Good at Games (32 page)

It took Suzy less than two minutes to reach Sian Hill. If Harry and Lucille were getting married, that was absolutely fine by her. The reason she was in such a rush to get home was that Terence DeVere had said he'd spoken to
them
yesterday, which meant Lucille might be back…

The maroon-and-black moving truck was parked in front of the house, blocking both Jaz's driveway and her own. This was pretty weird, since the few cases Harry had brought with him would have fit into the trunk of a car, and Lucille had already taken her things with her when she'd left.

Then a couple of moving men staggering under the weight of a glossy fruitwood dining table emerged from Jaz's house, followed by Maeve in her apron and slippers.

No, no, definitely not
, thought Suzy, more mystified than ever.
Not Harry and Maeve.

Parking farther up the road, Suzy jumped out of the Rolls and ran back toward the house.

Moments later, Celeste came out carrying a dining chair. Spotting Suzy, she yelled over her shoulder, “She's here.”

“Maeve?”

“They're in love, darlin'. What can I tell you?” Maeve gave Suzy's arm a reassuring pat. “There's nothing we can do to stop them.”

“Oh, hello,” said Harry, next to emerge from the house. He leaned on his walking stick, looking both pleased with himself and handsomer than ever.

Suzy shook her head. “Hang on, hang on, I don't get this. You're marrying Lucille and running off with Jaz's furniture?”

“God, you're thick,” said Celeste, handing the chair over to one of the moving men and murmuring something to him under her breath.

“I'm marrying Celeste,” Harry announced. “We love each other. This time it's the real thing.”

“Great,” said Suzy, aware of Maeve's fingers exerting pressure on her arm. “Fine. Um…does Jaz know?”

“Not yet.”

“Where is he?”

“Where d'you think?” Celeste's tone was lightly mocking. “AA.”

One of Jaz's favorite paintings, meanwhile, was being carried out of the house and down the driveway.

“You can't take that,” Suzy protested.

“Can if I want. Anyway, who's even going to notice?” As she spoke, Celeste gently stroked Harry's elbow. “All Jaz cares about these days is his precious music.”

“I don't believe this is happening.” Suzy was still stunned but not unhappily so. It was the unexpectedness of it that had knocked her so dramatically for a loop.

“Oh, come on,” drawled Celeste. “You can't be
that
stupid. What d'you think me and Harry have been doing for the last month—watching TV and playing tiddlywinks?”

Um, well, basically yes.

As one moving man carried out a Tiffany lamp, the second appeared with an armful of bottles.

“Beer's up,” he announced to his workmates. Winking at Celeste, he popped the lid off a bottle of Beck's. “Cheers, love. I need this.”

“Me too,” said Celeste, grinning and reaching for one of the beers. Expertly prying the lid off for her, the moving man was about to hand it over when he was knocked sideways and the bottle abruptly wrestled from his grasp.

“Don't,” Suzy shrieked, snatching it away and holding the bottle out of reach. “Don't let her have it! Celeste, you mustn't do this!” Spinning around, she gazed in horror at Celeste, then despairingly at Harry. “For God's sake, are you mad? How can you just stand by while someone tries to give her a drink!”

Not that she liked Celeste, but Suzy couldn't allow the girl to do it to herself. Even she wasn't that heartless.

“Oh, please.” Celeste rolled her eyes in amusement. “Don't get your panties in a twist. I'm not an alcoholic, right?”

Oh God, she was in denial. Frantically, Suzy wondered if she should call Jaz or an ambulance or something.

“You are. Celeste, you know you are. Believe me, you can get through this. I'll
help
you—”

“Look, it's nice of you to be so concerned, but you're wasting your time.” Snatching the bottle of Beck's from the astonished moving man, Celeste drank half of it down in one go. “You see, I'm really not an alcoholic,” she repeated calmly. “I never was an alcoholic. I just pretended to be one to get Jaz to notice me in the first place.”

