An Autumn Affair (23 page)

Since their parents’ separation, the two of them had become incredibly close. He’d even offered to go with her to see
Hamlet
, as, in that spooky ‘twin thing’ way, he’d guessed she’d be nervous going to the theatre on her own, and wouldn’t want to risk her street cred by asking anyone else. Indeed, since the separation, he’d seemed to be looking out for her more than ever.

Not that the separation had fazed Faye in any way. Although taken aback by the news at first, she’d soon come to think of it as being pretty cool. They even saw more of their dad now than they had when he’d been living at home. And both parents seemed so much happier. Her mum, in fact, much to Faye’s amazement, had morphed into this sophisticated businesswoman, jetting off all over the place, running her own business and speaking Spanish like a native. And … she’d become best of friends with Miranda Cutler. Not that that fact particularly interested Faye. Because she’d now decided that there was only one cool mum in Buttersley. And that was her own.

Faye even suspected she might have a boyfriend. But that was her mum’s business and she didn’t want to pry. No doubt Julia would tell them when she was ready.

*****

Paul rolled off Natalia and flopped down onto the sweat-soaked sheets. God! And he’d thought squash was a good workout. Life with Natalia, he’d now discovered, was two hundred times more exhausting. The girl was insatiable. She’d even dragged him into a shop changing room yesterday. Attempting to have silent sex in such a confined space, while some old dear outside chattered to the sales assistant about gussets, had proved challenging.

Paul had never been more knackered in his entire life.

Or happier.

He hadn’t introduced Natalia to the twins yet. They’d had more than enough to cope with lately. And besides, it was early days. He had no idea where this thing with Natalia was going. He only knew that, for now, he was having the time of his life. Even out of bed they got on well. She was a bright girl and they were continually discovering things they had in common. But she was also very young and very ambitious. And Paul didn’t want to cramp her style. So he was, as they say, simply going with the flow.

The split between him and Julia had been amazingly amicable. Not a frying pan in sight. He’d even helped her set up her own business as a freelance translator, recommending her to their new supply company in Spain, who were subsequently delighted with her. He honestly couldn’t have said whether he and Julia would have lasted the distance had it not been for the twins coming along. He still loved her – she was, after all, the mother of his children, and he had spent almost twenty years of his life with her. But, as happens with so many couples who link up at such a young age, they had just grown apart. He was only glad they’d both realised in time. While they were still young enough to enjoy their lives. Because there must be nothing worse than looking back on a lifetime of regrets.

Paul glanced at the clock. Shit! He really should get up. There was another Board meeting this morning. Where his promotion would be announced. The day he’d been working towards his entire career.

He was on the verge of slipping out of bed when Natalia rolled over and, with a long scarlet fingernail, began trailing a circle around his nipple.

‘How big is the Eiffel Tower?’ she purred into his ear.

‘It is,’ replied Paul, feeling the now all-too-familiar stirring in his groin, ‘getting bigger as we speak.’

Well, another fifteen minutes in bed wouldn’t hurt. Would it? And it wasn’t like he had a shirt to iron. He’d done that the night before.

*****

Miranda gazed at the sampler. A very definite plus sign gazed back at her. She bounded down the stairs and into Doug’s study.

‘What’s up?’

‘We’re pregnant,’ she said, launching herself onto his lap.

‘Wow. That hasn’t taken long.’

‘It hasn’t. But we have been practising quite a lot. Are you pleased?’

‘Pleased?’ he echoed. ‘I’m over the bloody moon.’

Miranda planted a kiss on his cheek, before turning serious. ‘I don’t know how Annie’s going to take the news. The party planning business has only been going a few months. I feel like I’ll be letting her down.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ countered Doug. ‘She’ll be thrilled for you. And anyway, in case you hadn’t noticed, your husband is now based in Leeds and home every night. Which means he’ll be around to help. That’s if we can prise the baby away from Josie. She’s going to be ecstatic.’

Miranda giggled. ‘She is, isn’t she? But even with us all here, it’s still going to be a bit mad. But, given that the party planning business was your idea, you can’t complain when I’m out until goodness knows when and you’ve got to do bath time and bedtime and …’

‘I can’t wait,’ chuckled Doug. ‘It’s going to be complete chaos but we’ll love every minute of it.’

Just then the phone on Doug’s desk rang. Miranda swiped it up.

