Kiss Heaven Goodbye (32 page)

‘You don’t do things by halves, do you?’ said Sophia, coming up behind him, running her hands over his shoulders. ‘Now, before I call Ellis,’ she whispered in his ear, ‘I’d better check there’s no pasty body hiding under there.’

She slipped her hands under his T-shirt and pulled it over his head.

‘Mmm . . . very nice,’ she said, stepping away and admiring his six-pack. ‘Why don’t you hold that thought for me,’ she purred, turning to go into the bathroom.

Alex knew he should leave the room, but his feet felt welded to the floor. He looked up and Sophia was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, naked except for her black heels. Alex could only stand there, staring. Her breasts stood round and firm, her pert nipples begged for a mouth to suck them whole. A lick of pubic hair between her thighs, not like Emma’s slightly untidy bush, looked soft and inviting. She slowly walked over to the bed and knelt down in front of him, brushing herself against his chest. He groaned as her lips swept the side of his neck.

He forced himself to pull away.

‘Look, Sophia. Jez . . .’

‘Do you know what I love doing?’ she said, her warm mouth nuzzling into his ear.

His throat was too dry to speak.

‘Fucking on coke,’ she whispered, pushing him back on to the bed and straddling him.

Hell, I’m only human,
he thought as her hand sank to the waistband of his jeans, unbuckling them and pulling them down. His cock was erect and almost painful with need, pushing at the material of his boxer shorts. Looking deep into his eyes, she took his index finger and lifted it to her mouth, sucking it, swirling her tongue around it, then slowly, slowly, pulled it out, saliva glinting in the soft light. She stretched over to retrieve the mirror and dipped his fingertip into the small mound of cocaine. Putting the mirror down, she slid off him and knelt on the bed, lifting her perfect arse towards him, licking her own fingers and stroking the dark crease, opening her tight rosebud, and leaving him in no doubt about where she wanted the cocaine administered. Alex got up and went behind her.

‘Oh God, yes, there,’ she panted as Alex ran his free hand down her spine, towards her peachy buttocks.

He was mesmerised by this woman, drunk with desire.
Fuck you, Jez
, he thought as he pushed his finger into her.

He didn’t even hear the click as the bedroom door opened, but he heard the gasp. He whirled around to find Emma standing there, her hand over her mouth.

‘Oh shit, Em, I ...’ he stuttered, but she turned away and ran. By the time he made it to the corridor, she was gone.

He ran through the fire escape and took the stairs down, guessing she would have taken the lift. He clattered down the concrete steps four at a time, crashing into walls, finally bursting into the hotel lobby and startling the tiger, which finally lifted its head and gave a half-hearted growl.

‘Emma, stop!’ he shouted as he saw her push through the revolving doors. He rushed out on to the street just as she sprinted across Park Lane, barely looking at the speeding traffic.

‘Wait! Please!’ he called, as a bus came from nowhere, causing him to stumble backwards on to the pavement. It had started to rain, but he could see her on the other side of the road, her red dress as vivid as a poppy. There was a break in the traffic and he ran across the road.

Where had she gone? Then he saw a flash of red a hundred yards ahead of him; she’d run into the park.

‘Emma! Come back, please!’

He pounded after her, so full of adrenalin he didn’t feel the cold drizzle soaking his thin T-shirt. And then finally he saw her, slumped on the steps of the bandstand, her shoulders heaving. She was sobbing, her face buried in her arms.

‘Em, I’m so sorry,’ he began, reaching out to touch her shoulder, but she jerked violently away, scrambling backwards.

‘Sorry?’ she screamed, bending at the waist from the effort.

Yellow light from the old-style streetlamps illuminating the park pathways fell on to her face, and Alex could see she was ghostly white, except for sickly pink spots in the middle of her cheeks.

She closed her eyes and he could see a cloud of breath escape from her lips.

‘You are so
predictable,
’ she spat, her entire body shivering.

‘Nothing happened,’ he said lamely.

‘Nothing?’ she said with a harsh laugh. ‘You were naked, putting coke up her arse, like some sad fucking rock cliché.’

‘We . . . we went upstairs to phone Ellis Cole,’ he said, knowing how pathetic it sounded.

