Fast Friends (40 page)

She looked down at Nicolette in her arms. At least the
doctor
at the hospital had been sympathetic
to Roz’s complaints and
had prescribed a sedative for the child, one
which quietened her
enough to stop the
incessant screaming. Nicolette was fast
asleep now, looking adorable in
a tiny, exquisitely embroidered
pale pink
dress and well wrapped up in a heavily fringed pink
and white shawl. Who
could resist her, for heaven’s sake, or not
want
to be the parent of
such a beautiful baby?

As for Roz herself – well, she was looking pretty damn
good
as well. The appalling black cloud of
depression which had
settled over her within days of Nicolette’s birth
had dispersed as
abruptly as it had arrived,
exorcising itself with miraculous
agility
the moment Roz had broken down in a storm of tears in
the consultant’s office at the hospital after
hearing the news
about Nicolette.

‘
Believe me, Mrs
Vallender, I do understand how you
must
feel,’ he had said, passing her a box of white hospital
tissues and patting her hand in an awkward gesture
of
reassurance.

But for Roz her tears, the first she
had shed in many years –
for weeping in her opinion was only for the very weak –
performed the miracle she had given up even hoping for. As
she
wiped her eyes with the tissues and
heaved great, shuddering
sighs of
exhaustion and relief, she could feel the dank, black
clouds become
weightless, lift away.

Still gulping and sobbing intermittently, she clutched the
eminent doctor’s strong hand and cried out, ‘Oh God, I’ve
been so miserable
‘

It had gone. Now her energies were
poured into the task of
sorting out
her life, and Nicolette’s sad little life as well. There
were plans to be planned, and Roz, though still
deeply shocked
by the news, found that at last she had the energy to
carry these plans out.

And Number One, she thought briskly
as she cradled
Nicolette in one arm
and rang the front doorbell with the other, was to sort things out with Nico,
once and for all.

He opened the door himself, his green eyes dark and
guarded but as spectacular as ever. Seeing him again for the first time
inalmost ten months, she experienced a jolt of emotion and sought
to clarify it. But it was nothing so difficult or
complicated as
love, she realized
with relief It was merely honest to goodness
lust. Nico was still one of
the most attractive men she had ever met in her life, that indefinable aura of
sexuality emanating right
through his
scarlet and green cashmere sweater and faded
denims as clearly as
cologne.

But what she felt for him was not
love, so she could deal
with it. At
last she was in control again.

His gaze swept over Roz and remained
as enigmatic as it
always had when that
was what was required, but she smiled to herself when she saw his eyes come to
rest upon Nicolette, that
fluffy pink and
white bundle in her arms. He softened visibly,
as she had known he would.

Meet your namesake, darling, she
thought, optimism prick
ling her skin. Aloud, however, she said, ‘It’s nice to see you
again, Nico. After all this time. May we come in?’

The house seemed different; lighter, less cluttered and
more
cared-for than Roz remembered, as if to
prove that Nico was
now a respectably
married man and no longer a semi-wild,
carefree,
infinitely eligible bachelor. A year ago he had asked
Roz to marry him
and she had laughed, gently refusing because
her
life was so perfect that she didn’t need that too. Now she
did.

In the sitting-room she made herself
comfortable on the
settee, adjusting the
pencil-slim black skirt from Galliano which had cost far more than she could
now afford, and stretching out her Dior-stockinged legs in high black Gucci
stilettos. It hadn’t
been so long, after
all, that she couldn’t remember what Nico
liked.

As he stood
before her, she held Nicolette up towards him.

‘
At least hold her,’ she said in a low voice. ‘She doesn’t bite.
See, no
teeth.’

Without even hesitating, Nico took the
sleeping baby into
his
arms, supporting her small downy head with natural
expertise and touching her soft pink cheek with one
finger.

‘She’s fast asleep. When you said she was ill I thought
you meant she was in hospital. She doesn’t look ill at all.’

He glanced at her with suspicion, comparing the serene Roz
before him with the woman who had sounded so desperate over the phone.

‘
I wanted to make sure
you’d see us,’ she informed him
calmly.
‘She’s your daughter, Nico, your own flesh and blood
after all, and she
is
ill. I wasn’t lying
when I said I couldn’t
cope on my
own.’ Her dark eyes filled suddenly with tears and
she touched the settee beside her with a trembling
hand. ‘Sit down.’ Warily, maintaining a distance between them, he sat.
Roz
was wearing a heavy, musky perfume which he didn’t particularly like. It was
incredible, he thought distantly, how indifferent he was to her presence. And
the baby was just . . . a
baby. If she were
his, then he simply couldn’t feel it, not a thing. And if she wasn’t his, he
thought wryly, then it was
hardly surprising.

‘
It’s not like you to
cry,’ he said with a touch of cruelty. It
was like talking to Caroline. He didn’t have the patience to be
nice any more. Being nice had caused him too much
trouble in
the past.

Roz said nothing and Nico felt a fresh
surge of impatience.
‘So why
are
you here?’

