Fast Friends (31 page)

‘
Woman trouble?’

‘
You could call it that,’ he shrugged, thinking of Camilla,
and Roz,
and his old harridan of a housekeeper. ‘It’s slightly complicated.’

It was certainly intriguing, thought Caroline, studying
him intently and noting the edge of desperation in his voice. Having
been away from England for a year and a half she
was out of
touch, with absolutely no
idea of what could be troubling him.
She hadn’t worked in a casino for
the past year without learning to recognize a gambler when she saw one. Nico
wore that same air of impulsiveness borne of despair. He was in the mood, she
sensed, to take a risk because a risk was a
challenge and
accepting a challenge was better than dwelling uselessly
on the past.

‘Are you married?’ she asked casually, her heart pounding
against her ribcage.

Nico shook
his head. ‘No.’

‘Would you
like to be?’

He laughed.
‘Married? To whom?’

With outward calm she took a small sip
of her beer and
balanced the
half-eaten roll on her knee.

‘
Me. If it would help. I’m willing if you are.’

’Nico? It’s
me.’

He blinked
slowly, struggling to properly awake. The phone
slipped from his
grasp and fell on to the pillow beside him.
Cursing softly, not wanting to wake Caroline, he picked it up
and held it to the ear furthest from her. He’d forgotten his
mobile in
the rush to escape the UK.

‘Nico?’

‘
Who’s me?’ he
murmured. As if anyone could fail to
recognize Roz’s voice even with the
Atlantic separating them.

‘Roz.’ She sounded impatient. ‘I called your record
company and they told me where to reach you.’

‘Why?’

‘
Don’t be
dense,
Nico.
We’re having a baby, aren’t we? I
rang to let you know how everything’s
going.’

He didn’t have the energy to argue
with her. Lying back
against the
pillows, he glanced across at Caroline, still sound
asleep. Sunlight streamed through the window, turning her
golden
skin to warm silk. Her sleeping form seemed suddenly
even more desirable compared with the unwelcome sound of
Roz’s
low, sly voice on the phone.

‘So, how’s it going?’

‘Fine. Very well indeed.’

‘Terrific.’

She sighed, across thousands of
miles. ‘Such enthusiasm. I
also wanted
to find out how
you
are. How’s the conquering hero getting on in the
States?’

Despite himself, Nico smiled at the unwitting Americanism.
‘I’m getting on just fine,’ he replied evenly.

Several dollars’ worth of silence
followed. Then: ‘I miss
you, Nico.
We should be together.’

Ah, this was more like it. Roz at her
most persuasive,
sincerity oozing down
the phone. Next to him, Caroline shifted, her warm, bare thigh brushing against
his. Recalling last night, he began to feel better and returned the pressure.

‘This is a waste of time,’ he said quietly. ‘Even if that
baby is mine, I still don’t trust you. I don’t love you.’

‘You did!’

‘
That was when I didn’t
really know you. That was
then,
Roz.’

‘
But can’t you
understand how I feel?’ she urged, and he
heard desperation in her
voice. ‘At least think of the baby, Nico. We should be married.’

Perhaps we should, he thought. Maybe that was the best
idea yet. He and Roz really
should
get married.

But definitely not to each other.

Five hours later, Caroline kissed him
on the mouth and said:
‘Well, this
will be one in the eye for Roz, won’t it?’ and Nico
realized that she had not been asleep during that fateful phone
call
earlier.

‘
You were listening,’
he said, his green eyes surveying hers
for her reaction and finding only
fun. Maybe it was just as well that she already understood the situation; it
saved any awkward explanations later. ‘I don’t want you to think she was the
reason for all this.’

Which wasn’t strictly true, he told himself with a trace of
guilt, but Roz hadn’t been the entire reason, after all. She was
part of it, just as Camilla was part of it. And of course, there
was
Caroline herself — she had to be included as well. He might grow to love her,
he was
definitely
sure that he fancied her like
hell . . . and she had told him continuously last night how
fantastic
he was in bed. Wasn’t it supposed to be true that if two people had a
successful sexual relationship, nothing too terrible could go wrong between
them?

Only, he
recalled wryly, if the woman was Roz Vallender.

He gazed down at Caroline, beautiful
in a beige silk dress,
her tawny
hair artfully pinned up to reveal the slender curves of her neck and smoothly
tanned shoulders. Feeling his eyes upon her she looked up, her smile
bewitching, her eyes mischievous and lustful.

‘It doesn’t bother me,’ she said, lightly touching the tip
of his
nose with her finger. ‘I’m not afraid
of competition. And I’ve
always enjoyed a challenge.’

‘
But it wasn’t because
of Roz,’ he repeated with deter
mination, almost managing to convince
himself, if not her.

‘
$5 a photograph,
mistah,’ yelled an under-sized Mexican
boy as they emerged from the
coolness of the building and were
blasted by
heat and dazzling white sunlight. He waved an
ancient camera, his dark
eyes alight with hope.

‘
Do you have $5, mistah?’ said Caroline,
squeezing his arm.

