Never Too Late (33 page)

Stewart standing close to her. He was talking to Fidelma,

making her giggle. But Evie still felt utterly conscious of his every movement. She wanted to watch him, to see his

head thrown back laughing at something silly Fidelma had

said, to see the lines around his glittering eyes when he

smiled. It was exhilarating just being close to him but she

was too excited to work out why or worry about it.

Enjoying the moment was the most important thing; Evie

couldn’t think of anything else. It was dizzying and scary

all at the same time.

I think we need a drink in the bar so you can relax

before facing the wedding party and put on your lipstick in

privacy,’ he was saying to Fidelma.

Wonderful,’ breathed Fidelma, who, to the best of

Evie’s knowledge, rarely drank and never wore any cosmetics

apart from a dusting of the baby pink Max Factor

powder she’d had for decades.

Max steered them into the bar which was a wedding

free zone because the champagne frenzy was in another

part of the hotel.

Settling Fidelma comfortably in a deep chair in front of

a massive stone fireplace you could roast a boar in, Max sat

down beside her and pulled his chair marginally closer to

the one Evie had chosen. After the chill of the day, the fire warmed their bones beautifully.

Evie instinctively stretched out her legs in their unaccustomed gossamer-thin seven deniers to warm them, before

she suddenly realised she was actually displaying her

horrible calves instead of keeping them hidden as per

usual. Whipping them back under her chair, she peered up

at Max to see if he’d noticed.

He didn’t seem to have done. He was asking Fidelma

what she wanted to drink.

‘A Harvey Wallbanger,’ she said with enthusiasm.

Evie’s eyebrows shot up in alarm.

‘No,’ Fidelma added thoughtfully, changing her mind. ‘A

Long Island Iced Tea. Or maybe a Singapore Sling …’

Fidelma,’ interrupted Evie, hoping to intervene before

the other woman ran out of decent cocktails and got to the Sex on the Beach variety, ‘don’t forget you’re on … er … painkillers,’ she emphasised.

‘A Banana Daiquiri!’ announced Fidelma happily. ‘I had

one of those the night I nearly got engaged.’

Max caught Evie’s eye and they both grinned.

‘Perhaps a restorative brandy or a glass of white wine,’

he suggested. ‘Because,’ he murmured for Evie’s ears alone,

‘I’m not asking the barman for a Vestal Virgin or a Long

Sloe Comfortable Screw …”

She had to stuff a sleeve into her mouth to stop herself

collapsing into laughter and then felt her heart thud at the

way Max looked so very pleased with himself for making

her laugh.

They sipped chilled white wine and Evie watched in

astonishment as Max gently drew Fidelma out of herself,

getting her to talk about the risque cocktails she and her

pals had drunk as dizzy teenage girls.

‘Movie stars drank cocktails and champagne then,’

Fidelma said, misty-eyed as her mind travelled back nearly

fifty years. ‘We wanted to be just like them. I wanted to be

Katharine Hepburn and my best friend wanted to be Jane Russell. Not that she had the … you know, embonpoint,’

she added discreetly with a glance at her own considerable

bosom.

After Fidelma’s reminiscences of watching The African

Queen in a tiny fleapit in Limerick with a young man who

was too scared of her father’s prowess with a shotgun to

hold her hand, she playfully asked Max who his heroes

were.

‘I wanted to be Sean Connery,’ he said ruefully, sitting

back in his chair. ‘My father took me to see Thunderball when I was ten or eleven and I had never seen anything like it in my life. I wanted to be a spy, to be supercool,

when in reality I was this skinny beanpole of a kid who

couldn’t walk two steps without tripping over my feet!’

Evie laughed, not able to imagine this suave man ever

being a grubby ten year old.

‘What about you, Evie?’

She remembered being in love with Harrison Ford in Star Wars and longing to be Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, ever if it did mean having to wear her hair in those

ridiculous ear-muff plaits. And she’d never forget herself

and Olivia admiring Goldie Hawn’s picture in one of her

mother’s glossy magazines. At least Olivia had had rippling

blonde hair and some hope of looking kookily sexy like

Goldie, when with her mousy rat’s tails, Evie hadn’t a hope

in hell.

