Santa Baby (29 page)

‘So given that you’re about to swan off to a ball with the most handsome man in racing, wearing couture and dripping in diamonds, I have to say that you don’t seem that excited.’

‘I am too!’ Tiffany exclaimed, not wanting to admit that seeing Sean with the woman who might be Erin had taken some of the spring out of her step. Realising that she didn’t sound convincing, she added, ‘I’m a bit nervous actually. I won’t know anyone except Raul and I bet everyone will be’ – she put on an upper-class accent – ‘frightfully posh.’

That didn’t wash with Jez. ‘Raul won’t leave your side, I can guarantee it, so just enjoy yourself. There, all done.’

Tiffany surveyed herself in the mirror, and even by her hyper-critical standards she had to admit that she looked good. Mind you, the dress was a show-stopper, a vivid scarlet that seemed to glow when you looked at it, as well as being beautifully designed to show off her
figure.
And then there was no more time to fuss as Raul arrived.

‘Tiffany,’ he exclaimed as she got into the car beside him. Luis was driving. ‘You look exquisite.’ He took one of her hands and kissed it.

‘But you’re missing something.’

She looked at him blankly. He held up a distinctive blue bag from Tiffany & Co. and swung it to and fro from the string handle, as if hypnotising her.

‘Wow! For me! Really?’

He nodded as he handed it over. Tiffany hesitated a second before opening the bag and pulling out a blue box. It felt heavy. Inside she discovered a sensational diamond bracelet – five rows of glittering diamonds set in white gold. ‘Wow,’ she repeated. It must have cost a fortune.

‘Put it on then.’

She slipped it on to her wrist. It was the perfect accessory to the dress and diamond earrings.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said quietly, feeling slightly overawed by his generosity.

Raul smiled. ‘Tiffany, I want to buy you lovely things. Compared to some of the other women I have been out with, you do not seem to think that the world revolves around money. I have plenty of it and even if my racing career ends, my family has more. So, enjoy. You were born to wear diamonds.’

Tiffany kissed him lightly on the lips. She knew that none of her friends would understand but she felt funny about accepting the bracelet. It was too much. Maybe if she was head over heels in love with Raul she would have felt differently, but she wasn’t.

The car pulled up outside The Dorchester. ‘Don’t look so nervous,’ Raul told her. ‘We’re here to smile and be nice to the sponsors. And then we can go back to my place. You look beautiful in that dress, but’ – he
lowered
his voice – ‘I cannot wait to get you out of it.’ He caught sight of her rolling her eyes. ‘What? Too smooth for you?’

Tiffany still teased him about the way he spoke to her. She sometimes felt in danger of being swept up by his world of wealth and sophistication and needed to hold on to reality.

She nodded.

‘How about I rip it off you?’

She couldn’t see it somehow
…

‘Nope, it’s Angel’s dress and vintage Valentino.’

‘Understood. I will unzip it with caution.’

He held her hand as they walked into the lobby of the five-star hotel where they were directed to the ballroom. Men were in black tie, women were in vividly coloured evening dresses. Everywhere Tiffany looked she could see diamonds and other precious jewels catching the light and sparkling. She took the glass of champagne offered to her by a waiter.

A young man approached them, hand outstretched. ‘Raul, how are you?’

Raul turned to Tiffany. ‘This is Charlie Beaufort-Black, one of the team’s PRs. Charlie, this is Tiffany Taylor, my girlfriend.’

‘Lovely to meet you,’ Charlie gushed, in exactly the kind of frightfully posh accent Tiffany would expect from someone with that double-barrelled name. ‘And I think you may have met my fiancée before.’ He could have come straight from the set of
Made In Chelsea
.

Tiffany couldn’t imagine where the Hooray Henry thought she might have met any fiancée of his, but she smiled politely. ‘Oh?’

‘Yah, her name’s Claudia.’

Please,
please
let it not be Claudia the bitch stylist. Tiffany rarely used that word against another woman, but Claudia deserved it. Worse actually … But Tiffany
prayed
in vain as Claudia the bitch stylist approached them. ‘Raul, how divine to see you again,’ she purred.

