The Ex Factor (26 page)

This time there’s no careful planning of a sexy outfit, no meticulous application of makeup, no selection of saucy lingerie. This time I don’t even turn off the engine as I deposit Frankie, Adam and the dogs at home. This time I simply flatten the accelerator and drive into the city as fast as I possibly can, unwashed hair and yesterday’s clothes be damned.

The van screeches to a stop in front of the Shangri-La and I toss the keys to the open-mouthed valet as I run inside.

All the check-in clerks are busy with hotel guests, but I’m not about to let that stop me. I barge up to the closest one and slap my hand on the marble countertop. My mother would be appalled by my rudeness, but I haven’t got time to worry about that now. And besides, it’s basically her fault I’m in this mess. If she hadn’t gone and died, I wouldn’t be the sort of basket case who goes around leaving the perfect man for no good reason.

‘I need you to let me up to the penthouse,’ I almost shout.

‘I’m with a guest, madam, if you’d care to wait,’ he says smoothly.

‘I don’t care to wait, actually. I can’t. I need to see Mitchell Pyke
very urgently
.’ Because I’m sure he’s never heard that from a crazy fan before.

The clerk, whose name tag says ‘David’, offers his guest an apologetic smile. ‘Mr Pyke is not currently a guest in this hotel,’ David tells me.

I slap my hand to my forehead. ‘Right. Of course he isn’t. But maybe you have a Mr . . . Hugo?’ That was Mitchell’s nom de plume, right?

‘No, madam. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ He holds out his hand to his guest. ‘May I have your credit card, sir?’

‘Not Hugo. Hugo . . . 
something.
’ I look wildly around me for inspiration.
Damn it.
Where’s Mack when I need him?

‘We have neither a Mr Hugo, nor a Mr Something currently in the hotel,’ says David snootily.

My heart sinks. It hadn’t occurred to me that Mitchell would change his hotel pseudonym, but of course it makes sense. Especially when maniacs like me have hold of it.

‘Come on, Dave. Help a girl out. Don’t you know who I am?’

But David’s face is intractable. He will not be acting the part of ‘forthcoming hotel employee’ today. Clearly he has not seen the end of
Notting Hill.

The neglected businessman trying to check in finally pipes up. ‘You are incredibly rude,’ he says pompously.

‘Whatever, dude,’ I grumble as I stomp toward the door. ‘Tell it to my mother.’

I climb into my van and slam the door, thumping the steering wheel for good measure as I wait for the valet to deliver the keys.

‘You’re Kitty Hayden,’ he says as he appears at my window and hands them over.

‘You should go inside and tell your friend that,’ I reply, slipping the key into the ignition.

‘Mitchell Pyke isn’t here.’

‘So I heard.’

‘No,’ he says, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I mean it. I read that he’s back in Sydney, but he’s not staying here this time. “Hugo Richmond” isn’t staying here either. I checked.’

Richmond.
Of course.

‘You checked?’ And I thought I was the obsessive one.

The valet shrugs. ‘My boyfriend’s a huge fan. I wanted to get Mitchell’s autograph for him.’

‘That’s sweet. Where else do celebrities stay in Sydney?’

‘The Four Seasons. The Hyatt. Sometimes the Langham,’ he says. ‘But honestly, the studios usually book all their talent into the same place. If Mitchell really is in Sydney, chances are he’d be here.’

A car horn sounds loudly behind me, making me jump. I put the van in gear. ‘Thanks for your help,’ I say as I pull back onto the street.

The drive home feels interminable. I call all the hotels the valet mentioned, and about a hundred he didn’t, but none has any record of Mitchell or ‘Hugo’. At least, no record they’re willing to admit over the phone to a desperate-sounding woman. I guess it’s still possible he’s checked in somewhere under a different name, but the chances of me guessing it seem slim at best. And besides, if he’s using a different fake name, it must be at least partly because he doesn’t want me to find him.

I even call Mitchell’s mobile, though I really don’t want to say what I need to say on the telephone. Anyway, it goes straight to voicemail. He probably has it set up to send any calls from my number straight to hell.

The sun has almost set when I pull up at home, and the house is dark and still. In the hall, I find a note from Frankie.

The missive is punctuated with at least a dozen winky faces.

In fact, privacy is the last thing I want tonight. I want someone here to tell me that it’s not over; that Mitchell doesn’t despise me. I don’t quite know what I’d imagined would happen if I’d found Mitchell at the hotel, but in the cold light of day – well, dusk – I realise I was monumentally deluded to expect a happy ending. What, did I think I’d just turn up at his door and he’d declare his undying love for me? After I sold him out to the tabloids over a transgression that, in all likelihood, didn’t actually happen?

Unlikely.

I want someone here to tell me that Mitchell’s feelings for me were real, and
are
real still. Preferably Mitchell himself.

In the absence of this, I decide to go and cry in the shower instead.