* * *

“Of course, I suspected they were up to mischief,” Maeve admitted later that afternoon when Harry and Celeste had left, “but it wasn't until this morning that I knew for sure.”

Jaz still wasn't back. Suzy, dunking fruitcake in her tea, said, “You didn't breathe a word! How could you not tell me if you thought there was something going on between them?”

Maeve shrugged and watched a corner of the cake crumble into Suzy's tea.

“You'd have told Jaz. I didn't want him to know.”

Astounded, Suzy said, “Why not?”

“Oh, come on, girl, use your brain. If Jaz had kicked Celeste out, she'd have been after him for millions in…ah, now, what's it called, something to do with dog food…?”

“Palimony.”

“That's the fellow.” Maeve nodded comfortably. “But this way she's run off with another man, so Jaz won't have to pay her a bean.”

“You are clever.” Suzy was filled with admiration.

“I know I am. Unlike you.” Maeve nodded across the table as—
plop
—yet another disintegrating wedge of cake splashed messily into Suzy's cup.

“And Harry persuaded
Hi!
to keep the deal going.” As Suzy fished out sodden bits of fruitcake with her teaspoon, she marveled at his chutzpah. “Instead of marrying Jaz Dreyfuss's ex-wife, Harry the Hero marries Jaz's future wife instead. You have to admit, it's right up that magazine's alley.”

“And Celeste's going to be selling her story as well,” said Maeve. “That's why she disappeared yesterday—she was up in London with the head of some PR agency, working out deals. My life of hell with dried-out, dried-up rock star Jaz. Ungrateful little trollop that she is.”

“God, poor Jaz.” Suzy groaned at the awful prospect. “That is
so
unfair.”

The next moment she stiffened as a truly awful thought went
ziiing
like an arrow through her brain.

I finished with Harry, but nobody else knows that. What if he's planning to make out he dumped me so he could be with Celeste?

Aaargh, no
, thought Suzy, horrified.
Bloody, bloody hell,
poor me
.

* * *

Jaz was in the swimming pool, floating on his back with his eyes closed. The water, heated to blood temperature so he barely knew it was there, lapped gently over his shoulders and chest.

Opening his eyes, he gazed up at the emerald-green ceiling with its hand-painted border of peacocks swishing their flamboyant blue and gold tails. The peacocks had been commissioned five years ago by Suzy. When Celeste had moved into the house she had lobbied hard to have them painted over, but Jaz had stood his ground. Each peacock was different; some looked mischievous, others proud. One was even winking saucily. They all had their own distinct personalities.

Like the women in my life
, Jaz thought with a rueful smile.

The next moment there was a loud splash behind him and the spreading ripples rocked Jaz from side to side.

“It's like an elephant jumping into the water,” he complained. “Why can't you just dive in quietly like normal people?”

“I like to make an entrance.” Beaming, Suzy bobbed up and down in front of him. “Make sure I'm noticed.”

“Take it from me: you'll always be noticed.”

“Especially if I was to dive in with this bikini on,” said Suzy. “My boobs would shoot out. But if I take a running jump and curl up into a ball, they can't escape.”

Jaz checked his watch; it was eight o'clock. “Has Maeve gone out?”

“Just left. Karaoke night at the Hen and Feathers.” Suzy paused. “You've been down here for over an hour. How are you feeling, truly?”

Truly? Like I've been let out of prison
, thought Jaz.

Without him even realizing it, Celeste had trapped him. When the Lucille thing had come to a head and he had finally acknowledged his feelings for her, he had wondered at the same time how on earth he could ever end it with Celeste. Her apparent reliance on him to keep her from drinking again had been a powerful form of emotional blackmail. Jaz knew, of course, that one should never give into blackmail, but when you also knew you'd never forgive yourself if the worst did happen, it was a lot easier said than done.

So. Celeste wasn't, in fact, an alcoholic. And she'd chosen to leave him anyway.

Which was good news. Excellent news.
Hooray.

Then again, she wasn't the only one to have run out on him. Lucille had too. Which wasn't excellent at all.