Claudia was dressed in a slinky gold dress that very few women would have been able to get away with, but she carried off effortlessly. She wore clinking gold bangles on her slim brown arms and a gold band around her head. She looked beautiful, rich and privileged. ‘And Tiffany … lovely to see you again.’ She still said ‘Tiffany’ with that slightly mocking air she remembered from their previous encounter.

Tiffany was sure that the loathing she felt for Claudia was entirely reciprocated, but the two women air-kissed and smiled at each other. And Tiffany wondered how long Claudia would keep up the friendly façade. After all, Tiffany had been instrumental in getting her fired! But thankfully Raul spotted his agent and one of his closest friends, Bruno Cabassi, and whisked her away to meet him.

During dinner Tiffany and Raul were sitting well away from Claudia and Charlie. Tiffany was actually enjoying herself – so far everyone she had been introduced to was charming – and Raul kept her close to him, as if he couldn’t bear to be parted from her. It was only when she went to the Ladies that she came face to face with Claudia, who was checking her appearance in the mirror. Tiffany was about to go past her but Claudia stepped forward, blocking her way.

‘I hear you’ve landed a style column. Congrats.’

Tiffany waited for the sting in the tail.

‘So now you can give all those chavvy readers some style tips. Good luck with that! They certainly need them.’

God, she was a stuck-up bitch!

‘Actually, Claudia, I think you’ll find that chav has become quite an offensive word, especially when used by someone like you. You need to move with the times.
You’re
talking about people who haven’t had your advantages … who don’t have your money. So who are you exactly to look down on them?’

Claudia shook back her mane of blonde hair. ‘One is born with style. You either have it,’ she paused to look dismissively at Tiffany, ‘or you don’t. Mind you, you have struck lucky with Raul. I guess you make a change from all those supermodels he usually dates. But don’t expect it to last. You’re most likely his summer fling. He’ll start lining someone else up for winter fairly soon. I can’t imagine that he’ll be keen to introduce you to Mummy. She’s very high up in Brazilian society.’

Tiffany pretended to stifle a yawn; there was no way she was going to rise to Claudia’s bait. ‘If you’ve finished, I’d really like to go to the lavatory. Or is it loo or toilet? I can’t remember what you posh people say.’

Claudia looked furious that Tiffany wasn’t going to be riled, but stood aside to let her past. Thankfully she was gone when Tiffany emerged from the cubicle. But although she had appeared to shrug off Claudia’s barbed words, she couldn’t help but be upset by the encounter. She wasn’t used to people being so foul to her and looking down on her, and Claudia had mentioned the one thing that made her insecure in her relationship with Raul – namely that she was a novelty to him.
He’s a novelty to me too
, she tried to tell herself. But the truth was she had never been a fling sort of girl … Fortunately Raul suggested they leave soon afterwards, which Tiffany was very happy to do.

‘So how was that for you?’ Raul asked some time later, after he had carefully unzipped the red dress, when they had made love and it should have been a perfect end to the night. But Tiffany still felt as if there was something missing, a connection that wasn’t being made between them … It was on the tip of her tongue
to
say ‘
Quite nice
’, which was ridiculous as it made her sound as if she was describing a biscuit! ‘Fantastic,’ she murmured, wondering if there was something wrong with
her
.

‘Good,’ Raul replied, kissing her on the lips. ‘And now I have to sleep, I have to be up early for training.’ And sure enough he switched the light off and turned over and seemed to go straight to sleep.

Tiffany, on the other hand, was wide awake. Claudia’s words kept swirling around in her head. She quietly got out of bed, retrieved her underwear, slipped on a tee-shirt of Raul’s that carried the scent of his expensive citrus aftershave, and went downstairs. She made herself a cup of tea and curled up on one of the silver velvet sofas. She switched on the vast plasma TV and started mindlessly watching
The Hills
. The champagne had given her a headache and she felt slightly blue.

She realised that she hadn’t checked her phone all night – there were bound to be texts from Kara and Jez wanting to know how she had got on. She retrieved it from her bag and switched it on. There were ten missed calls from her dad.
Oh my God!
Panic coursed through her as she instantly feared there must be something wrong. She hit voice-mail. Marie had been rushed into hospital after going into premature labour. Tiffany tried calling her dad but his phone was switched off. She was about to dash upstairs and get dressed when the doorbell rang. Who the hell could it be? It was after 4 a.m.

