Escape for Christmas (2 page)

The signing well and truly over, Gemma wound her scarf tightly around her neck, shoved a hat onto her curly hair and put her sunglasses on. There, that was better. Now she was just an average shopper in the crowd, not Gemma the celebrity cake maker or the girlfriend of Callum South the legendary Premier League footballer, but just a rather plump girl dressed up for some Christmas shopping on a sunny December Saturday. Yes, the days of Gemma wanting fame were long gone. Now she enjoyed acting in an amateur group and was happy to let others have the limelight. Celebrity was, in Gemma’s book, seriously overrated.

Unlike Angel, whose need to be recognised was almost as great as her need for oxygen, Gemma preferred to go incognito. She managed to achieve this most of the time but today with Angel, who was busy flicking her blonde extensions about and making a big show of putting her giant Bvlgaris on, she stood no chance. As the girls linked arms and wandered through the town, eyes followed them and people pointed and whispered excitedly. Gemma shrunk further into her coat and buried her nose in her scarf. Fame was no fun at all and, much as she knew it was going to upset Cal, she couldn’t carry on like this for much longer.

She was going to have to make some changes.

Chapter 2

By the time they were seated on the top floor of a chic café – in the window, of course, so that Angel could be admired by everyone passing by below – Gemma had a good idea of how a goldfish might feel.

Once the waitress had delivered their coffees and food (Greek salad with no dressing for Angel, and a pasty the size of a tractor wheel for Gemma), the pace of the day seemed to slow. It had been a mad rush to get to Cornwall for nine and Gemma had been awake even earlier than Cal, who was always out of bed by dawn to get the day’s baking under way. She’d nuzzled up to him hopefully, loving the warm scent of the skin between his shoulder blades, and dropped several kisses down his spine, but Cal had just clutched the duvet tightly and muttered something about sleeping. There were other things to do in bed apart from sleep, Gemma thought wistfully, but Cal seemed to have forgotten all about those. He was always exhausted and she completely understood why; juggling a filming schedule and the business was a crazy workload. Knowing this didn’t make her feel much better though. There had been a time when Cal couldn’t keep his hands off her…

“You’re miles away today,” Angel remarked. Her fork, loaded with glossy black olives and some healthy-looking green stuff, hovered over the plate before she lowered it. Gemma really admired that. She would have had to shovel it in and keep talking through her mouthful. Her pasty was already vanishing fast.

“What’s wrong?” Angel asked. “You look really down.”

How long did she have? Gemma wondered sadly. Besides, to Angel nothing was wrong: everything was perfect. The show was a hit, the bakery was a success, Cal was fast on his way to being solvent, they were generally happy (or as happy as two people who hardly had time to spend with one another anymore could be happy), she lived on a beautiful estate in Devon and she’d written a bestselling Christmas cookery book. Everything was great and Gemma wasn’t even sure herself what the problem was. It wasn’t anything she could pinpoint; rather, it was a nebulous twisting sensation deep in the pit of her stomach that something was out of synch. Instinct maybe, or intuition?

If she couldn’t explain this to herself, Gemma knew there was no way she could make Angel understand. Besides, she felt ungrateful. Angel had worked her socks off to get
Bread and Butlers
off the ground and she lived for the show. Cal’s paid tax bill and lessening debts, as well as the capital that had started their business, were all down to Angel.

Gemma shrugged and pushed her pasty away. Suddenly the congealing hunks of meat and slimy potato made her feel nauseous.

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

With her extensions, false nails and designer bling, Gemma’s best friend might look like a stereotypical airhead – but it was an unwise person who underestimated Angel Elliott. Her mind was as switched on as the Christmas lights strung across the high street. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Gemma knew she had no hope of fooling her friend.

“That ‘I’m fine’
bollocks might work on Cal, but I’m not a bloke and therefore I know that ‘I’m fine’
actually means the exact opposite. You’ve hardly said a word all morning, you didn’t even notice that fit bloke who wanted his book signed, and now you’re not eating your lunch. Something’s definitely up.” Her blue eyes narrowed and she fixed Gemma with a stern look. “Come on; spill before CSI Cornwall sign me up!”

Gemma laughed. “What fit bloke?”