‘Hello, dear,’ said her mother. ‘Look, I know you’re probably busy and everything, and I know it’s taken me a ridiculous amount of time to think over your invitation to come and live with you, but, as I told you when you were here last week, I really haven’t enjoyed the winter on my own and I was wondering … if the offer’s still open …’

‘Of course it is.’

‘I wouldn’t want to be a nuisance.’

‘You wouldn’t be. You can have your own wing. You’d be totally self-sufficient.’

‘Right.’

A brief hiatus followed.

‘So, is that a yes, then?’ Miranda ventured.

‘Well, the only thing is, dear, I’m not too keen on all those marble floors.’

Miranda burst out laughing. ‘You know what, Mum? Neither am I. And they’ll be no good for the baby when it’s crawling, so we might just have the whole place carpeted out.’

‘Oo,’ gushed her mum. ‘Carpets
and
a baby? Well, in that case, I’m definitely coming.’

If you loved
An Autumn Affair
then turn the page for an exclusive extract from
A Summer of Secrets
, the irresistible second story in the
Countryside Dreams
series by Alice Ross!

Chapter One

‘And that, I’m afraid, is it.’

Across the wide, mahogany desk, Portia Pinkington-Smythe stared at Dillon Harwood, the balding, kindly faced man who, for the last five decades, had had the dubious pleasure of serving as the Pinkington-Smythes’ family solicitor. Yet, despite this well-forged connection, and an impressive IQ of one hundred and thirty, Portia still failed to compute the information he had just imparted.

‘You mean … my father died leaving a pitiful sum in the bank and a whole heap of debt?’ she eventually asked.

Dillon nodded. ‘I’m so sorry, Portia. I had no idea things were this bad. I wish your father had told me. If I’d known sooner, perhaps I could have helped somehow.’

Portia gave a weak smile of gratitude. Her father’s recent death had been traumatic enough, but to now discover the shabby state of the family finances had proved another devastating blow.

‘But at least you have Buttersley Manor,’ Dillon continued, squeezing a large dollop of optimism into his tone. ‘And there are endless possibilities there.’

Portia grimaced. ‘There are. But I doubt any of them would be viable in the building’s current state. It was bad enough before Dad went into the nursing home eighteen months ago and I haven’t seen it since.’

‘Perhaps you could take out a loan for the work.’

She shook her head. ‘I doubt I’d be a good risk. It’ll take thousands to put the house right, and I’d need a guaranteed income to pay it back. And now that I don’t have a job …’

She trailed off, tears scorching the backs of her eyes. All these dramatic changes to her circumstances over the past few weeks suddenly seemed too much to bear. Not only had she lost her remaining parent – the man upon whom she had doted – but she’d also walked away from her career as a successful war correspondent. And now, to top it all, she’d discovered the Pinkington-Smythe coffers were in a monumental mess.

Portia had never been money-orientated. Indeed, she rarely gave the subject much consideration. Likely because she’d never had to. With a more than adequate salary, on the rare occasion a little extra had been required, her father had always eagerly obliged. Leading her – and everyone else – to assume the family finances enjoyed robust health; that they were hale and hearty. Following this afternoon’s conversation with Dillon, however, just how wrong that assumption had been had become glaringly obvious.

‘Of course you could always sell the manor,’ the solicitor suggested diffidently.

Portia furrowed her brow.
Sell the manor
. The mere words made her already knotted stomach churn.

‘And if you do decide to go down that route, I can recommend reputable estate agents and the like.’

Bile rose in Portia’s throat. She swallowed it down. She didn’t want to think about reputable estate agents and the like. She didn’t want to think about anything. The mental exertion required to deal with recent events had left her brain feeling like it had been pulverised by a herd of stampeding buffalo. Blinking back the still-threatening tears, an impromptu wave of exhaustion washed over her.

‘You okay?’ a concerned Dillon asked. ‘Would you like a glass of water? Or something stronger?’

Portia shook her head. The manoeuvre caused the wide green and white stripes on the wallpaper behind the desk to jump out at her, leaving her with the terrifying sensation of being surrounded by bars.

‘I, er, think I’d better go,’ she announced, thrusting to her feet.

The solicitor’s expression remained dubious. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Would you like me to call you a taxi? Or –?’

‘I’m fine,’ she lied, hurtling out of the office before the man had time to finish his sentence.

***

‘And you know, if ever you’re passing, you can always pop in and join me.’

