private club at ten. Now they were going to wind down their evening with some cards and business in the bar. Jean-Paul, who knew which side his bread was buttered those guys were big tippers -

stepped out from behind his desk and urbanely steered the gentlemen in the direction of the Library Bar, an ante room to the main bar, where they wouldn’t be disturbed by the high jinks of the wedding party. Cleo was alone in the huge reception again, which she hated because it gave her time to think. In the month since she’d swept out of home with al her belongings, there had been too much time for thinking: wondering whether the sale of the hotel had been completed, where would her family go now, how were her parents, and didn’t any of the family miss her?

Trish’s mother was able to fil her in on most of the news.

Via the Interpol-style information service that was operating in Carrickwel , Trish’s mother had found out that the hotel was indeed sold, but that the Malins hadn’t moved out yet.

There was talk of Harry and Sheila buying a smal place in Brittany. Nobody volunteered if the Malins missed Cleo or not, and Cleo was too proud to ask.

She stil passionately believed she hadn’t done anything wrong: everyone else had. This fact she’d made plain to her mother a week after she left home when Sheila phoned to ask Cleo when she was coming to her senses.

‘This sil y row has gone on long enough, Cleo,’ her mother had said firmly. ‘You’re not a child any more. Get back here and apologise, so we can put it behind us.’

‘Me! Apologise!’ Cleo had been thril ed to see her home number flash up on her mobile phone screen, but she’d been sure her mother was going to apologise to her on behalf of the rest of the family. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, Mum,’ she said, feeling hot tears prickling at her eyes.

‘Everyone said awful things to me and I feel so left out, so hurt …’ Her father had hurt her most of al . He knew she idolised him. How come he hadn’t bothered to phone her?

Why didn’t he want to talk to her?

‘Oh, Cleo, for heaven’s sake …’

It was the impatience in her usual y gentle mother’s voice that did it: Cleo felt her temper snap again. ‘You’re my family and I love you al ,’ Cleo said fiercely, ‘but I am not a child any more and I won’t be treated like one. I deserved to be involved in the future of my home. Until somebody apologises to me for not involving me, I don’t see how I can come home.’ ‘Have it your own way,’ her mother had said wearily. ‘Bye.’ Cleo was sure she was right, that it was up to her dad, mum and the boys to come to her and say sorry.

Until that happened, she was a Malin in name only.

Her name hadn’t got her the sought-after temping job in the prestigious McArthur’s. The reference from the French chateau and her col ege results had. McArthur’s was the last word in hotel chic and prided itself on combining boutique hotel charm with grand hotel style, which meant that a club sandwich could be sold in the restaurant for the same price as a room in a cheap airport motel. The place ran like a fine Swiss watch and the privacy of the guests was assured in the style of Switzerland’s other great industry, banking. Which was why it was the hotel of choice for rock stars, movie stars and the fabulously wealthy. ‘Isn’t it better to be working in Dublin than in the sticks?’ Trish kept saying, knowing how upset Cleo stil was and trying to console her. ‘Think of the men you’l meet, film stars, bands, tel y people. It’l be amazing.’

‘You don’t meet the great and the good at two o’clock in the morning,’ Cleo pointed out. ‘Wel , you might, but if they’re rol ing up then, they’re not looking at me: they’re longing for their bed.’

‘Temping is a step to a ful -time job,’ Trish said encouragingly. ‘True,’ said Cleo, trying to sound enthusiastic. Temping meant night shifts again, and she’d decided that she just hated shift work. There was a brain-numbing monotony to it, watching the clock crawl round. At three in the morning, she always felt shattered and only a couple of cans of Diet Coke could pep her up. By seven, when she clocked off and could go home to sleep, she’d inevitably passed the exhaustion stage and knew that she’d toss and turn for half the morning before managing a few fractured, nightmare-fil ed hours of sleep. She was staying at Trish’s place now, which was not the ideal spot for sleeping in the daytime, either. It was situated bang on the train line, and Cleo’s nightmares were often punctuated by the thunderous rol of the Belfast express hurtling past.

She didn’t mind not sleeping for its own sake, although it was hard setting off to work every night on a couple of hours’ sleep, but when she lay there awake, her head was as wired up as MTV with constant reruns of the row and how everyone

could have behaved. If only Dad had said this or done that, went the non-stop soundtrack.

‘Forget it. They’l forget it too and in a few years, you’l al wonder what the argument was about,’ advised Trish.