“You see? I knew there was something up!” squealed Angel. “How you could have missed him I’ll never know! About six feet tall, white-blond hair, looked like Ryan Gosling’s better-looking brother?”

Gemma thought back to the signing. There had been so many people there and she’d had half an eye on the doorway in case her parents showed up – not that this was particularly likely, because they were flat out with the farm – so she hadn’t really been paying attention.

“Green gillet? Country boots?” prompted Angel, pulling a despairing face when Gemma still looked blank. “I give up with you, Gemma Pengelley. He was lush. I would!”

“You’re a married woman!”

Angel grinned and returned to her salad. “So?” she said cheerfully through a mouthful of cos lettuce and feta. “That doesn’t mean I can’t look, does it? I love Laurence totally and utterly but I can still admire the finer specimens in God’s great creation. Blimey, Gem. You don’t think I’ve picked the builders at Kenniston for their bricklaying talents do you?”

To be honest Gemma hadn’t taken much notice of the team of builders who’d been drafted in to start work on the mammoth project of restoring Laurence’s ancestral home. Still, now she came to think about it she supposed they did look more like a collection of Calvin Klein models that the bum-cleavage-revealing, beer-bellied folk who tended to leer at her from their white vans.

“Good TV eye candy,” Angel was saying sagely. “And Craig’s been signed by Models 1 since he joined the show, which is good news. There’s always an opportunity if you look for it. It’s what makes life so exciting.”

Gemma stopped herself just in time from saying she’d be far more excited if Craig had spent less time posing for the film crew and a little more of it patching up the roof of the damp and gloomy gatehouse she and Cal shared. Angel lived and breathed Kenniston Hall and the show; she wouldn’t have understood why Gemma was so weary of it all. In fairness Gemma hardly understood this herself. All she knew was that she was tired of having to constantly look over her shoulder in case the crew were lurking, and even more tired of never having Cal to herself. Surely the time was coming for them to step away from it all and concentrate on themselves? Cal kept saying that they needed the money but Gemma couldn’t for the life of her imagine what for. Just how big were his tax bills?

To distract herself she pushed the pasty around a bit, but Angel wasn’t fooled.

“OK, now I’m really worried. Not noticing hot guys is one thing; you not eating lunch is quite another. Is everything all right with you and Cal?”

Gemma abandoned any pretence of eating her food and pushed her plate away. Was everything all right with her and Cal? She thought it was, hoped it was, but how did you ever know for sure? How well could you ever really know somebody else? The lack of sex was down to his working so hard. Having cameras in tow – because Cal had signed a second contract when Gemma had retreated from the limelight – didn’t exactly enhance your hopes of a love life, unless you were making a very different genre of television. Cal was still his usual cheerful, affectionate and loveable self but Gemma had the oddest feeling that he was holding something back. Was their lack of bedroom action a barometer? Did the few extra pounds she’d put on lately turn him off? She thought this highly unlikely, seeing as she’d been several stones heavier when they’d first got together and Cal hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her then. Besides, he was hardly skinny himself! He had zero willpower when it came to food, so working in a bakery was proving far too tempting for Cal.

“Sure, and isn’t it quality control?” he’d laugh, creases of good humour starring his eyes as he sampled a bit of brioche or maybe a slice of cheese loaf. Quite a bit of sampling went on in Cal’s kitchen, judging by the constant loosening of notches on his belt, but Gemma didn’t care – she loved every inch of him. Twelve stone or fifteen stone; it didn’t matter to her. Callum South, with his golden shock of curly hair, sleepy downturned eyes the colour of Irish peat and huge appetite for all the good things in life, still made her legs turn to soggy string.

“We’re fine,” Gemma said eventually, because Angel was still waiting for a reply. She loved her friend but these days she was always wary of divulging too much. Angel was so driven that Gemma wouldn’t put it past her to use any information for ratings. She was still smarting from the time the
Bread and Butlers
production team had thought it a good idea to lob Cal’s glamour-model ex into an episode. Fifi Royale had a brain like Swiss cheese and boobs bigger than her head, but Cal had dated her and
FHM
had rated her at number four in their Britain’s Sexiest chart. Cal had laughed and promised that Gemma was number one in Callum South’s Sexiest chart, but even so it wasn’t a nice situation to be in. Tricks like that were the brainchildren of the show’s new producer, Dwayne, and Gemma hadn’t been impressed. Dwayne was yet another reason why she hadn’t signed up for a second season.

