Sweet Temptation (3 page)

‘I bet you say that to all the girls, Matt,’ I teased, running my hands up his oiled, glistening body. He had one of the hairiest backs I’d ever come across, but it didn’t faze me. I’d seen all sorts in my time.

‘No,’ he said, twisting his head to look at me. ‘I don’t. I was gutted when they said you were on holiday last time. That other girl who did me wasn’t a patch on you, Jess.’

I stiffened. On holiday? I hadn’t been away for months. Chance would be a fine thing. I kneaded hard at his shoulder blades. ‘When was this?’ I asked, trying to sound casual.

He was silent for a moment while I massaged out a knot. The financial types always had the worst shoulders, packed with as many lumps and bumps as a page of Braille.

‘Must have been June,’ he said, his voice thick with pleasure as my fingers worked away at him. ‘I phoned in and . . . Oooh
YES
. . . They said you were away and I’d have to go with Juliet instead. Pathetic, she was. Hands like wet lettuce. No muscle whatsoever.’

I dug into the base of his shoulder blade, pressing hard on his pale, doughy skin. This had happened before. Clients asking for me and being told I wasn’t there. What was that all about?

‘Mmmm . . .’ he said, almost purring with pleasure. ‘Well, it’s good to be back in your capable hands, that’s all I’m saying, Jess . . .’

‘Glad to hear it,’ I replied. ‘Make sure you insist on having me next time you book, won’t you? I haven’t got any holidays lined up, so don’t let them tell you otherwise. But anyway . . . how’s life?’

Matt talked about work, the flat he’d bought near Cannon Hill Park, and his hopes for the next football season (he was a mad Villa fan, like my dad), and before we knew it, the hour was up and his skin was pink from my pummelling. I covered him with a couple of our velvety green towels and dimmed the lights even lower. ‘Okay?’ I said softly. ‘I’ll leave you to get dressed in your own time. Nice to see you again.’

He made a little grunting sound and lifted a hand in farewell. ‘Cheers,’ he murmured, sounding as if he was dozing off.

I left the room, feeling tired myself. It was a Saturday, our busiest day of the week, and I’d already done two all-over body massages (knackering on the biceps), a bikini wax that was more like deforestation of the Amazon jungle, plus a pedicure on the pongiest feet I’d encountered in a long while. We had a hen party coming in later that afternoon too, so we were all going to be flat out with French manicures and facials.

Still, it was my break now, so I grabbed my purse and went through to the coffee bar at the top of the building. Our salon was part of a big posh fitness centre on the edge of town with a massive gym area, a swimming pool, squash courts, a sauna and three studios for exercise classes. Not that
I
used any of them, of course. We got a staff discount on the membership, but even so, it was well out of my price range. Besides which, I was saving, wasn’t I? I was getting married just before Christmas and putting aside every penny I could get my mitts on.

The coffee bar was the only part of the complex I went into. It was up on the second floor and overlooked the pool, so you got to watch all the swimmers thrashing up and down the lanes while you sat there serenely stuffing yourself with cake. Although there wouldn’t be any of
that
today, of course.
I’ll be good, I’ll be good
, I vowed as I queued up at the counter. I’d just have an apple (a mere 47 calories). And a cup of tea – skimmed milk, naturally! I had to keep thinking Wedding Dress, I reminded myself. I had to channel Slinky Bride, not White Elephant.

Gianni, the manager, spotted me and gave me a wink.

‘Oh, Jessica, my darrrrling!’ he cried. He was born in Walsall but came over all Italian whenever he felt a bit theatrical. The girls loved it, he reckoned. ‘Let me guess . . . you have your eye on my lemon drizzle cake today, yes?’

Damn Gianni and his mind-reading tricks! ‘Um . . . just an apple for me, thanks,’ I said, trying not to let my eyes drift over to the cakes. I caught a glimpse of thick fudge icing on a chocolate gateau and had to tear my gaze away before I was lost. ‘And a cup of tea.’

‘But I bake it especially for you!’ he retorted, his head on one side, big puppy-dog eyes looking sorrowful and hurt. ‘It’s so moist and delicious, crunchy sugar crystals on the top . . . Let me cut you a big slice, yes? For a treat?’

I wavered. Then I made a fatal mistake. I looked. There it was on the plate, its sugared top glittering, yellow and dense with a slightly sunken middle that I knew would be wonderfully soggy.

The world seemed to stop for a moment while an argument raged inside my head.

No, don’t do it, too many calories, too much sugar, think of the wedding dress!