Cautiously she approached the front door and looked through the spy hole. To her astonishment, she saw Sean standing on the doorstep. Tiffany quickly unlocked the door. He got straight to the point,

‘Your dad called me because Marie’s in hospital and he couldn’t get hold of you. I can take you to see them.’

‘I had my phone switched off … I didn’t realise.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Did Dad tell you how she was? And the baby?’

Sean shook his head. ‘Just that he’d like you to be there.’

‘I can’t bear it if anything’s happened to them.’ Tiffany’s voice cracked with emotion. Sean stepped towards her and put his arms round her, and for a moment she clung to him. Even in the midst of feeling distraught she registered how good it felt to be close to him.

He gently pulled away. ‘Get dressed and I’ll meet you in the car.’

They were quiet on the drive, the silence broken every now and then by Sean asking her if she was OK. ‘Not really,’ she told him after the third time he’d asked. ‘I feel awful that Dad couldn’t get hold of me. I don’t know why I didn’t check my phone. It was stupid of me.’ She’d had no choice but to put the red evening dress back on, having no other clothes with her.

‘Well, you had a big night out, so it’s not surprising.’

Tiffany was too strung out to be sure if Sean was being patronising or not, and his next comment showed that perhaps he wasn’t as he glanced at her and said, ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. We’ll be there soon.’

Tiffany felt as if she was in a nightmare as she raced into the hospital, while Sean parked the car. She left her shoes in the car and ran barefoot all the way to the Obstetrics ward.
Please be OK, Marie, please, please, please
, beat out a rhythm in her head as she ran. And then she was standing outside the security door to the ward and praying so hard. She was buzzed in, and could hardly get her words out as she asked the midwife on duty where Marie was. There was a horrible moment when the midwife consulted a chart and Tiffany was convinced
that
she was going to tell her that Marie was dead. But then she directed her to a side room. Chris was sitting by his wife’s bedside, Marie appeared to be asleep and there was no sign of the baby. Tiffany tentatively opened the door and walked in.

‘Dad,’ she whispered.

He turned round, looking exhausted and red-eyed. ‘Tiffany, thank God you’re here!’ He stood up and hugged her tight.

‘How’s Marie and …’ She just couldn’t say ‘the baby’.

‘She’s lost a lot of blood and had to have a transfusion, but she should be fine. The baby’s in special care. We have a little girl. She’s in an incubator as she needs help with her breathing, but she’s going to be OK. She’s a tough one, just like her mother.’

‘Oh, Dad, I was so worried.’ Tiffany hadn’t cried until now, but she couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

‘I didn’t mean to worry you with all the calls and then sending Sean, I just needed you to be here because there was a minute it looked as if things weren’t going to be OK. But they are, Tiffany, they really are.’

She sat down for a while, catching her breath, trying to calm herself. Eventually Chris told her, ‘You should go and let Sean know. And thank him from us.’

Tiffany tracked him down in the car park where he was sitting in the Merc. She tapped on the window and he got out of the car. ‘They’re OK. Thank you so much, Sean.’

He ran a hand over his head. ‘What a relief.’

She thought about how much he must dread hospitals because of his experience with his daughter; the frantic rush to get here must have triggered painful memories.

‘Thank you,’ she said again and, stepping forward, kissed him on the cheek. And then everything seemed to happen very quickly as Sean caught her in his arms
and
kissed her back. And whoah! What a kiss, soft at first … then gaining in intensity, and Tiffany couldn’t think about anything other than how good this felt. She curled her arms round his neck, pressing her body into his. God, she wanted him so much, felt waves of desire building up inside her. She wanted to shower kisses on him, rip off his clothes. And it wasn’t one-sided. Sean’s arms were around her, pulling her close to him. Both of them seemed caught up in their passion for each other. She didn’t care that anyone could see them … This was what she had wanted for so long …

But the kiss was shattered by the ringing of his mobile phone. Sean pulled away. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll have to take this.’

Reality forced its way back. What was she doing? She was with Raul; Sean with Erin. This was completely mad! Any second now Sean would turn round and reject her all over again, talk about how unprofessional it was. She couldn’t go through that a second time.

Mumbling another, ‘Thanks,’ Tiffany sprinted into the hospital and didn’t look back.