Baby Be Mine (41 page)

Christian.

I dial his number. And for the first time since he left me, he answers.

‘Christian,’ I whisper.

Silence.

‘Christian?’

‘What?’ he asks quietly.

‘You’ve seen the news?’

‘Bit hard to miss.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

He snorts. ‘Sorry for what, exactly? Because the list is growing longer, Meg. I’m finding it hard to keep tabs on it.’

He sounds so bitter and twisted. So unlike the man I once loved. Still love. ‘My family send you their regards,’ he says nastily and I feel even more wretched than I already did.

I swallow. ‘What did Vanessa and Anton have?’

‘A boy,’ he replies; then adds, his voice dripping with sarcasm: ‘At last our family has a little boy we can call our own.’

‘Please . . .’ I beg and then I’m on a roll. ‘I tried calling you before. I’ve tried you time and time again. I wanted to tell you we were coming here. He wanted to get to know Barney – it’s not like they’ve made it out to be in the papers . . . That party on Saturday night, that was Dana’s doing. I was sick about it. We took Barney to a hotel on Sunday. I’ve told Johnny we’re leaving. We can’t stay here with him if he’s going to put Barney at risk like this.’

He says nothing and, for a moment, I wonder if he’s even there at all.

‘Christian?’ I ask.

‘I’m here.’

Has his tone softened? I hear him swallow.

‘Do you know what?’ His volume is low.

‘What?’ I ask hopefully.

‘It would be easier if you were dead.’

He hangs up on me.

I lie on the bed and sob my heart out for what feels like a long time. I have no idea that Johnny has entered the room until he’s standing right over me.

‘What the hell are you doing, walking in like that? Don’t you knock?’

‘I don’t have to knock in my own house,’ he says nonchalantly.

‘I hate you!’ I hurl the phone at him. Call it an ironic ode to Christian, who did the same thing to me not that long ago.

‘Whoa! Calm down.’

‘Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down! I just spoke to Christian.’

He tenses.

‘It’s the first time I’ve managed to speak to him since . . .’ My voice trails off. ‘He hates me,’ I say painfully.

‘Even more than you hate me?’ he asks drily.

‘I don’t hate you,’ I sniff.

‘I know. And Christian doesn’t hate you, either,’ he says firmly. ‘No one could hate you, Meg.’

‘Christian does,’ I say fervently. ‘He definitely does.’

‘He doesn’t!’

‘We’re not going to have an argument about this as well, are we? We’re going,’ I tell him determinedly. He puts his hand up to stop me speaking, but I continue, ‘This isn’t going to work.’

‘Stop,’ he says. ‘Don’t say that. I know Saturday night was fucked up—’

‘And Sunday morning . . .’

‘And Sunday morning,’ he concedes. Finding him in the bath is a memory that won’t quickly leave me. ‘But it won’t happen again.’

‘How can you say that?’ I stand up. ‘How can you ever say that to me, ever again? I’ve been through this already with you, Johnny! How many more times are you going to—’

‘I’ll get help,’ he interrupts.

‘You
got
help! Then you met Dana! Fat lot of good that did both of you!’

‘You can’t blame her.’

‘I don’t,’ I tell him calmly. ‘I blame you.’

I meet his eyes for a long moment before looking away again.

‘Stay another week,’ he begs quietly.

‘No.’

‘Just one more week.’ His words pick up speed. ‘If you still want to leave, I’ll arrange it for you. You can have the jet – go anywhere you want to go.’ He takes my hand and presses it. ‘But you can’t go back to a normal life now,’ he says gently. ‘You’ll need security, protection . . . Barney is a kidnap threat.’

Fear grips me once more.

‘I’ll make sure you and Barney are set up with a house – a safe house,’ he adds. ‘If you still want to leave after a week . . .’

I stare up at him, and for the first time in what seems like a very long time, I feel like I see him again. He’s blurry when he’s with her.

‘Please, give me another chance to make it right for you here,’ he adds.

‘What about Dana?’ I ask flatly.

‘She’s leaving.’

‘For good?’ My eyes widen and my heart quickens.

‘No,’ he says edgily, and my senses return to dull. ‘Just for now. But she’ll be out of your way.’

‘Okay,’ I nod. ‘I’ll give it a week. But only so we have time to sort out security and everything else. We’ll still be leaving at the end of it.’

‘If that’s how you feel, so be it,’ he says bluntly, releasing my hand and taking a step backwards. He stares at me with his piercing green eyes and I feel uneasy. ‘As long as we’ve got a week.’

  Chapter 42  

Eddie is the last person to leave that night and I breathe a sigh of relief as the house at last falls silent.

‘I’ll join you in that,’ Bess says, exhaling loudly. I suddenly remember something.

‘Oh, God! Bess, I forgot about you and Eddie!’

‘It’s alright,’ she brushes me off. ‘Small fry compared to what’s going on now.’