‘Go on, tell us. Or are you embarrassed to admit to

being a sweet eleven year old dreaming about wearing

Olivia Newton-John’s gear and snogging John Travolta.’

It was Evie’s turn to laugh. She’d been seventeen when Grease came out, not eleven.

‘You are a rogue, Max,’ she admonished, waggling a

finger at him. ‘As if I look thirty! What’s your game?’

He pretended to look shocked. ‘You mean you’re

younger than thirty? Forgive me.’

This time she slapped his knee, an instinctively familiar

gesture.

I’m older than thirty, you lunatic. As if you didn’t know.’

In reply, he gave her a heavy-lidded look that was meant

for her alone. A dark look that sent a bolt of excited

lightning through her belly. Terrified in case she went pink

again, Evie took a giant slug of her wine.

‘I do believe he’s flirting with you, Evie,’ twittered

Fidelma, who had drained her glass and was now looking

happily tipsy.

‘I’m flirting with both of you,’ Max replied, giving Evie

another intense look.

Arch looks were not Evie’s thing. She’d long realised

that a snub nose and rosy cheeks meant her chances of

looking wryly amused and sophisticated at the same time

were nil. But today, she thought, she’d managed it.

‘You look very fierce when you do that,’ Max remarked.

‘Do I?’ she asked, astonished. ‘I didn’t mean to. I was

trying to look …’ She paused. She couldn’t very well say

she was trying to look like a soignee heroine who was

trying to slap down an eager suitor. ‘… tougher, I was

trying to look a bit tougher, more autocratic,’ she said,

suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to be brutally

honest. ‘Not a pushover.’

Max laid one big hand softly on her arm. ‘You’re no

pushover, Evie Fraser,’ he said, his voice truthful. ‘But

you’re not a hard-edged, autocratic woman either. Believe

me, I’ve had more experience of women like that than I

care to remember. You’re warmhearted, funny and gentle.

That’s why I’m sitting here with you.’

Evie almost couldn’t breathe, her heart swelled so with

his compliments.

‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ Max added, wolf’s teeth showing.

‘You’re one hell of an attractive woman too.’

The Jade Princess, Davina or any one of Evie’s other

paper heroines would have said something clever or sexy

in return, something guaranteed to knock Max for six and

prompt him to produce red roses, champagne and an item

of jewellery that came with its own security guard.

Evie simply beamed at him. For the first time that day,

she felt really, truly happy.

‘Was it Olivia Whatsit-John you liked?’ demanded

Fidelma, who was trying to attract the barman’s attention

by waggling her empty glass meaningfully in his

direction.

Max took pity on her and ordered another round of

white wine. ‘But we’d better go up to the party soon,’ he

warned, ‘or the bride and groom will murder us.’

Evie momentarily wondered whether he was a guest of

he:- father’s or Vida’s but didn’t want to break the mood by

asking. She was sick of those ‘I’m his auntie’s secondcousin-twice-removed’

conversations you regularly had at

weddings where everyone got headaches trying to place

everyone else in the complicated family tree. Her father

had a wide circle of friends and Max could be anyone.

She’d find out later. This spell was too magical to be

broken with formalities.

‘I was never mad about Olivia Newton-John,’ she

answered. ‘Although I’d have killed for a figure like hers. I

still would,’ she added as an afterthought, one hand patting

her waist.

‘What do you mean?’ Max said, brow furrowed as he

looked at her.

The heat of the fire had given her pale face a rosy flush

and had made the previously stiff curls drop into more

natural waves around her face. With her huge hazel eyes

animated as she talked, Evie’s little face was as pretty as it

had ever been.

‘Well,’ she said, searching for the right way to explain it.

‘Olivia’s a real model girl, isn’t she? Gorgeous.’

‘And you’re not, is that it?’ he asked, still perplexed.