Thirty minutes later, the hot water has long since cooled to lukewarm, but I can’t bring myself to step out of the cubicle. I’ve washed my hair and sloughed off the dusty remains of my country sojourn, but no amount of scrubbing can cleanse me of the profound desolation I feel. Losing love when you have no say in it is awful; squandering love because you’re a gullible ball of neuroses is so much worse.

Finally, the water runs ice cold. I wrap myself in a towel and stagger to my bedroom. Next stop: bed.

A muffled
thunk
pierces the early-evening hush. A chill creeps up my spine from my shoulder blades to the base of my skull. The sound is unmistakable. It’s the sound of the side gate banging closed.

‘Frankie?’

There’s no reply. My sister is at Adam’s place. And even if she had come back, she’d enter the house through the front door, not skulk down the side path to the back garden.

Now there’s a
crash
as the empty bottles stacked by the back door awaiting recycling clatter onto the deck. My heart starts to race and sweat beads my brow.

‘Who’s there?’ I say feebly.

Silence.

I’ve left my phone on the hall table with my keys, so I can’t call the police. In one fluid movement, I drop my towel and grab a pile of clothes from the floor. I fasten my bra and pull a T-shirt over my head, then stop.

‘A bra, Kitty? You’re probably about to be dismembered, but sure, don’t forget proper support for the girls.’

Shaking my head, I shimmy into a denim skirt and pick up the closest thing to a weapon I can lay my hands on: a Castiglioni lamp that Frankie bought. It seems a shame it’s about to bludgeon my intruder into unconsciousness, since it probably cost more than my car.

I tiptoe into the hall, wishing I could send the dogs ahead as spotters. If I survive the next few minutes with all my limbs intact, I am going to
shake
Frankie for taking my three snarling, salivating security guards away for the night.

When I reach the kitchen, I fumble in the darkness for the light switch and flip on the outside light.

Nothing. I can’t see anyone in the backyard. Whatever – 
whoever – 
it was must have been scared off by the light.

I breathe a sigh of relief and set the lamp down. And then I do the opposite of what I know I should do – which is find my phone and call the police – and unlock the back door.

The chill night air kisses my face as I step onto the deck. I shiver. With my wet hair and inappropriately summery outfit, I’m definitely not dressed for night-time burglar patrol. And yet I keep walking, wrapping my arms around myself for warmth as I pad onto the dewy grass.

I turn my face up to the inky darkness. One of the things I’ve always loved most about living here is the clear night sky. When we were kids, Frankie and I would lie out here for hours in summer, just staring up at the twinkling blanket of stars. I was in my teens when my sister started primary school, so I always pretended I was merely humouring her. But really, those moments lying side by side, trying to fathom the magnitude of space, were some of my most peaceful.

‘Kitty.’

The voice shoots out of the darkness like a bullet, and I scream.

‘Stay away! I have a knife!’ Which is a complete lie.

Adrenalin surges through my body as I whirl around and see a shadowy figure lurking by the gate.

‘Calm down,’ the figure says. ‘It’s okay.’

It’s a man. An enormous, terrifying man.

Wait.

An enormous, terrifying
American
man.

‘Mitchell?’

‘Yes, don’t panic,’ he says, emerging from the darkness. He strides towards me. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you. I knocked at the front door, but there was no answer. Your van’s here so I knew you were home, but I couldn’t hear the dogs and I got worried.’

‘So you thought you’d just break in through the back?
Jesus
, Mitchell! You just about gave me a coronary.’ The fact that barely an hour earlier I’d been feverishly searching for this man has been entirely displaced by the fact that I want to punch him right at this moment.

‘That wasn’t my intention,’ he says earnestly, but I swear he’s fighting a smile. ‘When I saw the light come on I started heading around the front again so I
wouldn’t
frighten you. But then you came outside and you just looked so . . .’ He holds out his hands, palms up, in a gesture of surrender.

‘I heard you were back in Sydney,’ I say when at last my heartbeat slows to something approaching normal. ‘Shouldn’t you be in a penthouse somewhere?’

‘I was hoping I might stay with a friend instead,’ he says in his gruff drawl, and the weight of intent in that sentence ignites a slow burn between my thighs.

I take a step toward him and breathe in his heady scent. God, how I’ve missed the smell of him. I want to run to him, to wrap myself around him and never let him go. But now that I have him here in front of me, some perverse sense of self-preservation kicks in. I can’t lay my heart at his feet just yet. I
won’t.

‘Really? Times must be tough. New movie not doing so well?’

Mitchell chuckles mirthlessly. ‘Well, a lot of people aren’t very happy with me right now. Maybe you read about it?’ Even in the dim glow cast by the porch light, I can see the steely glint in his blue eyes.

‘I’m so sorry, Mitchell. I wish I could take it back.’ I don’t know what else I can say.

‘
I’m
sorry. I should have been on the next flight to Sydney the day you left LA. And for the record, none of what Vida told you is true,’ he says, and I’m taken aback by the vehemence in his tone. ‘Not one word of it. There was no publicity stunt.’

‘I know.’

Now it’s Mitchell’s turn to look startled. ‘You do?’

