It's Raining Men (6 page)

James was too tired for sex on Saturday night, and it was never even mentioned on Sunday. He kissed her, wished her goodnight and then turned over. He was snoring within minutes. They’d
had sex every time he visited her old flat; he’d been mad for her, even when he’d come over from working very late. He was going off her. That was the obvious conclusion.

Eventually Lara dropped off and the dream world continued to torture her. Tianne appeared as a tiny-waisted naked being with gravity-defying tits and an arse like two perfectly shaped apples.
Sitting astride James, Tianne turned around to her without breaking her rhythm, her long curly hair bouncing. Lara didn’t sleep very well and awoke feeling drained and on edge. She got up and
made a jug of coffee with the old-fashioned percolator she had brought with her. She loved its bad-tempered hissing and spitting and the homely aromas it produced that filled the kitchen. Even
though it was a dark Monday morning, she perked up at the prospect of sharing breakfast alone with James. She longed for more of these wonderful early mornings with James and Colombian Roast and
the comfortable quiet.

Miriam had rung the previous night to say that she was picking up the children on Tuesday afternoon and taking them over to France for a week. Miriam didn’t ask, she dictated. It was no
wonder the children had been brought up to think the world revolved around their family. But wonderful timing it wasn’t, as Lara would have had a whole week alone with James if she
wasn’t going on holiday with her friends. She watched him sipping from his World’s Greatest Dad mug and looking through his emails on his iPhone and her heart leapt in her chest as if
it were trying to break out of her body and pounce on him. She wished this holiday were at any other time, because right now she needed to stay here with him and recover what they had when they
first met.

James had a really powerful aura surrounding him, as men in high positions usually did, even the ones who had major belly paunches and jowls. But James was blessed by being sickeningly handsome
with it. In fact, it was as if he had been created according to her own personal checklist: angel-fair hair, baby-blue eyes, soft kissable lips, strong jaw always showing just the right amount of
designer stubble. Tall, but not too tall that she looked like a midget at the side of him when they walked anywhere together, because she was only five foot two. And he dressed exquisitely. His
shirts were expensive, his suits handmade, his shoes shone. Sometimes she didn’t know what such a successful, handsome man as James Galsworthy saw in her. She wasn’t his usual type. She
had sneaked a few looks on Facebook at his exes and they were very much from the same mould with their curtains of dark hair, dark soulful eyes, oval faces and long legs, whereas Lara kept her
blonde hair short and she was much curvier than his past girlfriends. She might not have their attributes, but she had some special ones of her own: her eyes were a beautiful shade of hazel,
fringed with long thick black lashes; she also had a magnificent chest and James was definitely a boob man. She puffed up after reminding herself that she had at least that advantage over his
exes.

‘I’m going to be really late home tonight,’ James announced as he carried on checking his messages. Lara’s heart sank. This was their last evening together before her
holiday and she’d planned a romantic dinner. Plus, Keely was having Paris over to stay the night so there would be not one but two teenaged females making evil eyes at her.

‘Oh,’ she said, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. ‘Can’t you get out of it? Keely and Garth go away to France tomorrow and it’s our
last—’

‘I only wish I could, darling,’ he interrupted her. ‘It’s going to be a very late, very boring meeting with bankers, who will probably drone on for hours because they
love the sound of their own voices. Sorry.’

‘Oh, well, can’t be helped,’ said Lara. Unfortunately men working in lofty positions, men such as James, had to put in long unsociable hours. She thought about staying behind
at the office herself but she remembered that she had promised Kristina an extra night off to go to the West End with her new boyfriend and someone needed to be at home with Keely and Garth,
however uncomfortable they made her feel.

James picked up his briefcase and leaned over her. She raised her lips to his but he kissed her on the forehead and she felt a little sting of rejection. They had been together for only six
months and he was kissing her on the forehead. She felt as drained as if she had been living with him for years, having birthed and brought up his children.

‘Don’t wait up,’ said James.

‘Surely you’re not going to be that late, are you?’ gasped Lara with some horror.

‘I hope not, but you never know,’ replied James with a loaded sigh. ‘See you later, darling. I’ll grab something at Waterloo so don’t bother to make any dinner for
me.’

And with that he was off, with his rubbish kiss and his ‘Don’t wait up’. Did he really have a meeting with boring bankers? That was her first thought as the door closed.

Oh God, Lara,
a voice strangled with impatience said inside her head.
Stop with this paranoia. You’re being ridiculous. James is living with YOU. He didn’t live with
Chloe, he didn’t live with Rachel, he most certainly didn’t live with Tianne – but he HAS chosen to live with you. Get over yourself.

Oi, you,
said a countering rough Yorkshire voice.
You can’t blame her for being a bit of a fruit loop. Not after the luck she’s had with blokes. Give her a
break.

Fair point,
said the first voice.
But let’s try to keep things in perspective, shall we? We don’t want to encourage any self-fulfilling prophecies now, do we?

Lara heard Keely’s door creak open upstairs. Time to go to work, she decided, before she came face to face with the world’s biggest spoon and heard even more words to torture herself
with.

Her mood was glum as she caught the train to work. Her department was having a refit so she and her team were temporarily crammed into the grotty windowless basement of the massive Cole and Craw
Financial Institute building which was chilly and had rubbish overhead lighting. This just added to the increasing hatred she felt for the job she had once loved. She should never have taken the
lucrative promotion that had been dangled in front of her face. Without the promotion she would have stayed happy in her old position and wouldn’t have had to work directly for Giles
Billingley, the three-chinned chauvinistic pig who thought women should be paid less, fetch the tea and not object when he stroked their bottom. It was going to be good to be away from the dirty
old bastard creep for a fortnight. She couldn’t even find some respite at work from her less-than-perfect home life because, as atmospheres go, they were each as bad as the other. A weekend
at home being continually on edge wore her down as much as two days in the office. Recently Kristina had been in a worse mood than usual, complaining about how many dried bogeys she’d had to
remove from underneath any surface in the house to which they would adhere. Not forgetting the walls, where the charming Garth would flick them.