Nico reached for his wallet. ‘I think
we can afford to splash
out, just this once,’ he confided and extracted two $10 bills.
‘Four photos for the family album,
please. And make them
snappy.’

‘
OK, mistah. I take
great pictah,’ the boy assured them,
gesturing with a skinny brown arm
that they should move closer together. ‘OK, now very happy . . . kiss the
bride, mistah. Hey, OK! OK!’

Chapter 27

The day
really couldn’t get much worse, thought Roz wildly,
wrenching the parking ticket from her windscreen and attempt
ing
to rip it to shreds. The plastic bag enclosing it resisted the assault, to her
fury, and she threw it to the ground, grinding it beneath her heel.

Morning sickness which had continued into the eighth month
of her pregnancy, a sodding parking ticket, and no job.

She had been sacked because she was having a baby, and
because she wasn’t married. How bloody provincial
could you
get?

Right, kiddo, she told her unborn child as she grimly
dragged open the car door and started up the engine. We’re going to Vampires.
It’s time you had your first drink.

Loulou was leaning against the bar, exchanging gossip with
Christo and secretly yearning for a ham and banana sandwich, when Roz appeared
in the doorway looking tragic.

Loulou expertly tipped a young
tell-it-to-the-tabloids actor
off his
stool.

‘
How charming of you to
offer the lady a seat,’ she said
smoothly,
steering Roz on to it. Her glossy dark hair looked
limp and the pallor
of her skin was almost startling. Even her long-lashed eyes seemed less bright
than usual as she glanced
almost furtively
around her and adjusted the folds of her
charcoal grey Calvin Klein
dress with agitated fingers.

‘
Something bad?’ said Loulou in a low voice, as
Christo moved diplomatically away. ‘Do you want to go upstairs?’

‘
I want,’ replied Roz in a low, controlled voice, ‘a drink.
Give me a
spritzer.’

Despite herself, Loulou hadn’t been
able to help reading
baby books. Her own baby had not been planned, but now that
it was clearly going to arrive
anyway, she had found it easy,
almost exciting, to take good care of it. No cigarettes, no
alcohol, hardly any late nights and plenty of real food .
. . She hadn’t known she possessed such self-control before.

‘How about an orange juice?’ she offered casually, and Roz
fixed her with a glare that would have stripped paint.

‘Don’t get
maternal
with me, for Christ’s sake –
one glass of wine won’t hurt it. I’ve just been sacked.’

‘
Oh Roz, no. The bastards.’

‘
Oh Loulou,
yes,’ said Roz, signalling to Christo. Her eye
brows,
those slanting black lines which so clearly relayed
every emotion,
lifted as she gestured impatience with the TV company.

‘It’s hardly the end of the world, I suppose, and it isn’t
as if I wasn’t half expecting it. There’s trendy old Channel 4, of course. I
could always go over to them.’

She sipped her drink, then took a larger swallow, licking
her
lips appreciatively while Loulou watched
her, attempting to
gauge the true extent of her despair.

‘So you were pissed off anyway and losing your job was the
final straw?’

Roz shrugged and nodded. ‘Pregnancy is
the pits, Lou, it
really
is.
And
I got a parking ticket. My father sent me a postcard
this morning, from Peru. It said "How’s the most
desired woman in England?" You should have seen the postman’s face when he
handed it over – Littleton Grey is
burning
with gossip about meat the
moment and that card was just the icing on the cake for
them.’ She paused, lacing her fingers around the sides of her
glass. "They’re laughing at me because Nico
doesn’t want to
know. That’s what I really can’t handle.’

‘
You should get away,’
Loulou told her firmly. My God,
she
thought with a rush of surprise, I sound like a mother
already.

‘
I should stay and
fight,’ declared Roz, the light of battle at
last reappearing in her
dark eyes. ‘What happened this morning
has
made up my mind, Lou. I’ve lost my job. I’m not going to
lose Nico as
well.’

Beyond Roz, Loulou became aware that Christo was
frantically waving to catch her attention.

‘
Telephone for you,’ he
called across, and she frowned,
puzzled by his expression.

‘
Bring it over here, Christo.’

‘
The connection is faint and there’s too much noise over
there,’ he
replied with determination, and Loulou sighed, sliding down from her seat and
patting Roz’s hand.

‘
I won’t be a minute.’

When she reached Christo, she said
crossly, ‘What the hell’s
the matter
with you?’

‘Nothing at all.’ He gave her a bland look. ‘I just
thought it
might be easier to talk over
here. It’s Nico, calling from Las
Vegas.’

‘
Hey!’ cried Loulou,
grabbing the receiver from him with
both hands and blowing Christo a
kiss. Whatever Nico’s short
comings as far as
Roz was concerned, he was still
her
friend
and hearing from him always cheered her up. Turning
her back
on the bar and glimpsing Roz’s
dark reflection in the mirrors
lining the wall, she blew more
enthusiastic kisses into the phone.

‘
And how’s my favourite
all-American boy! What’s
happening, Nico?’

‘
Loulou, is that you?
Is it the middle of the night over there
– did I wake you up?’