But I am so tired, so hungry, I need sustenance, only one teeny slice, I promise I won’t have any dinner later to make up for it . . .

‘Oh, go on, then,’ I heard myself saying with a little sigh in my voice.

The old calorie counter immediately started ching-chinging in my head as I watched Gianni pick up the cake knife with a flourish; 330 calories, I reckoned guiltily as the blade sank in. Actually, make that 400, looking at the whopping door-stop Gianni had just cut. All the good work with my lunchtime salad out of the window in an instant. What was I like? Crap and weak-willed. Pathetic. A failure.

‘Thanks,’ I said, paying and picking up my tray. Oh well. Never mind. I
had
just burned a few hundred calories with Matt’s Full Swedish, surely. Anyway, I needed my strength for the hen party.

It was heaving up there in the cafe – no spare tables at all. In fact, there were hardly any free seats in the whole place. I stood there with my tray, feeling self-conscious and disappointed for a moment. I didn’t want to take my cake all the way through the leisure centre to our salon staff room – it wasn’t the done thing for a beautician to be parading calorific treats around the place when all the sporty types were trying to resist temptation and keep fit. Besides, if Louisa saw me she’d raise her eyebrows at me
and
the cake in disapproval. ‘A moment on the lips . . . a lifetime on the hips,’ she’d say patronizingly.

‘Mind if I sit here?’ I asked a fair-haired woman who was nursing a black coffee at a table for two by the window. She was quite large, it had to be said, and looked uncomfortable on the cafe’s moulded plastic seat. I knew how she felt. Those seats were clearly made for athletic bottoms, not Chubby Checker ones.

She nodded distractedly – she was on the phone – but it was only when I sat down that I realized she was crying, tears rolling down her cheeks. Oh no. I felt awful. Poor woman – the last thing she wanted was me barging in on her privacy.

I nibbled a piece of cake, lemon and sugar exploding on my tongue, and pretended to stare out at the swimmers, trying my hardest not to earwig on what she was saying.

‘I just felt so embarrassed,’ the fair-haired woman sobbed quietly, one arm around her middle as if trying to comfort herself. ‘He was so rude, the way he looked at me, like . . .’ I felt her glance my way, then she lowered her voice. ‘Like a piece of shit, Nic. Like I was worthless.’

I winced on her behalf and sipped my tea, watching as a balding bloke with a paunch smiled and flirted with a svelte woman in a black bikini, one of those types who go swimming with full make-up on
and
manage to keep their hair dry.
Awww, that’s nice
, I thought.
Middle-aged and still in love . . . I hope Charlie and I turn out like that.

‘And I’m sitting up here watching Paul make eyes at Vanessa bloody Gray down in the pool,’ the fair woman said miserably into her phone, ‘and he’s not even paying attention to the kids. They could be drowning, for all he cares!’

There were two children mucking about behind the balding bloke. Ahhh. Was baldy-man Paul? I wondered, taking another bite of cake. (Delicious.)

‘Well, that would be nice,’ the woman went on, blowing her nose and sitting up a little straighter. ‘After the week I’ve had, it’s either drowning my sorrows, or drowning myself. I’m not sure which would be best, to be honest.’ She scribbled something on a piece of paper. ‘Okay. Cheers. See you later.’

She put down her phone and took a long swig of coffee, her eyes still wet with tears. She was in her thirties, I reckoned, a bit older than I was. Her face was quite pretty in a Goldie Hawn sort of way, but her skin was blotchy and swollen, and her hair hung any old how around her shoulders as if it hadn’t had any TLC for a few months. She was a big girl like me, with a double chin and a few extra pounds on show, although she’d tried to disguise them with an enormous T-shirt.

I cleared my throat. I was a terrible one for getting involved, but I just couldn’t help myself. I hated seeing people upset. ‘Tell me to bugger off if you want, but . . . are you okay?’ I asked tentatively.

There was a pause, and I was just about to back off and apologize for sticking my beak in when she finally spoke.

‘I’ve just had a bit of a mauling in the gym,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘I’ve been told by a spotty adolescent thug called Jacob that I’m morbidly obese and should do some exercise before I lurch to my imminent death.’

‘Oh no,’ I said indignantly. ‘That sounds horrible.’

‘Yes,’ she said, scrubbing at her eyes with the paper napkin. ‘I know I’m fat, I know I’m not Kate Moss, but . . . honestly. All he’s done is put me off ever coming back to a place like this again.’