‘No, no, no, it isn’t.’ I sit up with urgency. ‘Have you spoken to him? Did he say anything to you?’

She laughs it off. ‘Meg, seriously, it’s fine. We don’t need to dissect the whole thing. It really is fine. We had a bit of a laugh about it in the kitchen earlier.’

‘Did you?’ I ask with relief. ‘What did he say?’

‘Neither of us said anything,’ she replies. ‘We just gave each other a bit of a look and then laughed. It’s done. Over. What about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘What happened with Johnny earlier?’

I fill her in on the details. ‘Aah, that’s good.’ She sighs, putting her feet up on the coffee table. ‘I wasn’t ready to swap LA for miserable old London just yet.’ I nudge her roughly on her arm and she laughs. ‘You know I’m joking. I’ll go whenever you want me to.’

‘I want you to stay,’ I say.

‘Really?’

‘As long as I’m staying.’

‘We’ll be out of here in a week, then,’ she says.

I nod. ‘That’s the plan.’

My phone beeps.

‘Message from Joseph,’ I tell Bess.

‘About time! What’s he saying?’

‘He’s asking me if I’m okay.’

‘Better call him back. I’ll look after Barney,’ she tells me, ‘you know, seeing as I’m your live-in nanny, and all.’

We smirk at each other and I take my phone upstairs to my bedroom.

‘Hey,’ he says upon answering.

‘Howdy, stranger,’ I reply jovially.

Pause. ‘Sorry I didn’t call you yesterday.’

‘Don’t worry about it, we were a bit busy doing drugs, having threesomes and drinking each other under the table.’

He chuckles. At least he has the same sense of humour.

‘You’ve read the papers, I presume?’

‘Afraid so.’

I sigh. ‘It was going to happen, but I didn’t think they’d make it out to be quite so tawdry.’

‘That’s the tabloids for you.’

‘You’ll have to deal with it, too, when you’re a huge Hollywood A-lister.’

He laughs. ‘I doubt that very much.’

I don’t.

‘So,’ he says. ‘I guess you won’t be free for dinner anytime soon?’

‘Afraid not. Can I call you when it all blows over?’

‘Of course you can.’

I know he’s smiling, and as I hang up I smile, too, but mine is tinged with sadness. If I’m honest with myself, I may never see Joseph again – face to face, at least. Not if we’re leaving. But I’ve got enough on my mind without dwelling on that as well. I’ll try not to think about it.

I have to wait a few more hours, with the time difference, before I can tackle my European calls, and then it’s a question of who first: Mum and Dad or Susan? Urgh. I decide to get my sister out of the way.

‘About bloody time!’ she squawks before I even have a chance to say hello. ‘How do you think I felt reading about THAT in the papers?’

I stifle any retort. She’s right: she deserved to know the truth from me. ‘Not great, I imagine. I’m sorry, Susan.’

‘Yeah, well, thankfully Mum had already told me.’

‘What?’

‘What did you expect? She said she’d asked you time and time again to fill me in – I’m your sister, Meg – and you didn’t.’

True again. I can hardly blame my mum for doing what I should have done myself.

‘Alright,’ I sigh. ‘I’m glad you know the truth. I’d better go and call Mum and Dad.’

‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ she erupts. ‘I want to know everything. All of the details. How did you end up with
Johnny Jefferson’s
son?’

An image comes to me of her sitting on the edge of her seat, pressing the phone eagerly to her ear. She’s such a gossip-monger. But I don’t have it in me to even care anymore so I fill her in, skimming over anything I don’t want to go into. At the end of it, she’s satiated. I hang up with barely enough energy to speak, let alone the strength to talk to my parents, but I know I have no choice. I keep our conversation as short and sweet as they’ll allow, but I reassure them that I don’t condone Johnny or Dana’s behaviour and that I’m going back to England as soon as we can sort everything out. They accept, with worry, that our lives are different now.

‘Why don’t you come to France?’ Dad presses.

‘I don’t know, Dad,’ I reply. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’

We could go back to France – but staying with my parents? No. It’s long, long overdue, but I think it’s time I did this on my own.

  Chapter 43  

True to Johnny’s promise, Dana doesn’t return to the house over the next few days. Bess and I spend our time watching movies, or, if we’re feeling brave, out by the pool, trying to ignore the sound of helicopters persistently buzzing like flies overhead. Sometimes Johnny joins us, and sometimes he takes Barney off to spend some time with him alone.

I’ve heard Lena and Eddie muttering to each other about the state of things outside the gates. It’s hard for all the staff to get in or out with the hordes of paparazzi out there.

The degrading stories about me being Johnny’s ‘second wife’ have kept coming throughout the week. I’ve stopped reading the papers now, and I’ve asked my parents to do the same. I know there’s no use in asking Susan to comply – she’s addicted to the tabloids.