The black cloud above Lara’s head followed her into the lift and down to her make-do office and stayed stubbornly with her as she sat at her desk and logged onto her computer. She’d
had such high hopes for this relationship and yet she saw James less now they were living together than when they had separate houses. Something was happening to them. Or was it
someone
?

Against her own better judgement, Lara logged onto her Facebook account. She had set it up years ago when a friend had emigrated, as a way of keeping in touch, but they never really had so it
had lain dormant, until she logged on to look up Tianne after having that name shoved down her throat by Keely on a regular basis. Tianne’s timeline was full of exciting singles’ events
worthy of a chick-lit book: theatre trips, festivals, holidays in hot climes, cocktails in a variety of European venues. In every one of her photos, Tianne was posed smiling at the camera with her
white teeth, wild dark curls and a practised pout of a mouth. It was very evident that no one could ever find Tianne Lee as wonderful as she found herself.

Tianne was a newly fledged solicitor working for a very prestigious firm in the City. She was, it seemed, the woman with everything: flashy job, flashy car, flashy wage – everything except
a boyfriend. Her status was still showing her as single. There had been quite a few entries since the last time Lara had spied on her, and some more photos added. Again that Simon Cowell-type,
white-toothed smiling pose against backdrops of the Eiffel Tower, the Moulin Rouge, a casino in Las Vegas and even some of her standing outside the Old Bailey in a pinstriped suit.

That was the last entry on the timeline – yesterday. Small lettering said there were comments about that post, and Lara scrolled down to read the conversation between a friend called
Aleisha and Tianne.

Lara forced herself to log out and stop her lurid imaginings. Two working days to go until her holiday. Maybe a good blast of sea air would blow all those ridiculous,
head-rotting pictures of Tianne out to sea where they could get eaten by a passing shark.

May’s lovely dream was pierced by the sound of her alarm clock. She and Michael had been alone on a deserted beach. They were cuddled up on a double sunbed, the sun warm
on her back, the only sound the swishing of waves ebbing and flowing. Suddenly it was five twenty in the morning and Michael’s heavy arm draped over her made it doubly hard to get up. She
pressed the snooze button, then snuggled close to him for five more delicious minutes. Michael started to stroke the small of her back, then his hand dipped to her buttocks. She knew he wanted to
make love. He was always ready for sex in the mornings. His appetite must have been enormous when he was much younger and newly married to Susan, May suddenly mused. That thought of him in bed with
Susan brought a big wave of jealousy splashing over her even though she knew she had a cheek, seeing as that woman was still his wife.

Grudgingly she lifted his arm and slid from underneath it just as the alarm went off again.

‘Michael,’ she said as she kissed him. ‘Michael, I can’t. I’ve got an early meeting.’

‘Spoilsport.’

May chuckled. ‘I know.’

‘Morning, darling,’ he said. ‘Wow.’

May was standing there naked, looking for her underwear in the drawer.

‘Come back to bed and let’s make love.’

Thousands of fizzy beads of excitement bubbled inside May at the thought of that. If she weren’t so conscientious she might have been tempted to take a day off sick, for the first time
ever. Monday morning had never felt more like a Monday morning. Having sex with the man she loved was a much more exciting prospect than having a meeting in Clapham and then doing a presentation to
a boss who would be hell-bent on finding holes in her plans because he was the envious, talentless little shit of a nephew of the MD.

‘I know, I know,’ said Michael. ‘A nice idea, but we have work to do.’

‘Where do you have to go today?’

‘Derby,’ said Michael.

‘Derby? Again? You were there on Saturday and most of yesterday, weren’t you?’

‘Big client – needs lots of attention, darling.’

‘Do these people not realize that you might have a life at weekends?’ May huffed angrily on his behalf. ‘Who wants to talk paper on a Sunday?’

‘You’d be surprised how many workaholics like to do exactly that. Thank goodness it’s just the one customer, then I can come home and . . .’ His voice tailed off
sadly.

May slipped her knickers on quickly then rushed to put her arms around Michael. It was Susan’s birthday today. He would take her flowers and sit by her side and talk to her about what they
should have been doing: having a meal in a nice restaurant, watching a show, staying in a plush hotel afterwards. May wished she had never agreed to go on holiday with her friends. Michael needed
her far more than they did. She should be with him. But when push came to shove, she just couldn’t bring herself to let them down.

Michael’s hands moved to fondle her breasts. ‘Oh, May, you are lovely,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad I found you. I’m so happy you’re in my life. I think
I’d have topped myself if I didn’t have you.’

May kissed his head and wished she could tumble back into bed with this sexy, tortured man. Michael started stroking her nipple and she had to pull away, even though she really didn’t want
to. She was already going to be hot and bothered on the Tube thinking about what might have ensued had she given in.

His smile said he knew exactly what effect he was having on her.

‘I love you so much,’ she said.

‘I know you do,’ he said. ‘I’m a very lucky man.’

Clare closed the box of cleaning materials that sat beside her suitcase. She had two full days left to work, then she had ten wonderful days at the spa, and after that she
would hit the ground running with her new job. Longer hours – as if she could do many more; greater responsibility – as if she hadn’t enough already. But it would all be worth it
for that note she had heard in her parents’ voices on Saturday morning. She had replayed that conversation back to herself so many times over the weekend. It had made up her mind for her. She
knew what she had to do and she would be doing it in her lunch hour today. She was meeting Ludwig in Covent Garden at twelve. He would be flying to Dubai that evening.