Rich Stevens congratulated himself on not rolling his eyes. If he’d had a penny for every time he’d heard that invitation over the six years he’d been in the hot-tub business, he’d have been rolling in lovely moolah by now. Not that he’d ever taken anyone up on it. And if he had been looking for a little extra-marital titillation, it certainly wouldn’t have been in the very rotund form of Mrs Blake-Jones, whose folds of flesh, sagging over the top of the luminous pink sarong tied around her waist, had put Rich right off his dinner. But he couldn’t allow the woman to see the slightest hint of his revulsion. That wouldn’t do at all. No – flirting with the customers, Rich had long since discovered, was all part and parcel of the hot-tub business. So, still battling the eye-rolling urge, he arranged his features into a well-practised surprised/grateful expression.

‘I might just take you up on that,’ he rejoined, causing Mrs Blake-Jones’s chubby cheeks to flush crimson under her streaks of greasy pink blusher.

‘My husband’s away at a conference next week,’ she tittered, her flush deepening as she ran a finger, tipped with glittery purple nail varnish, along the curve of her ample bosom, which strained against the confines of her turquoise bikini top.

Rich’s heart sank. Usually the invitation was an open one. Much easier to brush off than specific timescales. Still, he was a professional. And thinking on his feet had always been one of his strong points.

‘Is he now? Well, in that case, we’ll have to see what we can arrange, won’t we?’ At the cheeky wink he added, Mrs Blake-Jones broke into a fit of maniacal giggling.

‘I’ll call you,’ she cooed, twizzling a brassy strand of hair around her podgy finger and shooting him what she evidently thought was a seductive look, but which put Rich in mind of the pink spacehopper his sister had lugged around with her when she was five.

‘You do that,’ he replied, in as fervent a tone as he could muster. The woman’s giggling reaching fever pitch, her porcine face now a worrying puce, Rich whipped up his laptop case and, resisting the urge to leg it as fast as he could to his car parked at the front of the enormous Georgian pile, opted for a steady trot instead. As he turned the corner and spotted the shiny black BMW X5, sporting this year’s registration, and every gadget known to Jeremy Clarkson – his pace increased to a jog. No sooner had he slid into the cream-leather interior than he pressed the central locking system, started up the motor and shot down the gravelled drive.

At a safe distance from his admirer, Rich pulled into a lay-by, switched off the engine and leaned back in his seat.

God. With his hammering heart and sweaty palms, he’d felt like a caged animal in there. Completely ridiculous, given he’d been in similar situations dozens of times before. Usually these little scenarios amused him. Today, though, it all seemed a bit … well … sad.

The woman had been gagging for it. And Rich had led her on. Which couldn’t possibly be right. But what else was he supposed to do? It wasn’t his fault if clients practically threw themselves at him.

While not in the
Poldark
league of masculine supremacy, at thirty-nine Rich considered himself in reasonable shape. And he paid meticulous attention to his appearance, his suits costing more than the average family’s annual fortnight in Benidorm. His dark-blond hair was fashionably short and tousled, and his eyes – by far his best feature – were a startling shade of cobalt-blue, framed by exceptionally long, dark lashes. They were eyes that, with one meaningful glance, had a profound weakening effect on the knees of any red-blooded female, or so his wife Alison maintained. And were, apparently, what had first attracted her to him fifteen years ago. An occurrence for which Rich would be eternally grateful.

Rich had met Alison at a trade fair. He’d been in the decidedly unsexy business of guttering supplies at the time. Alison had been manning the stand opposite, flogging mobile air-conditioning units. Her curvy, petite form squeezed into a short, black skirt and matching jacket, a mass of platinum-blonde curls clipped up on her head, she’d put Rich in mind of a wicked combination of Charlize Theron with a splash of Marilyn Monroe. And every time she bent over to retrieve an information pack from the low table behind her, Rich’s temperature climbed a couple of degrees higher. He’d been mesmerised by her. As, apparently, had the other males in attendance. From the way they flocked around her, it was obvious their interests lay in more than her additional dehumidifying function. Neither Rich’s product nor his cleavage having quite the same effect, he’d observed the proceedings with interest. Not only was this girl sex-on-legs, he concluded over the course of the day, but she also appeared to be bloody good at her job. As he made a great pretence, at overly regular intervals, of reorganising the leaflets at the front of his stand, he could hear her impressively spouting forth about wattage capacity and thermostats. And all in a sexy, throaty voice that made his skin tingle.