‘Of course!’ said Emma, flapping her arms at her sides. ‘That’s what you go
upstairs
to a hotel room for. Well it’s a good job I saw you go off with that tart, isn’t it?’ she said sarcastically. ‘A good job I followed you, a good job the housekeeper let me in, because otherwise
something
might have happened.’

‘She said I could be in this campaign,’ he pleaded. ‘She pulled my T-shirt off to see if my body ...’ He trailed off.

A guttural part sob, part laugh pierced the night air. ‘Don’t stop,’ she said. ‘I’m dying to hear the part about how Ellis answered the phone and told you to take all her clothes off and stick coke up her backside.’

‘We didn’t have sex,’ he said, looking at the wet ground.

‘Yes, you did,’ she said quietly, then turned and walked away.

He followed her slowly, at a distance, not knowing what to do or say. She looked so small and vulnerable, all he wanted to do was hug her and tell her how sorry he was and how he would make it up to her. Finally they came to the Serpentine lake, long, black and still save for where the rain pitted the dark surface. Alex reached out to touch her.

‘Don’t, Alex. Just don’t.’

‘I’d had too much to drink,’ he said sheepishly. ‘It was
Sophia Brand
. I was impressed. She was with Jez ...’ But as soon as the words came out of his mouth he could tell that honesty was not the best policy. He fell into silence, listening to the hiss of rain on the water, the distant growl of the traffic.

‘Do you think it’s easy for me?’ she said softly. ‘I don’t have a beautiful face or a fantastic figure, I’m not famous or clever. Don’t you think I hear the whispers every time we walk into a room? “What’s he doing with her? Surely he could do better?” And I try not to listen, but I’m not stupid, Alex. I love a man that half the women in the country want to sleep with, because you’re beautiful and because you write songs that touch them. Women are always going to want you. But you don’t have to take up those offers. You’re better than that.
We’re
better than that. Or I thought we were.’

His mouth was stale from alcohol, dry from remorse.

‘Just go,’ she whispered.

But he couldn’t go. He needed her and the thought of leaving her here was making his heart ache.

‘I love you, Emma. Please, please forgive me.’

She looked at him with such a probing gaze that he was frightened of what she could see, that she could see right inside him, see his faults and weaknesses. See his secrets.

‘I love you too, Alex. But things have got to change.’

Hope sparked in his heart. ‘What? Anything! Just tell me.’

‘No more other women. Groupies, models, whatever. And the drink, the drugs, they’ve got to stop.’

‘You’ve never mentioned that before,’ he said defensively.

‘Alex, I
have.
How many times have I told you to go easy at the bar or backstage or in your hotel room? How many times have I asked you to come to bed and you’ve stayed up caning it on your own? I know you’re a rock star, but it’s getting out of control and I think you know that. The bottom line is that I won’t share you with other women and I won’t share you with an addiction either.’

‘I’m not addicted to anything!’

She looked at him fiercely. ‘Then prove it to me.’

‘Em, I don’t know if I can,’ he said, looking down at his hands. ‘I feel lost, I feel empty, I ...’

She took his hands and held them tight, painfully tight.

‘Do you love me?’ she asked.

The thought of her walking out of the park, out of his life, made him feel as if every organ was about to be ripped out of his body.

‘Yes, God yes. You mean everything to me, Emma.’

‘Then don’t hurt me again,’ she said.‘Because if you do, you really will be on your own.’

29

Grace jumped out of the limo with a spring in her step, smoothing down the red light woollen suit and smiling for the photographers waiting on the pavement outside the Palumbo Hilton. Inside the foyer, she drew an elegant hand across her forehead. It was a particularly muggy day and she would have liked nothing more than to be by the pool with her children, but with the elections only twelve weeks away, every minute of her day was filled up helping Gabe on the campaign trail, in keeping with the promise she had made to her husband at Christmas. That morning she had shown a journalist from London’s
Sunday Times
around a Palumbo orphanage and then been interviewed for a six-page feature on Parador for that publication. And now she was on her way to support Gabe at a press lunch. On the way to the hotel, her assistant Manuela had read out the latest election polls from the local paper. Since Grace’s involvement with Gabriel’s campaign and the launch of her orphanages charity, CARP’s popularity had increased by two per cent. It wasn’t a huge amount, and anyway, she doubted the reliability of these polls – this was Parador after all – but it still made her feel good.