His expression said he genuinely couldn’t imagine Evie’s

no”, being happy with the way she looked. As if it was

ludicrous that she had a problem with herself. After a

lifetime of feeling not-quite-right, Evie felt her world shift

on its axis. What if she didn’t have anything to feel anxious

about, what if she was really gorgeous and she’d just been

locked in a cycle of hating herself all her life? What if it

was OK to be Evie Eraser, petite, curvy Twix bar fanatic

instead of a lanky celery fiend?

‘Women fascinate me,’ Max remarked, ‘but I’d hate to

be one. There’s so much to live up to. Men might want to be the top Grand Prix driver, yet they don’t want to look like him.’

‘I don’t want to look like someone else,’ protested Evie.

Well, she did actually. But she couldn’t reveal that, no

matter how bizarrely open she was being with this complete

stranger. ‘It’s wanting to be looking you know …’

‘Thinner?’ supplied Max with a wry look.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ said Evie hotly, hating to feel

that her entire personality had been reduced down to her

desire to be thin.

‘Nothing,’ he replied softly. ‘Except that you don’t need

to be thinner. You’re wonderful the way you are. I saw you

hiding your legs earlier. You don’t need to bother, believe

me.’

His eyes swept admiringly over her body, his practised

gaze making Evie feel as if he could expertly predict her

bra size and judge her waist span to within a centimetre.

‘We’d better go up,’ interrupted Fidelma mournfully.

‘Andrew wouldn’t like it if we spend the whole afternoon

here, even though I’m having such a ripping time.’

‘You’re right.’ Evie gathered her reeling senses. It was

half-three in the afternoon and she was feeling as headily

drunk as if it was half-three a.m. ‘They must have finished

taking the wedding photos by now,’ she added, ‘and we

don’t want to be late for the meal.’

‘I’m ravenous,’ Fidelma said. ‘I could kill for some soup.’

‘We’ll have to get something tasty for you to eat, my

dear,’ Max said, helping her to her feet. ‘Otherwise all

those wonderful cocktails I’m going to buy you later will

go straight to your head!’

Fidelma’s delighted shriek of laughter could be heard

echoing all round the room.

Evie began to think about food too. It was a long time

since breakfast and since she was already thin and gorgeous,

she could eat what she wanted.

The three of them walked towards the ballroom slowly.

You’re very kind to Fidelma,’ Evie whispered. ‘I really

appreciate it. You must have a raft of female relatives who

adore you. I bet you’re the apple of your mother’s eye,’ she

added jokingly, thinking that she’d never met a man less

like a mummy’s boy.

Well, my mother isn’t the sort of woman who requires

looking after,’ he remarked fondly. ‘She’s very independent.

After losing two husbands, you’ve got to be.’

Evie felt a flicker of suspicion in her gut. A premonition.

Her father had told her something about Vida’s son, a

television producer. He’d been asked to the wedding but

had plans to be in Australia at that time and hadn’t been

able to promise his disappointed mother anything.

.Max couldn’t be … No, he wasn’t…

They had reached the ballroom and he pushed the

double doors open effortlessly.

Max, you made it! I’m so glad.’ Vida’s serene face was

wreathed in smiles as she ran gracefully across the room

and threw her arms out to embrace Max. He enveloped

her in a bear hug, careful not to mess up the sleek

honey-blonde hair, before holding her at arm’s length and

admiring the elegant wedding outfit.

‘Mother, you look beautiful,’ he said affectionately. ‘As

always.’

Evie felt her heart sink to the bottom of her stomach

like a concrete block. Max was Vida’s son. Who knew what

he was really doing when he was chatting Evie up. Probably

trying to figure out how much trouble she’d be to his

beloved mummy who’d undoubtedly primed him on what

to do.

Why else would someone like him be interested in her?

Why else indeed. He was a sickeningly attractive man,

almost movie star material. Why would someone like him

bother even talking to her without an ulterior motive? And

as for all the bullshit about her being gorgeous and thin

enough without needing to worry … With a mother who