Furthermore, as far as Jaz had been able to make out, Celeste wasn't the chief reason Lucille had run out on him. Suzy was.

And whatever happened, Suzy must never find out what had…er, happened last week in his room at the Savoy.

“Hello? Hello?” Suzy was waving a hand in front of his face. She playfully flicked him with water. “Blink if you can hear me.”

Jaz flicked water back at her.

“I'm glad Celeste's not an alcoholic,” he said. “Now I don't have to feel responsible for her anymore.”

“On the other hand,” Suzy guessed when he paused, “you're totally pissed off that she's been faking it all these years, pretending to be going through all the same awful stuff you went through.”

“That too,” Jaz agreed. Rolling onto his side and kicking his way lazily to the far end of the pool, he added, “The ironic thing is, for the last year I've had this recurring dream, that I'm trying to break up with Celeste. She completely flips and threatens to start drinking again. The next thing I know, she's reaching for a bottle and tipping it toward her mouth. I know it's all my fault. I'm desperate to stop her, but I can't. My feet won't move…”

“So what happens next?”

Jaz sighed. “I yell out, scream at her not to do it.”

“Then?”

“She still won't stop. So in the end I do the only thing I can. Tell her I didn't mean it and that I don't want us to split up after all. And that's it. Celeste puts down the bottle, and we make up. End of dream.”

With any luck, he wouldn't experience it again.

“Boring!” Suzy wrinkled her nose. “No flying horses or talking animals or being seduced by mysterious masked strangers?”

“Sometimes I wonder about you. Come on, race you to the other end,” said Jaz. “Indian or Chinese?”

“Mysterious masked strangers? Actually, they never speak so I'm not sure, but I always kind of imagined them as Cossacky-type Russians, you know, with rock-hard bodies and those gorgeous Slavic cheekbones—”

“I'm talking takeout,” said Jaz.

The neighbors were accustomed to the sight of Suzy, wearing her toweling robe over a bikini, running barefoot between her house and Jaz's. She seldom bothered to take a change of clothes with her. By the time Jaz arrived back with the takeout, Suzy was sprawled across one of the sofas in his sitting room warbling horribly along to something on MTV. Her tousled hair was still wet, she was wearing a yellow-and-white-striped robe over her orange-and-pink bikini and—having discovered a jar of lime-green nail polish in the pocket of her robe—was now happily painting her toes.

“Peking duck,” announced Jaz, holding up the paper shopping bag.

“Hooray. Except I'm afraid you'll have to do all the shredding and rolling. I can't do it,” Suzy said apologetically. “My toenails are wet.”

Suzy's excuses for getting out of the fussy and deeply tedious business of shredding the duck breast and rolling it up into tiny pancakes were legendary.

“All right, just this once.” Jaz ruffled her wet hair. “And only because I feel sorry for you.” She looked indignant.

“You don't have to feel sorry for me.”

“Of course I do. You've been dumped by Harry the Hero.”

“Oh God.” Suzy groaned. “Is that really what people are going to think?”

“They are if that's what he decides to tell them.” Enjoying himself, Jaz began unwrapping the steaming paper parcels of food. “And seeing as it's Harry we're talking about, I rather think he might.”

“This was supposed to be a
happy
day,” Suzy wailed. “And now he's completely
ruined
it.”

“Cheer up. Have a Coke.”

Grinning, Jaz held out a chilled can.

“You must be joking.” Suzy pointed a regal finger in the direction of the kitchen. “Young man, fetch me some wine. Tonight I'm definitely going to get plastered.”

* * *

“God, you're hopeless,” Jaz declared less than an hour later. Raising one eyebrow he added, “Hopeless
and
disgusting.”

Suzy ran her finger around the inside of the Styrofoam carton, determined to scoop out the very last drops of yummy hoisin sauce. This wasn't disgusting; it was simply efficient.

As for Jaz telling her she was hopeless because drinking always went so quickly to her head—ha, well, he was a fine one to talk.

