Geli Voyante's Hot or Not (34 page)

He takes a step back, shocked, but he still has hold of her arm.
Ursula finally steps forward in her ghastly mother-of-the-bride attire, not to admonish her daughter, but to back her up.

‘Let
my
daughter go, Rupert,’ she sneers through her thin-lips, looking every bit the manipulative, evil woman I know her to be.

Since
she is supposed to be happily married to my dad, this is a turn-up for the books. Claire looks like she is about to jump in and claw Ursula’s eyes out. The sun is getting higher and higher, it’s getting hotter and hotter, and I want to run and find a shady hole where I can hide until someone comes along and promises me everything is going to be OK. Someone to tell me that time has turned back and none of this has happened. I’d happily see Tiggy married to Calvin – heck, even with Theo – if only this drama would stop unfolding because the look on Dad’s face pains me. He looks devastated, and I know it’s because he’s finally realised the truth about Ursula.

What pains me more though is that
I can’t shake Calvin’s face from my mind. He looked so crushed – like Tiggy really has destroyed him – and I guess, kiss aside, he truly did love her. For him, this was his happily ever after.

‘Excuse me, Ursula,’ D
ad finally manages to say, after staring at her long enough to see that the venom etched in every missed Botox line is real. ‘But your daughter needs seeing to.’

‘
My daughter? What about
yours
?’ Ursula screeches.

I know she
doesn’t mean Claire.

‘She’s been sleeping with my boyfriend,’ I
say quietly.

There
– even the less astute guests should have fully grasped what is going on here. We’re all just stood in front of the manor, in front of this gorgeous wedding venue, unsure of what to do, but suddenly Tiggy bites Dad on the arm, causing him to let go of her. She’s off like a shot and pandemonium ensues.

‘She’d have
married Theodore,’ I hear Ursula yell at me, ‘if you hadn’t deliberately sunk your claws into him.’

‘She was engaged to Calvin when I started seeing Theo,’ I snap back
. I’m not having Ursula turn this around so I come across as the bitch.

‘You stupid little bitch!
’

Ursula looks like she’s about to fly at me
, but Dad is looking at her like he’s seeing her for the very first time. ‘Geli was right,’ he softly says. ‘You did lie about Isabelle and John. There was no affair, only ours.’

‘
Rupey, no.’ She laughs falsely, turning her attention away from me, and missing Claire – Claire, my non-violent, peace-loving sister – stepping forward. I’ve never seen her look so angry.

‘It wasn’t like
that,’ Ursula tries to explain.

S
he doesn’t get to say anything further because in the next second Claire is on the ground wrestling with Ursula screaming “you home-wrecker” over and over. Theo is getting to his feet and the guests are in uproar as they try to get Claire away from Ursula. Dad just stands there, rubbing his bitten arm, and the hotel staff come running to see what’s going on.

As for me,
I’m walking away.

I
start to walk towards the honeymoon suite to see if that’s where Calvin is, but Theo catches up with me. ‘Geli,’ he pleads, grabbing my arm.

I’m about to turn around and swing for him with
my other arm, but I can see his reflection in the Venetian mirror in front of me, the one I spotted him in a mere hour ago, just before all this mess kicked off. He looks dreadful, not only from his freshly-emerging purple bruise, but his eyes look sad, too. He looks sorry.

‘I’m nothing but Trouble, Theo,’ I tell him, hoping that will
make him vanish from my life. I’ll blame myself for this if it makes Theo go away, let him save face, because I’m sure no woman has ever dared to break up with Theodore Bones.

‘So am I.’ H
e chuckles. ‘We make a good pair.’

‘No,’ I say
angrily. ‘We don’t.’

‘Geli
–’

‘No,’ I interrupt. ‘
I need someone who gets me, someone who isn’t sleeping with my vile stepsister, funnily enough.
My
stepsister
.’

I gr
oan, aware of the sharp pang of pain I’m experiencing. It hurts more because it was with Tiggy, not because of what he has done.
Tiggy
.