‘That’s terrible,’ I said. ‘Jacob, did you say? And he works here? You should report him to the manager. That’s so out of order.’ I rummaged in my bag and passed her a tissue. ‘Here.’

‘Thanks.’ She blew her nose and slugged back the rest of her coffee, then got to her feet, looking weary. ‘Anyway, I’d better go. Thanks.’

‘Any time,’ I told her. ‘Take care.’

I watched her go, shoulders hunched over as if she had all the worries of the world on them. She needed one of my Aromatherapy Specials, I could tell, but from the way she held herself, so crunched-up defensive and don’t-look-at-me-ish, I knew that even if I ran over and gave her one of my half-price vouchers she wouldn’t take me up on it. Mind you, I was exactly the same: couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing my naked body. Apart from Charlie, of course. (Although even
he
wasn’t exactly complimentary about it.)

Then I realized it was already twenty-five past two and I had hen number one’s French manicure to get to in five minutes. I stuffed the last of the cake down so fast I barely tasted it, and hurried away.

The rest of the afternoon was full-on. There were ten in the hen party, and they’d booked one of our private rooms so they could have bubbly and expensive crisps in between treatments. I got to do the bride-to-be’s nails, and she was just fizzing with excitement about the wedding next month. ‘My gown is by Caroline Castigliano and it’s
so
beautiful,’ she gushed. ‘Should be as well, for the money – over two grand it cost me, but hey. You can’t put a price on your wedding dress, can you?’

‘You can’t,’ I agreed, painting the base coat thinly and evenly onto her left thumbnail. Well. You
could
put a price on a wedding dress, actually, in my opinion. I wasn’t going to tell her that I’d been hoping to get mine on eBay with a budget of £150, though.

‘We’ve booked Langley Manor for the reception,’ she went on dreamily. ‘A hundred and thirty guests.’

‘Ooh, lovely,’ I said, bent over her hand. She had a whopping great diamond on her fourth finger, lucky thing. ‘What have you got planned for the honeymoon?’ Go on, I thought, make me completely sick with envy; you might as well.

‘Two weeks in the Maldives,’ she said. ‘Sun, sea, sand . . . and plenty of sex. That’s if we—’

She broke off. I left a delicate pause while I painted the nail of her little finger and popped the brush back into its pot.

‘That’s if we get through the wedding, of course,’ she said finally. She gave a nervous laugh. ‘I feel under so much pressure to make it the most perfect day, and Damon doesn’t seem to care that much about flowers or place settings, and we keep having rows because it’s getting me down, and . . .’

Ahhh. Trouble in Paradise after all. I twisted shut the lid on the bottle of nail varnish, then patted her arm.

‘Do you know what?’ I said to her. ‘I see brides-to-be in here all the time – every single week. And each of them says the same sort of thing. I promise you, everyone goes through this stage. Even me. I’m getting married in December and I’m already stressing like a madwoman.’ This wasn’t quite true. I was stressed, yes, but only that Charlie would want to postpone the wedding again. I just wanted to get him up the aisle, put that ring on my finger, be a wife. The flowers and place settings weren’t that important to me either.

She gazed at me from under lashes so long and thick that Bambi would have envied her.

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

I took out the white polish and began to carefully paint her nail tips with it.

‘You’ll be fine. You’re marrying the man you love, you’ve got an amazing dress and venue, you’ll be surrounded by all your friends and family . . . just try and hang on to those things. They’re the bits that matter.’

She smiled. A proper relieved smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’re right.’

‘And,’ I went on, ‘make sure you come back and see me the day before your wedding, and I’ll do you the nicest nails you’ve ever had in your life.’

‘I will,’ she said earnestly. ‘I definitely will – as long as you promise to give me another pep talk, that is. I’ll be in a right old state by then.’

I grinned. ‘That’s what
you
think,’ I told her. ‘I bet you’ll be much calmer then. Serene, even. Everything will have been ordered and arranged by that point. All you’ll have left to do is chill out a bit, pamper yourself and take things easy before the fun begins the next day.’

I could see her visibly relaxing at my words – her shoulders, which had looked tight and hunched up, sank and her posture became less stiff. ‘Beauty therapist’ was a much more accurate job description than plain old ‘beautician’, in my opinion. The things I got to hear, day in, day out – all kinds of secret confessions and fears. Being a good listener was just as important as knowing your products. The clients went away happier, and it made me feel satisfied, too. And then when I saw they’d booked in to see me again . . . well, that was the best compliment of all. That was when I knew I must be doing a good job.