Having licked the hoisin sauce from her finger, Suzy now wagged it at him like a schoolteacher.

“OK,” she announced with a bit of a slur. “Good points and bad points. Harry's gone, hooray, that's a good point. I can move back into my own bedroom and sleep in my own bed again, 'nother jolly good point. Ah. But Harry and Celeste have been screwing in it.” Reaching for her glass, Suzy frowned and took a king-size slurp of wine. “Which has to be a bad point. A
very
bad point. Bugger, this bottle's empty. Jaz, Jaz, we've run out of wine.”

“Wrong,” said Jaz. “
You've
run out of wine.”

“Bloody hell, this is all Harry's fault. I'll just die if he tells everyone he dumped me.” Jerking upright, sloshing ice cold wine down her front, Suzy exclaimed, “You could sort that out! The papers would listen to you if you issued a statement.”

“You aren't serious.” Jaz shook his head in amused disbelief. “Me, issue a press release announcing that Harry didn't dump Suzy, she dumped him first? Now that would be a really mature thing to do. Remind me again, how old are you? Thirteen?”

Suzy stuck her tongue out at him in mature fashion. “We're going to be a laughingstock. You and me both. I don't know how you can be so calm about it.”

Jaz shrugged. Suzy had gotten exactly what she wanted; she was just peeved about the way it had happened. As far as he was concerned, Lucille was all that mattered. Her abrupt disappearance far overshadowed Celeste's departure.

But the one thing he knew he couldn't do was tell Suzy how he felt about Lucille.

“I miss Lucille so much,” Suzy cried, making him jump. “Oh God, what am I going to do? My life's a mess, your life's a mess… Where did we go wrong?” Her robe was sliding off one shoulder and the belt had come loose. Her brown cleavage deepened as she reached forward to plonk her empty glass on the coffee table. Shaking back her tousled, almost-dry hair she wailed, “I never even slept with him! Do you know how long it's been since I had sex with
anyone
?”

Jaz knew. “That French guy, the tennis player.”

“Didier.” Suzy nodded, remembering. “Didier the Bastard.”

At the time, back in June, theirs had been a whirlwind romance. It had taken Didier the Bastard no time at all to persuade Suzy to break her six-week rule. In Bristol for a pre-Wimbledon tennis tournament, he had possessed ravishing good looks, a body to die for, and the kind of French accent that had made Suzy go wobbly at the knees. They had spent a riotous week together. Didier had told her he was single. His friends at the tournament had assured her he was single. A fortnight later, watching him play at Wimbledon, Suzy had seen the camera zoom in on a stunning brunette and had heard the commentator say, “And there's Didier's lovely wife, Sandrine, mother of his three young children…”

Which rather explained why Didier hadn't invited her up to Wimbledon to cheer him on from the friends-and-family box.

Suzy had been delighted when he'd crashed out of the tournament in the second round, beaten by a big, ugly German in straight sets.

“Nobody since then,” she announced despairingly. “In all that time, not one single solitary bit of sex. I mean, be fair, is that totally tragic or what?”

Jaz was laughing at her. “OK, why don't you tell me who you'd like to have sex with? I'll give them a call and let them know how desperate you are. You never know, one of them might take pity on you. We may be able to get you sorted out.”

Swinging her bare legs up onto the sofa, Suzy aimed a quick kick at his ribs. Expertly, Jaz caught hold of both ankles and rested her feet across his lap. Something about the way he gave her knees a reassuring pat started Suzy thinking…

“You wouldn't believe how many times I've fantasized about sleeping with you.”

Jaz's mouth twitched. “Oh dear, you're well gone, aren't you? Are you sure you want to tell me this? Because I warn you now, I will tease you about it for the rest of your life.”

Suzy shook her head emphatically from side to side. “To annoy Celeste,
stupid
. I fantasized about sleeping with you just to
annoy
her.”

“And all the time you were fantasizing about it, she was busy sleeping with your fiancé,” Jaz concluded with a grin. “Neat twist.”