‘God,’ I seethe. ‘Y
ou know how much I hate Tiggy. Why
her
of all people? Not that it matters,’ I rush on before he answers. ‘Because you, Theo Bones, are the worst person in the world for me. And you’re a wanker,’ I add.

Unlike Calvin is what I want to add. See Calvin knew what I wanted when I walked away from T
iggy and Theo, towards him and Dad. Even though I barely know him, he has been trying to be a friend to me since we arrived in South Africa. Kiss aside, he gets me, which is more than I can say for Theo. Even though he couldn’t come out and say it, he’s been trying to open my eyes to Theo’s behaviour, trying to make me see him how he really is. 

Theo i
n the past three months has made me more confused than ever before with my life. He has been nothing but Trouble since he mistakenly thought I knew all about US politics and asked me out. See that’s what we were – a mistake – and I’m not about to let this continue, not now I know what he’s really like.

‘Please
,’ he implores with his puppy eyes, eyes I once loved. ‘Please let me explain.’

‘So you can ease your guilt?’ I splutter. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘I love you,’ he beseeches me, really stretching out each word. ‘I know that now.’

I
laugh hollowly. ‘So,
that’s
why you had to shag my stepsister?’ I ask sarcastically. ‘To know that you
love
me. All this time,’ I continue in a fury, ‘you’ve been saying: “Oh, Tiggy’s so vile” and “Oh, she’s so horrid”, and all along you’ve been fucking her? Please,’ I choke out. ‘What kind of an idiot do you take me for?’

‘Geli
–’

‘Oh fine.’ I roll
my eyes. ‘Go ahead.
Explain
. It won’t change that we’re over, but explain away. I can’t wait to hear this next pack of lies.’

‘I never
meant for any of this to happen–’

‘
You. Tosser,’ I interrupt.

I am furious. I need to get to Calvin in case he has had the same idea I had, in case he gets his passport and disappears off to the airport before I can talk to him. Theo is wasting my time, but he
’s also blocking my way.

‘I never meant for any of this to happen,’ he repeats. ‘I was in the
Gherkin lobby, about two weeks before we got together and she was chatting with Stella. Stella hauled me over because, yes, I was seeing her and we were heading out for lunch.’

He tugs at his shirt sleeve. There
’s blood on it – I wonder if it’s Tiggy’s, Dad’s or his. What a fucking mess this is. I don’t even care how I look.

‘
Anyway,’ he continues. ‘Stella had to pop back upstairs, so I was left chatting with Tiggy who conveniently let it slip that she knew you really well. That’s why I asked her out for a drink after work to see if I could score any insider information to try and win you over.’

‘
Insider information from
Tiggy Boodles
?’ I scoff. ‘Why not ask Sara? Or Jerry? Or anyone else at the paper who knows me? Bullshit, Theo. Bull.
Shit
. She was probably wearing some slaggy outfit, like she does, and you decided you wanted to screw her. This had nothing to do with me,’ I snap.

‘
I was stupid not to realise how twisted Tiggy is,’ he admits, like this will excuse what he did, like he can gloss over the truth.

‘Right,’ I drawl sarcastically. ‘So, you slept with her, which forgive me if I’m not mistaken, is the number one thing
not
to do if you have a psycho girl after you, let alone if you wanted to get with me,
her number one enemy
. You
knew
we hated each other. Spare me this crap, I’m worth more than that,’ I say wearily. ‘
Stella’s
worth more than that. If we take away me for a second, you asked out
Tiggy
–
Stella’s
friend
– whilst you were seeing Stella. You are a
prick
,’ I tell him.

‘I didn’t realise
about her vendetta,’ he pleads with me, but I’ve heard enough.

‘Honestly
, I didn’t,’ he calls after me as I barge past him. Let him dare grab me. He’ll get a foot between the legs before the next lying word is out of his mouth.

‘
You know what I’m like with women. I’m not going to turn it down if it’s offered to me. If I’d have known she was your stepsister, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near her, but
you
kept that one quiet,’ he accuses me. I spin back around. ‘I wouldn’t have gone
there
if I had known.’