Angel regarded her thoughtfully. “Really? Things got better when you moved out of the main house, right?”

Living in Kenniston Hall had been fun to begin with, a bit like an extended sleepover, but after a while Gemma and Cal had been driven demented. Decamping to the Lion Lodge had seemed like a great idea. The pretty gatehouse was a mile from the Hall, overlooked one of Capability Brown’s ornamental lakes and had a stunning view over rolling parkland and the wiggling ribbon drive to Kenniston. With its leaded windows, quirky little rooms and romantic open fires it had felt like one step closer to Gemma’s dream home. Unfortunately though, the dream had soon become a nightmare. The house was all fur coat and no knickers. Capability Brown hadn’t been quite so capable when he’d planned the lake, and damp seeped into every corner of the building. The drive was a quagmire when it rained (Gemma’s Beetle was still abandoned halfway to the Hall), black mould coated most of the surfaces, and the fires belched smoke. The storage heaters had been on strike since about 1950 and consequently Gemma and Cal slept in tracksuits, thick socks and hoodies. It was hardly an environment conducive to ripping off clothes and exploring one another’s naked bodies, Gemma reflected. They’d be in danger of getting frostbite. As it stood, the one and only serious argument they’d ever had had been over who’d mislaid the hot-water bottle.

There was no chance of the Elliotts spending money doing up the Lion Lodge, not when the Hall was in an even worse state. Gemma had wanted to rent a cottage in Rewe but Cal, keen to save money, had been all for moving back to the Hall. At least there he’d have been near his kitchen rather than wrecking the suspension on his beloved Range Rover by trundling up and down the rutted drive. In the end it came down to a choice between the slightly less Baltic conditions of the big house and the privacy of the Lion Lodge, which in Gemma’s mind was no choice at all. She’d bought another hot-water bottle, some good-quality thermals and a fan heater, and kissed her love life goodbye until the spring.

“Gem?” Angel prompted, looking truly worried now. “Everything is OK with you guys, isn’t it?”

Gemma didn’t want to sound like she was moaning. She had a gorgeous partner and a great career, and she lived in a beautiful part of the world. She needed to look at the positives and be thankful for them, as her life-coach friend Dee would say.

“I think so. No, of course we are. It’s just so busy and we’re never on our own enough. There’s always a crew member or one of Cal’s team mates or,” she paused and rolled her eyes, “even worse, one of Cal’s family about. It’s pretty hard to get some private time. God help me if his mother turns up again.”

Of all the stresses in her life, Gemma thought that Cal’s huge and boisterous family were probably right up there with calorie counting and playing dodge-the-falling-masonry whenever she stepped outside the gatehouse. Cal had so many siblings it felt as though hardly a month went by when one of the South clan wasn’t visiting. No wonder she and Cal never had time for sex. And when Cal’s mother came to stay it was a total no-no. Mammy South was a devout Catholic, had a saint for just about everything and was horrified that her beloved eldest son was living in sin with a Protestant. Even Casanova would have been put off nookie with Mammy South clicking her rosary beads on the other side of the bedroom wall.

“Hmm,” said Angel. Was it her imagination, Gemma wondered, or did her best friend look a bit shifty? “Maybe you could get more involved with the show again?” Angel suggested hopefully. “That way you’d see Cal more.”

Gemma smiled. “You don’t give up, do you? How many times do I need to say it? I’m through with TV. I just want to concentrate on the cakes and being with Cal. I know it’s not very PC but I just want our own place, a red Aga, a couple of kids and a normal life. I don’t want to be famous.”

“So much for feminism,” said Angel, forking a bit more salad in.

Gemma chose to ignore this comment. So wanting to get married and have children wasn’t a very feminist ambition; she could probably live with that. Anyway, running her own very successful cake-making business and writing a bestselling cookery book seemed pretty feminist to her. Besides, wasn’t that the whole point of equality anyway? Women could have it all?

If they could figure out what “it all”
was, of course.

“Cal’s signed until the end of December,” Angel reminded her, interrupting Gemma’s rather philosophical train of thought. “Anton’s really keen he signs again – and you too, of course. I really think you should. Another year isn’t long, Gem.”