Christmas at Claridge's (2 page)

It was still chucking it down, so she ran back into the sitting room and grabbed the tobacco unlined leather jacket off the hook on the back of the door. It had cost a bomb and she
couldn’t quite remember whether she’d actually got round to waterproofing it yet, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now. Josh was at the party. He was there and she was
not, and a woman with a bosom was making a move – Clem was damned if she was going to let that wench undo her two months and nineteen days of hard graft getting him to believe that there
really was more to her than just a good-time girl.

Grabbing her keys and phone, she dashed out of the door, slamming it behind her. A minute later, she was letting herself back in again and running – she was surprisingly fast in 4-inch
heels – to the fridge. The Billecart-Salmon was nicely chilled. At least the bitter night air temperatures were going to work with her on that. Shame the rain would make her mascara run, her
jumper pill and her hair flat.

Ooh. Hair flat. Hat! She bolted into Tom’s room and grabbed the Akubra hat he kept on top of his wardrobe, her eyes falling on the bike in the far corner as she checked herself in the
mirror. She stopped and stared at it, her mind racing with the sudden possibility. No. She couldn’t. It was a spectacularly bad idea, even by her standards. And Tom would kill her. Completely
hang her up by her earrings and . . .

‘. . .
Hair flick followed by bosom thrust.’

Clem gave another small scream that made Shambles, their pet parrot, fall off her perch, and crossed the room in record time. To hell with Tom. This was an emergency.

The streets were quiet, the shops and cafés long since shut and all the residents safely ensconced in raucous house parties or the pubs, out of the rain. The roads
gleamed in their wet skins beneath the street lights and Clem allowed herself a laugh of delight as she sliced through a deep puddle, her feet off the pedals as the spray dived cleanly to her left
and right.

The bike – even though it was a man’s model – fitted her well, her famously long legs stretched fully on the downward rotations, and it felt responsive and light to manoeuvre,
even riding one-handed. She’d have to see whether she could get herself one of these. It’d be a dream for getting through the market, and she could be in Hyde Park in minutes. Maybe she
should give up running and take up cycling instead?

Turning right onto Ladbroke Grove and third left into Oxford Gardens, she mounted the pavement, almost taking out a man striding towards her. He began swearing at her in French, but Clem
didn’t have time to stop and even less inclination to apologize. ‘
And
you nearly made me drop my bottle!’ she hollered indignantly over her shoulder. ‘What you
doing out here anyway? Got no mates?’

She pulled up at Stella’s flat minutes later, swinging her leg off the bike as if she was dismounting a horse, and grabbed the mirror from her bag to check herself over. Her cheeks were
flushed from the cold night air and her eyeliner had smudged a little in the damp, but she decided she rather liked that. She always preferred to look a little ‘undone’, and anyway, it
picked out the aquamarine tints in her blue-green eyes, which usually only appeared when she cried. And she wasn’t going to be crying tonight. Oh no.

The door was on the latch, but she had to push it with some force to get past the revellers drinking, dancing and talking in the hall. There wasn’t enough room to lean the bike against the
wall, but she noticed the looped metal demi-chandelier wall-lights . . .

‘Hey!’ she shouted over the music to a guy in a gunmetal-grey shirt, allowing her signature husky voice to become even more gravelled. ‘Would you mind . . .?’ She
indicated from the bike to the wall light. From the look on his face, just the sight of her with her jumper slowly slipping off her shoulder, would have made him lift a tractor up there had she
asked.

Clem flashed him a teasingly grateful smile and pushed her way past the bodies to the party’s hub in the long, tall living room. It was so crowded that there wasn’t enough room to
swing her hair, much less a cat, but people moved aside for her anyway, their stares slow and interested at the sight of her looking soggy and dripping raindrops from the brim of her hat, while
still somehow managing to be the most arresting woman in the room. Stella was standing near the fireplace, drunkenly pouring vodka into a row of shot glasses.

‘Where is he?’ Clem asked, grabbing one of the vodka shots and downing it.

Stella, unperturbed, did the same and they each picked up a fresh glass, ready to go again. ‘Kitchen. You took your time.’ Concern posing as suspicion danced in her glass-green
eyes.

Clem ignored her. ‘Any idea who the dolly is?’