‘What?’
I splutter. ‘You’re blaming me?’ I laugh in disbelief.

‘Well
, no, but I’m just saying that–’

‘You’re just saying
that if I had told you this then none of the rest would have happened.
Please
.’ I snort. ‘
Don’t
. Stella would still be pregnant right now, even if you hadn’t slept with Tiggy and, besides which, aren’t you
still
sleeping with Tiggy? Was that true what she said, that it wasn’t a one-off?’

‘Geli–’

His face says it all. I cannot believe this. I cannot believe any of this. Talk about Trouble on a whole new level. What I wouldn’t give for a man not to become Tiggy-infested, for us not to have shared the same boyfriends. Am I asking too much? Now I don’t feel guilty about kissing Calvin. Of course there wasn’t a work emergency when Theo and Tiggy had to go to off together. Theo fobbed me off with the idea that my
e-mails must have got lost in the system when I questioned him about it, and then he distracted me with quick and cheap sex. They were probably at some hotel together, fucking each other, laughing at our stupidity.

‘Why are you here then if you’re sleeping with her?
’ I ask. ‘What good have you done by being here at her wedding? Oh, unless you’ve slept with her out here? A little sex on the beach, perhaps? Was the arrangement going to continue
after
she married Calvin?’

‘
She blackmailed me, I did it to protect you,’ he lamely defends.

‘P
oor you. Poor you being
forced
to sleep with her. I feel
really
bloody sorry for you.’

‘It’s true!
The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you…’

H
e talks on. He tells me how he tried to end it with Tiggy when he started seeing me, how she flipped – even though she was engaged to Calvin – and how he suspected she was only using Calvin because in her twisted little head it would make him jealous. He explains how she threatened to tell me, but she promised she wouldn’t if Theo kept seeing her. When he refused, she dropped the Stella bombshell, so he relented. But, and this is the truly side-splitting part, only because he had fallen in love with me and didn’t want to lose me. What. A. Pack. Of. LIES.

‘
Are you fucking
mad
?’ is my reaction, causing a passing guest to stop dawdling along the corridor and break into a nervous jog.

‘Mad for you.’

Suddenly my past dealings with men seem relatively sane in comparison to this.

‘I didn’t know what to do for the best,’ he continues. ‘I’ve been in such a dilemma.’

His face suggests he is in agony, but he’s nothing but a scheming liar. Perfect for politics actually – he should be in government, not writing about it.

‘And what about Tiggy?’

‘What about her?’

‘Are you still going to see her?’

‘No! Geli, it’s only you. Please, give me a chance,’ he begs. ‘Let me make this right.’

‘Why are you here then if it’s not for Tiggy?’ I
ask icily.

‘For you, Geli. To keep you safe from her. To keep you from knowing about Stella until I found out whether the ba
by’s mine. She said she’d tell you if I didn’t come here, and she managed to wangle it with that uncle of yours when I said I had no holiday left.’

‘But you agreed to come here before you knew Stella was pregnant,’ I point out.

There’s a long pause.

‘
OK, I knew back in December. Just before we first got together.’

‘So what else have you lied to me about?’ I ask bluntly, almost conversationally
. This can’t be real, this can’t be happening. I can’t believe how much of an idiot I have been. My gut reaction has been screaming out from the very start that there was something untoward with Theo, yet I stupidly ignored it based on some childish crush and some sizzling sex at the beginning. I deserve this – it’s my punishment – I deserve it for being
such an idiot
.

‘Nothing,
I swear. I’m telling you the truth. I’m so sorry, baby.’

‘What about the baby?’ I
say, dead-pan.

‘It might not be mine.’
I look at him with raised eyebrows. ‘Look, you can call Stella and ask her. She said she slept with two other men that week.’

‘Christ,’ I mutter. ‘So you’re
that
lax with protection? That’s just great, Theo. For someone so smart, you really are incredibly dumb. How many more secret children do you have in London?’

He answers a beat too late.
‘None.’

Oh, bloody brilliant – it gets better and better, doesn’t it?