Wishful Thinking (17 page)

Before Christian could call her back to demand an explanation, his phone rang again. The avatar showed Count Dracula – meaning Justin Daco, former bass guitarist of Wishful and one of his best friends.

“Hey man – listen – I’ve only just seen this myself or I’d have called you sooner. Sasha saw it on Monday but forgot to show me. There’s a three page spread in some magazine and the tabloids are now sniffing around for a follow up story. It says you and Amber have finally named the day and like, very soon. I figured if that was true, you’d have told me and, knowing Amber…well, I thought I’d better run it past you.”

“No! You’re not seriously tying the knot over there are you? You wouldn’t do that without us, would you, mate? I always thought I’d be your best man!”

“Look, I’ll put you onto Tom and he’ll tell you what to say to the press if you get asked. I have to go. We’re at the studios now and I want to check that email before I talk to anybody else.”

He handed his phone to Tom to brief Justin while he pulled his iPad out of his travel bag to check his email and scan through the article and photos. The limo had pulled into the parking lot and the driver hovered outside the door but Christian waved him away for a moment while he read with mounting dismay.

Had Jess seen this?
He groaned. She almost certainly had and that would explain why she was avoiding him. His mind searched back to the party and he recalled Amber’s surprising little display of affection and the flash of a camera. He should have questioned her about it at the time but he was too preoccupied with thoughts of Jess and then Adam and had barely given it a second thought. He could kick himself for having been so stupid! It was now imperative that he communicated with Jess to explain. He’d have to rely on Tom to contact everyone else and set the record straight.

But first of all, he would need to see Amber at the poolside bar of his hotel in two hours’ time and work out what game she was playing this time.

****

Jess had operated in a daze of wretchedness since her lunch with Amber. As much as she tried to dismiss Amber’s hints as malicious lies, something constantly nagged at her mind. Some little thing about Amber made Jess believe she was speaking the truth. Even if it was only the truth as Amber saw it, it was enough to make any relationship between her and Christian untenable now. Amber had made that very clear.

Amber was obviously pregnant and believed the baby to be Christian’s. How could he deny that if there was any possibility of it being true and she chose to make it public? Even if he didn’t care about Amber any more, it would make him look like a monster if he just walked away from her. And anyway, Jess wondered if she could ever want a man who would turn his back on his own child. Not likely – she’d already had one of those!

Whichever way she looked at the situation, she could see no solution, only more pain. She couldn’t bear the prospect of a long-distance argument with Christian so rejected his calls to her mobile and monitored suspect numbers through her caller display at home. When she was at Weybridge, she left instructions not to be disturbed and Jacqui aided and abetted her with surprising skill in this. Jacqui had been a great support, and as disloyal as Jess feared she was being, she was unable to prevent herself from confiding some of her fears to the kindly nurse who seemed to take everything with her Caribbean sang-froid.

“I never liked that Amber from the start and could tell she wasn’t to be trusted,” Jacqui said, wrinkling her nose in disdain. “I was perfectly happy when she seemed to favour Heather and then when Christian asked me to look after Ben, I thought:
good riddance, missy – very glad to see the back of you!
She’s a schemer – I could tell that from the start. I have no time for people like that, famous or not.”

Jess reached out her hand and Jacqui gave it a warm squeeze.

“You know she’s probably in L.A. with him right now?” Jess said.

Jacqui shrugged. “Look, I don’t really follow the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but I know they live in their own fools’ heavens. They think they’re the centre of the universe and even the nice ones like Christian, who claim to be so normal, get upset when things don’t go the way they want them. He’s got one agenda – she’s got another – the space dust will fly when the mighty planets collide and you and Ben are better off out of it. I’d hate to see you both getting hurt.”

“Do you think she’s right then, that it’s only Ben he’s interested in?” Jess asked.

“I couldn’t say that for sure, but it might be a factor. I watched him with Ben, you know and he treats him more like an uncle, or even a father, than just a little boy he met a fortnight ago. But look at you – you’re as pretty as a picture – why shouldn’t he be just as taken with you? What’s not to like about you, little sister?”

Jess gave a rueful smile, fighting back her tears. “Ask Amber.”

“And learn what? Nah – she’s just jealous, girl, believe me. And speaking of jealousy – what happened to that Adam character who ran off in a jealous huff? Where does
he
fit into all this baby stuff?”

“Adam!” Jess repeated. “I forgot all about him. Christian gave me his number – do you think I could call him and see what he knows?”

“Huh? Do I what? Damn right I do, girl! In fact call him right now. He was flitting around her like a suicidal moth when we all arrived here, then all of a sudden he vanished from the scene – and no one seems to have asked why. Hmm, somebody round here might just be doing their sums all wrong!”

****

He found Amber sitting at a poolside table, nursing a Mojito and picking out tiny asparagus tips from a dish of salad in front of her. She looked stunning of course, her flame red hair cascading about her naked shoulders and her slender body encased in a tight, white ruched tube of a dress which snuggled up against her gentle curves in an intimate fashion.