Suzy gazed at him, perilously tempted to blurt out everything. She longed to be able to tell someone about her feelings for Leo.

And Jaz was here, and he was listening, but she knew she mustn't let herself do it.

For the first time in my life
, thought Suzy,
I've met someone who's out of my league. Leo Fitzallan can do better than me. He can have anyone he likes. What's more, he's already got her.

Perfect, pretty, doll-like, super intelligent, super nice Gabriella.

Next to her, how can I possibly hope to compete?

“You're miles away.” Jaz gave her ankles an affectionate tweak. “What are you thinking?”

She couldn't tell him. Too humiliating for words. And it would give him something else to tease her about for the next fifty years.

Fifty years
, thought Suzy.
Good grief, and I might
still
be celibate.

“You have to say something. When I ask you a question, it's your job to reply,” said Jaz. “It's only polite.”

He was teasing her, idly stroking her knees as he spoke. Oh, how long had it been since she'd last had her knees stroked like that?

“We used to be good at it, didn't we?” Suzy gave him a playful nudge, determined not to think about Leo anymore. “Sex, I mean. We always had great sex.” She paused. “So how about it? What do you think? Fancy a quickie?”

Jaz's hand abruptly stopped in midstroke.

“Well?” Feeling reckless, Suzy smiled and shot him a complicit, what-the-hell look. “Just the one-off. No strings, obviously. Mindless sex, that's all I'm suggesting.”

“So you can break your drought?” countered Jaz.

“Well, I wouldn't have put it quite like that. But OK, yes.
And
,” she added enticingly, “it would be a lovely way for you to get back at Celeste.”

Not to mention Harry.

“A revenge fuck.” Jaz nodded. “But I don't want to get back at Celeste. It's over. She's gone. End of story.”

Suzy couldn't help noticing his lack of enthusiasm for the idea. To be honest, it bordered on the insulting.

“Am I too ugly?” she demanded. “Is that the problem? Do I physically repulse you?”

“Don't be daft. If it's that important to you, then fine, we'll have sex,” said Jaz. He shrugged, then fixed her with his dark gaze. “But I'm telling you now, you need to think seriously about this. It has to be what you really
really
want.”

What I really want is to have sex with Leo
, Suzy thought miserably,
and I can't, so I'm settling for Jaz instead because he's an old friend and a good sport, and he's here, we get on perfectly well together, and we both know we'd enjoy it.

And it might make me feel better.

If only I still fancied him. Except I don't. Heaven only knows why, I just don't. And I can't make it happen…

“OK now?” Jaz was smiling, because he had always been able to read her mind with stunning accuracy, “Agreed? Better if it doesn't happen?”

“God,” Suzy grumbled. “I really hate it when you're right and I'm wrong.”

He broke into a grin and ruffled her tortoiseshell hair. “And I love it that you hate it. Otherwise, where's the fun?”

“What I still don't understand”—Suzy frowned—“is why I don't fancy you anymore. I mean, the whole reason we broke up in the first place was your drinking. Now you don't drink, you should be perfect! But the feelings just aren't there. It's mad.” She shrugged and shook her head helplessly. “Makes no sense at all. All those feelings…where did they go?”

“Look,” said Jaz, “I'd love to have a long, involved, philosophical argument with you about the nature of inner emotion. But, basically, you're extremely drunk.”

Suzy screwed up her eyes, thinking what a gorgeous word
philosophical
was. If only she could say it.

“I am, aren't I?” She beamed happily at Jaz. “You're right again. Blimey, what a know-it-all.”

“We're friends; that's all that matters,” Jaz told her. “It'd be a real shame to spoil that.”

“Friends. Yes. You're so, so, absolutely right.” Clumsily, Suzy leaned over and gave him an affectionate kiss on the cheek. “And as a friend, the very least you can do is run down to the liquor store and buy me another bottle of wine.”

“You're going to have quite enough of a hangover tomorrow as it is,” said Jaz. “As a true friend, I'm going to make you a pot of coffee instead.”