‘Yes. I should have believed you. I should have trusted my feelings for you. I should have believed in us.’ My throat tightens as the full force of all the things I
should
have done hits me. ‘And now it’s too late.’

Mitchell reaches for my hand, but pauses. The warmth of his skin radiates against mine as he hesitates. There’s just millimetres between us, but it feels like miles.

‘It doesn’t have to be,’ he says at last.

My stomach flips. I stare down at the grass. I can feel his gaze searching for mine, but I can’t bring myself to look at him. If the fleeting hope his words have given me isn’t reflected in his face, I don’t know what I’ll do. I want to see the answer to my unspoken question in his eyes.

‘Look at me, Kitty,’ Mitchell says. ‘Please.’

‘I can’t.’

With his index finger, he gently tilts my chin up until our eyes lock. I have no doubt my hunger for him is writ large in mine, but his are dark and unknowable.

‘You made a big mistake the day we met, Kitty Hayden,’ he says.

Not what I’d expected. ‘I did?’

Mitchell nods. ‘You thought we were worlds apart and so we could never work. And maybe I reinforced that with my whole “let me be a movie star” speech and the car and . . . what happened to the Plymouth, by the way?’

Oh! Uh . . .’ I clear my throat. ‘Fender bender.’

‘Movies are just what I do, Kitty,’ he goes on, apparently buying my explanation. ‘It’s not who I
am.
I’m just Mitch Pyke, some drama geek from the Midwest who got crazy lucky.’

‘So, you’re basically telling me you’re just a boy, standing in front of a girl, asking her to love him?’ I deadpan.

He grins. ‘Something like that.’

‘Well, you’re in luck.’ I take a deep breath and summon all my courage. ‘Because I do love you. I never stopped, even when I thought what we had was just a figment of my imagination.’

‘You have a pretty dirty imagination,’ he says, leaning in close.

‘You have no idea.’ That smouldering feeling down low is building to a delicious ache.

‘I love you, Kitty,’ Mitchell says, and lowers his mouth to mine.

His kisses feel like memories. His lips graze my neck, my shoulders, the soft well at the base of my throat.

A soft moan escapes my lips. ‘Who are you?’ I whisper into the darkness.

‘You know who I am, Kitty. You’ve known all along,’ Mitchell replies. He pulls back and his gaze bores into mine. He smiles. ‘I’m yours.’

What’s that we hear? Oh, just the sound of a million hearts breaking. Sorry to be the one to tell you, ladies, but the rumours are true: Mitchell Pyke is off the market.

The
Solitaire
hunk wed his Aussie lady love, Kitty Hayden, last weekend at the country property the pair share two hours south of Sydney.

In keeping with the couple’s unconventional style, the outdoor nuptials were a quirky affair. Kitty, a dog trainer who also runs an animal shelter on the property, arrived to say ‘I do’ in a 1958 Plymouth Fury. Eschewing the traditional bridal party, she was flanked by two ‘best people’: her sister, Frances Hayden, and best friend Adam Katz. Mitchell, meanwhile, was supported at the altar by his longtime friend and former bodyguard, Mack Morrison.

Mitchell and Kitty’s four dogs – Pitbull mix Reggie, retired racing Greyhound Carl, senior Border Collie Dolly and Australian Shepherd puppy Gracie – served as flower girls and page boys, with sprays of native foliage tucked into their collars.

The guest list was a largely celebrity-free affair – perhaps not so surprising considering Mitchell has shunned the spotlight since relocating from Los Angeles to Australia a year ago. The only A-lister in attendance was Ellis Chevalier, newly divorced and reconciled with his old friend. Sources say Ellis wasted no time getting to know some of the local ladies in nearby Berry.

Kitty wore a vintage lace gown and her late mother’s veil, while Mitchell prompted many a subtle swoon in his Armani tux.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as the pair recited vows they wrote themselves. Mitchell promised to stick to the $50 limit his bride has imposed on all future gift-giving occasions, and choked up as he told his Aussie sheila: ‘I fell in love with your courage, your kind heart and your unshakeable authenticity. I knew you were meant for me, even when you didn’t know it yourself. I love you, and I’m a better man because of it.’

Kitty, meanwhile, pledged not to complain too vocally about her new husband’s biannual trips back to Hollywood, or his penchant for scrawling flowery love notes on Post-its and leaving them all over the house.

In lieu of wedding gifts, the ecstatic couple – who met when Kitty worked as a dog trainer on the set of
Solitaire – 
asked friends to make a donation to their dog sanctuary, Rama’s Rescue.

In another unconventional move, Kitty delivered a heartfelt speech at the twilight barbeque reception. ‘It was a rocky road for us to start, but I’ve never been as happy as I am today. Although this may be the world’s shortest marriage if Mitchell doesn’t stop badgering me to change my last name to “Kitchell”,’ she joked.

‘It was our dream day,’ Mitchell said, with his beaming new wife by his side. ‘I’ve had a lot of lucky breaks in my life, but the day Kitty punched me was easily the luckiest.’