‘Nope, but she dances like she’s been tranquillized and she’s got all the subtlety of a claw hammer.’ They clinked glasses and dispatched them without missing a beat.

‘Hmm. How do I look?’

Stella gave her the quick once-over – she was, after all, the designer of Clem’s outfit that evening. As the two of them always said, she was the one with the eye, Clem was the one
with the legs.

‘Hatefully gorgeous, and keep the hat. Bonus points for styling,’ she replied, arranging Clem’s nut-brown hair so it curled softly like sleeping kittens around her shoulders.
Clem let her gaze drift around the room. She knew most of the faces there. Fifteen feet away she could see Tom and Clover chatting to his rugby mates, Tom leaning against the back of the sofa, a
beer on the go and his ever-ready grin plastered all over his handsome face, as Clover winsomely stroked the back of his neck with her hand. Clem slunk down a little. It was usually Clover she
avoided, but she really didn’t want to deal with her big brother right now.

Stella handed her another shot of Grey Goose. ‘You’ve got to play catch-up,’ she ordered bossily, as Clem wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and watched a silky brunette
move in for the kill on Freddie Haywood, her ex, three times removed.

‘Regrets?’ Stella asked, watching as Freddie’s eyes flickered towards Clem.

‘Who? Freddie? Don’t be daft,’ Clem murmured, looking away.

‘I still don’t get why you two broke up. You made a great couple.’

Clem threw her an annoyed look. ‘Uh, because we’d been together for three weeks past my official relationship expiry date, he texts with his middle finger and he wears the same pants
three days running.’

‘So do you most of the time,’ Stella said.

‘Tch, do not,’ Clem replied, even though she was famous for either going commando or wearing the first pair of knickers she could find in the mess on the floor that passed for her
laundry basket. Tom kept muttering that he’d never be able to move out until she worked out how to work the washing machine.

‘Well I think it’s a shame, that’s all.’ Stella shrugged, reaching down into a bowl of Pringles. ‘You seemed happy with him and he’s obviously still mad about
you.’

‘Moving on,’ Clem snapped, closing the conversation down once and for all. ‘Josh is much more my thing now: mature, considerate,
enlightened.
He could teach me things.
Make me a better person.’

Stella choked on her crisp. ‘Bollocks. You’re only going after him because he’s the first man you’ve ever met who hasn’t fallen at your feet.’

‘Not true.’

‘Bang on, more like. Yes, he’s good-looking, but quite frankly I don’t trust any man who jacks in a good career in Private Equity to man the phones for The Samaritans. And as
for giving up booze to compete in triathlons every weekend, well . . . you should be very, very wary, that’s all I’m saying.’

‘But I could grow with him.’

A pulse of disbelief followed this statement and Clem was forced to give a tiny shrug in acknowledgement of the ridiculous words coming from her mouth.

‘Grow bored more like. You might be able to convince him that you volunteered at the cat sanctuary in your gap year, and that you only listen to chamber music on your iPod, but you and I
both know that “danger” is your middle name. You’re pretending to be someone you’re not when you’re with him. It won’t last.’

‘It doesn’t have to,’ Clem replied, flashing her friend a sarcastic smile. ‘I’m not looking for a husband.’

‘Well then, you’re the only single twenty-nine-year-old female in London who isn’t,’ Stella said, pouring herself another drink, her eyes tracking someone over
Clem’s bare shoulder. ‘Anyway I don’t have time to stand here chatting about your self-imposed problems. I still haven’t got myself a date for midnight, so if you’re
so convinced Josh is your Mr Right Now, then go get him, Tiger,’ Stella said, slapping her hard on the bottom and wandering off in pursuit of a guy in skinny jeans and a trilby.

Clem watched her go. If
she
had the legs and eyes combo to take out most men, her diminutive firecracker friend had the E-cup cleavage and handspan waist. Clem smiled as she watched
Stella almost immediately hypnotize the guy into stunned submission, his mouth falling open like a guppy – she knew one of them was sorted for the night. It was time to get her groove on: the
first buzz of vodka was mixing with her bloodstream and there was a code red in the kitchen.