‘People let you down, Cleo. You’ve got to accept it. Move on.’ Except that Cleo wasn’t like Trish and didn’t think she could move on. Her family were important to her. Reaching out and exploring the world was possible when the Wil ow and al the Malins had been there in the background, her security blanket. Without them, the world was scarier.

Feeling that they’d al let her down was worse. No matter what Trish said, your family were supposed to be there for you. Men might let you down, but not your mum and dad.

Cleo just couldn’t get away from that thought.

Paige, an attractive ponytailed girl from Mississippi who was pul ing a split shift to cope with early morning checkouts, arrived at reception at five, yawning and carrying two takeaway lattes and a couple of early newspapers swiped from Jean Paul’s delivery.

‘No sugar for you, right?’

‘Thank you.’ Grateful y, Cleo took the coffee.

Paige, who looked box-fresh despite the early hour, sat down and flicked through her paper. ‘What’s happening?’

Cleo recal ed the night: ‘… so Luigi just managed to get the Smith O’Hara guests off to bed before blood was spil ed.

Oh, and Vincent is a happy bunny because he got tipped five hundred by the South American guys on the top floor,’

she finished. ‘Anyone bumped?’ asked Paige.

Al hotels overbooked. Traditional y, the reservations manager’s job involved a delicate and continual balancing act to make sure the whole hotel was fil ed every night. Due to the inevitable cancel ations, there were often spare rooms, hence overbooking to cover this. When 1004

guests turned up for 1000 rooms, someone got bumped.

Usual y the late night single male business travel er. ‘Yeah, a couple of late night arrivals.’ Cleo tapped her screen. ‘We sent them to the BeauRegard. Greg Junior was stil here and he was real y sweet and helped me out when this guy who’d just flown in from London began to get real y angry.’

Greg Jun., along with his father, Greg Sen., the two concierges, were the men who real y ran McArthur’s, according to those in the know. The hotel manager might not be aware of which important businessman had hookers in his room overnight or which wealthy lady had tried to wrap her dressing-gowned self round the astonished room service waiter who’d delivered her midnight feast of champagne and Beluga. But the Gregs knew. From their misleadingly smal desk to the left of the great revolving doors in the lobby, they had their fingers on the pulse of the entire hotel.

‘Greg Junior is cute, isn’t he?’ Paige remarked.

Cleo considered Greg, who was athletic and clean cut.

‘He’s nice but he’s not my type.’ Cleo’s type was tal , dark and with bad-boy tendencies. Strangely enough, disturbing memories of a tal , dark guy with close-cropped hair popped into her head at that moment.

Paige drank her coffee and yawned again. ‘Five more minutes and I’l start,’ she said, handing the first paper over to Cleo and picking up the second one. She flicked through it quickly. ‘Now he is my type,’ she said dreamily when she’d flicked to the boring business pages. ‘Tyler Roth.’

Paige twirled her blonde ponytail. ‘Gorgeous face and gorgeous body.’ ‘Gimme a look.’ Cleo leaned over to see for herself. Smiling out of the page, looking like he’d just been put second in line to the throne of Brunei, was the man who’d haunted her nightmares since that evening in Carrickwel . Mr Alpha Male, who’d picked her up from the pavement, insulted her and disappeared. ‘As I live and breathe …’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ Cleo stared for a second more. Tyler Roth had been photographed outside a building site for some enormous new hotel. His hair was cropped very close to his skul , giving

him a faintly dangerous air. Despite the beautiful suit, silk tie and veneer of sophistication, this man was a wolf at heart. ‘He’s a walking bank account,’ Paige said. ‘His father runs Roth Hotels and he’s taken over the new acquisitions.’ She ran a pink-tipped finger down the print.

‘Hot business exec, they cal him here. “Tough, uncompromising, ambitious and reportedly ruthless, he’s a regular chip off the old Roth block.” Says he’s looking for hotels or hotel sites over here.’ Tyler Roth of Roth Hotels.

How ironic, Cleo thought. And now she knew his name, she could find him because there was stil a piece of her mind with his face on it and he was going to get it, one way or another.

Paige closed the paper, tidied up and moved to her screen. ‘I’d work for him anytime. If you hooked a guy like him, you’d never have to work a day in your life again.’

Cleo felt a momentary sense of annoyance. Why would a clever, good-looking woman like Paige consider marrying a rich guy as a career option? Why didn’t she see that making her own fortune from her own career was far more satisfying? That’s what Cleo was going to do. If she built up her own empire, nobody could take it away from her.