Nor could she ignore that her relationship with Gabriel had vastly improved since she had joined the campaign trail. For a start, they were together much more often, which not only gave them more to talk about, but meant that they often shared the same bed at night. Their sex life, which had dwindled away to almost nothing over the past year, had reignited; it was like they were discovering each other all over again. It made her remember how much she missed it. But the truth was, while she wholeheartedly believed in the aims of the CARP party, Grace wouldn’t weep if they lost the election. Win or lose, though, it had to be better than the tense limbo they were now in. She loved Gabriel and wanted him to succeed, but most of all she just wanted it over.

She was ushered through the hotel by her bodyguard and up to a large conference room. The huge suite on the mezzanine floor was full of journalists all looking towards a dais where Gabriel was standing in a navy suit deftly answering questions with wit and authority, although even from the back of the room, she could see the tension on his face. He was under fire and he desperately needed the support of the press. A month earlier, CARP had unveiled a plan to hand over a parcel of land to the paramilitaries terrorising the rural south in return for a ceasefire. It was brave and forward-thinking, but it was also political dynamite.

‘What makes you think the rebels will be satisfied with this deal?’ asked one journalist. ‘If you reward terrorism, surely that will just encourage them to burn more crops, rape more women and butcher more innocents so you will give them more land?’

Gabriel shook his head. ‘This is a one-off deal, a final settlement. I am not just expecting a ceasefire, I am expecting a timetable of decommissioning arms.’

‘And if they don’t do what you ask?’

Gabriel smiled slightly. ‘Then we will talk to them again. Only this time, we won’t take no for an answer.’

A ripple of laughter ran around the room. Grace caught her husband’s eye and he winked at her. He was still able to send little shivers up her spine. She tapped Manuela on the shoulder.

‘I’m just going to wish my husband good luck.’

She walked around the back of the dais, climbing up on the platform behind Gabriel. One of the journalists she knew – Juan Moreno from the
Parador Internacional
– spotted her and waved his notebook at her.

‘Mrs Hernandez!’ he called. ‘Can you give us your take on your husband’s new policy?’

Gabriel put up his hand as if to veto the question, but Grace stepped forward.

‘This is Parador, Mr Moreno,’ she said with a sweet smile. ‘On this platform, whatever my husband thinks is exactly right. However, when I get him home, whatever I say goes.’

The room cracked up with laughter and Gabriel dipped his head to the microphones. ‘And I think that’s a perfect place to leave it, thank you, gentlemen.’

More black-suited security men led Grace and Gabriel towards a back entrance. As they waited for their cars to come around, Gabriel turned to her and grinned.

‘Brilliant as ever, Mrs Hernandez,’ he said, leaning over to kiss her on the neck.

‘You weren’t so bad yourself.’ Grace grinned.

Gabriel pulled a face. ‘You missed the tricky parts. Not all of them agree with what we stand for.’

‘I shouldn’t worry, Gabe,’ she said.‘All journalists in Parador have a closet liberal streak; they all secretly want change, otherwise why would they stick around here? Not for the twenty-thousand-dollar salary.’

Gabriel laughed. ‘I didn’t know when I married you that I’d gain a wise counsel as well as a wife.’

‘You just remember that when you come to buy my next birthday present.’

Just then, Gabriel’s car drew up, ready to take him to his next hand-shaking engagement. He was about to climb inside when Grace grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

‘You deserve this, honey,’ she whispered. ‘If I forget to say it later, I’m proud of you.’

She watched his car roar off, sending up the inevitable cloud of dust.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Hernandez?’

She turned to face a young woman perhaps a year or two older than herself. She was wearing a press photo pass.

‘My name is Maria Santos,’ she said.‘I am a reporter with
Parador Scrivener
.’

Grace smiled politely. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘I wondered if I just ask you a couple of questions before you leave?’

Grace glanced nervously over at one of the security men, but then reminded herself that she could make her own rules now.

‘Of course,’ she said.

The woman produced a dictaphone, the red light already on.‘Can I ask what you think of the allegation that your husband has been taking political contributions from the Andres family?’