The party was ascending to a riotous peak, the floorboards vibrating to the pounding dance-floor beat, as she turned into the crowd, began to sway and let herself go. If there was one thing she
could do – really do – it was party. No W11 party was complete without her. She moved deeper into the melee of smiling mouths and loud laughs, the glassy eyes and lecherous stares, the
flushed cheeks and glossy hair tosses that she called ‘home’, everyone dancing and swaying around her, singing drunkenly and punching the air. Except for one.

His stillness jarred against the throb of the crowd and she lifted her chin fractionally to get a better look at him from under her hat while flashing him a glimpse of her stunning eyes. He was
leaning against the wall, watching her with notably glacial-blue eyes of his own. He was a predator, like her. Her gaze didn’t move from his but she peripherally registered the pale blue
shirt worn over Swimmer’s shoulders, the offbeat grey marled jacket with black revers that was classic, yet subversive too – and clearly expensive. She noted heavy straight brows, a
square chin, dark blond hair that would look brown when wet, planed cheekbones that would stretch the skin thin when – if – he smiled.

And then everything went black.

‘Hey! Who said you could wear that? It’s an heirloom remember?’ a distinctive male voice boomed next to her.

Clem pushed the hat back up off her eyes hurriedly. Talk about ruining the mystique! ‘Just because it was Dad’s doesn’t make it valuable, Tom,’ she said irritably looking
past her brother to find the stranger still staring, but with less heat and more laughter in his expression now. Something about him was familiar . . .

‘The concept of emotional significance really is lost on you, isn’t it?’ Her brother tutted as Clover drifted over – obvs – looking clean and meadowy amidst the
gritty urban party animals seeing out another year in Notting Hill. She gave Clem a tight smile.

‘Sentimental tosh more like. A hat is a hat is a hat. And it’s raining out there, you know.’

‘And God forbid Josh should see you looking anything other than perfect, right?’ Tom teased.

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, he should be
doubly
pleased tonight then,’ Tom said meaningfully, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice.

Clem shifted her weight uneasily. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Only that your intended tucked into the punch with some gusto when he got here.’

‘The punch?’ Clem echoed. Stella’s Bacardi-vodka-tequila punch was the stuff of legend.

‘Yep. Someone might have told him it was a non-alcoholic option.’

Clem felt a kernel of dread harden in the pit of her stomach. ‘But there’s no such thing at Stella’s place. She’s never drunk juice in her life. Not without vodka in
it.’

‘Well,
we
know that . . .’ Tom grinned, his twinkly eyes glassy with booze. ‘Oh, talk of the devil! Josh, how’s it going, mate?’

Clem watched in horror as Josh bowled towards her, holding onto walls, sofas and nearby shoulders for support. He stopped in front of Clem, standing on her toes and swaying with a rhythm that
had nothing to do with the music.

‘Ah shit, Clem . . .’ he slurred, his eyes running up and down her like scales. ‘I’ve had enough of this. You’ve been messing with my head too bloody long,’
he said, swooping down to kiss her, unfortunately forgetting to account for the rigid brim of her hat, so that his lips were kept, pursed, away from hers for several, agonizing moments before the
hat suddenly bowed under the pressure and his mouth quite literally fell upon hers in a clash of teeth.

Clem staggered back under his weight, aware of Tom and Clover’s laughter as Josh stumbled to remain joined to her. Talk about bad to worse. First her brother humiliates her in front of the
stranger and now—

But a sudden intake of breath, horrified and aghast, stopped her short. She pushed Josh off and looked up at Tom in panic. He had gone sheet-white and his generous smile completely vanished. He
was holding his breath, his knuckles white around the beer bottle in his hand, so that Clem worried it would shatter from the force of his fist.

‘What have you done?’ he managed, his voice choked.

Clem didn’t need to follow his line of sight to know that he was looking at the bike hanging on the wall.

‘It was raining,’ she whispered. She’d known he’d be cross, but the devastation in his face was more cutting than the fiercest anger. Her eyes followed the track of his
like a cursor as they ran over the bicycle’s rosy, twinkling, caramel leather-clad frame, now soaked dark with rain, stained with beer, graffiti’d with biro and speckled grey with
cigarette ash that was smouldering slowly through to the glossy golden skeleton beneath.

A turgid silence ballooned between them and when he finally spoke, his voice was more of a rumble, like a bomb going off several miles away. ‘I suppose it completely passed over your head
that that prototype cost a hundred and thirty-five grand to make.’