‘
Think how good we were
together,’ she burst out passionately, tears still glistening on her smooth
brown cheeks. ‘We
were
perfect,
Nico – but the timing was all
wrong. Everything’s
different now, we’ve
both changed, made mistakes and learnt from them . . .
Now,
darling, we
could really make a go of it. We’ve got a ready-made family; it couldn’t be
better. We’d be
so happy, don’t you see?’

‘Bullshit, Roz,’ declared Nico, wondering whether she was
entirely sane. The situation was so bizarre it was almost laugh
able. Except that Roz wasn’t laughing . . . she
was deadly
serious.

‘
Think about it,’ she
urged forcefully. Nico handed the
sleeping baby back to her as if it
were a grenade. And in a way, of course, that was what Nicolette was.
Ammunition.

‘
These mistakes we’ve
both made,’ he mused, his thickly
lashed
eyes assuming a dangerous glitter. ‘I assume you’re
referring to my
marriage? I have a
wife,
Roz. You were right, everything
is
different.
I’m no longer interested in you. Now is that a good enough reason to ask you to
leave?’

She stared at him, aghast. He had
changed so much. The
Nico who
had occupied her thoughts with an intensity bordering
on obsession was an entirely different person, not this cold-
eyed
stranger with nothing but contempt for her and her terrible plight.

‘
Nicolette needs a father . .

‘
And I drew
the short straw? Come off it, Roz, you can’t blackmail me, for Christ’s sake.’

‘
But she’s ill!’ Roz
yelled at him, realizing that she was
trembling with the unfairness of
it all. ‘I can’t cope on my own. You have a responsibility towards her . . .
towards both of us . .

‘I’ll organize blood tests,’ said Nico wearily, holding up
his
hands against the onslaught of her
shouting. ‘If I’m her father
I’ll pay maintenance – enough to cover
whatever you need. But that’s all. I’ll give you money, Roz, if that’s what you
want, but me you can’t have. I just don’t want to know, any more.’

‘
You bastard, I don’t
want
your money. Haven’t you learnt yet that hard cash can’t solve all your
problems? Just who do
you think you
are?’

It was a nightmare. Nothing was going
as she had planned,
yet she couldn’t
prevent the terrible diatribe . . . Nico had to understand what he was doing to
her . . .

‘
I’m a bastard,’ he replied in bored tones.

‘
Bloody right. And you’ve got your values screwed up as well,’ she hissed
at him, her arms tightening around the still-
sleeping
form of her daughter. "Take Camilla. You went out of
your way to help that stupid fat cow, when all she’d
done was
lose the husband she couldn’t even manage to keep. Gave her a
home, didn’t you? And a nice little job? Help
Camilla, help her
get her act together, that must have made you feel
really good. But then I have a problem, a
real
problem, and you don’t
even want to hear about it. I’ve been through
hell
because of you and
you just aren’t interested. What’s so different between us, Nico? What’s
Camilla got that I don’t have?’

And then she glimpsed the pain in his eyes and guessed. A
knife twisted in her stomach and she laughed aloud, incredulous
and appalled. ‘Oh no. That’s too much. That’s
exactly what you
did do, isn’t it?
Take Camilla.
You screwed her.
Really Nico, isn’t that taking the good Samaritan act just a little too far?’

‘You foul bitch,’ said Nico, dangerously slowly. For the
first time in his life he wanted to hit a woman, but he wouldn’t give Roz the
pleasure of wearing his bruise, parading it like a trophy along Fleet Street,
selling it to whoever would do him the most damage.

Besides, he knew how to hit her where it
really
hurt.
‘Yes, I slept with her,’ he said evenly. ‘It wasn’t screwing, though, notlike
you and I used to do. It was the real thing. The two of you
don’t even compare. Camilla’s better than you in
every sense,
Roz, and I do mean every
sense. She’s a far nicer person and
she’s
better in bed than any other woman I’ve ever known. So
you can forget
about the good Samaritan bit, because it really couldn’t be further from the
truth.’

Roz, white and shocked, stared at him
as if she’d just been
shot. With hatred in his heart, Nico gazed stonily back at her
until she spoke.

‘
I’m going.’

‘Good idea,’
he said calmly. ‘I’m sure you can find your own way out.’

Vampires was losing a great deal of
money, fast. The rapid
downhill slide was staggering and it was all Loulou Marks’s
fault. Worse still, she didn’t even
appear to be concerned about
it. It was
a catastrophe. Sharing a bath with a razor-happy AIDS
victim was preferable to visiting Vampires these days, it seemed,
yet there wasn’t a single thing anyone could do to
reverse the
slide.

Loulou wasn’t
any fun any more.

She had
lost the knack of abuse.

She was
happy.

As far as Christo Moran was concerned, it was an
altogether desperate situation, the very worst kind of disaster. Loulou had
been the spark, the catalyst bringing Vampires
exploding into
life for as long as
they had both been there. Now, incredibly,
more beautiful than ever, the spark had gone to be replaced by
an
almost incandescent shimmer of loveliness.

It really wouldn’t surprise him, Christo thought darkly, if
she’d
caught religion. It was that particular kind of shimmer.

* * *

 
While
Christo pondered over these murky thoughts and polished glasses which would
most likely not be used in the almost empty
bar
that day, Loulou sat cross-legged upon her settee upstairs and
practised
her breathing, immersed in her own thoughts.