When she caught sight of Christian, her pale face lit up and she dropped the vegetation and quickly wiped her fingers on an over-sized napkin. “Chris,
darling!
” She rose into his waiting arms and allowed herself to be quickly hugged, and kissed even faster, before he pulled away and sat down opposite her.

“You’re looking much better, Amber. So what brings you to L.A.?”

“Well I came to see to Veronique about the costumes for the tour – I have some new ideas I wanted to discuss with her. And, of course, I wanted to see you.”

“Is Adam not with you?”

She shrugged her slender shoulders and looked into her plate of salad meaningfully. “Not unless he disguised himself as an asparagus spear and I just ate him. Sorry about this, my body clock hasn’t adjusted and I was hungry. This salad is divine. I wonder where they find such succulent asparagus tips in January.”

“Mexico, maybe, who cares? I expect they have their sources. Your tour starts in England, Amber – next week at the O2 if my memory serves me correctly. Are you trying to kill yourself with jetlag before you go back on stage?”

Amber laughed, found another asparagus tip and placed it suggestively between her lips before sucking it into her mouth and chewing. “I don’t do jetlag, remember? Anyway I wanted to discuss something with you. Are you going to have a drink? I don’t really recommend these Mojitos – a bit too sweet. Shall we order some champagne?”

Christian raised his eyebrows slightly. “I thought you hated champagne! Do we have something to celebrate?”

Amber took his hand across the table and squeezed it while giving him a beatific smile. “I think we do. I’m pregnant.”

He looked at her in genuine concern, shaking his head slowly. “Amber, you’re not going to risk putting yourself through all that again, surely? You know what the doctors have told you. Your chances of carrying a baby to full term are…not high.” There was no gentler way to put it.

“Nonsense! Every pregnancy is different and I can feel this one is
very
different. This time I
know
it will be alright. I’ve asked Jake to cancel the second part of the tour, so after February I’ll be able to put my feet up and take it easy. But I feel full of energy. I feel absolutely right about this baby this time. Trust me, women know about these things.”

“So where is Adam? Why isn’t he on the scene?” He glanced around him, looking for the waiter. The bar was reasonably quiet though a number of people thronged around the pool and a few others clustered together on the dance floor at the DJ’s encouragement. He couldn’t recognise anyone famous and heaved a sigh of relief. At least that reduced the likelihood of photographers lying in wait.

Amber’s eyes narrowed and her lips went into a pout for a moment. “Who cares? Look I’m talking about you and me here. Our future. Our baby.”

Christian’s wandering attention jerked back to Amber and he stared at her through narrowed eyes. “It’s not
our
baby, Amber and it’s not
our
future. You know that. Your future is with Adam, not me.”

“But it’s
not
, don’t you see? I realised that on New Year’s Eve. That’s when I found out I was pregnant. It was our
very big
late Christmas present. It was a sign! This time we’ll get married. We’ll have the baby and everything will be perfect.” Amber had already taken on that serene but abstract expression of expectant mothers catching a glimpse of that strange new world beyond their present existence. Knowing that life would never be the same but not being able to imagine quite how different everything would be. Looking at her, he felt a sinister shiver crawl up and down his spine.

“How can it be perfect, Amber?” he asked, hoping he was being gentle. “It won’t be
my
baby, for one thing. It will be Adam’s. And Adam needs to be the father to it.”

“You don’t need to worry about Adam – I’ve explained everything to him,” she said, gazing earnestly into his eyes and reaching for his hand across the table. “He understands that we need to be together. The whole world understands that. And the whole world will know you are the rightful father. Don’t you see, Chris, this is how we can make everything right! It’s our second chance. It may feel a bit strange, now, but you’ll get used to the idea and when the baby is born, you’ll soon forget you’re not the biological father. Within a couple of weeks it won’t make any difference to you.”

Christian stared at Amber feeling new depths of dismay. She was deluded and delusional and beyond his help. His sense of pity for her almost overwhelmed him, but his rational brain told him she had moved out of his sphere of influence. She wouldn’t listen to anything he said and he saw no point in causing her distress by arguing with her. She was never going to carry a baby to term and that tragedy alone would be enough for her to contend with when the inevitable happened.

“Well, you know, you’d better lay off the Mojitos and champagne given your condition,” he said cheerfully, to change the subject. “And you should probably stop trying to fight your body clock and get yourself some sleep.”

“Later. I’m not tired yet. A couple of glasses of champagne and then I’ll go quietly. It will relax me.” She stretched up her arm and signalled to the waiter.

“Hello, Adam? This is Jess Danvers. I don’t know if Christian mentioned but I’m helping him write his autobiography. He said I might contact you to ask you questions about the early days of Wishful.”

“Yes, of course, Jess. Do you have your questions ready? Fire away.”

“Oh! Umm…well, I was rather hoping we could meet so I could talk to you in person.” Damn! Jess thought, he must hear that all the time from fans. He probably thinks I’m coming onto him. She listened to the long pause and winced.